This article was originally published on The Haitian Times, a partner of URL Media.
There’s a video circulating of an interview with media personality Carel Pedre and Giuliano Puzo, better known as DJ K9, where they discuss who has the right to call themselves Haitian after Pedre brings up popular Haitian French artists Joe Dwet File.
“Joe is a ‘good’ Haitian,” Pedre says in Creole, “Joe’s father and mother are Haitian, ” to which DK K9 responds: “There are two different Haitians… the diaspora doesn’t want to hear this, nor will I ever agree … They are not Haitian. I don’t know what they are, but they’re not Haitian.”
DJ K9 continues to vehemently insist that those born to Haitian parents in other countries are not Haitian and shouldn’t claim as such.
While I don’t agree with such simplistic and divisive views, they underscore a much deeper and more urgent reality for us as a community —one where migration, displacement and cultural evolution have complicated the very idea of what it means to be Haitian today.
As we mark the beginning of Haitian Heritage Month, I think about the tens of thousands of Haitians and their children who have had to traverse the globe in search of second homes, often because of the dysfunction of our beloved Haiti.
These migrations have birthed new diaspora experiences, shaped by the cultures we encounter in our adopted countries. Haitian children today are growing up with Spanish and Portuguese as their first languages—vastly different from the French and English many of us are used to navigating.
With a diaspora as vast and global as ours, I’m left wondering: How do we maintain our culture as our identities morph into something new, shaped by marriage, migration, and merging traditions?
The answer? Protecting Creole.
Now more than ever, we must encourage the use of Creole, especially throughout the diaspora. We need to speak it and teach it. It’s more than a language; it is the thread that ties our global community together and ensures we never forget about our ancestral homeland.
One of the things I’m most proud of is that the leadership at The Haitian Times reflects the full spectrum of the Haitian experience—from nationals living in Haiti to third-generation immigrants whose grandparents were born in Haiti. These lived experiences are invaluable. They shape how we cover our communities, how we relate to them, and how we show up for them. As a result, I spend a lot of time thinking about the future of the publication and what these changes will mean for future iterations of The Haitian Times, and how we ensure that our leadership and team remains reflective of the community that it serves as we do today.
In Haiti, language is often politicized. People are judged on whether they speak only Creole or French, also, and if so, how well. Folks pay special attention to accents, dialects – how “francaise” essentially your Creole is – to get an understanding of a person’s social class, education and power.
However, I argue that we no longer have the luxury to play these semantic games that uphold neocolonial ideals about language. I’m grateful for organizations like The Creole Language Institute of New York and Jaden Timoun that are dedicated to teaching Creole to those in the diaspora and their children, but it’s not enough. What we face as a community is much bigger than the division we’ve perpetuated amongst ourselves in terms of language and identity.
Outside of Haiti, these distinctions are nonexistent and instead what we are confronted with is the possible erasure of our language and culture as our people migrate to all corners of the world. If we do not actively protect Creole, we may very well see a future where our descendants are not culturally or spiritually connected to Haiti.
The post Why we must protect Creole as Haitians disperse across the globe appeared first on The Haitian Times.
