The Haitians are known as a proud and family oriented group (Cook Ross 2010) that has formed strong and identifiable communities all over New York. As a group, the Haitians started coming to New York in large numbers in 1957 upon the beginning of the reign of terror by the dictator Francis Duvalier. Some have hypothesized that the reason Haitians came to New York City originally was because it was the headquarters of a coup against Duvalier, led by his political rivals (Laguerre 1984). When the rivals realized that their revolution would be a failure, they began to bring their families over from Haiti to New York (Laguerre 1984). Since Haitians tend to migrate to places where there are other Haitians and form enclaves (Languerre 1984), New York City became a popular destination for Haitians, and thus lead to the 94,215 foreign-born Haitians that live in New York City’s five boroughs (ACS 2009-2011).
It is no surprise that Haitian immigrants in New York City popularly utilized family-based visas. The annual average for foreign-born Haitian immigration to the city is 3,049 individuals between 1990 and 1999. Ninety-four percent of these foreign-born immigrants benefited from 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act; 59.5 percent are categorized under family preferences, and the other 35.0 percent under immediate relatives (The Newest New Yorkers 2004). The 1986 Immigration Control and Reform Act (IRCA) and the 1988 Immigration Amendments greatly increased the variety and volume of immigrants that were allowed to come to the United States. Furthermore, the remaining 5.5 percent are distributed among employment’s 2.4 percent, refugees and asylees’ 2.1 percent, diversity’s 0.5 percent, and the last 0.5 percent is considered in the “other” classification of admission (The Newest New Yorkers 2004). Despite the inherent increase in the “refugee and aslyees” type of admission due to the Haiti earthquake in 2010, most Haitians are coming to America to reunite with their families. Haitians are known to be family oriented, and the importance of family duties and ties are instilled in their culture and religion (Cook Ross 2010). “It is obligatory for family to visit an ailing member. Consequently, Haitian patients may have a large number of visitors” (Cook Ross 2010). The obligation for even extended family to be close and nearby is deemed necessary for Haitians and can be translated as the cumulative causation of immigration to New York City. This type of enduring family-bond induced immigration follows Douglas S. Massey’s social capital theories of migration most closely, which focuses on the reasons of retaining family ties in the migrating country (Massey).
“[Haitian] family members, both immediate and extended, have very strong ties,” according to the SUNY New Paltz Institute for Disaster Mental Health. The significantly high percentage for the family preferences class admission enforces the notion that family is strongly valued in Haitian culture. The New Economics of Migration Theory may explain these statistics, backed by the idea that immigration decisions are made by groups of individuals, especially families. According to the theory, migration provides the family the opportunity to diversify risk and compensate for market failures and lack of public safety net programs. Therefore, a large number of Haitians have relied on family preferences to gain entry into the United States. In 2009, there is further evidence that family continues to be valued, given that there are 40,467 Haitians living in married couple families as opposed to the 6,962 living alone.
Single parenthood (especially single mothers) is not uncommon in Haitian Culture. As demonstrated in the clustered bar graph, Foreign-born Haitians have brought over this culture to their family structures in America. It is evident, in both Foreign born Haitian families and Native-born Haitian families, more households are led by females than males. This facts corresponds to the demographic numbers: As of 2009 census data, there are 53,023 foreign born Haitian Females living in NYC, which is almost 12,000 more than the number of foreign born males in the city. The number of native born Haitian males and females round to almost 23,000 in each category, with about 200 more females than males. These numbers, along with the fact that single-parent households are common in Haiti, explain why there are more female-led households.
The graph above compares the percentage of language proficiency of these nationalities in NYC with their college education rates. We endeavored to determine whether or not there would be a relationship between English proficiency and college education, since knowing English is key to integrating and doing well in school for foreign-born groups. Based on the information in these graphs provided by ACS 2009-2011, Haitians are consistently acquiring BA degrees or higher and English language proficiency at a higher percentage than Mexicans, Dominicans and Latinos for foreign-born groups in NYC. It was anticipated that foreign-born Haitians would trail behind foreign-born Jamaicans in English language proficiency rates; Jamaica’s official language is English. What astonished us was that foreign-born Jamaicans only equal foreign-born Haitians in BA degrees or higher at 19% of their respective populations in NYC. This can be interpreted as a discredit to Jamaican’s level of integration or can be indicative of Haitian’s determination to assimilate through education. Nonetheless, both foreign-born groups are trail far behind other immigrant groups in percentage such as Chinese and Whites.
Foreign and native-born Haitians have a median household income of $56,900 and $57,935, respectively. Haitians trail slightly behind Jamaicans’ median household income of $59,915 for foreign-born and $58,600 for native-born (ACS 2009-2011). The average median household income for all immigrant groups including “other” is $54,913 (ACS 2009-2011). Haitians are above that statistic and it can be said that they are above the curve in economic integration in the city for both foreign and native-born immigrants. According to The Newest New Yorkers (2004), 49 percent Haitian females and 37 percent Haitian males hold occupations categorized as “managerial” and “sales and office.” From this, it can be extrapolated that many Haitians are acquiring jobs that typically require skill, and that, by percentage, females are in contrast acquiring more skilled occupations than males. For example, 27.2 percent of Haitian females are employed in health-care support versus the only 2.9 percent of Haitian males in that occupation.
Furthermore, since a college education is linked to higher income, one may hypothesize that higher English proficiency rates would lead to higher household income. There seems to be a direct correlation between college education and income, but not between English proficiency and college education, and therefore also not between English proficiency and income. The two graphs above illustrate this – while the groups are arranged in order of increasing college education rates, the height of the blue bar signifying English proficiency rates does not appear to follow any pattern. For instance, 37% of foreign-born Haitians, aged 5 and over, are proficient in English, but only 18% of foreign-born Haitians over age 25 have a college education (BA degree or higher), while the respective percentages for the Chinese are 54% and 25%, and for Latinos 76% and 11%. This data suggests that a college education and household income are not dependent on English proficiency . Rather, it may be due to the opportunities (or lack of) and economic conditions of the group being examined. Since college costs money, it might be income that prevents or disconcerts some groups from attaining a college degree. The empirical data from the two graphs demonstrate that there is a positive correlation between education and income, and no correlation between English language proficiency and income or English language proficiency and college education .
