Image: Lepelletier de Saint Remy
Haiti is a country with a vibrant history and culture, being the world’s first predominantly Black republic, the first independent Caribbean state and the second country in the Western Hemisphere to declare independence from their colonizers after the United States. Haiti helped countless countries in Latin America achieve independence, despite the threats from countries in the Western World, and a Haitian man helped invent the pocket machine gun. Yet, this diverse country and its people have continuously been reduced to their systemic poverty and now disgusting stereotypes based on lies, spread by the Trump/Vance campaign.
You’ve probably heard the baseless rumors being spread about immigrants “eating the cats and dogs” in the town of Springfield, Ohio. Springfield is a town with a predominant Haitian population, with around 12,000 to 15,000 coming to the town within four years due to a low cost of living and a need for workers. Coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic and political instability in Haiti, Springfield seemed like a great place to live compared to their previous conditions. In 2024, the United States granted Haitian immigrants temporary protected status, allowing them to live in the country without risk of deportation. So they continued to build lives in Springfield, holding Creole masses and establishing Caribbean restaurants in the midst of economic and political concern in the cities they moved to. Because of this, along with the fact that they are Black in a predominantly white country, it became easy for people to harbor feelings of xenophobia towards these asylum seekers. There have been multiple accounts of a neo-nazi group attacking these immigrants and protesting their presence in the city, leading up to the straw that broke the camel’s back: JD Vance spreading reports of Haitian immigrants eating cats and dogs after seeing a Facebook post from a woman claiming that a neighbor’s cat was eaten by one.
The creator of the Facebook post, Erika Lee, has since regretted spreading this misinformation, claiming in the initial post that she was not sure if she was a credible source, since she heard the story from a friend of a friend, and it was not her own cat that was lost. Lee told NBC that “It just exploded into something I didn’t mean to happen.”
It has been suggested that the cause of this rumor were reports of an American-born woman named Alexis T. Ferrell eating a cat in the city of Canton, Ohio, as video footage of the woman’s arrest was used and spread around by fake news networks. To me, this is very reminiscent of the Asian hate back in 2020, when people blamed them for spreading the COVID-19 pandemic, or Muslims being blamed for 9/11. There is no logical basis beyond this bigotry, it’s just plain racist.
While we may be laughing about how ridiculous these rumors seem now, making jokes about Trump’s references to it during the debate, it is essential that we don’t ignore the harm these rumors are actually doing. Because they’re more than rumors; they’re prejudiced and racist, dehumanizing a group of over one million people currently living in the United States, representing 0.35% of the population. This is only repeating the pattern of xenophobia we’ve shown towards immigrants throughout history: from the Irish immigration wave in the aftermath of the famine, Asian immigration during the Gold Rush, the Southern and Eastern European immigration wave in the late 19th and early 20th century to the West Asian and Latin American immigration that is common today. This rhetoric isn’t funny: it affects actual people.
Ever since these rumors started, Haitian Americans have been fearing for their safety, enduring bomb threats, vitriolic phone calls, vandalism and attacks not just in Springfield, but in the entire United States. “We have to be careful where we go,” Haitian immigrant Viles Dorsainvil told Reuters. “[My friend] said that things are getting out of hand now; the way people are treating us, making bad comments about us.” And according to The Haitian Times, many Haitian children in America are being kept home from school in fear of bullying and retaliation. “I’m going to have to move because this area is no longer good for me,” an anonymous resident said. “I can’t even leave my house to go to Walmart. I’m so anxious and scared.”
“I couldn’t stop crying for my mom who came here without her family,” says Haitian American TikToker and photographer Jess Ballerstein, as she wiped away her tears. “I couldn’t stop crying for millions of Haitians who are going through it right now. I know I’m not the only one.”
Of course, it’s important to know that anti-Haitian racism has been here long before Springfield, Ohio. Once the richest colony in the Western Hemisphere, when the Haitians revolted against their slave owners and colonizers, the American newspapers talked badly about them and spread racist propaganda against their leaders in fear of retaliation against white people. Thomas Jefferson refused to grant Haitians sovereignty and cut off all aid with the country, which was the beginning of a 140-year period that denied Haiti economic success, made worse by their eventual 20 year occupation in the 20th century. Because of the nature of their revolution, in 1825, France ordered Haitians to pay reparations for what has been termed as “lost property,” but in reality, Haitians were paying for their own bodies and labor. Formerly enslaved Haitians were paying the families which had previously purported ownership over them, now they were being forced, via the threat of war, to pay these families and France for their own bodies. It’s hypocritical, France is praised for their revolution but Haiti is scorned for theirs — and for the next 122 years, 80% of their income went into paying off this debt, only worsened through Haiti’s double debt, the result of a loan France pressured Haiti to take out and whose commissions and interest greatly benefited French bankers. Beyond that, France maintained ownership over Haiti, as not only does the paying system allow them to claim ownership of Haitians’ bodies, but France had ownership of Haiti’s banks until 1914, at which point the United States overtook ownership until 1947.
Stories about Haitians eating animals have existed for over 200 years, even going so far as to accuse them of cannibalism, which made people far less likely to support them. And the aid that we give Haiti benefits the NGOs more than the actual Haitian Government. All of these factors led to Haiti being the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and despite it being out of their control, they are continuously blamed and mocked for it.
It pains me that the single story about Haiti being spread right now is their pain instead of their culture, that they are being relegated to such a disgusting stereotype, that this is what our generation is going to know about Haitians first and foremost. We cannot let that happen. We cannot let Haitians merely be a group of people we either dehumanize or pity, whether they live in Haiti or abroad. It’s unfair that horrible conditions have led them to leave their ancestral home, but the least we can do is ensure that they are welcome here in this country. All people deserve the right to not be dehumanized because of their culture and race, and their country and culture is one that needs to be respected. We need to ensure that Haitian immigrants in the entire United States, not just Springfield, feel safe and supported here in our country, including in West Chester. It is our responsibility to educate ourselves on Haitian culture and be the generation that breaks this cycle of systemic racism.
So, the next time you hear this harmful rhetoric, speak out, because you never know if there’s a Haitian kid afraid to come to school.
Emily Rutz is a first-year English Major. ER1034711@wcupa.edu