Haitians Heading to Brazil

Today's New York Times brought a bit of news I hadn't read anywhere before, which is that Haitians have begun to emigrate from their still post-earthquake ravaged nation to Brazil, which over the last decade, under center-left governments, has become an economic powerhouse. The self-described "Country of the Future" is now one of the countries of today, with 5.2% unemployment drawing not only educated professionals from Europe, Latin America and the United States, but laborers from across the developing world. 

According to Simon Romero's Times article, "Haitians Take Arduous Path to Brazil, and Jobs," around 4,000 Haitians arrived in Brazil since the 2010 earthquake, usually traveling via Ecuador, which has looser vias policies, and have thus arrived at border posts at the edge of Brazil's Amazonian states of Acre and Amazonas.  Romero states that some of the Haitians have been robbed during their journey to Brazil and the wait for legal entry to Brazil has placed some in conditions not unlike what they experienced at hom, but the immigrants are willing to take the risk because of the continuing dire conditions in Haiti, where rebuilding in the capital and other devastated regions has moved at a glacial pace, and because of the job opportunities at Brazil's hydroelectric plants and in its burgeoning industries. I would imagine that the new infrastructure for the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics are also going to provide opportunities, though despite its economic advances, still has a large population of impoverished and barely working-class people, especially across its historically economically disadvantaged northeast.

From Douglas Engle's NY Times clip

Brazil has provided the new arrivals with vaccinations, clean water, and two meals a day at the border posts like Brasiléia, where they stay until granted humanitarian visas, but I imagine if the flow of Haitians and other potential immigrants increases, Brazil will begin to step up border security and patrols. The video clip by Romero and Douglas Engle that accompanies Romero's article says that the local reception of the Haitians has been fairly positive, though a Brazilian also notes local alarm at and some prejudice towards the large number of arrivals, because they're foreign, speak a different language and are "black," though he, like Romero, notes the Haitians have caused "no problems." Some Haitian immigrants have already settled in cities like Manaus, the largest city in the Amazon, and Porto Velho, while others are being courted by companies located in states such as Santa Catarina, in Brazil's rich southern region, and others, like one polyglot cited by Romero, hope to settle in São Paulo, the center for Brazilian industry.

From Douglas Engle's NY Times clip

Jay Forte writes in the Rio Times that Brazil's government has issued new limited work visas for the Haitians, on humanitarian grounds, thus allowing the immigrants work in Brazil instead of remaining stranded at the country's northwestern ports of entry. The immigrants will receive a Cédula de Identidade do Estrangeiro (CIE), or Foreign Identity Card.  Brazil has already spent about 1 billion reais, or about $US 557 million on relief and reconstruction since the Haitian earthquake occurred on January 12, 2011.  The visas will be granted through the Haitian embassy in Port-au-Prince, and allow up to 1,200 Haitians to enter per year. Once they have their status legalized, Haitians will be able to bring immediate family members such as spouses or partners, parents, and children under the age of 24.  According to Forte, in 2009 former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva signed a law granting amnesty to all foreign nationals living without documentation in Brazil, with the possibility of residency status in two years; among the largest groups of undocumented residents in Brazil are, in descending order, nationals from China, Peru, Bolivia, and Korea.

From Douglas Engle's NY Times clip

The Haitian immigrants Haitians are choosing Brazil, as both Romero and Forte note, at the very moment that Brazil is withdrawing the last of its peacekeeping forces, initially sent after the coup, allegedly orchestrated by the United States and France, that ousted democratically elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004. Brazil's forces, which anchored the United Nations Stabilization Mission In Haiti (UNSTAMIH), had number as many as 2,200, the largest of any of the countries contributing military personnel, but with the expiration of the UN mandate, extended to October 2011, Brazil's and the other countries' forces were set to leave. I am curious to see how Brazil responds to the Haitian immigrants over the longer term, and whether the new government of Dilma Rousseff, a member of the Worker's Party and ideologically to the left of former president Lula, will continue to show the same openness to immigrants, especially if the economy loses its punch or if the volume of those seeking jobs dramatically increases. I also wonder whether the United States, long the primary destination, alongside Haiti's neighbor the Dominican Republic, of Haitian immigrants, will lose its appeal to Brazil over the long haul. The ties between the US and Haiti date back to the American Revolution, but since the Haitian Revolution, the US has repeatedly and often disastrously meddled in Haiti's internal and external affairs.

