Wyclef Jean clearly lacks the political wherewithal to deal with the complex situations he is likely to face in Haiti and abroad. more>

After six trips to Haiti since the quake, Haitian Times editor Garry Pierre-Pierre discusses what has yet to be done to set the country on the right track.  more>

"Not only do we have to worry about finding a suitable school for the kids, suitable meaning that the school will be able to accommodate the language needs of the student, but, often times, you will find a school and they have no space or they do not accept students mid-term," said Nicole Rosefort, director of Haitian Bilingual and ESL Technical Assistance Center at Brooklyn College. more>

VIDEO :: A member of Saint Lucias Health team, Dr. Gemma Cherry, said the world has to move fast to avoid a medical disaster in Haiti.  more>

UN Special Envoy to Haiti Bill Clin­ton is organiz­ing a trade conference to bring investors to the island nation, and has obtained commitments worth millions of dollars from friends around the World – from India to Ireland. Now, he says, it is time for the Diaspora to pitch in. more>

Parents who migrate here from Haiti find it difficult to balance work and their children's academic lives, due to the lack of understanding about the schools in the United States.  Most significant however, is their struggle to make ends meet. more>

Last year, Raymond's long career as an educator came to an abrupt end when Department of Education officials decided to do away with the automatic assignment of students with limited English skills to a bilingual program.

VIDEO :: Professor A. Picciano of Hunter College provides a brief history of bilingual education in America. more>

Deportations to Haiti have resumed after being suspended for nearly three months following a wave of deadly storms that racked the country, federal immigration officials said Monday. more>

There are hundred of thousands of us out there, Haitian citizens, who hold a permanent resident card, or more commonly known as an Alien card, in the United States of America. Lately, I have been thinking about our legal status. I have been thinking about our fundamental rights as citizens of a poor nation in a wealthy country. more>

Over the past two weeks, Wall Street has been coping with a financial catastrophe. Thousands of New Yorkers have lost their jobs and those who haven't are worried about the economic fallout. But since August, the city's Haitian community has been worrying about a disaster of a different kind. more>

The American Haitian community listened anxiously as Hurricane Ike trudged toward areas still flooding up after Gustav, Hannah and Fay, with disasters declared in much of Artibonite Region and the Southern Haiti. So far, about 500 people are reported dead and thousands left homeless. more>

The author argues that the active role the Diaspora plays in aiding their countries of origin suggests philanthropies, non-government agencies and governments should not ignore them when formulating aid strategies. more>

“There is a little bit of improvement [at NYPD],” said Abner Louima, who was sodomized inside a police precinct station on August 9, 1997. “Before police brutality used to be very isolated that no one talks about it. Now the media is more involved. Police will think twice before they do something.” more>

Ferdinand Zizi’s surprising departure narrows the field of the race for one Haitian candidate, Mathieu Eugene, who is now going to face a full stable of candidates vying to win the special Feb. 20 election to fill a City Council seat made vacant by the newly elected U.S. Rep. Yvette Clarke. more>

Mathieu Eugène made history by becoming the first Haitian-born elected to the New York City Council. This long coming milestone, bedeviled New York Haitians as we watched other enclaves around the country, like South Florida and Boston, flex their political muscles and elect Haitians to office. more>

For years, Haitian members of a bus driver union have complained that Local 1181 Union management fails to reflect their growing numbers. But with the indictment of top officials, Salvatore Battaglia and Julius Bernstein, on racketeering, extorting and bribery charges, Haitians now believe that they may finally have a voice in the union. more>

Undocumented immigrants aren’t aware of the consequences they face when re-entering the United States, but new Sentencing Commission guidelines are some of the harshest in the federal system. more>

In a paid commercial broadcast in Haitian Creole on radio and television stations, the U.S. government promised compensation to those who would provide information about groups who own illegal weapons. more>

With election-time coming, the author contends, U.S. politicians have all of a sudden started to talk about the issue of race, hoping to win votes. more>

In an ongoing protest outside the Dominican Embassy in Manhattan, Haitians and Dominicans look to shame the Dominican government. The reason: systematic racism blamed Haitians for the murder of a Dominican woman, while hospitals fail to provide birth certificates to Haitian children born in the Dominican Republic. more>

