Haitian Women Contributions

[Lei Lei]

To my mother, aside from the Lord above, if it weren't for you, I don't know where and who I would be right now. Many times I didn't understand what you were telling me. Many times I didn't understand the beatings that you gave me. But now is the time, as I prepare my own that I understand that everything that you did was to better me.

I want to thank you, and all other women and mothers that are like you that haven't gotten that many thank yous or enough I love yous. Thank you for all that you've done. Thank you for all that you will continue to do. Thank you most of all ladies for being you.

Lei Lei

Emeline Michel

Listen to Emeline Michel

Emeline Michel

She is the reigning queen of Haitian song. A captivating performer, versatile vocalist, accomplished dancer, songwriter and producer. She has recorded and appeared on concert stages throughout the Caribbean, Europe, North & South America, and Africa for the past 15 years. Singing both in French and Haitian Creole, her seven CDs, Douvanjou ka leve (May the Sun Rise), Pa gen manti nan sa (There's No Doubt), Rhum & Flamme (Rum & Flame), Tout Mon Temps (All My Time), The Very Best, Ban'm pase (Let Me Pass), and Cordes et Ame (Strings and Soul) have catapulted her to international acclaim.

Emeline Michel is beloved by Haitians for combining traditional rhythms with social, political and inspirational content. She is a member of a new generation of Haitian musicians which also includes guitarist/vocalist Beethova Obas and the bands Boukman Eksperyans and Boukan Guinen. In contrast to most contemporary Haitian music, this new wave of artists emphasize complex themes, conscious lyrics, and a broad pallette of musical styles, including the native Haitian compas, twoubadou and rara along with jazz, rock, bossa nova and samba.

Born in Gonaives, Haiti, her first experience in music was singing gospel music at the local church. After completing her education, Emeline accepted an opportunity to study at the Detroit Jazz Center and returned to Haiti as a professional musician. Emeline soon released her first album Douvanjou ka leve (May the Sun Rise) which featured the hit Plezi Mize (Pleasure in Misery) written by Beethova Obas.

Subsequent releases Tankou melodi (Like a Melody) and Flanm (Flame) established her as one of the top artists in Haiti and the French Antilles, and she was soon hailed as the "new goddess of Creole music".

Relocating to France, she became a leading musical icon, performing at venues such as the Jazz Festival of Nice and Theatre de la Ville, making numerous appearances on French television and gracing the covers of many music and culture magazines.

From her new base in France, Emeline's work quickly spread throughout the french-speaking world; including Belgium, Africa, French Antilles, French Guiana, Quebec, as well as Chile and Japan. From the album Tout Mon Temps (All My Time) came her international smash hit A-K-I-K-O. While set to an infectious dance groove, the song call's for Haiti to look past the political turmoil that has recently gripped the nation and to return to a time of innocence and joy.

After signing to a Montreal record label she began to enjoy a high profile as one of the leading young female vocalists working in Quebec and a regular act for Canadian festivals, radio and television. In 1996, she released the album Ban'm Pase (Let Me Pass), a CD which showcased her developing talents as a mature writer and producer. This huge-selling and influential release featured the international hits Ban'm Pase and Mwen bezwen (I Need You), fully incorporated her jazz/blues/samba influences, and secured her position as one of the leading songwriters in the Haitian Creole language.

After being signed with several record labels in France, Canada and the U.S., Emeline formed her own production company (Production Cheval De Feu) in 1999 to gain full control of her career and artistic vision. Emeline's latest CD

Cordes et Ame is a ground-breaking recording for a Caribbean artist. A sophisticated song-cycle centered around the theme of perseverance, the CD features the sound of voice & acoustic guitar bathed in the ancient and modern rhythms of Haiti. Soon after its release, the album became the fastest selling recording in Haiti (surpassing even the dance music giants of compas) and received Haiti's Musique En Folie awards for Best Haitian Album and Best Production for the year 2000.