2011 Rugby World Cup Begins

Long time, no sports chatter here. Tonight the National Football League's season begins, while Major League Baseball's season is winding down, and I'll write more about both of those sports soon, but today, a different focus: the 2011 Rugby World Cup.  Running from September 9 through October 23, 2011, the matches will take place in various cities in New Zealand/Aotearoa, including Auckland, Dunedin, Hamilton, Invercargill, Napier, Rotorua, and the capital, Wellington.  Despite still recovering from its last, fairly recent earthquake, New Zealand has readied all the pitches and the matches will go forward.

The United States fields one of 20 teams in the tournament, and is in Pool C, with Australia, Ireland, Italy and Russia. The other pools are A, with host country and powerhouse NZ, Canada, France, Japan and Tonga; Pool B features Argentina, England, Scotland, Georgia, and Romania; and Pool D, which comprises Fiji, Namibia, South Africa, Samoa, and Wales. I am no expert on rugby and have never played it, though my high school and undergraduate alma mater had teams, and only follow it from afar, but I think I'm safe in saying two things: the United States is not a favorite to win, and outside of the upcoming 2012 London Olympics, this is one of the rare events where you'll see athletes from such countries as Georgia, Samoa, Namibia, and Tonga participating and competing against each other.

Matches begin at 8:30 pm today (already September 9) Auckland time, with the host country's famed and revered All Blacks facing off against the team from Tonga. Tomorrow Scotland faces Romania, Fiji squares off against Namibia, France takes on Japan, and Argentina challenges England. The US doesn't have its first match until Sunday, September 11 (I didn't plan this event), against Ireland at Stadium Taranaki in New Plymouth, on west coast of NZ's North Island.

Here are some very recent photos from New Zealand. Enjoy, and I'll be posting more soon.

Filipo Levi of Samoa, in Rotorua (Getty Images)

England's Shontayne Hape, surrounded by fans in Christchurch (Getty Images)

England's coach Martin Johnson inspects earthquake damage at the stadium where his team will playing in Christchurch (Getty Images)

Taniela Moa of Tonga, at Eden Park (Getty Images)

Members of the USA squad prepare to board a traditional Maori waka during the team welcome ceremony to RWC 2011 at Putiki Marae in Whanganui, New Zealand. (Getty Images)

William Servat, Nicolas Mas and Fulgence Ouedraogo line up to receive a gift at the official French team welcome at Orakei Marae in Auckland (Getty Images)

Argentina players take part in a leg stretching exercise during their training session in Dunedin (Getty Images)

Kurtley Beale of Australia's Wallabies is tackled by Nick Phipps during training for the opening match against Italy (Getty Images)

Ma'a Nonu has a reason to smile, he was handed the New Zealand All Blacks number 13 jersey for the Rugby World Cup 2011 opener against Tonga on 9 September (Getty Images)

Red letter day: The Tongan team warm up during the Captain's Run at Eden Park in Auckland (Getty Images)

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard talks to James O'Connor of the Wallabies during a meeting with the team in Auckland (Getty Images)

Russian Vladislav Korshunov expressed his condolences to families of those killed in the Russian plane crash (Getty Images)

Japan's Fumiaki Tanaka belts out a song for the crowd after arriving at Auckland International Airport (Getty Images)

Eastquake

Bryant Park, after the quake

I'll admit it: I didn't feel it. I didn't feel anything. When the Eastquake or Virginiaquake or DCquake, the 5.8 earthquake centered near Mineral, Virginia (not far from where we used to live in Charlottesville) hit today, instead of sitting at my usual spot in the New York Public Library and pressing forward with my novel, I was dallying over a cup of coffee and the new New Yorker's unsettling article, by Jeffrey Toobin, on Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, the Tea Party doyenne. I felt not a single seism or aftershock. BUT I realized soon enough that the hordes of people packing Bryant Park weren't just there to get some air, and I decided to ask someone what was going on. One man told me that he'd had to flee his 42nd St. office tower because of the swaying caused by the earthquake. I was incredulous. And then I overheard a number of people talking about it, so I asked a woman what was going on, and she said that her floor in the 42nd St. high rise in which she worked was swaying, and that it was "scary" and made her a little "nauseous." She said she had left voluntarily, but that others had been evacuated.  As I sat back down I overheard another person say it could be felt "all the way out in New Jersey," so I texted C, who was "all the way out in New Jersey" but hadn't heard or felt anything. I then checked Twitter and my HuffingtonPost app, and there it was: the earthquake!

