Annotations for Communities: Haitians

We're doing a survey to find out how people feel about the repeal of the anti-bilingual ordinance, making Dade County bilingual again.

Estamos de acuerdo con esa ley de que sea bilingüe, no?

Why should we have to learn two languages where we stay here in America?

60% of the county speak Spanish, so yeah, I approve it.

Yo cuando comenzó la le ese estaba trabajando…

I remember when the law began and I was working, speaking Spanish with a coworker and some people came over and told me it was absolutely forbidden to speak Spanish.

From my understanding, is that I think it would probably better if anything because the government's going to be understood by more people.

And in case of a hurricane or something, these people got to know where to go, what to do.

I'm Maria Hinojosa. You've been listening to a sampling of opinions from Miami about the recent repeal of a 13-year-old English-only law, which prohibited the official use of Spanish in Dade County. The law was enacted in 1980 in the wake of the Maria boat lift from Cuba and the arrival of thousands of Haitian refugees. One observer said the repeal of the English-only amendment signals a new era of bilingualism and bi-culturalism in South Florida.

With us to speak about, if indeed this is a new era, and what it symbolizes, are Ivan Roman, a staff writer with El Nuevo Herald, Nancy San Martin, a general assignment reporter for the Sun-Sentinel, and Emilio San Pedro of WLRN Radio and a Miami correspondent for Latino USA. Welcome to all of you and muchos gracias, thank you for joining us. Many people are talking about this, in fact, as the dawn of a new political and cultural era in South Florida. Does this, in fact, set the stage for a whole new political reality in that area?

It's not so much the repeal of the ordinance that's going to foster that change. I think that a lot has happened in Miami and this is just a step in the right direction. It's the first concrete example of working together in unity, if you will, from the standpoint of politicians or leaders in the community taking a certain position with this issue. I think a lot will follow.

Well, the people were saying that in fact this could, in many of the reports there were questions of whether this was going to increase ethnic divisions. What is the reality there? Is this in fact going to divide more groups? Or has this brought together the minority groups in the Miami area to say, look, if we work together, we're not a minority, we're a majority and we have political clout and can do things?

I think we can look at a combination of factors there. If we look at the new composition of the county commission, we have six Hispanics and four Blacks on it. In addition, three non-Hispanic Whites, and the commission has made it clear, everyone on that commission, that they're looking towards change, they're looking towards working together. One of the ways to do it is with repealing this law.

Another thing that has happened in the last few weeks was the ending of the Black Boycott of Miami, the Black Convention Boycott. There are just a series of factors in which basically what's happening is a realization of the changes in Dade County and just getting rid of the vestiges to reflect the reality in Dade County that's been happening for the last 10 years, that it is a community with a bunch of different groups that need to work together and the leadership is finally saying, look, let's work together and let's deal with all these different vestiges that keep us apart.

Was there any one specific thing that really set the stage for these groups beginning to work together and as you say, Ivan, realizing that this is the reality in the Miami area?

I think the redistricting of the county commission and the way that the commission is set up and voted on, I think that was this very significant focal point and that was when things started to really perhaps change because of the way that the commission has changed and the diversity on the commission, as Ivan was mentioning, has made it possible for all these things to come up again, things that were had become law and were not discussed for quite a while.

People realize that to get anything done, you need a coalition. If you have six Hispanics and four Blacks and three Whites on a commission, you realize that you have to establish coalitions to get anything done. You just can't not do anything. I think another thing that happened, is the success of the boycott was finally making the leaders here realize that something needed to be done to ensure the economic health of the county, and at the same time, the hurricane I think was very helpful in making everybody realize here that everybody needed to work together to help.

What was interesting for me was that there was not only divisions on the issue of the English-only law between for example, Latinos and African Americans or Anglos, for example. We also saw heated confrontation between Latino groups. Not all Latinos wanted to repeal the English-only law.

Well, I think it's good that they can speak their own language, but I don't like to walk in a place where nobody speaks English even though I do speak Spanish and I'm Cuban.

I think you're right, that both sides had a combination of Latinos or Blacks and non-Hispanic Whites did speak on both sides of the issue, but I was at the meeting and the pro or anti-repeal folks were certainly a lot smaller. The interesting thing also was that just using Hispanics and Haitian as an example, in recent events, those two particular groups have been on opposing sides, and for the first time in recent months, you saw both facets fighting for the same thing, and that was to repeal the ordinance. I think it was clearly a demonstration of unity that had not been seen in recent months here, and I think it's a good sign.

I also think that younger generations of Hispanics here in Miami, because of increased immigration, daily immigration every day, and a strong identification of Hispanics in Dade County with their culture and with their ancestry, especially in the Cuban community, that it's much harder to have a particular Hispanic group that would be against a law that in essence attacks or sub-estimates Spanish, which is part of what they are. So, I think that, of that group that you're mentioning, I think is a very minor thing in this community.

