New York Post, Sep 13, 2024 #migrants #ohio #pets
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Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post showcases an Instagram video from award winning African American musician/singer, songwriter, producer John Legend who born and raised in Springfield, Ohio about the current crisis that city. That crisis was fueled by former United States President Donald Trump who repeated the debunked statement in the televised Presidential debate that Haitians in Springfield Ohio were eating their neighbors' pets.
This post also includes an auto-generated transcript of this embedded YouTube video.
Addendum #1 to this post presents an excerpt of a Wikipedia page about Haitian Americans.
Addendum #2 to this post showcases a video about the reaction of Haitian Americans in Detroit, Michigan regarding the crisis being currently experienced by Haitian immigrants and by other residents of Springfield, Ohio.
A link to a Wikipedia page that list notable historical and contemporary Haitian Americans is also included in that Addendum.
The content of this post is presented for political and socio-cultural purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to John Legend for his music and his advocacy. Thanks to the New York Post for publishing this video Thanks also to all those who are quoted in the Addendum to this post.
-snip-
Click https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Legend for information about John Legend.
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THE COMPLETE AUTO-TRANSCRIPT OF THIS VIDEO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24L7IhrvYFc
0.00 - 5.15
(This transcript is given without time stamps but includes added punctuations and my capitalization and spelling corrections. Additions and corrections are welcome.)
"Hello everyone. My name is John Legend and I was born as
John R Stevens from a
place called Springfield Ohio oh Springfield Ohio.
You may have heard of Springfield, Ohio this week. In fact, if you watched the debate we were
discussed by our presidential candidates, including a very special interesting man named Donald
J Trump.
Now Springfield has had a large influx of Haitian immigrants who have come to
our city.
Now our city had been shrinking for decades. We didn't have enough jobs. We uh didn't have enough opportunity. So people left and went
somewhere else. So when I was there, we
had upwards of 75,000 people and and in the last 5 years we were down to like 60,000 people. But of late, during the Biden administration, there have been more jobs that opened up, more manufacturing jobs, more plants,
factories that needed employees and were ready to hire people.
So we had a lot of job opportunities and we didn't have enough people in our town of 60,000 people to fill those jobs. And during this same
time there had been upheaval
and turmoil in Haiti. And the federal
government granted visas and immigration status to uh certain number of Haitian immigrants so they could come to our country legally. And our demand in Springfield for additional labor met up with a supply of additional Haitian immigrants and
here we are. We had about 15,000 or so immigrants move to my town of 60,000.
Now you might say “Wow. That's a lot of people for a town
that only had 60,000 before. That's a 25% increase.” That is correct. So you might imagine
there are some challenges with, you know, integrating a new population-new language, new culture, new dietary uh preferences- all kinds of reasons why there
might be growing pains. um making sure they enough services to accommodate the new larger population that might
need bilingual service providers etc etc. so there are plenty of reasons why this might be a challenge
for my hometown.
Uh but but the bottom line is these people came to Springfield because there
were jobs for them and they were willing to work. And they wanted to live the American dream just like
your German ancestors, your Irish ancestors, your Italian ancestors, your Jewish ancestors, your
Jamaican ancestors, your Polish ancestors- all these ancestors who have moved to this country maybe not speaking the
language that everyone else spoke, maybe not eating the same foods, maybe having to adjust, maybe having to integrate,
but all coming because they
saw opportunity for themselves and their families in the American dream. And
they came here to do that.
Some facts about immigrants:
They usually do very well here.
They are hardworking.
They are ambitious.
They commit less crime than native born Americans.
And they will assimilate and integrate in time, but it takes time.
So I think all of us need to have the same kind of grace that we would want our
ancestors to have when they moved here. Our Haitian brothers and sisters will
move here too. And nobody's eating cats. Nobody's eating dogs.
We all just want to live and flourish and raise our families in a healthy and
safe environment.
How about we love one another? I grew up
in the Christian tradition. We said ”To love our
neighbor as we love ourselves and treat strangers as though they might be
Christ.”
So how about we adopt that ethos when we talk about immigrants moving to our
communities and don't spread hateful xenophobic racist lies about them.
John R Stevens from Springfield signing off."
ADDENDUM #1- EXCERPT FROM A WIKIPEDIA PAGE ABOUT HAITIAN AMERICANS
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Americans
"
In 2021, the U.S. Census estimated that 1,138,855 people of full or partial Haitian descent lived in the United States.[2] During the 1960s and 1970s, many Haitians emigrated to the U.S. to escape the oppressive conditions during the dictatorships of François "Papa Doc" and his son Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier. Political unrest, economic strains and natural disasters have provided additional reasons for people to emigrate.
