The genie is out of the bottle
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The genie is out of the bottle

What it’s like to teach a class of Haitian ESL students right now

Students worked through this New Yorker story by Roxane Gay; they found much to discuss there.
Students worked through this New Yorker story by Roxane Gay; they found much to discuss there.

When the heinous remarks about the Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio, surfaced in the news, I knew I had to confront them. After all, I meet on Zoom with my adult Haitian students in our ESL (English as a Second Language) class.

I wanted to know their reaction. But would they want to talk about it? Maybe it would be too painful to hear the former president, Donald Trump, and his running mate,  JD Vance, describe how Haitians are eating cats and dogs and breaking the necks of geese and ducks in Springfield. Or perhaps they wouldn’t want to waste time on this “garbage,” which is how Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican, described the rumors.

So I decided to ask their permission. If everyone agreed, we would watch some news clips, read an article together, and try to make sense of something incomprehensible. “Racist” and “bigotry” were already in their vocabulary, but that night they left class with three new words: “rumors,” “smears,” and “xenophobia.” We filled our Zoom screens with outrage, disbelief, and compassion.

It wasn’t an easy night.

I introduced the discussion by apologizing for the words spoken by Trump and Vance and their supporters.

Sadly, I realized this wasn’t the first time I found myself in this predicament. Remember the “s***hole countries” — Haiti and African nations — that Trump denigrated in 2018? At that time, my class was overflowing with refugees and immigrants from those parts of the world.

Whatever happened to the good old days, when conjugating verbs and improving pronunciation comprised an ESL lesson? Now, I believe being politically relevant is a critical part of the curriculum.

It is exhausting. Immigration is complicated; my “kishkes” are in knots. How can I translate “kishkes” into Creole or French?

For the past three decades, I have been welcoming refugees and immigrants from around the world to my class and to their new country. I have encouraged them and rooted for their success. For the past eight years, however, it’s become more challenging to convince them that many Americans feel this way, too.

But now, thanks to the latest vitriol, the genie is out of the bottle.

In my high school French, I tell my students, “Mon coeur se brise pour toi” — my heart breaks for you. Maybe when I say it in their mother tongue, it resonates more profoundly.

They thank me, but they don’t want my breaking heart. They want jobs, decent housing, and safe schools for their kids. They want to learn English or improve it. In short, they want to build a future here, in New Jersey. That’s why they traveled 1,533 miles from Port au Prince, Haiti’s war-torn capital, to Newark Airport, with a suitcase full of nothing but dreams.

They came alone or with family. Some  reunited with family who could provide initial support; others were determined to succeed on their own.

According to the 2022 census, New Jersey is the state with the fourth largest Haitian population in the United States. Furthermore, Irvington and Newark have the highest percentage of Haitian immigrants and Haitian-Americans in New Jersey.

Similarly, Haitian immigrants arrived — legally — in Springfield, Ohio, where a robust Haitian community already existed. Since the pandemic, they had heard about good jobs and schools there. As Roxane Gay wrote in the September 17 issue of the New Yorker, in a piece called “The Haitian Question”: “The history of Haitian immigration to the United States is that of politicians on both sides of the aisle fighting to keep Haitians out of the country, with equal cruelty.

“These Haitians wanted to find home, even if it meant having to wander far afield.”

We examined Ms. Gay’s article in class. She tells her personal story and outlines Haitian history, from 1791 to the present: abolition, independence, misinformation about the  HIV/AIDS epidemic, hurricanes, earthquakes, political assassinations, gang terror.

My students know much of this, firsthand.

What my students don’t know is that every time I hear “they’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” I hear the blood libel that poisoned Europe in the Middle Ages. I hear that the Jews are murdering Christians and using the blood in Jewish rituals.

Once again, my high school French comes in handy. “Plus les choses changent, plus ells restent les memes” — The more things change, the more they remain the same.

In her New Yorker piece, Ms. Gay writes about friends and family who still live in Haiti “and who are trying to get through each day while everything is precarious….” She describes children who “are growing up not knowing what they should dream for themselves or even if they should dream.”

Springfield teaches us that even in America, life is precarious for Haitians, and for other immigrants.

Looking back at that Zoom class, I’m proud of how my students wrestled with a difficult language and with even more difficult concepts.

And that suitcase full of dreams they brought with them? I tell them to hold it close, as they work, improve their English, and build their future.

Merrill Silver and her husband live in Montclair; she’s a freelance writer and teaches ESL at  Jewish Vocational Service of MetroWest. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Hadassah magazine, the Forward, the New York Jewish Week, and other publications. Find her at merrillsilver.wordpress.com.

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