Little Haiti
Near Miami, Florida
North of downtown lies a neighborhood once called Lemon City, a nineteenth century citrus town that became the beating heart of Haitian Miami. Haitians began arriving in numbers in the nineteen seventies and eighties, fleeing the brutal Duvalier dictatorships, many crossing the ocean in rickety boats. A Miami Herald article by the Haitian activist Viter Juste gave the area the name Little Haiti, and it stuck.
But the newcomers faced a harsh double standard. While Cubans who reached shore were generally allowed to stay, Haitians were routinely detained at the Krome facility or turned back at sea, a disparity that community leaders fought in court for years. Despite it, Haitian Miami flourished.
Kreyol filled the markets and churches, and the county added Haitian Creole to its schools. At the Little Haiti Cultural Complex, the brightly colored Caribbean Marketplace echoes the iron market of Port au Prince, hosting music, dance, and the celebration of Haitian Flag Day each May. Today Miami is home to the largest Haitian community in the United States, hundreds of thousands strong, and Little Haiti remains its cultural anchor, a piece of the Caribbean rooted in South Florida soil.
