Haitian-U.S. migration-manoomin epistemology: What can we learn about inter-species kinship?

Lidia K Garcia Berrelleza

Manoomin, a more-than-human relative and plant teacher. Photo by Lorie Shaull, CC BY 2.0.

Haitians have been coming to the United States over the span of three centuries, from the French occupation of Haiti as enslaved people to present day as free people in search of new opportunities. Beginning in the 1950s, various contexts ranging from repressive regimes to environmental disasters brought Haitians to the U.S. in the 20th and 21st centuries. In both academic and political discourse why Haitians are migrating abroad, environmental factors have received lesser attention compared to the refugee/economic binary.

Manoomin (wild rice) is a more-than-human relative and plant teacher integral to Anishinaabe culture, food sovereignty, income, and identity in the Great Lakes ecosystem. It thrives when it is part of high-quality, high functioning, biodiverse ecosystems and serves as an indicator of an ecosystem’s health. Using Anishinaabe teaching and relationality to manoomin reveals the complex connections that humans have to their ecosystems and cosmologies. In connection to the Anishinaabe epistemology & cosmology understanding of relationality and kinship, I conceptualise manoomin and Haitians to operate as relatives and as reflections of their environment; not detached entities (as Western epistemology and pedagogy uphold) but rather interconnected within their ecologies.

Why Haitians have been coming to the U.S. in recent decades is rooted in ecological and environmental displacement; this disruption in Haiti’s ecosystem has forced Haitians to move abroad. Instead of focusing on the separation of nation-states and their immigration policies, I argue for a shift in thinking among both academics and policy makers about how nation-states’ policies are creating separate ecologies and cosmologies. My focus is on ecological proximity instead of distance, showing how Manoomin and Haitians both serve as litmus tests within their ecologies. 

The first Haitians to escape political unrest in Haiti during the 1950-1960s were elites who belonged to white-collar professions. Starting in the 1970s, Haitians were coming to the United States by sea and landing in South Florida. This 1970s wave was viewed as coming without authorisation, poor, and coming for economic reasons. This new wave was referred to as “boat people”, and the U.S. government quickly responded by intercepting vessels en route to Florida and detaining Haitians who made their way to U.S. soil.

During the second half of the 20th century, there was a strong tension over whether Haitians should be considered refugees or economic immigrants. Haitians in the U.S. have largely been excluded from being refugees. The current internationally accepted definition of “refugee” or “asylum seeker” does not take into consideration the impacts of “climate” on humans’ lives, or their survival and livelihoods. Haiti, like many countries that are the least likely to contribute to climate change, is one of the most heavily impacted.

This binary of whether an immigrant can be politically or economically motivated leaves out that environmental factors are not mutually exclusive of political economies. A major concern was that Haitian migration would create a pathway of increased unauthorised immigration to the United States by other immigrant groups. Even though statistically, Haitians were less likely to arrive than e.g. Cubans, agency officials from the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) were concerned that other immigrants from the Caribbean and Central America might attempt to come and stay if Haitians were given the status of refugees.

This false refugee/economic immigrant binary of viewing Haitians and other immigrant groups restricts the possibilities on why many people in many instances are forced to migrate. The U.S.’s response is embedded in trying to categorise immigrants into refugees or not. This has resulted in an isolated cosmology and the literal isolation of Haitians in spaces like detention centers. This relationality is then used to “warn” future immigrants about what happens when immigrants come to the U.S. unauthorised. Haitians and other immigrants near the Caribbean are viewed as interchangeable and categorically grouped as an exclusionary practice. 

Despite being struck by four hurricanes in 2008, the United States government refused to designate Haiti as a country eligible for Temporary Protection Status (TPS). TPS, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS) is a designation that allows foreign nationals to temporarily reside, work, and even study in the United States if their country is deemed ‘unsafe to return to’. The 2008 conditions would fall under ‘ongoing armed conflict (such as civil war), an environmental disaster (such as earthquakes or hurricane), or an epidemic, other extraordinary and temporary conditions’. Ultimately, this is another instance of Haitians being denied entry into the U.S and where ecological factors are not given the same importance within the refugee/economic binary.

The U.S. is able to take advantage of the physical water barrier, distance, and strategically neighbouring Cuba's land, like Guantanamo Bay, to deter Haitians from setting foot on U.S. soil. The U.S.’s ecology is not constrained to its land borders. Instead, the U.S. captures other nations’ land resources to enact its policies.

Using manoomin as a plant teacher demonstrates that both the wild rice and Haitians are used as indicators for current and future conditions such as soil quality, arrival reception, and the kind of ecology that will unfold. If we think further with manoomin, it affirms that many peoples immigrate to survive when their ecology changes. While borders uphold claims to unceded lands, current immigrant laws must change to encompass environmental factors like hurricanes that force people to move. Manoomin reveals that the binary of the refugee/ economic immigrant leaves out a myriad of people. Manooomin becomes a way for academics and policy makers to strongly consider the environmental factors that force people to migrate. Our ecologies are purposely separated by immigration policies and borders, and approaching immigration as ecological proximity and relationality can very much change the outcome of those migrating.

As manoomin is an indicator of the health within its ecosystem, I propose that Haitians similarly serve as a test case for other immigrant groups. Haitian immigration and people are a reflection of how ecology drives immigrants to move. Contemporary understandings of immigration narrowly focus on the refugee/economic binary, excluding more nuanced understandings that affect Haitians and other groups that have had to migrate due to changes in their environment. Haitian displacement is not unique, rather manoonim teaches us how necessary a healthy environment is needed for all life to thrive.

Relationality is erased in effect to legitimise borders, laws, and the sovereignty of colonial settler nation-states. Land and food sovereignty alongside kinship and self-determination become deprioritised when academics and policy makers should be turning to these ecologies for alternative ways of thinking about immigration. With plant teachers like manoomin, much more can be uncovered about our more-than-human and human connection to each other and think beyond imposed barriers to mobility. The manoomin, Haitians, and we are all related and connected.

Lidia K Garcia Berrelleza

Lidia is a scholar-activist, proud immigrant and Midwesterner at the University of Maryland. Building on both prior research and extensive organising experience, her doctoral work examines the complexities and nuances of state-sanctioned violence against illegalised populations in the United States. Lidia is currently examining the connection to the land, the narratives that build and sustain nation-states, and how undocumented knowledge is critical to the free movement of people.