From: The Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples/Haitians/Daniel Gay
A number of activities contribute to developing group cohesion among Haitians in Canada. They establish services regarded as indispensable to the community, import food products for sale, and create jobs for fellow Haitians as well as for other Canadians through the businesses they own. There are also institutional ties of exchange and solidarity; for example, racism and the indifference of rental boards lead groups of Haitians to live in particular residential premises. The organizations and local political movements on which Haitians rely for the protection of their rights also strengthen cohesion, as do attachment to Creole and the expression of Haitian culture.
There is as well an international dimension to group maintenance. Many groups of Haitian immigrants in Canada maintain close family, cultural, or political ties with similar groups in other places, especially in New York, Miami, or Paris. Haitians in Canada also provide financial help to immediate and extended family members still in Haiti, or contribute regularly to Haitian economic or political development. It is estimated that Haitians living abroad transferred nearly $300 million a year between 1977 and 1987. This amount was twice the level of foreign aid to Haiti at the time and greater than the entire budget of the Haitian government.
Some serious research has been done on the dynamics of Haitian immigration. However, much remains to be discovered about the diversity of values, norms, behaviours, and aspirations among Haitians in Canada, as well as about the day-to-day strategies that Haitian immigrants use to accede to “full citizenship.”
For these “new” immigrants, the process of settlement and structural immigration remains problematic. The active presence of this visible and audible minority is, in Jean-Paul Sartre’s words, “a sign of hope or of regret,” depending on one’s point of view. Regarded in some intellectual, political, and economic circles as emblems of “difference,” Haitian immigrants continue to provide fuel for great nationalist debates about identity, cultural and political citizenship, and the fundamental nature of the society of the future.
Both Quebec and the rest of Canada have their contradictions. However, they are places that are open to the Other, willing to experiment with the construction of identities, and accepting of a form of integration that combines pluralism with a common destiny. Some citizens and immigrants of Haitian origin in Canada see themselves as foreigners, even pariahs. Many of them, however, are becoming less sceptical. Some feel that, for better or for worse, they are already full citizens, while others are disposed to participating in politics with the aim of bringing about the changes they want.
