About half of the 2,000 are living in Charleroi, Washington County, but also Monessen, Belle Vernon, Monongahela and other Mon Valley communities, says Getro Bernabe, a Haiti native who has lived in Charleroi for four years.
The Haitians are drawn to the Mon Valley by word of mouth. Its affordability and opportunities for employment with the different industries — a packaging plant, a glass factory, an Amazon warehouse and others — are ways to offer Haitians a stable path into U.S. society.
“We are told that this is a place where we can come and make it,” he says.
A friend told Bernabe, 48, about Charleroi, and he left West Palm Beach, Florida, to come north. Bernabe, a former Haitian Coast Guard officer and liaison to the U.S. Embassy in the Caribbean, has been hired in the newly created role as an immigrant liaison, working with the Mon Valley’s Neighborhood Partnership Program to help recently arriving Haitians.
“I’m like a booster,” says Bernabe, after making the rounds at the picnic. “I’m a bridge-keeper. I speak the language and can help connect Haitians with resources – human services, hospitals and schools. I know how to break English barriers.”
Bernabe, who lives with his mom, estimates there are about 700 Haitian workers in the Mon Valley, about 150 school-age children, and other family members who push the population figures higher.
As Haitian music resonates from speakers at the picnic, Adriene Pamphile, 75, and her husband, Raoul, 77, sit at one of the wooden tables. They’re at the picnic with several of their children. The couple came to Pittsburgh in 1993, aided by Leon Pamphile, Raoul’s older brother, who’s been in Pittsburgh working as a teacher and preacher since the 1970s.
She’s from Port-au-Prince and he’s from LaBoule, a rural mountainous area not too far away. Today, they live in Verona, a suburb east of Pittsburgh. She retired as a food service worker with the Pittsburgh Public Schools, and he was a forklift operator for a laundry service. They raised their three sons and two daughters in Pittsburgh.
“We feel happy when we get the chance to meet other Haitians,” says Adriene Pamphile. “That’s not easy to do here. But coming [to the picnic] and being together, it’s a good idea: a way to keep the culture, history and use our language.”
Adriene and Raoul Pamphile at the Haitians in Pittsburgh United picnic in North Park on Saturday, Sept. 7. Photo by Ervin Dyer.
For Ricardo “Rico” Jean-Pierre, 33, the gathering is a good place to get to know others. The computer programmer came to the area in 2020 from New York City, where he grew up with his mom, Marie, and his father, Teliusm. The Haiti natives met and married in New York.
Jean-Pierre heard about HPU from a friend. After a recent breakup, he thought the group offered “community connectedness,” a benefit that would bleed into his personal progress and networking – helping him with jobs and other resources.
Tiffany McilVaine is the daughter of Haitian immigrants: her mom, Valentine, and her stepfather, Jean-Renal. She’s traveled to Haiti to visit cousins and walk through the village where her family is from. She grew up in the Boston area, went to college in North Carolina, but came to Pittsburgh about two years ago to work in sales management.
She’s aware of Pittsburgh’s connection to Haiti. When her sister recently visited, they proudly went to the Hill District, a neighborhood that in the early 1800s was called Little Hayti, because the residents there were deeply inspired by the 1804 Haitian Revolution and its mission of freedom and liberation.
A friend at work told her about the picnic.
“I told her I really wanna go,” says McilVaine. “I don’t know any Haitians here. But I believe in groups like Haitians United because I feel like, when I’m around Haitians, I hear the language, when I have the food, it makes me feel like home. I get that sense at the picnic. Today, I feel like I’m home.”
HPU welcomes new members by emailing [email protected] or by calling 412-512-1439.
Ervin Dyer is a writer who focuses his storytelling on Africana life and culture.
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Publish date : 2024-09-19 01:00:00
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