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Posted on Wed, Sep. 26, 2007

Youth gangs frustrate Haitian-American parents

It wasn't disappointment in Laneze Jean's voice when police brought her the news that her 14-year-old son had been arrested on burglary charges for the second time that month.

It was more resignation, a realization that the North Miami Beach mother was losing her oldest child to the streets and that she was powerless to stop it.

''I feel sorry for his life, and I worry about him a lot,'' said Jean, 40, a single mother of three who works as a receptionist for a Miami-Dade accounting firm.

Police say such worries are well-founded. Her son and many others like him fit the profile of Haitian-American youngsters at high risk of slipping into one of the many violent gangs that operate in South Florida, from Deerfield Beach to Little Haiti.

While youth gangs have been a problem for decades, the struggle of many recent Haitian immigrants to discipline their teenagers in America is complicated by other factors:

• They may depend on the kids to bring in additional money -- even through illegal activities.

• Struggling to learn English, they may rely on their children to translate bills and mail and speak for them with others, giving the kids authority over the parents.

• They may be vulnerable because of their immigration status -- afraid to seek help with a wayward teen, or fearful children will turn them in to authorities if they punish them.

As for Jean, the Haiti native moved to South Florida in 1991, months after a military coup toppled then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Still struggling with English, she watches her teenage son do as he wishes, playing basketball whenever he wants and running with a bad crowd.

''The kids don't listen to you, they reject you, and they want to be big shots in front of their friends,'' said Jean, interviewed in the tidy living room of her North Miami Beach duplex. ``Every sacrifice we make is for them.''

Her son is on his own after school until she gets home from work. And even when she's home, he ignores her efforts at discipline and defies his curfew.

More after-school and job programs for Haitian teens would help, said Louis Herns Marcelin, an anthropology and sociology professor at University of Miami.

''There isn't much of a safety net for people in this community,'' he said. ``And so we're seeing the power of the street over the power of the house.''

In many cases, parents cede power to teens, who generate income that goes toward the rent or to relatives in Haiti. Money sometimes is left on the kitchen table -- no questions asked, said one gang observer.

''And the parents are thinking why don't their kids respect them?'' said Laura Kallus, director of the PanZOu Gang Reduction Program in North Miami Beach.

Teens assume power in another way -- by helping their often non-English-speaking parents navigate everyday challenges.

''Mom and Dad don't know how to read. Mom and Dad don't know how to speak English,'' said Bapthol Joseph, who runs the Pompano Beach nonprofit center, Changing Directions 4 Youth & Families. ``The kid is the intellectual of the house.''

Adly Joseph, no relation, a regular at Changing Directions, fits that profile.

At 16, Adly, of Pompano Beach, handles many of his 51-year-old mother's affairs.

On a recent Saturday morning, the 11th-grader sat at the kitchen table, flipping through that day's mail: literature on diabetes; an AARP membership invitation; an overdue rent notice.

He also interprets rent-related matters for the superintendent of the duplex, where some of the roofs are still covered with blue tarps from hurricanes two years ago.

''Everywhere we go, I translate,'' said Adly, who was born in South Florida.

Social workers say kids are able to take advantage of their non-English-speaking parents by, say, embellishing report card grades, but Adly said he doesn't do that.

''She'll have a way of finding out,'' he says with a grin.

Parents fear asking for help.

''The parents don't want to talk to police, since they may have questionable immigration status,'' Kallus said.

Meanwhile, social centers for South Florida Haitians are hearing more and more from parents who have lost control over their kids.

''It's a growing problem,'' said Gepsie Metellus, director of the Sant La Haitian Neighborhood Center in Miami. ``Some of these parents are having to work multiple jobs to make ends meet and that doesn't leave much time for child-rearing. You've got kids left to themselves, left to the streets, and they want the fast route to success.''

That can mean peddling drugs on street corners.

Metellus recalled how parents stop by the Little Haiti center seeking help on filling out food stamp applications. Along the way, they quietly ask a more personal question.

' `Is there a program for kids who don't really listen?' '' Metellus recounted one mother saying.

Nine days before his death, in late December 2006, Volny Eugene, 16, the son of a cabdriver and a nurse, had started attending a Miami-Dade alternative education program called Roving Leaders.

Gunmen shot and killed him in a Little River neighborhood a few blocks north of his father's Little Haiti apartment.

''I don't know why they could've gone after him,'' said Igard Eugene, 44, who's still grieving for his nephew.

So far, Miami-Dade police have made no arrests in the case.

And Louis Emile doesn't like talking about the July 2006 shooting death of his 19-year-old son Carl.

The Deerfield Beach High dropout thought he was too cool for school.

''He had some friends at the time,'' Louis Emile recounted. ''But he wasn't a baby anymore. You can tell him not to do something,'' but he may not listen.