Overview:
Marking the 30th anniversary of the Haitian American Alliance, this op-ed reflects on the evolution of Haitian Americans from political invisibility to representation, arguing that the community now faces a critical next phase: building durable institutions. While past activism created visibility and influence, recent challenges reveal structural gaps that leave progress vulnerable. Sustainable power, the author contends, requires coordinated systems, accountability, and long-term investment in community infrastructure beyond individual leadership.
There are moments in a community’s life when celebration must give way to honesty. This is one of them.
Marking the 30th anniversary of the Haitian American Alliance is not just an opportunity to look back—it is an invitation to take stock. Because anniversaries are not only about longevity; they are about legacy. They ask a simple but uncomfortable question: what have we built that will last?
Last week, HAA gave The Haitian Times an award for its work in the community for more than 26 years during a brunch gala. The recognition is deeply appreciated. But awards can sometimes feel like a finish line when, in truth, they are only a mile marker. And for the Haitian American community, the truth is this: we have made undeniable progress, but we have not yet built what we need to sustain it.
To understand where we are, we have to go back.
In the 1990s, Haitian New Yorkers were everywhere and nowhere at once—like a current running beneath the surface of the city, powerful but unseen. We were driving taxis, cleaning offices, working double shifts, sending money home. We were essential to the city’s rhythm, but absent from its power structure. Present in labor, absent in influence.
I had the rare privilege of witnessing this transformation up close. As a reporter at The New York Times, I had a front-row seat to a community finding its voice. I was, in many ways, an insider-outsider—part of the community, but also tasked with interpreting it for a broader audience. That vantage point required nuance. It required telling stories with enough depth and subtlety to move beyond caricature—to reveal a community in full dimension.
That experience stayed with me. It exposed both the power and the limits of representation. And it ultimately led me to found The Haitian Times—because I understood that if we did not build our own platform, our stories would always be filtered through someone else’s lens.
But before we built, something had to break.
When Abner Louima was brutally assaulted by police in Brooklyn, it was the Haitian American Alliance that stepped forward and helped lead the response. What had been simmering beneath the surface erupted into collective action. Thousands took to the streets. A community that had long operated in the margins asserted itself with clarity and force.
And when Patrick Dorismond was killed, that response did not dissipate—it sharpened. Again, the Haitian American Alliance played a central role, helping to channel outrage into organized protest. The marches became more disciplined, more strategic, more sustained. Advocacy groups strengthened. Coalitions formed. Leadership emerged.
Those were not spontaneous moments. They were organized. They were led. They were, in many ways, the political coming-of-age of Haitian Americans in New York.
They were not just sparks. They were the striking of steel against steel—the beginning of a forge.
In the years that followed, the community built. Organizations expanded. Cultural institutions deepened their roots. Media platforms like The Haitian Times began to fill the narrative vacuum. We moved from invisibility to recognition, and from recognition to representation. Haitian Americans began to win elected office. Doors that had once been sealed began to open.
But somewhere along the way, we mistook the opening of the door for ownership of the house.
We built visibility, but not enough structure. We gained access, but not enough discipline. We elevated leaders, but did not build the scaffolding needed to support—or restrain—them. We planted seeds, but did not fully tend the garden.
Today, the consequences of that gap are becoming increasingly visible. Haitian elected officials in places like New York and Florida have faced ethical questions, legal challenges, and public scrutiny. These are not isolated incidents. They are stress tests—and too often the system fails them.
This is not about individuals. It is about architecture.
Communities that sustain power do not rely on personalities; they rely on pillars. They build institutions that act as guardrails and anchors. They create systems that outlast ambition, ego, and even failure. Without those systems, progress becomes a house built on sand—impressive in appearance, but vulnerable to the first serious storm.
For Haitian Americans, this is the phase we have not fully entered.
The first phase of our modern history was visibility—we fought to be seen. The second was representation—we fought to be included. The phase before us now is more demanding: institution-building.
This is where the work shifts from protest to permanence.
It is quieter work. Less visible. Often thankless. But it is the difference between momentum and stability, between progress and permanence.
The Haitian American community today numbers more than a million people across the United States. It is vibrant, entrepreneurial, culturally rich. But potential without structure is like a river without banks—it spreads, but it does not deepen.
This is where institutions like The Haitian Times see their role evolving. Not just as storytellers, but as builders of connective tissue. Through convenings, partnerships, and platforms that link people across cities and sectors, we are working to transform a fragmented landscape into a coordinated ecosystem.
But no single institution can do this work alone. Nor should it.
This is a collective responsibility—a modern konbit, a traditional form of communal labor.
It requires organizations to collaborate rather than compete. It requires leaders to accept scrutiny as part of leadership, not an attack on it. It requires a community willing to invest not just in moments of pride, but in the sustained, often invisible work of building systems.
Most importantly, it requires a shift in mindset.
The question is no longer whether Haitian Americans will be recognized. That question has been answered. The real question is whether we are prepared to build something that can stand without constant repair—something that does not rise and fall with each new personality or crisis.
If we fail to do so, the pattern will continue. A breakthrough will be followed by setback. Progress will remain fragile.
But if we succeed—if we build with intention, discipline, and clarity—then the story changes. The next generation will inherit more than opportunity; they will inherit structure. Leadership will not stand alone; it will be reinforced. Accountability will not be optional; it will be expected.
The work ahead is not easy. It requires us to confront ourselves as much as we once confronted power.
But it is necessary.
Because in the end, history will not judge us by how loud we protested in moments of crisis. It will judge us by what we built when those moments passed—whether we turned fire into foundation, and whether we had the discipline to keep building long after the noise died down.
Garry Pierre-Pierre is the founder of The Haitian Times and former publisher and editor in chief. He is now chairman of the publication’s board of directors.
