Elusive Dreams in Exile

Carnival, the pre-Lent celebration of food, music and merrymaking, came two days early to Miami's Little Haiti this year. After Haitian President-for-Life Jean-Claude Duvalier boarded a plane for France last week, hundreds of Haitian immigrants, some still dressed in their pajamas, streamed into the streets to cheer the youthful dictator's fall. Pedestrians danced and sang, and car drivers happily honked their horns as swelling numbers of Miami's 60,000 Haitians joined the revelry.

Their delight in Baby Doc's ouster was obvious. But were they happy enough to want to return to Haiti? In Miami and New York City, which have the largest Haitian enclaves in the U.S., some people claimed their bags were already packed. But most were circumspect. "I want to go back today, but I must wait until I see who is going to run things," said Philippe Georges, 58, a sewing machine mechanic in Miami's garment district. "The boy wasn't the only bad one in Haiti."

Most of the estimated 400,000 Haitians who now live in the U.S. fled their country to escape political oppression and the country's unrelenting poverty. Thousands mortgaged their lives to secure the money for their boat passage, which often cost as much as $1,500, and many lost loved ones in the often treacherous Caribbean crossing. Once ashore, all but a few failed to realize the legendary American dream. In New York City, where as many as 70,000 ) Haitians live, only 10,000 or so are professionals. A large number are hospital workers, blue-collar laborers and domestics who work long hours and earn low wages. In addition, many are illegal aliens living in constant fear of deportation. Even so, the prospect of returning to a country where the average annual per capita income is under $300 and the political future is still uncertain seems unlikely to set off an immediate rush homeward.

The first wave of Haitians washed up on American shores in the late 1950s. They were primarily doctors, engineers and other professionals who came armed with immigration papers. In 1972 the onslaught of illegal aliens fleeing Haiti in rickety boats began. They too claimed that they were seeking political asylum, but many of these penniless, illiterate, unskilled boat people seemed to be in desperate search of work. As the annual influx climbed to 20,000 in 1980, the welcome mat was withdrawn. In June 1981, the first group of illegal aliens was deported. A month later, President Reagan declared that it was time to "establish control over immigration." U.S. officials revived a policy that had been abandoned 27 years earlier: detention of illegal aliens until their petitions for asylum could be reviewed. Since then the courts have battled over the policy's constitutionality. The Supreme Court intends to rule on the matter.

In the meantime, the Haitian aliens have seen their work permits revoked and have lost their federal benefits, including unemployment compensation. Outside their tightly knit communities, they have been shunned for their disputed link to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and often misunderstood for the practice of voodoo that many of them brought along from the old country. Even so, the immigration wave has continued. Indeed, the latest group arrived off the coast of Florida last Friday, just hours before Duvalier fled Haiti.