Rose Anne Auguste

Nurse, social worker, and human rights activist - Born on November 29, 1963, in Jérémie, During the 1970s, she attended the Pressoir Jerome School in Jérémie, and later studied at Port-au-Prince's Lucien Hibert College, where she received her baccalaureate in 1984. She went on to study at the national School of Nursing, getting her diploma in 1988, and while there she set up a nurses' student union.

Auguste then worked for a variety of non-governmental organisations in central Haiti, but was in Port-au-Prince at the time of the 1991 military coup. She risked her personal safety to rescue patients at the general hospital when soldiers came to finish off those wounded while resisting the coup. In 1992, she founded the Women's Health Clinic (Klinik Sante Fanm in creole) in Carrefour Feuilles, Port-au-Prince, in association with the Partners in Health organisation. The clinic, located in a heavily-populated hillside shantytown to the south of the capital, and originally only meant for women, treats over 200 women, men, and children each day. Auguste has also provided counselling for female victims of gang beatings and rape. In 1994, she received the Reebok Human Rights Award, which she later donated to Partners in Health in support of destitute women in Haiti.

Auguste remains outspoken about Haiti's legacy of poverty and violence, reporting human rights abuses to international organisations and working to make the local healthcare system more responsive to victims of repression.

Interview with Rose Anne Auguste - 1999

More on Rose Anne

Marleine Bastien

Social worker, community activist - Bastien grew up in Pont Benoit, a village in central Haiti. Her father, Philippe, built the area's first school, and his oldest children, Marleine among them, worked as teachers during their three-month summer vacations. Because he was known as a servant of the people, Philippe Bastien, was considered by the government to be a communist, and he was regularly arrested and jailed. In 1974 the family moved to Port-au-Prince, where Marleine attended the prestigious Swiss school, College Bird. In 1980, Marleine's father went into exile in the US, and in 1981, at the age of 22, she joined him and he rest of her family in Florida.

In 1982, she started a full-time job as a paralegal and interpreter at the Haitian Refugee Centre. Almost every day for five years she accompanied the centre's lawyers to the Krome detention center, where thousands of Haitians languished in compounds or trailers surrounded by barbed wire fences. At the same time, she then took degrees in social work at Florida International University and, on completing her post-graduate work, she joined the Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami as a clinical social worker at the Sickle Cell Centre, counselling families dealing with the disease.

Driven by the notion that "social workers must be agents of change" Bastien says she focuses on helping people help themselves. In 1991, she founded Fanm Ayisyen Nan Miyami (Haitian Women of Miami), which she still leads. FANM advocates for women's rights and works for the social, political, and economic empowerment of all women and girls, especially Haitian. The 30-member organisation operates counselling and economic-assistance programs, and conducts educational workshops and presentations on subjects rarely mentioned in traditional, patriarchal Haitian society, such as breast cancer prevention, domestic violence and child abuse.

Bastien has also been instrumental in the formation of the Haitian Grassroots Coalition, an umbrella grouping of 23 Haitian community development organisations in South Florida. This Miami-based coalition has been at the forefront of the national effort to push for progressive Haitian immigration legislation, and it brought together many Haitian activists and business people with deeply opposing views.

In December 2001, she was selected as one of the "Women of the Year" by Ms magazine

Marleine Bastien is helping to lead the resurgence of South Florida's Haitian political agenda - Miami New Times, May 1998

Garcelle Beauvais

Model, actress - Born November 26, 1966, in St. Marc, the youngest of seven children, Beauvais moved with her mother and siblings to Massachusetts at the age of seven, after her parents got divorced. With French and Creole as her native languages, she learnt English by watching Sesame Street on television. She also endured the culture shock that came with being the only black student in her new elementary school.

At the age of 16, she and her family moved to Miami, Florida, where she began modelling. She signed with Ford Models in New York and appeared in magazine layouts for Avon, Clairol and Mary Kay Cosmetics. She has also graced the pages of Ebony and Essence magazines and the runways for designers Calvin Klein and Isaac Mizrahi.

In the 1990s she began acting, and has starred in the Fox TV drama "Models Inc.",and "The Jamie Foxx Show". In 1999, she appeared with Will Smith in the feature film, "Wild, Wild West". Since 2001, as Assistant District Attorney Valerie Heywood, she has starred in the long-running ABC TV cop drama, "NYPD Blue".

