The challenge

Of more than a million Haitians who reside in the United States, an estimated 500,000 live in Florida. Their claims for political asylum often denied, most remain undocumented residents. Obtaining legal asylum is only the first hurdle immigrants must confront. Even after legalizing their status, they are likely to experience unemployment, poor access to public transportation, discrimination, social isolation and poverty. Their political and cultural background makes their lives even more difficult. Under the dictatorships of “Papa Doc” and “Baby Doc” Duvalier, an individual considered anti Duvalier could face torture or execution. Trust of authorities, neighbors or even family members was a dangerous luxury. Consequently, Haitians’ shared experience creates a barrier to solidarity — a wall Marleine Bastien is determined to tear down.


Seeds of commitment

The child of Haitian educators persecuted for teaching Haitian adults and children to read, Marleine Bastien says her parents instilled in her “the importance of fighting for the powerless.” In 1981, a few days after her arrival in the United States, Bastien — then 22 years old — began volunteering at Miami’s Haitian Refugee Center, a nationally recognized program that provided free legal services to the newly arrived Haitians. At that time, the Immigration and Naturalization Service favored deportation, says Bastien, “in complete violation of immigrants’ most basic rights, including the ability to present their cases in a court of law.” As a paralegal, Bastien made daily visits to Florida’s Krome Detention Center to assist immigrants with asylum applications. She also served as an interpreter, working with Haitian Refugee Center attorneys. “What I saw during my first visit changed my life forever,” she says. “Hopeless, helpless and desperate refugees thrown together in a single compound with no one to advocate on their behalf.” She also learned that, in the United States, unlike the Haiti of her childhood, lawyers can advocate on behalf of the dispossessed without fear of reprisal. .


Accomplishments

Bastien is the founder and Executive Director of Famn Ayisyen Nan Miyami, Inc. (Haitian Women of Miami, Inc.), providing desperately needed services not only to Haitian women and their families but also to the community at large. Launched in 1991, F.A.N.M. offers immigration advocacy, counseling and economic-development programs to the Haitian community in Miami and elsewhere in the United States. F.A.N.M. helps Haitian women adjust to life in the U.S. through family counseling, assistance with language and leadership development. F.A.N.M. also provides seed money and technical aid to help women start home-based businesses, and provides breast-cancer education and outreach, domestic-violence counseling and education. Bastien quickly emerged as a community leader. In 1993 she represented Miami Dade County at a televised town hall meeting with President Clinton. A passionate, articulate spokesperson for Haitians, Bastien formed the “Justice Coalition for the Haitian Children of Guantanamo,” several hundred unaccompanied minors detained by the United States as refugees at Guantanamo Bay, appearing on the Oprah Winfrey show to address the devastating effect of prolonged detention on these children.

In 1997, Bastien lobbied Congress to add Haitians to a bill that granted residency to tens of thousands
of Nicaraguans and Cubans. She played a vital role in the passage of the Haitian Immigration Refugee Fairness Act of 1998. Because of the law, 50,000 Haitians have or will soon will become permanent residents, able to work, buy homes, develop businesses, have access to health care and other benefits that were previously denied them. “The impact was social, economic and even political,” Bastien says. “Haitians who were skeptical realize that they have the power to reach their goals if they organize and unite.” She was one of the founders of the Haitian-American Grassroots Coalition, which includes 15 professional and grassroots organizations in South Florida. The Coalition fights for fair immigration laws. Recently, the organization joined with People for the American Way, Unite for Dignity, the A.C.L.U. and the N.A.A.C.P. to create an immigrant and human rights coalition to protect voters’ rights in Florida.


Her leadership style

Community capacity building, bridge-building among cultures, the on going training of volunteers, these are the essentials of Marleine Bastien’s organizational approach to leadership. First, the Haitian community had to stop its own in fighting and give a good example of unity. It was not easy then, it’s not easy now.” To build bridges within the Haitian community, Bastien and her fellow leaders organized the broad-based Haitian American Grassroots Coalition, bringing the 15 organizations to one table to discuss common issues. F.A.N.M. also networks with other community based, professional, and grassroots organizations — reaching well beyond the Haitian community. F.A.N.M. has trained workers from the American Association of Retired Persons, students from Dade County Public Schools, and interns from area universities, as well as other organizations.

Bastien has taken on a larger role in Miami’s human rights community. One example is her participation in the “Say No to Discrimination” coalition, which has gathered many of Miami’s most prominent political and cultural figures to fight a ballot measure that is attempting to remove sexual orientation from the county’s non discrimination laws. “If we let one group be discriminated against in this county, then where will it stop?” she said in May 2002, as quoted by the Associated Press. F.A.N.M. has also pursued a deliberate pace to its organizational growth. Bastien is also a fiery speaker, and a passionate believer that failure can breed success. “I’ve learned that although you fight to win, you also need to prepare people you’re trying to help for possible failure and prepare them to deal with it,” she says. “I try to learn as much as I can and encourage others to do the same because the ultimate failure is not to fail but to give up trying. Fall seven times, get up eight.”


The future

Bastien and her fellow-leaders are currently creating “Miamians Working Together,” through which Haitians, African Americans and other groups meet regularly to learn about each other’s historical and cultural background. Their goal: to work together on common issues. Bastien hopes to create a women's holistic wellness center, along with what she calls a “global village” to house the center and the organization’s other programs. F.A.N.M. plans to expand its base through collaboration and networking at the local and national level. An overriding leadership challenge, however, is to maintain the effectiveness of F.A.N.M.’s core of volunteers and, as Bastien says, “to find the resources to keep our doors open” and to continue to advocate for Haitian refugees’ rights in a time of increased suspicion of immigrants. As of July 31, 2002, about 120 Haitians who had arrived in South Florida by sea remain in U.S. government detention. “Unlike most asylum seekers who pass (an I.N.S.) interview and are quickly released to prepare their cases, the Haitians have remained in detention for eight months,” reported the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. “The Haitians are treated differently from any other group in America,” says Bastien. “Is that fair?”


More about Marleine Bastien and her work

“Although Bastien found her niche in social work, she really wanted to be a doctor. When she was 12, she wrote an essay about it, saying she wanted to build a hospital so people wouldn’t have to die. Young Marleine saw plenty of death just outside her door. She recalls how the people in her village would attempt to carry sick people on a two-day walk to the hospital. Two people would hoist the sick person on a makeshift stretcher. Everyone would walk quickly, singing to make their travel lighter, but many times they could not walk fast enough. Bastien would watch them return, now carrying a dead person.”
— Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Florida) March 24, 2002

“She’s really the voice of all, not only for women, but also for families. She does a lot of work with breast cancer in this community; it affects more than 15,000 women. Before, Haitian women were not involved. She has gotten them involved, gotten them a place at the table.”
— Dr. Shaloma Shawmut-Lessner, a Miami community leader