The author says that persuading a Harvard MBA to leave a blue chip firm for the canyons of Haiti is a daunting challenge on which certain organizers should focus their attention to improve the state of the country. more>

“What we are asking the government to do is to temporarily stop the deportations to give Haiti some time to recoup, to settle its internal conflicts,” said Ariol Eugene, a Miami attorney who said he would be filing the motion on behalf of 50 clients through next week. more>

The New Jersey Immigration Policy Network, a coalition of more than 70 civil rights, community and social services organizations, has called on Governor Jon Corzine to create a statewide office on immigrant affairs and to push a bill allowing immigrant children to be eligible for in-state tuition at state colleges and universities within his first 100 days in office. more>

Unlike law, medicine, of real estate to name a few, we have no boards to regulate our profession. The Founding Fathers of this country wanted it that way. A free press they argue correctly was the bedrock of this democracy and that the press and now the media, should police itself. Yet, double standards and contradictions abound. more>

Crime rate is high and quality of life has declined in Canarsie, but Haitians and other ethnic groups start moving there to avoid the skyrocketing rents and hot real-estate market in Manhattan and other boroughs. more>

Constant reports of kidnappings, murders and armed robbery are keeping Haitians living abroad from visiting their homeland and have damaging effects on the country’s economy. more>

The recent incident at P.S. 34 involving two Haitian students continues to make its way through the world of politics, the media and the schools chancellor’s office. But reaction from both sides of the social divide in the Haitian communities of Queens is threatening to take the focus off the issue. more>

According to a recent report by the New York City Planning Department, Haitians make up 7 percent of Brooklyn’s 2 million residents. This large group now needs to organize itself to build community institutions and advocate its interests in the local government. more>

Some of the 36,928 Haitians over age 62 who the Census Bureau estimates reside in the United States are at the beginners’ level of learning about finances. According to community organizers, typically, lower-income seniors don’t have access to information, especially if there’s a language barrier. more>

While the Department of Sanitation gloats over NYC’s record levels of cleanliness, some Haitian neighborhoods in Brooklyn – steeped in litter – haven’t seen much improvement. more>

Envisioning a strong Haitian-American community that would speak “with one voice,” Haitian groups are determined to set a national agenda that would bring the community to a higher level. more>

Many of the vendors in the Caton Mart today lament over the old days, when they did not pay rent and all their sales went into their pockets. Gone is the constant chatter, sun beating down on the tents, haggling, and the cheap prices that drew pedestrians. more>

As Brooklyn and the other boroughs are taken over by the wealthier Manhattanites looking for housing deals, financially challenged renters are being edged out. more>

Advocates say the city has yet to recognize that Haitian seniors make up a significant portion of the city’s “graying population” and that they need services that are culturally sensitive. more>

Of the $160 million aid package approved by the U.S. government to assist Haiti, $35 million is earmarked to reinforce partnerships with the Haitians who left the island. But the Haitian Diaspora wonders if their input will really be valued in the rebuilding of Haiti. more>

In the battle for workers' loyalties, many labor unions have chosen Haitians to get the message across to their compatriots, in their own language. Their participation in unions has gone beyond paying dues to more active roles and organizing elections. more>

Among the millions of words that have appeared in the U.S. press since late April about abuse and torture at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, one has been notably missing: racism. more>

Photographs of charred bodies, news of looting and Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s interview on CNN. In homes and offices, telephones are ringing with notes of Haiti’s escalating turmoil, bared by the glare of international attention. The increased attention has brought concern and piqued the curiosity of non-Haitians, who ask “What’s going on with your country?” Haitians in New York are at a loss themselves to explain. more>

Instead of focusing on issues in the United States and taking part in events that could alter their conditions here, Haitians seem to prefer to concentrate on Haiti. more>

About five years ago, Patrice, 19, joined the Crips for the reason that most teenage gang members do: His best friend was in it. more>

The highest rate of Brooklyn domestic violence incidents occurred in Flatbush’s 67th Precinct in Flatbush, where the majority of New York’s Haitians live. more>

Immigrants learn to mix with each other in U.S. melting pot. more>

There are certain things that no one should say in any context and Monday's comments by Brooklyn Councilman Kendall Stewart are among them. more>

