Trip of the Tongue (30 page)

At this point we were joined by the owner of Churchill's, a man named David Barry Daniels, who looked far more like an English professor than a publican. He had caught the tail end of our conversation, and as I introduced myself I detected in his expression a hint of exasperation. I assured him I wasn't writing a story about the dangers of Little Haiti, and he relaxed and sat down heavily. Why was it, he wondered aloud, that so many journalists thought the secrets to Little Haiti could be found in a bar? He told me of the reporters—many from the United Kingdom—who came to Churchill's to try to get the lowdown on the area's Haitian gangs. “But there's no scoop here,” he assured me, “because there's no real gang violence.” My skepticism must have shown on my face, because he hastened to add, “Well, no real gang violence
here
, anyway. It's all moved north of the city.”

In the end, I decided I wasn't overly concerned about daytime safety, but my first visits to the area had revealed that the extent of the neighborhood was rather larger than I had expected, and so I thought it prudent to hire the services of a guide to help me get the lay of the land. So it was that I spent my first day in Little Haiti in the company of David Brown, a tour guide who specializes in the Haitian and Cuban communities. Originally from New Britain, Connecticut, Mr. Brown got his start as an educator, and his current work is actually very similar, except now his students are the tourists and journalists and academics who are looking for an introduction to Haitian life in Miami. His style, accordingly, was more professorial than that of many other tour guides I've used, and this was something I appreciated as I began to realize just how much there was to learn about the community.

We spent several hours exploring Little Haiti as Mr. Brown delivered his lectures and patiently answered any questions I had. We drove by the elementary school whose cafeteria had been converted into the first Haitian church back in the 1980s. We wandered through the Little Haiti Cultural Center, a sleek, modern building that serves as a performance, gathering, and exhibition space. We stopped to examine a portrait of Father Gérard Jean-Juste, the first Haitian minister to be ordained in the United States and a longtime advocate for the rights of Haitian immigrants. He had passed away less than a month earlier. Mr. Brown told me that more than 3,000 people had attended his funeral.

And along the way I collected fragments of information that I tried to fit together to form a reasonably comprehensive whole. Such as the fact that there is, apparently, little interaction between the Haitian, Cuban, African American, and Anglo communities in Miami. Or that many Haitian immigrants work in hospitality or health care. I discovered that the Haitian population of North Miami was growing in both size and stature, and that the city's current mayor, Andre Pierre, is of Haitian descent.

I also learned that many of the area's residents still get their news from radio stations based in Port-au-Prince. This is just one way in which Haitians in Miami stay in touch with their home country. The groups are also closely linked economically, with the struggling Haitian economy dependent on remittances from the diaspora, which make up as much as 30 percent of Haiti's GDP. It is clear that strong emotional ties still exist. Mr. Brown put it in stark terms: “When Haiti is hurting, Miami is hurting.” I would remember this most vividly six months later, when I watched coverage of the island's devastating earthquake.

But, as usual, most of the time I was in Little Haiti I was thinking about language. Upon hearing about my general field of interest, Mr. Brown had laughed and said that languages were no skill of his. For this he had his assistant, a young Haitian woman named Archemine. Archemine spoke French, Haitian Creole, and
un poquito
of Spanish, and she proved to be an essential part of the tour, adding personal detail to Mr. Brown's academic overview. But, even more important, she also acted as an occasional translator. Though most residents I talked to were able to speak some English if they needed to, on both this and my later visits to Little Haiti I heard very little English on the streets and in the stores. So when Mr. Brown's friendly but rudimentary Spanish or Haitian Creole failed him, Archemine was able to step in and handle things.

For this reason I ended up watching her as much as anything. I had thought that I was going to have a linguistic advantage in Little Haiti given that I speak both French and Spanish. Moreover, I'd spent a few hours the night before cramming some Haitian Creole into my brain. I was fairly certain I'd mispronounce it, but I thought it would do in a pinch. What I noticed while watching Archemine work, however, was that navigating the streets and stores of Little Haiti required more than knowledge of the languages themselves. You also needed to have a sense of which language to speak to whom.

