The first Haitian restaurant has opene
d in Tijuana.
It’s at Avenida Negrete near Avenida Juarez, not far from the city’s Revolucion tourist strip.
A couple years ago, Haitians began streaming into Tijuana to ask for asylum in the United States. They were coming all the way from Brazil. Their stories were stunning. They had left Haiti after the 2010 earthquake and migrated to Brazil where there was work building the facilities for the 2014 World Cup and the Rio Olympic Games two years later.
But even before the Games began, Brazil’s economy was collapsing. Now without work, many of the Haitian migrants – first hundreds, then thousands – embarked on a journey across nine countries, braving nasty cops and bad weather, climbing mountains and fording wild rivers, some drowning or falling to their deaths.
Those who trekked on connected meanwhile via WhatsApp with their families back home. They crossed Central America and into Mexico, then the full length of the country before ending up in Tijuana.
Their arrival was a new thing for the town, which was of course used to migrants coming from the south, just not black migrants who didn’t speak Spanish. (Here’s a report I did for KCRW in 2016, as Haitians were beginning to arrive.)
Many of the Haitians stayed, mired in bureaucratic limbo. Then the U.S. State Department said it would not grant the migrants asylum, but instead deport them home.
So, stranded in Tijuana, they have melted into the city’s economy. Three taxi drivers I met said the Haitians were well known for their work in the construction industry. I saw one guy working in a shop making tortillas.
“These guys work hard,” said one driver. “You see them everywhere, selling candy at the traffic lights.” (Sandra Dibble of the San Diego Union-Tribune wrote a great story about this.)
It was a matter of time before the Haitians began forming businesses, importing something from home. At the restaurant, where I had grilled chicken, rice, beans and salad, I spoke with a man named Ramon, who said he was the owner. The place had opened in November, he said. It still had the Tamales sign of the previous occupant. But outside and in, it was all Haitians.
Speaking in a mix of poor French, Spanish and English, I was able to glean that some 2500 Haitians now live in Tijuana. A young guy named Roselin told me he worked making furniture for a shop on Revolucion. This was a trade he either learned or perfected while in Brazil.
The restaurant, which appears not to have a name, also sells cosmetics from Haiti. Light-skinned face cream and Afro Marley Twist hair extensions. You can also call Haiti or Canada from the restaurant. Next door is a barber shop, which now appears to cater entirely to Haitian clientele.
But what else do you need to confront a new world like Tijuana more than the most intimate things from home – food you know, to look good, and to call the family every once in a while?
A few of them have Mexican girlfriends. So I suspect in a few years we’ll be seeing little Haitian-Mexicans running around Tijuana.
This is how community begins.
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By Matthew MinorStaff Writer No stranger to migration, Chile has recently seen a dramatic surge in the numbers of Haitians leaving home in search of economic opportunity. The Wall Street Journal reported, “last year, almost 105,000 Haitians entered Chile, compared with about 49,000 in 2016 and just a handful a decade ago, according to federal police that oversee border crossings”.
I am an American living in Tijuana. I wrote about the Haitian influx when it first began and have been following it for some time. If you cross into Mexico at Otay Mesa you will sometimes notice a stauesque, uniformed Haitian woman. She works the gate as you enter. Living the dream – in Tijuana!
This is quite a story. My immense respect to you, Sam, for your reporting. It’s interesting too that this is a new chapter in the many chapters of immigration to Mexico.
Why don’t they go back to their homeland and help rebuild it? What is wrong with people? Why do you want us to take in people who run when the going gets tough?? Build your own country up. The rule of law!! Learn from us and go back home and build your own country.
Learn from whom? Mexicans and Central Americans and people from all over the world migrate to the USA for a better life. The American government always rejects Haitians (that is another post), yet Mexico has embraced them. The Haitians are hard-working and are positively impacting the Tijuana economy and are not asking for nor abusing any government aid. Why not let them stay? Mexicans and Central Americans come to the USA and stay and they do not return to their home countries to rebuild!
So who are you to tell people to go back to their countries and rebuild it when you´re least interested in rebuilding parts of your country with poor infrastructure, inadequate education, and lack of clean water for people in Flint, Michigan? The reason why you there are Haitian and Hispanic immigrants in the USA is because your government meddles in their local politics and installing puppet dictators who make life worse for everyone else. But what would you know when youre too busy living a privileged life in the USA? By the way, your grandparents or even your great-grandparents went to the USA for a better life. Would you tell them to go back where they came from so that they can rebuild their homelands?
Another poorly educated human who should have kept his mouth shut while keeping in the ignorance. Bravo for making a fool of yourself !