The Haitian community is about 1 million strong nationwide, according to unofficial estimates. But it lacks community leadership, according to many Haitians, who say the Haitian community needs to organize itself and begin building stronger, longer-lasting establishments. more>

Asians and Latino residents have access to free or moderately priced legal aid in their native tongue. However, few Haitian immigrants find affordable legal assistance available in their native language. more>

Haitian-born James Nemorin was one of the NYPD officers killed last week in an undercover gun buy gone bad on Staten Island. Many prominent people made it to his funeral, but the Haitian community wasn’t there. Numbed by the police brutality, the community seemed unable to celebrate James. more>

Organizations serving the Haitian community are closing because of funding problems, while those which manage to stay open are often running programs that are irrelevant to the community. They accept the money simply to keep the bureaucracy afloat. more>

With days to spare before his wife gives birth, Haitian asylum seeker Rameau Thomas won his case last week, but not his freedom. Thomas remains detained at the Krome Avenue detention center because the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) has reserved its right to appeal. more>

One year after police fatally shot Georgy Louisgene, his family and activists continue to demand justice. Still grieving and angry about their loss, police brutality, and the city’s ruling in the criminal portion of the case, Louisgene’s family urged others to protest because the next victims could be their loved ones. more>

Assistant Chief Joseph Fox is one of Brooklyn’s two police chiefs who report to New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. He’s focused on improving police-community relations, something he’s been interested in his entire career. more>

Haitian politicians claim that with the $500 million promised in international loans, the country—which needs everything from potable water, schools, roads, electricity, agricultural advancements, to legal reforms—would be fine. That sum is paltry, and there is precious little that a country can do with it, even if the international lending institutions released the loans. more>

While we support the claim that Haitians are treated unfairly, we believe that it is time for Haitians to stop protesting in the streets and take their complaints to the hallways of state capitals and the White House—places where they can bring about some real changes. more>

Until Haitian Americans have economic and political power, Haitian boat people will be sent back to their homeland without a Democrat or a Republican feeling any remorse. more>

The barbershop is the place where men can bond without interference, where the discussion revolves around women and politics. Haitian barbershops are no different from the African-American one portrayed in “Barbershop,” a new film depicting the business as an African-American institution. more>

Though it is widely known that hiphop star Wyclef Jean is Haitian, the public largely has no idea that he makes any other type of music than hip-hop. But Jean has been experimenting with integrating Haitian culture into his music since he released his first album with the Fugees. more>

Leaders of Haitian-American community organizations are making the rounds, talking to Pataki government officials and seeking to ingratiate themselves with the hope of receiving grants in exchange for endorsements. It’s appalling to see black leaders of all persuasions rush to embrace a man who only recently discovered that there was a burgeoning Haitian community in New York State. more>

After fleeing Haiti, Daniel found life here as an undocumented immigrant difficult too. That’s why he’s part of a national campaign to have lawmakers grant permanent residency to anyone who has lived and worked here for more than three years. more>

It is not uncommon to see Haitian women, some of them dressed in the white nurse uniforms, rushing before daybreak to catch the train to an elderly or sick person’s home. They are just a few of thousands of city workers who would gain if the New York City Council passes a bill to tie their minimum wage to the financial breaks their employers receive from the city and the state. more>

Long-standing tensions between Haitians and African-Americans in Ashbury Park flared at a high school fight in April. Several students were charged, and school administrators and community leaders are again trying to build trust between the two sides. more>

It's been more than five months since immigration officials detained the latest wave of Haitians fleeing to the United States. Tired of the Immigration and Naturalization Service over its latest policy of detaining Haitians who come to Miami seeking asylum, their supporters are heading straight to senior government officials, including President Bush, to get the policy repealed. more>

As the FCC cracks down on pirate radio operators, it has shut down many of the 18 Haitian stations in Brooklyn. The community reaction seems largely supportive of the FCC. more>

One third of Irvington’s residents are Haitian but they have no power as the town falls apart. Let’s hope that Haitian leaders in Irvington are up to the monumental task of rebuilding. more>

Georgy Louisgene, 23, was killed by two NYPD officers in a housing development in Brooklyn on Jan. 16. Attending protests and his funeral were white, Asian and Latino men and women, young and old, representing various activist groups and organizations. MO more>