For mixed Haitian American families, getting home can be an odyssey

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

By Theola Labbé-DeBose
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 19, 2010; A10

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI -- Carline Georges, an American citizen living in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., came to Haiti on Jan. 1 to see friends and family and to celebrate the national independence holiday. She brought her son Schneider, 4, and they planned to return to the United States in a few weeks.

Then the earthquake hit. Georges and thousands of other Haitian Americans visiting relatives and friends in Haiti had no way to get back to the United States. Clutching crying children and wearing just the clothes on their backs after going hungry and thirsty for days, distraught Haitian Americans lined up outside the U.S. Embassy or waited hours in the Caribbean sun outside of the Toussaint L'Ouverture Airport to be evacuated.

Georges, who stood outside the U.S. Embassy for more than two hours, said her normally boisterous son has been extremely quiet these past few days. With supermarkets closed or destroyed, and no running water or electricity, "where should I go to buy stuff for him?" she asked, standing near a lush palm tree while international security guards carrying M-16s milled around to keep the line orderly.

"He hasn't eaten anything, just drank milk, that's it," she said.

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The U.S. State Department had evacuated 2,200 Americans as of Sunday, said Jerome Oetgen, a spokesman. He estimated that the number would be close to 3,000 by the end of the day on Monday, and that it would continue to climb. The agency is running ads on Haitian radio saying that anyone with a valid U.S. passport can go to Toussaint L'Ouverture Airport for immediate departure to Homestead Air Force Reserve Base near Miami.

Americans who are sick or injured would receive treatment first at the embassy's military hospital, then flown to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base for further observation before being taken to the Florida base, Oetgen said.

"We don't want to make any more misery through bureaucracy; our goal is to help any American who wants to leave," Oetgen said. "We will continue this effort until we are done."

The physical distance between Haiti and the United States belies a fluid and close-knit familial relationship between Haitians living in their home country and those in the United States. Mixed citizenship is common among Haitian families -- a fact that many Haitians said they never gave a moment's thought until now.

Dominic Beatrice, 39, a dentist who has lived in Port-au-Prince since birth, has a daughter, Leyna, 13, who was born in Haiti, and a son Xavier, 9. Beatrice said that she was kidnapped while pregnant with her son, and that after her family paid a ransom, she was released and went to the United States to recover, staying with relatives in Florida. All along she planned to have her child in Haiti, she said, as her father-in-law is a gynecologist and her husband is an orthopedic surgeon. But while she was recovering from the emotional trauma, she went into labor, and her son became a U.S. citizen.

On Monday, she stood with hundreds of other Haitians in a long line that snaked in front of the airport -- a bustling scene of airport workers and everyday Haitians, some of them there to see their family members. When Beatrice got to the head of the line, she met a State Department employee. Flanked by several Haitians to assist with interpreting, J. Brett Fernandez asked to review the family passports.

"This child can travel," Fernandez said, pointing to Xavier. Then she pointed to Leyna: "But this child cannot. You have a decision to make, ma'am. Please let me know what you decide."

Beatrice paused for a moment, looking shocked and unsure. Fernandez told her that if she decided not to travel then, she would have to wait in line again if she changed her mind. Beatrice grabbed her black suitcase and two children and left, fighting back tears.

Faced with the same decision, Bertho Lenesca, 44, with one daughter born in Haiti and another in the United States, said she couldn't make the trip. "I can't separate my two daughters," said Lenesca, who lost her house in the earthquake and has been sleeping on the street. "I don't know what we're going to do."

About 15 minutes passed and Beatrice reentered the line, managing to return to the front, this time without her daughter. She went to her husband in the airport parking lot and they decided that their daughter would stay in Haiti with her father; the two hopefully would end up in the United States via the Dominican Republic. Beatrice would leave immediately with their son.

"I've never thought of one of my children being Haitian and one of them being American," Beatrice said. "But now I know that it is important. I've just made one of the hardest decisions of my life."