Bryant Park, after the quake

It did some damage in Washington, DC and the environs (though thankfully not to the nearby nuclear power plant), but served up nothing more than tremors further north and south.  A few tweets later and my coffee finished, I decided to press my way through the throngs and try to get some writing done. One of the guards in the 42nd St. entrance told me that people in the opulent main reading room, on the 3rd floor, had felt the floor shaking, and that the chandeliers also were swaying (!). Outside the study room where I read and write every day, the guard told me that his wife had called from the Bronx to say that the furniture in their apartment had moved. (Really, I thought? Okay.) In the study room, however, the scholars and writers were quietly taking notes, revising manuscripts, undertaking translations, tapping away at their keyboards, as if nothing had happened. On my way home, as I walked down 32nd St. to the PATH and passed under the awning of the La Quinta Manhattan, one of the bellhops was saying to everyone, "Everybody good? We survived the New York Summer Earthquake 2011!" A grin filled his face as people darted past, indifferently.

The Earthquake in Chile

I didn't want another week to pass before I completed a post, but as I've noted before, I'm teaching 3 classes this quarter, two of them fiction-writing courses, and one is a novella-writing class (which extends, semester-length, into the spring quarter). This means a mountain of reading, and rereading/editing/marking up. There are also a lot of other things to read through (work by ongoing grad students, administrative takes, new graduate students' materials, etc.), with the result that I just haven't been able to finish a thought on here, though I've started several. I've also found that since returning in January, beyond dates or university meetings, which I have not missed, I cannot keep dates in my head; they swirl around, and March becomes April, things that are happening at 5 pm I keep thinking are happening at 6 pm (EST), or if they're on a Saturday my mind makes it a Sunday. I'm not sure what's causing this chronological disruption, but I have had to resort to reading my calendar faithfully every day just to be sure I'm not mistaking one event's date for another.

***

Post-Earthquake Chile

I want to register my sincere sympathies for and with the people of Chile, who suffered one of the strongest earthquakes on record early yesterday morning. As the news reports are making clear, the 8.8 Richter scale offshore quake cut a 400-mile gash underwater, caused severe damage to several of Chile's largest cities, including the capital, Santiago; Concepción, one of its largest; and Curico, one of its most important historical sites; and the port of Tahualcano.  AP reported that:

President Michelle Bachelet declared a "state of catastrophe" in central Chile but said the government had not asked for assistance from other countries. If it does, President Barack Obama said, the United States "will be there." Around the world, leaders echoed his sentiment.

In Chile, newly built apartment buildings slumped and fell. Flames devoured a prison. Millions of people fled into streets darkened by the failure of power lines. The collapse of bridges tossed and crushed cars and trucks, and complicated efforts to reach quake-damaged areas by road.

At least 214 people were killed and 15 were missing as of Saturday evening, Bachelet said in a national address on television. While that remained the official estimate, Carmen Fernandez, head of the National Emergency Agency, said later: "We think the real figure tops 300. And we believe this will continue to grow."

Bachelet also said 1.5 million people had been affected by the quake, and officials in her administration said 500,000 homes were severely damaged.

In Talca, just 65 miles (105 kilometers) from the epicenter, people sleeping in bed suddenly felt like they were flying through major airplane turbulence as their belongings cascaded around them from the shuddering walls at 3:34 a.m. (1:34 a.m. EST, 0634 GMT).

A deafening roar rose from the convulsing earth as buildings groaned and clattered. The sound of screams was confused with the crash of plates and windows. Then the earth stilled, silence returned and a smell of damp dust rose in the streets, where stunned survivors took refuge.

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day + Rebuilding Haiti + Ray's Candy Shop + Jets Win!

Readers, I am now having to confront regular spammers who, I assume, are paid to post ad, phishing or malbot links on the blog. If these continue, I may have to move to a moderated comment approach, though I've always wanted to avoid that because I want it to be easy for people to post directly to the blog. I've been flamed on here only a few times; one of the most memorable to me was during the middle of George W. Bush's second term, when I posted snarkily on the Disaster-in-Chief and a pro-Bushite posted to defend him and slam me. Another came when I gave a mixed review of John Adams's opera Dr. Atomic (great music, muddled, undramatic libretto). But I'm willing to live with respondents, even negative, vituperative ones. Spammers are in a completely different category...

