Ti Manno, a Haitian music legend, was probably one of the first persons to bring the issue of Haitians abroad under the spotlights. The HeritageKonpa website describes him as follows: “In the long history of Haitian music there has never been a person been more singular than Antoine Rosini Jean Baptiste, better known as Ti Manno”. A gifted singer and composer, he (and his band Gemini All Stars de Ti Manno) “enthralled generations of konpa music.”
In the song ‘N’an Danje’ Ti Manno sings (all lyrics quotations are translated from creole) “we are in danger wherever we go: whether it’s in the United States, Nassau, Bahamas, Venezuela, Peru, Canada, Bolivia. We are in danger. Although we helped many of these nations to gain their independence, yet they show very little gratitude, instead they treat us like second class citizen. They use Haiti’s poverty status as a stigma to isolate and humiliate us.”
N’an Danje inspired two American anthropologists to write an article on the emergence of transnational Haitian identity through this song. The authors conclude: “The lyrics of Ti Manno and the short-lived Ti Manno movement elucidate the factors that shape the multiple and overlapping identities of Haitian immigrants. It is argued that, as black immigrants, Haitians tend to be “transnational” who form identities that allow them to accommodate to and resist realities of race and class in both Haiti and the United States.”[1]
In the song ‘Canter’ Ti Manno warned Haitian peasants about the dangers of trying to reach the shores of Florida. “Taking a wooden boat is a great danger; you sold everything you have to pay for the trip, while you left your family in distress. The trip often claimed many lives; those who made it to the refugee camps still faced struggle, racism, and hardships in their quest for economic freedom. You must stop cutting the tree to build boat; and invest in agriculture. With God grace, you will survive and send your kids to school. You need to work land and improving your life.”
When he wrote Canter, Ti Manno was already in the US himself however, after having fled of having been forced to flee from the Duvalier dictatorship. In a way he’s a symbol of the first wave of Haitian migrants: political refugees fleeing the hardship under Papa Doc. Under the Kennedy administration, there was still some US resistance and hence efforts to try to topple the dictatorship, but under Lyndon Johnson, geopolitical motives weighed harder. Lying next to Cuba, Haiti became a western beacon against the spread of communism making it much harder for Haitians to be recognized as refugees in the US.
Ti Manno sung about more social issues, such as AIDS, at a time Haiti was in popular belief held responsible for the spread to the US and other developed countries of what was then still a new disease. Haitians were sometimes referred to as “Aids carriers”. It led for example to a prohibition for Haitians to donate blood in the US. In his often visionary lyrics, Ti Manno dispelled the early views on aids. His charismatic presence was short lived however, Ti Manno died at the age of 32 in 1985
After the US, the Dominican Republic is the biggest receiving state of Haitian migrants. Estimates of migrant numbers by Garr (Groupe d’Appuie au Rapatriés et Réfugiés) vary; many Haitians are without identification abroad.[2] Garr’s activities originally focused on the situation of Haitians in the Dominican Republic, where their presence has been traditionally large as sugarcane cutters. Today, still, 90 percent of the sugar cane cutter labour force is Haitian. They are mostly undocumented migrant workers on whose low wages the Dominican (tourist driven) economy thrives, not only in agriculture but also in the construction and manufacturing sectors.
Not long ago, I crossed the border between the Dominican Republic and Haiti in the North. The two countries are separated by the ‘Rio Massacre’, so called because in 1937, on the orders of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo who was inspired by German nazi ideology, Dominican soldiers killed some 30 000 Haitians. Nowadays, the river and the Dominican town of Dajabon serve as an entry point for Haitian products into the country. When standing on the bridge over the river, people are crossing the river below with everything they can carry. Twice a week the border opens for Haitians because of the public market in Dajabon, which attracts people from all over Haiti to come sell their stuff (mostly farming products and apparel, which floods Haiti in the form of aid). But even when there’s no market Haitians cross the river as if there is no border. They do pay something to get over the river to some invisible no man’s land’s caretakers, but this doesn’t stop them: the “contrebande” of coffee and rice pays off well enough. Meanwhile, Dominican soldiers and UN peacekeeping forces guard the bridge but close their eyes for what happens underneath them.
One particular problem Haitian migrants are facing is their lack of possessing identity papers. An identity card, birth certificate or any other official document, testifying who they are: more than often they end up in the Dominican Republic, the US or other Caribbean islands without any of these. It is an issue which can only be solved by the Haitian state by registering all Haitians and make work of their national archives. A task much more easily said than done and which has always been placed on the back burner within the endless priority list of any administration, never less poverty-stricken than the previous one.
In a region scattered with islands, Haitians also testify for one of the most striking images of our times when migrants try to reach western shores by boat. Not only the US but also Guadeloupe, Guyana, Saint Martin and Martinique, all French “overseas departments” and thus French territory, are within reach. In 2007, of the 50 000 migrants France extradited, half of those expulsions actually took place in their overseas departments, according to mom (migrants outre mer).[3]
Surrounded by islands where western tourists flock to Caribbean beaches, destitute Haitians don’t hesitate much before taking off by boat. On their way, things go wrong quite frequently. On July 28th of this year a sailboat with over 200 Haitians capsized near the Turk and Caicos islands (a British oversea territory), after their boat tried to elude a patrol vessel but capsized when hitting a reef. 124 persons were rescued, but more than 70 perished. The Turk and Caicos Island are not only a tourist spot, but also one of the Caribbean’s safe offshore tax havens. No country for poor men (men, because women rarely join on those boats: only 22 in the described case).
Here’s one recently uploaded song from the Gemini All Stars Band de Ti Manno, Lajan (“l’argent”). “Lajan se superflu … konpaaaa!”.
And a bad quality but really rare part of Haitian archives:
[1]“Everywhere We Go, We Are in Danger”: Ti Manno and the Emergence of a Haitian Transnational Identity, by Nina Glick-Schiller and Georges Fouron
[2]United States: 1, 5 million, Dominican Republic: 1 million, Cuba: over 300 000, Canada: around 100 000 (of which 90 percent in Quebec), France: 30 000, Guyana: 30 000, Guadeloupe: between 5 000 and 10 000, Martinique: 13 000
[3]More on that and on how France tries to reverse its legal responsibilities towards migrants in its overseas departments by bilateral agreements added to “development partnerships” can be read in a previous post.
