Haitians in U.S. Double Up to Take In Their Own
March 6, 2010
Carmelle Lajoie shared her house in Queens with her husband, their four children, her brother and her mother. That was before she took in her 11-year-old niece, an American citizen who was airlifted from Haiti after the earthquake in January.
Now she is urging her siblings there to send their other young children — five of them — if and when they get visas.A few blocks south, Olivia Benoit, a medical technician who recently lost her job, has taken in her pregnant niece — who narrowly escaped from a collapsing building in Port-au-Prince — and two grandnephews. The boys are captivated by snow. But they keep thinking that the stairs are shaking, that the earth will heave again.
The Lajoie house is full of contrasting moods. Mrs. Lajoie, 53, a registered nurse, obsesses about the earthquake; her niece Laetitia Leonidas tires of describing it to curious new classmates at SS. Joachim & Anne. Playing “Assassin’s Creed II” with her cousins, Laetitia speaks in bright, short sentences: Does she want to go home? “I think I’ll stay here.” Will Haiti recover? “Maybe.”
Mrs. Lajoie and her husband, who was a doctor in Haiti but works as a nurse here, told relatives in Haiti not to worry about money: Send the children and they would take care of the rest. That means Catholic school and college. Mrs. Lajoie is determined to treat them the same as her children.
She expects something in return, and she has a new threat to enforce it. “If you aren’t first in your class,” she tells Laetitia, “I’m going to send you to Haiti.”
In neighboring Laurelton, at Ms. Benoit’s house, Ms. Erlusse’s son, Max Oliver, 6, danced hyperactively, throwing himself to the tile floor to show how the quake had knocked him down. He said he did not like New York much because of the cold — and the static cling.
Before they arrived, Ms. Benoit had been struggling to support her sister and brother-in-law, recent immigrants. Two more relatives, including Max’s father, arrived on Friday. Ms. Benoit has canceled her cellphone to save money. Neighbors donate food and clothing. Her parish school, SS. Joachim & Anne, took the boys at reduced tuition.
Ms. Erlusse hopes schools in Haiti will open by September. “But,” she said, “I know that it’s just me dreaming.”
Jacques and Alice Ambroise had a precarious balance before the earthquake: She lived in Cambria Heights, working at a nursing home; he and their sons, Clifford, 7, and Emanuel, 9, lived in Haiti, where he taught school. Now, they cram into her small apartment. With her shifts cut because of the recession, she is not sure how to feed them. Mr. Ambroise could barely talk about the earthquake, which crumbled his school before his eyes, killing many students.
These families are alive, and their reunions are joyous. But they show up without plans, with few possessions and fewer winter coats. Many lack permission to work.
“This earthquake, in less than one minute, it just shakes down our whole life,” said Madeline Erlusse, Ms. Benoit’s niece. Ms. Erlusse’s visa expires in July, a month before her baby is due.
Those who make it here are the privileged ones: They had families established here. They had visas or passports or green cards. If they were not American citizens entitled to airlifts, they had enough cash to get to the Dominican Republic and onto a plane. Still, they bear the marks of trauma — a hopeless shrug when asked about the future, a forced cheeriness.
read more:newyork times