“Some people speak French,” she told me when I asked. “But more can only understand it.” Then there were those—not Haitians, she assured me—who only spoke Spanish. Most people in the neighborhood spoke Haitian Creole. Some spoke English as well; most of those who didn't were in the process of learning it.

I began to get a better sense for the complications of this kind of linguistic environment later that afternoon. The three of us stopped to get a bite to eat at Lakay Tropical Ice Cream and Bakery (
lakay
, I later found out, is Haitian Creole for “home”). Mr. Brown walked right in and happily called out,
“Bonsoir!”
The woman behind the counter smiled.
“Bonju,”
she replied. They exchanged a few more words, and before too long we were holding in our hands piping hot meat pies called
pate
. Never one to pass up an opportunity to try a mysterious pastry, I bit into the buttery, flaky crust. It was filled with fish paste. It was delicious, but it was still fish paste, and I had been expecting something else. I took a minute to adjust my expectations and then inhaled the rest of the pie. Archemine handed hers to me. “I don't eat fish,” she said, a bit regretfully.

Suddenly realizing that he'd purchased three fish pies when he'd meant to buy an assortment, Mr. Brown turned back to the proprietress to explain his mistake and request an exchange. Their respective language skills, though perfectly able to handle a routine transaction, were not up to the task of this particular negotiation. Mr. Brown was getting frustrated; the proprietress began to get annoyed. Archemine stepped in and smoothed things over. I, meanwhile, ate the extra fish pie.

Our next stop was just across the street, a botanica whose painted sign promised “Religious Articles—Reading—Treatments—Any Prob.” Mr. Brown was going on about the history of Vodou as he walked through the door, but I was only half listening as I followed hesitantly behind. Not because I was scared, mind you, but rather because I was raised not as a Roman Catholic so much as a Bad Catholic. And to this day I can't help but feel a low level of anxiety whenever I am in or near houses of worship, as if the priest from Our Lady of Lourdes in University City is going to jump out and ask where I've been all this time.

Once inside, I tried to blend into the background as Mr. Brown pointed out the various candles and statuary. My nervousness must have shown on my face, because the woman in charge of the store gave me a curious look.
It's not because of the Vodou!
I wanted to tell her,
I'm just always like this!

The botanica wasn't like any Vodou shops I'd seen in movies or on TV. It was spacious and well organized, not a dead animal in sight. It was also filled with Catholic iconography. It was explained to me that when Haitian slaves were obliged to convert to Catholicism, they used Christian saints as proxies for
loa
, or Vodou spirits. I was easy to see how this would have been an effective strategy. This room of the botanica looked like it did little more than supply devout Catholics with the necessary implements for prayer.

Soon enough, my anxiety was replaced by curiosity. I had read of the city's so-called Voodoo Squad, a courthouse janitorial crew that was kept busy cleaning up the offerings made in support of defendants. Miami, I was told, was practically Vodou central. Everyone practiced it. But from what I could see in the botanica, that practice must consist solely of lighting candles. Where was the rest of it? I wondered.

“So now we'll go see the temple.”

I turned to look at Mr. Brown, who was heading purposefully toward a back room, seemingly having guessed precisely where my thoughts had been wandering. The shopkeeper held up her hands. “You cannot go there,” she said with a thick Spanish accent.

Mr. Brown shook his head. “Oh no, I'm a friend of Mamita—
yo soy un amigo de Mamita
. She said I could take visitors to the temple.”

I edged toward the entrance. I wanted to see this temple, sure, but not enough to cause a scene. “Please don't go to any trouble on my account,” I murmured.

The fractured conversation that ensued lasted for nearly ten minutes as Mr. Brown tried to explain his relationship with Mamita and the woman tried to explain that she didn't know us, that she was alone in the shop, and that she couldn't possibly watch both us and it at the same time. We would have to come back another time. Neither understood the other. I interceded, reluctantly.

“Si prometemos tener cuidado de no tocar nada …?”