2007 interview with Garcelle Beauvais

Esther Boucicault

HIV/AIDS activist - Born in Saint-Marc in 1960, Boucicault was diagnosed as HIV positive in 1995. Following the death of her husband and her son who was born HIV positive, she decided to dedicate herself to saving others from the same fate.

In December 1998 she was interviewed on a private TV station about her illness. This was the first time in Haiti that a person with HIV/AIDS had gone public in such a way. Her testimony provoked a scandal in Saint-Marc, and she endured the hostility of the families of both her first and second husband. Undeterred by the scorn, Boucicault has established a foundation to work to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and provide medical and psychological aid to those carrying the virus.

Accompanied by health professionals, she tours Haitian towns giving information and advice to young people. She encourages the use of condoms, believing that even though this is contrary to Catholic religious morals it is more important to speak frankly to adolescents about the dangers they face in a country where more than 5% of adults are HIV positive.

Following Boucicault's example, others with HIV/AIDS have come into the open, and in 1999 a number of them got together to form the National Solidarity Association. Today, no anti-AIDS campaign takes place without them. Young and old come to hear them speak, and there is no longer the outrage that such public discussion once provoked.

Further reading: Haiti: After Esther Boucicault by Fritznel Octave - January 2000

Marie Chauvet

Novelist - The best known and most prolific of Haiti's female novelists, Marie Chauvet was born in Port-au-Prince in 1917. Her first novel, Fille D'Haiti (1953), about the mulatto daughter of a prostitute who tries to escape her origins in the hypocritical world of the Haitian elite, was awarded the Prix de l'Alliance francaise. La Danse sur le Volcan (1957), depicting the events leading up to the Haitian Revolution, was translated into English and Dutch.

Chauvet's most famous work, the trilogy of novellas, Amour, colere et folie, was published in Paris in 1968. The author was unable to return to Haiti from France because the novel dealt with the behaviour of corrupt Duvalierist officials and the sadistic Tontons Macoutes. Her husband begged her not to publish it, and when she did, he not only left her, but also bought and destroyed all the copies of the book sent to Haiti. She died in exile in New York in 1975, and was only awarded national honours after the end of the Duvalier dictatorship.

Further reading: Haitian Women Underground: Revising Literary Traditions and Societies - Regine Latorture - Journal of Haitian Studies Vol. 5-6.

Biography

Nadine Faustin was born on April 14, 1976 in Brussels, Belgium. Her parents Daniel and Micaele Faustin, moved to Belgium from Haiti to study at the University of Brussels. Shortly after her birth the family moved to New York. They lived in Brooklyn, New York for a few years but Manhasset, New York is where she was raised and is where she calls home. She has an older sister Anne and younger brother Edward.

The dream seed is planted - Everyone always asks her how she got started in the sport of Track and Field. Well, when she was younger, around 9 years old, she used to race her cousins and their friends, all boys, on the street and she won a lot of the races. When she got to the seventh grade at Herricks Middle School, a co-ed Track and Field team was added to the athletic program under coach Ed Canner and she joined. The girls ran against the boys at the track meets and she won in the sprints just about every time.

She went on to Herricks High School and joined the Varsity Track and Field team and continued to excel in the sport. Her most memorable moment in track and field while in High School was during her senior year, when she won the 55 meter dash at the Colgate Women's Games at Madison Square Garden. Track and field was not the most popular sport in her school district, therefore she mostly raced only within her district and section. She didn't even know about summer track clubs and junior national competitions. The assistant Track and Field coach Tereasa Henderson at Herricks High exposed her to Colgate Games, Empire State Games, and Eastern Nationals to name a few, her junior and senior year. So, to win the Colgate Games, competing in the short sprints her first time, and then having her immediate family as well as extended family at the Garden supporting her, Nadine expressed it was a great feeling.

