"Haitian Odyssey"

INVESTIGATIVE CATEGORY

Houston Chronicle
03/09/2022

A detailed account of the cross-continental journey of Haitian migrants and the political, economic and social pressures that pushed them to leave home.

It started with a Slack message. A link to an image showing thousands of Haitian migrants under the Del Río-Ciudad Acuña International Bridge. Within an hour of reviewing the photo, Elizabeth Trovall was in her car, making the six-hour trip to Del Rio, Texas. Photographer Marie D. De Jesús left Houston that night and slept just a couple of hours in her car before the pair crossed into Acuña, Mexico, to interview Haitians at the border the next morning. Together they covered the leading breaking news story of Haitian border crossings in mid-September 2021, but both Trovall and De Jesús recognized there was a much bigger story. De Jesús knew about the Haitian crisis, as an experienced immigration photographer from Puerto Rico, and Trovall had witnessed Haitians fleeing their country when she lived in Chile. The pair saw a complex trans-continental migration story, one that spanned over a decade and began with the 2010 Haitian earthquake.

After covering the breaking news, Trovall returned to Houston and pursued follow-up stories about Haitian migrants in Houston-area shelters, and in the process of that continuing coverage she pitched the Haitian Odyssey project. The story would detail the political, economic and social pressures that pushed Haitians to leave their country – and then, after they settled in countries like Chile and Brazil – to leave again for the United States. The story would highlight the most dangerous part of the journey – the deadly hike through the Darién Gap – bringing focus to Haitians, a national group whose experience was more particular and related to poverty, catastrophe and racism.

Trovall’s detailed reporting on the ground level, coupled with De Jesus’ evocative visuals, created a multi-faceted, original story with dimension, specificity and accountability – one that brought humanity to an issue that is often simplified or flattened. “Haitian Odyssey” tells an inconvenient narrative, exploring how multiple governments, policies, disasters and social factors accounted for why Haitians left home – and then uprooted themselves from their second homes in South America for the United States. When President Joe Biden decided to fly thousands of Haitians – who had traveled 10,000 miles – back to Haiti, it sent a familiar message: “You are not welcome here.”

Throughout their reporting, Trovall and De Jesús encountered obstacles. From the start, in Del Rio and Acuña, Mexico, they struggled to find Haitians comfortable with being photographed and interviewed, or going on record. After traversing so many miles and overcoming so many challenges, many Haitians were understandably protective of their own images and stories. There were cultural and language barriers that made communication challenging. Though many Haitians spoke Spanish, their native language was Haitian Creole, which Trovall and De Jesús didn’t speak. Making connections under these circumstances required additional care, thoughtfulness, relationship-building, conversations, sensitivity and grit. Finding subjects and understanding their stories was a months-long endeavor. Trovall kept in touch with a number of Haitians on WhatsApp as they moved northward, following multiple journeys and building relationships with migrants as their stories unfolded.

Trovall and De Jesús also took on a number of logistical and physical challenges, reporting in extreme heat and chaotic conditions in the Rio Grande and from remote and insecure locations in South America, where they put their own health and safety on the line. These risks were most acute in northern Colombia, where they interviewed people traveling through the Darién Gap and joined migrants for part of that treacherous journey. The journalists’ horse-drawn cart got stuck in the mud, and a boat propeller broke. They slept under the stars in an encampment in the jungle, in a territory controlled by smugglers.

Together, their work reframed the narrative in the U.S. about how Haitians ended up under the bridge in Del Rio, Texas. The project unraveled a complicated international narrative for U.S. readers that has facilitated a greater understanding of the factors driving migration among some of the most imperiled migrants in the Americas.

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Submitted by Elizabeth Pudwill.