She glared at me.

I said the words again in my mind, checking to make sure I hadn't said something mortally offensive.

“No. No soy el jefe,”
she said, brooking no argument.

And that was that. I never found out what was in that room.

I came back to Little Haiti later that week to spend some time getting to know the area on my own terms. I was, I must admit, finding it hard to figure out Miami. Not only did I not feel like I fit in there, but I also couldn't really treat it the same way I had many of my other destinations. I didn't have any festivals to attend or museums to visit. For the first time I was exploring contemporary issues, and all it was doing was making me miss my books.

As luck would have it, though, one of the most interesting people in Little Haiti happens to run a bookstore.

Libreri Mapou is, some say, home to the world's largest collection of Haitian Creole books. It's located in a cheerful pink and white cupcake of a building up on NE 2nd Avenue, a few blocks north of Churchill's. The first time I visited I was just there to browse, but no matter how much I tried to remind myself that I couldn't actually read Haitian Creole, I just couldn't help myself. When the cashier rang me up, she was hiding her smile quite badly. “Are you studying Kreyòl?” she asked.

“A little,” I replied, somewhat distracted by the shiny new dictionary I had just purchased.

“The
Herald
or the AP?”

I looked up from my book. “I beg your pardon?”

“Do you work for the
Herald
or the AP?”

“Oh,” I said. “Neither. Why?”

“This is where they send all their reporters to learn Kreyòl.” She said this with a little shrug I found hard to interpret. I chose to believe it was approval.

The second time I visited the bookstore I was there to meet its owner.

Libreri Mapou's owner is a man named Jean-Marie Willer Denis. He is known in Little Haiti, however, as Jan Mapou, and as far as I can tell, he is the community's unofficial cultural ambassador. When I sat down with him one morning, I could tell immediately that he made a regular habit of talking to strange writers. I felt for one disorienting moment like a participant in a press junket. But then he began to speak, and I realized that there was a good reason so many people had come to interview Mr. Mapou. His story is fascinating.

Born in 1941 in a small town in southwest Haiti, Mr. Mapou was involved in language politics from an early age, working with the Haitian Creole Movement to promote the official use of the language. For a short time he hosted a radio show dedicated to the celebration of Haitian Creole, but Duvalier's French-speaking government was less than receptive, and in 1969 Mr. Mapou was arrested and sent to Fort Dimanche prison. Upon his release, he immediately began planning to leave the country. He arrived in New York in 1971 and moved to Miami in 1984.

During the day he manages the parking facilities at Miami International Airport. But at night and on the weekends he continues to advocate for Haitian culture and language through his bookstore and Sosyete Koukouy (Society of Fireflies), the repertory company of writers, artists, and performers Mr. Mapou founded in 1985. The
sosyete
stages cultural exhibitions throughout the city with the express intent of enriching the community's relationship with Haitian Creole. Their motto is
n'ap klere nan fenwa
—“We illuminate the darkness.”

Though Mr. Mapou has dedicated decades of his life to the defense of the Haitian language, there was no sign that his fervor has dimmed or that his will has faltered. When we spoke he got visibly emotional as he told me of the difficulties Haitian children still face in French-language schools. “How can you ask questions if you don't know the language?” he asked. “How can you learn if you can't ask questions?” It was clear to me that Mr. Mapou did not value language for its cultural content alone. He also saw it as a means to an end. The use of Haitian Creole in Haiti's government and schools would open new worlds of opportunity to the country's struggling population, the vast majority of whom are monolingual in Haitian Creole.

He is, in other words, both passionate and pragmatic. Unsurprisingly, then, he is also no blind enemy of English. There were two things that Haitian immigrants in the United States wanted, he said: “Number one, we want to learn; number two, we want to work.” Neither of these was possible without English. But he was understandably wary of the rapidity with which English could take over. While he was living in New York City he first began to notice how quickly Haitians could lose touch with their native language. It was this that served as the impetus for the creation of the first chapter of Sosyete Koukouy.