Nadine attended and graduated from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill from 1994-1999. She majored in Physical Education and Sports Sciences on the Physical Therapy track. She was recruited as a sprinter under Curtis Frye. It was during her freshman year that he introduced her to the hurdles. She remembers that day clearly, he said, "Nadine, I want you to try a new event, the short hurdles, you have good speed and decent coordination, lets give it a try." Her first year she ended running 14.16 seconds in the 100m high hurdles, the following year she ran 13.73, after that she ran 13.49, and then her senior year she ran 13.23. She wanted more after her eligibility was finished. She wanted to compete as a 100m high hurdler on the professional circuit in Europe.

"Success is a decision", Dexter Yager.

In 1999, Trevor Graham, coach of Sprint Capitol, based in Raleigh, North Carolina took her under his wing. Her first year under coach Graham, she ran 13.04. At the end of the 1999 season is when word got out that she was Haitian and the Haitian Athletic Federation asked that she represent the Republic of Haiti. She found it to be an honor and accepted the offer. She saw the offer as her opportunity to help a poor country, which gets a lot of negative attention, to be shown in a more positive light. She loves children so it was also her chance to be a positive role model and let the youth of Haiti know, whatever they desire to do they can do it despite the obstacles they have to overcome. One of her dreams is to build a Track and Field Stadium in Haiti because there is not one and the youths are at such a disadvantage.

In the year 2000, she ran 12.80's early in the season, she was having her best season up until two weeks before the Olympics. She hit a hurdle while competing in Belgium, had massive trauma, and made matters worse because she continued to compete in the competition and when it was over she could barely lift her leg. It wasn't until three days before boarding the plane for the Olympics that an MRI showed that she was suffering from a ruptured ovarian cyst. She made it up to the Quarterfinals in Sydney. In order to move to the third round she had to get top 4 in her heat and she was fifth.

She struggled a bit at the beginning of the following season of 2001. She didn't take enough time to allow her injury to heal. She worked 40 hours/week. Mentally, it was a battle so Haiti arranged for her to go train in Paris for 6 months where she didn't have to work in the hope that would help. It was at that time that she won her first medal for Haiti in a major Championship. She got with won in the Francophonie Games in Ottawa, Canada.

For the 2002 and 2003 seasons she went home to New York to regroup. She was the Athletic Director/Teacher, at Franklin Charter School in New Jersey. She continued to train and compete having followed two other coaching programs under Jack Pierce, Norm Tate, and Andre Brigette. She won the Bronze in the 2002 Millrose Games in the 60mHH, she won the Bronze in the 2002 Central American Carribean Games in El Salvador in the 100mHH, in addition to competing on the European circuit.

During the 2003 season Nadine finished as the runner up at the 2003 Central American and Caribbean Championships in Grenada, running a time of 12.80. Later in the season, she placed 6th at the Pan American Games in Santo, Domingo of the Dominican Republic. Lastly, she finished as a semi-finalist at the World Championships in Paris, France.

Taking a year off from teaching in 2004, Nadine was able to fully commit to training. It certainly paid off. The year started well with a national record in the 60m hurdles - a record she went on to break another three times before taking it down to 8.00. She ended the indoor season within the top twenty in the world, positive of great things to come.

Nadine's first sub-13 run of the 2004 season didn't come until July, but from then on it was sub-13 all the way to Athens. She equalled her national record (12.80) at the start of August and then ran a stunning 12.78 into a -2.1m/s wind in her last race before the Olympics. The good form carried through to Athens, and she felt good at the startline of her Olympic semi-final. Sure enough, she crossed the line in yet another national record - 12.74 - but unfortunately for her, she had been part of one of the deepest fields of all-time. Never before had eight women all dipped under 12.75 in the same race (not even in World or Olympic finals!). So it ended up that Nadine's 12.74 (a time that would have won a medal at the previous Olympics) wasn't quite enough to take her through to the Athens Olympic final.

Despite initial disappointment, Nadine has come to accept that her time to shine is yet to come. Looking ahead to the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China....World Championships and beyond, she boldly stated "It is time to claim what is mine." Indeed, with Nadine's champions' mentality and determination to succeed, her days of global glory could be just around the corner. Nadine currently trains under the direction of Anthony Parker, her husband and coach.