Diaspora Haitians, go home despite the distrust

Street vendor in Jacmel, Haiti. (Swiatoslaw Wojtkowiak, Flickr)

by Deborah D. David

Of all the obstacles to face when returning home to Haiti, I never would have guessed my own people would be one of them.  Years ago when I was preparing to graduate college, an organization in Port-au-Prince hired me to work with ti machann, street vendors. I was really excited; I’d written my senior thesis about microcredit in Haiti.  What my university work could not prepare me for however, was the resistance of my Haitian co-workers to the “just come” in their midst.

Why trust this site? Why trust me?

The Rebuilding Haiti survey’s critical.  It’s my marching orders so I spent the day reaching out to a hundred (maybe more?) Haitian-Americans by email.  How I get in touch with people is important; shows who I’m excluding.  While I want many voices, the last thing I want is for this survey, my work order, to be overly influenced by the super-educated tech-friendly set.  I’m hoping that the Hometown Associations show up here in a big way.