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It's Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and it strikes me that the Reverend Dr. King Jr. (1929-1968), who gave his life so that we could be free, would have had some profound things to say about our current era, including our first African-American president, Barack Obama, whose election he made possible; the ongoing and proliferating wars and imperial projects, promoted by said African-American president, that the US is involved in; the terrible financial situation wrought by conservatives and neoliberals, and the struggle, by millions of Americans and American immigrants, for a decent and sustaining wage, a roof over their heads, an affordable education, and the ability to live in dignity and be treated with respect; the continuing cancers of racism, sexism and misogyny, classism, and, I believe, homophobia and heterosexism; and the situation in our Hemisphere and continental neighbor, Haiti.

Jack & Jill Politics is already on this meditation, so I'll link to their post from several days ago, on Rev. Dr. King Jr.'s actual birthday (January 15), called "What Martin Luther King Would Say About Haiti On His Birthday." What they note is that Rev. Dr. King Jr., as is well known, spoke out about the Vietnam War and American imperialism, and they quote his speech on this topic to extrapolate on how he might respond to the multiple challenges Haiti is facing. One noteworthy issue, which I hope our government notes, is the discrepancy between the billions being blown on military engagements (Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, Colombia, etc.) and support of dictatorial regimes (Egypt, Uzbekistan, etc.) and the comparatively paltry $100 million the US pledged towards Haitian relief. Many of those billions, of course, ought to have been and should be spent rebuilding the US ECONOMY, which was effective nuked by the conservative-neoliberal fantasists of the last 25 years, instead of being funneled into a for-profit military-industrial machine whose actions and accounting most taxpayers will never know. But I know that I'm talking about a fantasy of recognition that won't be happening. Instead, we will keep pouring money into "war on terrorism" phantasms, which is to say, the military industrial complex, and scolding Haiti when it doesn't turn things around fast enough, or pay off the onerous debts and financial burdens that so terribly weakened its foundations, and those of numerous other countries around the world, before the earthquake hit. Now, to quote the incontrably more eloquent Rev. Dr. King Jr.:

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

Remembering Jacmel Too

Today's New York Times has a Lede blog post about a Miami Herald report on the situation in Jacmel, Haiti, the country's arts capital, which sits to the southwest of Port-au-Prince. Jacmel/Jakmèl also suffered considerable damage during Tuesday's earthquake, whose epicenter lay between the two cities. While the media have focused a great deal of attention on the situation in Port-au-Prince, the people of Jacmel are suffering as well. To give one example, an estimated 100 students and teachers were crushed to death when the building housing the Eunasmoh Institute, a technical college, collapsed. Further complicating matters, the road north to Port-au-Prince remains blocked by debris, making it very difficult for rescuers or supplies to get through.

The Times blog post points to this Vimeo.com page, set up by students at Jacmel's Ciné Institute, that documents the devastation in that city. Ciné Institute is reportedly Haiti's only film school. According to the Times, the school's building and many of its cameras were destroyed, but all but one of the 60 students survived, and when they returned to the rubble that had been their schoolbuilding, they found six cameras, which some have been using to report on the situation in Jacmel. Its Flickr site, with post-quake images, as well as many photosets of school projects, is here.

Here is a video by student Fritzner Simeus on the aftermath of the earthquake:

Report from student: Fritzner Simeus from Jacmel from Ciné Institute on Vimeo.

And here is one by student Keziah Jean on the post-quake situation:

The Victims In Jacmel : Keziah Jean reports from the field (subtitled) from Ciné Institute on Vimeo.

One person in Jacmel I've been wondering about is an artist named Joanne Florent, whom we met in Santo Domingo several years ago. She was selling t-shirts she'd created featuring Haitian vèvès, along with other handsewn clothing and artwork, and had invited us to visit her in Jacmel. I hope she and her family survived the quake and are doing okay.

More on Haiti, Ways to Help

The post-earthquake news out of Haiti is very bad. According to President René Préval, many thousands of people may have died, and many more are injured. President Préval, speaking of the "unimaginable catastrophe," is appealing for immediate and substantial international help, and noted that he has stepped over dead bodies and has heard cries of assistance from the rubble of the destroyed Parliament building. (All photos below from the Miami Herald.)



The capital city of Port-Au-Prince, home to around 2 million people, has been largely destroyed, and Haiti's arts capital, Jacmel, very close to the epicenter of the earthquake and the aftershocks, which have continued throughout the night and into today, has suffered serious damage. The head of the UN Mission, whose building was completely destroyed, is presumed dead, as is the Archbishop of Port-Au-Prince, who died in the collapse of the one of the many now-leveled churches, and UN peacekeepers from Brazil, Jordan and China are also said to have died.