However, in many cases, I think the discord in relation to the law that was just passed is because a lot of people don't really understand what the law really means. I mean, when you ask them, when you go out and interview them and you talk to them about it, to many people it's a matter of pride. It's a matter of defining your stake in this community. And I think for them when they talk about it, they say things like, I don't want to be forced to learn Spanish. That's one of the things I hear all the time, and I don't think the law is about forcing anyone to learn Spanish or Creole or any other languages spoken here. Also, among the Haitian community, they don't really know what role this will play in their language, Creole being also spoken or translated or, and used in county documents.

You know, it's not that the law is really going to change anything. It's not that the previous law really did anything that would change much that was of substance. It's largely symbolic. It's people trying to define what American culture is. We're still hearing all of these catchphrases about, well, people should adapt to what American culture is, and everybody's trying to define what that is. And in Dade County, people are saying, no American culture is not necessarily what you would define as American culture in the Midwest. It's reflective of different groups that are here and we all have something to contribute. So it's a redefinition of American culture, and people who don't want to define it that way and want to resist any change to what they understand as American culture, take this as a very symbolic and important issue when, in essence, practically, it really means nothing.

Thank you for joining us from Miami, Ivan Roman of El Nuevo Herald, Nancy San Martin, a general assignment reporter for the Sun-Sentinel, and Emilio San Pedro of WLRN Public Radio.

Four years after he was convicted in the shooting deaths of two African American men, Miami police officer William Lozano was acquitted of those same charges. After a second trial held in Orlando, Florida, the not guilty verdict in this racially charged case did not set off the widespread racial violence that many had predicted. In a round table of Latino reporters, Miami-based correspondent Ivan Roman, Nancy San Martin, and Emilio San Pedro say that's because many things have begun to change in Miami's minority communities.

The symbolic leader and the man who speaks for the African American boycott of tourism, HT Smith. He says that there have been a lot of changes in the last four years for African Americans, things that have made a difference, things that have made them feel that perhaps there is some hope, for example, that there are two Congress people representing African Americans from Florida, and that makes a statement for African Americans, the changes in the county commission. So, the situation he feels, and a lot of African Americans feel that the situation now in 1993 is not the same as it was in 1989. That's not to say that everything is fine and that everybody is, and that no one has any problems. But the point is that there is some sign that there can be some hope and that there isn't that feeling of despair that may lead people out into a riot-type situation, and that's the kind of thing that they were looking for with the boycott to bring up all these topics.

Let's talk a little bit about the background. What was at the heart of the tensions between Latinos and African Americans in the area? And in fact, there were many efforts by the local government there to ease those tensions. Have they been effective? Do the same problems still exist, and do the misunderstandings still abound, or is there, as you say, Emilio, there's a move now to say, well, things have really changed between African Americans and Latinos in the area?

There have been efforts, continuous efforts by community groups to get together to discuss their differences, and the key issue really is economic empowerment. The key issue is hopelessness because of economics, because Blacks many times are stuck in communities in day county that are basically the communities that are deprived economically and socially. They're the first communities that they want to get the schools out of. They're the first communities that they don't pick up the garbage. They're all these things that are starting to get addressed, and so people feel, okay, well let's give it another chance. Let's see what happens. Let's figure out ways to try to diminish these tensions. And they have worked a lot on it since 1989. I'm not telling you they're all the way there, but at least they've made some efforts and they're definitely trying to get rid of or quell the opportunists who will go out and riot anyway because they always are, but at least they've made some effort and people see that.

I was going to say that I think the biggest change since the riots has been that there's been a lot of communication, and I think that's the key factor. The county has a board called the Community Relations Board, and it consists of community leaders from all facets of the community who meet periodically to discuss precisely that and vent out frustrations that the community may be feeling. Since the beginning of the Lozano trial, that group has been meeting monthly to discuss ways to prevent violence and create a understanding between the various communities. And I think that's been real effective because people have been able to say what's on their mind and get the anger out before it's too late.

What's interesting is that, I don't think that across the country people necessarily look to the Miami area as one that was breeding this new kind of multicultural acceptance and living together. Do you guys sense that there's a possibility that Miami and what's happening there may in fact, have some kind of a national impact?

People tend to put Miami in a certain perspective and they don't think that maybe there is a whole sector of people that are starting to learn and appreciate each other's cultures, and I think that is something that's starting to happen in Miami. It took a while, but I think that there are Latinos who attend events in the Haitian community cultural events. There are Haitians that go to Miami Beach and take part in the South Beach environment. That's not to say that everything is coming together rapidly, but I think that there's an appreciation of other cultures in Miami that perhaps does not exist around the United States. And I think yes, in some ways Miami can become a model for people getting along.

Thank you all very much, Ivan Roman of El Nuevo Herald, Nancy San Martin, general assignment reporter for the Sun Sentinel, and Emilio San Pedro of WLRN Public Radio.