Race, Nation, or Community? Political Strategy and Identity-Making within the Transnational Haitian Diaspora in Miami's "Little Haiti"

Abstract:This study examines the lived realities of Haitian American community leaders and volunteers residing in the "Little Haiti" community of Miami, Florida, whose experiences as both Black and migrant shape the formation of their communities and political strategies as an ethnic group. Theories of race and ethnicity, transnationalism, and diaspora inform this work and illustrate how Black migrants utilize strategies of political alliances across ethnic and racial categories and in global contexts. Eight in-depth, semistructured interviews with employees and volunteers at a local community center in Little Haiti revealed a diasporic political and cultural consciousness maintained through transnational forms of solidarity. This paper explores how an ethnic community becomes unified as diaspora, and how its members become more socially and globally aware as a consequence of their migrant experience.