How Jessica became interested in Haitian Immigration


When I was about 10 years old, while homeschooling on a boat in the Bahamas, to my great delight, a Haitian wreck had washed up on what we called “Pig Beach,” one of my favorite beaches in the Exumas (a chain of islands in the southern Bahamas). The 30ft sail boat lay on its side on the beach with its mast protruding out over the water. A piece of rope dangled from the tip of the mast, with its end just barely reaching the water.  It was the perfect swing! At high tide my brother and I would swing out over the water like Tarzan of the sea. And this was not the only use we got out of the Haitian wreck. Besides exploring the ship and playing pirates, my family and others boaters used the wood from it to have bonfires on the beach until one year we came back and there was nothing left of it.
            As a child it never occurred to me that there could have been 50 or 60 Haitian immigrants packed into that boat that we played on and they may have all drowned in the storm that washed it up onto the shore of this uninhabited island. As I grew older I began to become more aware of what the Bahamians refer to as the “Haitian problem in the Bahamas.” Throughout my travels in the Bahamas (covering tens of thousands of square miles) we encountered many other submerged Haitian wrecks. I would always explore them with great curiosity as well as a fear of seeing a dead body. Fortunately we never encountered any drowned Haitians.  
            The emotional impact of the pity I felt for Haitian refugees did not set in until I encountered a Haitian boat captained by live, starving Haitian refugees. It never really hit me how powerful a motive Haitian refugees must have to risk their lives by piling into over-packed, tiny, makeshift, sail boats to make a more than three week journey though unstable weather conditions and unnavigable waters in search of the Bahamas or America until I saw it first hand.
            While my family was spearfishing about 11 miles offshore, to the west of Staniel Cay (an island in the Exumas) we spotted a tiny sailboat on the distance. As we approached we immediately realized that it was a Haitian sailboat. The hull was painted a rusty color and made of visible wooden planks poorly nailed together. The deck was covered in pieces of asphalt roofing to keep the water out. The mast was simply a tree with is branches cut off and the boom was another piece of tree loosely strapped to the mast by various pieces of string. Its sail, barely filled with air due to lack of wind, was made of pieces of rags and parts of a beer advertisement banner hand-sewed together. As we came closer I noticed a few black men scrambling around on deck.  I could sense the fear in their eyes as we zoomed toward them in our small gray inflatable with a forty horse-power engine.
            My dad had the brilliant idea of giving them all the food we brought with us for lunch that day and some water. We came up alongside the boat. Three of the skinniest, saddest, darkest men I have ever seen stood on the deck nervously awaiting our arrival. I handed them a plastic bag full of salami, carrots, goat cheese, and Ritz crackers, and my brother handed them a jug of water. I could feel the sigh of relief that passed over the refugees when they realized we were not Bahamian officials coming to capture them. Although they seemed happy to receive the food, I have never seen anyone appreciate water as much as they did. The man who took the water immediately opened the jug and chugged it before passing it to the other man who did the same. It looked as if they hadn’t seen fresh water in days and the truth is that they probably hadn’t. We tried to talk to them but they spoke no English so we left; but the image of those desperate faces never left my head.
Prior to this experience my encounters with abandoned Haitian wrecks gave me the sense that Haitian refugees were a story of the past. Surely no country in the 21st century could be in such bad condition that residents would still flee it in the same manner as those who perished off the coast of the Bahamas in the years past. My encounter with real Haitian refugees on their boat brought it all into perspective and made me realize this is a story of the present, not a story of the past.