Immigration today
Political strife, marked with corruption and intimidation,
led to many Haitians leaving the island for the opportunity of a better life.
In addition, most of the migrants were from the poor masses; vast disparities
existed between the Haitian wealthy elite and the poor. Suffering from a lack
of education, many have had difficulty flourishing in the United States. Waves
of Haitians made it to the shores of Florida, seeking asylum. Most of the
foreign-born Haitians arrived during the mid- to late 20th century
Today, Florida has the largest number of people of Haitian heritage. In 2000, Florida had 182,224 foreign-born Haitians, 43.5% of the total foreign-born population from Haiti in the United States (this number did not include U.S.-born citizens of Haitian heritage). New York had the second-largest population of foreign-born Haitians, with 125,475, approximately 30% of the total. Haitian illegal immigrants continue to attempt to reach the shores of Florida and are routinely swept up by the United States Coast Guard. They are often repatriated. Civil rights groups have protested this treatment, remarking on the contrast to the asylum granted between the late 1950s and January 2017 to Cuban refugees. In January 2023, President Joe Biden announced the extension of a humanitarian parole program to accept up to 30,000 migrants a month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Nearly 40,000 Haitians have entered the U.S. under this program from January to April 2023.[5]
Adjustment and communities
The Haitians who emigrated to the United States brought many
of their cultural practices and ideologies, as do all immigrants. Many
foreign-born Haitians have set up their own businesses, initially to serve
their communities. Thus, many established barbershops, bodegas and restaurants
(predominately of Haitian cuisine). Around half of Haitians in the United
States are in the state of Florida. Haitian Americans have a visible cultural
presence in Little Haiti, Miami and several nearby communities, such as Golden
Glades and North Miami. The northern portions of the Miami metropolitan area
have the highest concentrations of Haitians in the country, including Broward
County and northern Miami-Dade County. Broward County has the largest number of
Haitians, with 117,251, followed by Miami Dade and Palm Beach counties.[6]
Outside of South Florida, there are Haitian communities growing in the rest of
the state, especially the Orlando area.
Other significant Haitian-American communities are found in several neighborhoods of New York City, such as Flatbush (Nostrand), Crown Heights, Flatlands, East Flatbush, Canarsie and Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, Queens Village, Springfield Gardens, Laurelton and Rosedale in Queens, as well as Long Island and Rockland. However, Central Brooklyn, especially the Flatbush section, has the largest Haitian concentration in the NYC area and the 2nd largest in the country outside South Florida. In 2018, a section of Flatbush, Brooklyn, that stretches from East 16th Street to Parkside Avenue, to Brooklyn Avenue, and along Church Avenue between East 16th Street and Albany Avenue,[7] was designated Little Haiti.[8][9] Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte was the 'driving force'[7] behind the successful designation of the Little Haiti Cultural and Business District. Following the designation of Little Haiti, thirty blocks of Rogers Avenue between Farragut Road and Eastern Parkway were co-named Jean-Jacques Dessalines Boulevard.[10] The street co-naming was a tribute to Jean-Jacques Dessalines, a former slave who led Haiti to victory, making it the first Latin American country to declare independence from colonial rule and the first black republic.
The Mattapan section of Boston is considered the main center of Haitians in the city, though there are many other parts of the Boston area with significant numbers of Haitians. Growing Haitian communities have also formed in many other cities in the Northeast, like Providence, Philadelphia, and North Jersey (Newark/Jersey City). In such centers, everyday conversations on the street may take place in Haitian Creole. Smaller and fast-growing Haitian populations are also growing in the metropolitan areas of DC, Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Charlotte, and Los Angeles. Second-generation Haitian Americans have begun to gain higher-paying occupations, such as doctors and lawyers, and achieve higher levels of education. Several Haitian Americans have become professional athletes, mostly in the National Football League.
Significant Haitian populations are located in the U.S.
territories of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.[11] In Puerto Rico,
Haitians receive refugee asylum, similar to the Wet feet, dry feet policy for
Cubans going to Florida.[12][13]"...
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ADDENDUM #2 - VIDEO ABOUT HAITIAN IMMIGRANTS IN DETROIT, ILLINOIS
Metro Detroit Haitian community blasts Trump over false claims
"To be included in this list, the person must have a Wikipedia article showing they are Haitian American, or have references showing they are Haitian American and are notable."
-snip-
This list includes historical Haitian Americans and contemporary Haitian Americans.
Most if not all of these people in that list also self-identify as African Americans (or with regards to the historical people on that list), were identified as Black or the equivalent referent that was used during that time for Black people in the United States.
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