Between Survival and Silence: A Haitian’s Lament

It’s loud in my head these days. The kind of loud that no silence can fix.

Everything feels tense—like the world is pressing its weight down on the most fragile places. It’s like walking barefoot on broken glass, with no clear way forward. And while I try to find peace in my daily rituals—coffee in the morning, soft socks on tired feet, breathing through the ache—I keep coming back to the same truth:

The world feels hostile. Especially toward the vulnerable.

Half a million of our Haitian brothers and sisters are set to lose their legal right to stay in the United States. Temporary Protected Status—TPS—granted legally, honorably, and in good faith, is being stripped away with the stroke of a pen. It’s not just policy. It’s a death sentence for some. A slow unraveling of hope for others.

Many of them sold everything they had to come here. Escaping a homeland scarred by violence, political instability, and poverty so deep it clings to your bones. They didn’t come to steal anything. They came to rebuild. To breathe. To start fresh. They came believing the promise—“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

But maybe that promise was never meant for people like us.

Maybe we just have the wrong shade of skin, the wrong accent, the wrong memories stitched into our DNA. Maybe we misunderstood what was written on the Statue of Liberty. Maybe we believed too much in the idea of American virtue.

Because what is virtue without consistency? What is morality when it only applies to some?

If you’re going to slam the door in our faces, at least be honest. Don’t hide behind politics or pretend compassion. Don’t parade human rights as your foundation if you only offer shelter to those who look like you, sound like you, vote like you.

The hypocrisy cuts deeper than the cruelty.

And yet—despite it all—my people continue to shine.

They still dance.

They still sing.

They still gather in crowded kitchens with loud laughter and soft hands shaping fried plantains and dreams.

They are stressed. They are scared. But they are smiling through it. Because that’s what we do. Nou toujou kanpe. We always stand.

I don’t have power. I don’t have political clout or influence. I can’t promise protection or deliver justice. All I have are my tiny little words. My typed thoughts. My grief, my confusion and my love, and my fierce belief in the spirit of my people.

So I offer this to anyone who feels like giving up:

You are seen.
You are not alone.
You carry the legacy of warriors, of poets, of survivors.

We were born into resistance. We were baptized in survival. And we will not be erased—not by governments, not by borders, not by indifference.

To my people—I love you. I honor you. I write for you.
Even in the darkest days, you find a way to be light.
And that is the most Haitian thing of all.

Xoxo,

JPP