Marleine Bastien: Basic Human Rights for Immigrants, Florida

Be Here Stories

This snapshot was gathered in conjunction with the Museum on Main Street program at the Smithsonian Institution and its "Stories from Main Street" initiative. The project is intended to capture Americans' impressions and stories about their small-town and rural neighborhoods, waterways, personal memories, cultural traditions, work histories, and thoughts about American democracy. This story is from a group of narratives inspired by the Smithsonian traveling exhibition, "Voices and Votes: Democracy in America." Marleine Bastien: (00:01) My name is Marleine Bastien, and I'm the founder and executive director of Family Action Network Movement. (00:07) Family Action Network Movement is a social advocacy group that provides wraparound services to families, and then organize its membership around issues of importance such as affordable housing, climate gentrification, access to healthcare, which we consider a basic human right, and immigration. (00:29) So, I've been living here since 1981. I came here as a young refugee. I applied for political asylum, and I did not get it. And as many Haitians who were detained when they came, I was not detained, but many Haitians were detained when they came. They settled in Little Haiti. (00:50) Little Haiti at the time was a blighted and depressed neighborhood with a lot of drugs and drunkenness and very, blighted. But the Haitian refugees and immigrant have turned it into a very vibrant and dynamic, culturally inclusive neighborhood. (01:14) And unfortunately, now after living here for so many years, and working hard because Haitians are known to be very hard workers, very entrepreneurial, they have strong belief in education, and most of them came for better lives, not only for themselves, but also for their families. (01:37) So, of course, living here has been very exciting over the years. As a young refugee who volunteered at the Haitian Refugee Center, two days after I arrived here, I grew up under the Diwali dictatorship. And when I came here, people were basically on the streets every day. (02:00) At that time, Haitians were detained a mass in complete denial of their basic rights of due process. So, after they settled, of course, they had to find jobs, they have to find schools, employment for themselves and schools for their families. And I was part of that. So I can say that it's been a very, very, very active community because we were on the streets. We had to fight for our rights, we had to fight for our lives. And now we are still fighting. We are fighting to stay because thousands of our members facing deportation to Haiti, and we are fighting to keep the space that we built, which is Little Haiti. (02:46) But Little Haiti is beautiful. It's wonderful, it's vibrant, it's inclusive, it's sexy. It is very welcoming and warm. When you come to Little Haiti, you are immediately welcome no matter where you are from. And that's what we like about it, and that's what we'd like to preserve. (03:07) We believe that those who live in this community, they have a right to organize and be their own spokesperson, their own advocate, because we believe that no one can express better what they are going through than those who are directly impacted. Asset ID: 2022.35.02.b Find a complete transcript at www.museumonmainstreet.org