Last night, Haiti's Ambassador to the US, Raymond Joseph, stressed that the Haitian government is in control, but he was unable to say anything about the fate of lawmakers or those working in the Presidential Palace, beyond asserting that the President and First Lady were fine. Because of the widespread destruction, Haiti is facing a tremendous civil and humanitarian and civil crisis. Without electricity, drinking water or shelter, many people who have survived the quake risk serious illness or death. As I noted yesterday, the US has pledged unqualified help, as have other nations, and search and rescue, reconstruction and other teams have already begun to depart from Santo Domingo, the capital of Haiti's neighbor, the Dominican Republic, and from Florida and elsewhere.


As I appealed yesterday, there are various ways you can help. I know we are all financially stressed these days, but funding is crucial especially in the early days of this horrific tragedy. Options include:

Two very immediate options I've tried and know are working:

You can text HAITI to 90999 to donate $10 to Red Cross relief efforts in #Haiti (via Red Cross)

You can text Yele to 510 510 and donate $5 toward #Haiti earthquake relief. (via Wyclef Jean's Yele.org)

Also:

You can go to WhiteHouse.gov for ways to donate to Haiti.

CNN's Impact has a long list.

Doctors without Borders/Médicins sans frontières does excellent work all over the world, and they are active on the ground in Haiti.

Unicef is always a very good option, and the money is targeted towards children.

Fokal.org, recommended by actor Hill Harper, is an NGO that works with Haitian young people. (Supposedly 100% of your donation will directly to relief.)

Oxfam.org's Appeal:


A Spanish video feed:

Major Earthquake Hits Haiti

My thoughts, heart and prayers go out to the people of Haiti, where, as has been widely reported, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck 10 miles (15 km) southwest of the capital city of Port-au-Prince, a city of 2+ million people, at 4:53 pm (2153 GMT) Subsequent temblors of 5.5 and 5.9 magnitude also struck the area. According to the reports, there has been widespread damage, with the capital largely destroyed (AP), and huge numbers (many thousands) of wounded people. President Barack Obama has expressed his thoughts and solidarity with Haiti, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has pledged US support.


(All photos from Twicsy/Twitpics--please note some are extremely graphic, NSFW)

The beautiful Presidential Palace, the main Cathedral, the police station, the World Bank's headquarters, and countless structures, including homes, have been severely damaged or destroyed. (The President, René Préval, and First Lady of Haiti have not been injured.) After the earthquake clouds of gray smoke filled the air, and fires were reportedly still burning across the capital. As noted above, AP is reporting that the capital city is largely destroyed. There is no electricity and no gas. The American Embassy, amazingly, appears not to have been damaged. In neighboring Pétionville, a hospital is said to have collapsed, as has a major hotel, the Montana, and an American official said that homes had fallen into a ravine. (UPDATE: Right now I'm listening to the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, and a reporter based on the north coast, Luke Renner, is saying that north of the capital and in countryside, there doesn't appear to be as much damage.)


The Presidential Palace

A great many people have probably been injured, many gravely. American diplomats are reporting that there are dead and injured people throughout the capital. Already there is an immense need for humanpower, supplies, fresh and potable water, portable hospitals, medicine, and all kinds of other resources. If you can afford to and want to help out, CNN has this list of options. Maddow's links are here. If you have family members in Haiti you are trying to reach, the State Department has set up a toll free number you can call: 888-407-4747.



There is never a good time for an earthquake, but this is an especially fraught moment for Haiti, the most densely populated and poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Haiti is still recovering from the aftereffects of hurricanes over the last several years, and was also beginning to reconstruct its severely damaged manufacturing sector in an effort to jumpstart its economy. For its recovery, the support of the US, Canada, the EU, and many other countries will be absolutely necessary, and as I've noted above, the US has already pledged whatever support Haiti needs.



On the DR1 forums, people living in some Dominican cities, such as Cabarete and Santiago, reported feeling the quake, but there doesn't appear to have been much, if any damage, on the Dominican side of the border. On CNN, I saw reports that tremors were felt in eastern Cuba. There was a tsunami watch for many of the nearby islands as well as Hispaniola itself, and on DR1 someone linked to a report of a small tsunami.

Maddow's report is below:

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