Multifaceted Identities of Immigrant Haitian Families: Coping Strategies and Strengths

THROUGHOUT THE YEARS, MANY CONTEMPORARY WRITERS AND prominent figures of Haitian ancestral origin have alluded to the substantial role their ethnic selfidentity plays in various aspects of their life circumstances. Given the island nation’s tumultuous past, its enduring struggle with poverty, and waves of both documented and undocumented migration, many in mainstream society have come to see Haiti, Haitians, and its global diaspora in unduly negative terms. As novelist Edwidge Danticat states, “I think Haiti is a place that suffers so much from neglect that people only want to hear about it when it’s at its extreme. And that’s what they end up knowing about it.”1 Despite this, most Haitians and their descendants proudly embrace their heritage and culture, and the community, solidarity, and belonging that come with it. Given the conflicting dual implications of their ethnic identity, it is not surprising that Haitian American writer Jenny Delacruz noted: “[O]ur self-identity and connection to our roots are so powerful it can impact not only the course of our lives but also that of generations to come.”2 In the monograph Multifaceted Identities of Immigrant Haitian Families: Coping Strategies and Strengths, author Rolande Dathis’s core thesis conjures the very same line of reasoning. Crafting a compelling narrative of an empirically grounded nature, Dathis highlights how individuals belonging to multiple generations of Haitian immigrant families engage in the construction and adoption of various self-identities as a means of enduring and overcoming the many challenges encountered in their host country, the United States. The study’s findings are based on ethnographic interview data collected from a sample population of 31 Haitian immigrant families, amounting to 127 individual members in total. The sample was located throughout the Broward, Dade, and Hillsborough counties in Florida, the state which houses the highest population of persons of Haitian heritage in the United States.