The Haitians In Quebec

A richly drawn portrait of Haiti in Quebec, of Quebec through Haiti, and the ways in which migrants transform societies.

Choosing Their Own Style examines identity issues among Haitian youth in Québec. Since Québec is a Francophone society in Anglophone North America, linguistic and cultural confusion often causes immigrants to assume multiple identities in order to fit in. Examining how young Haitians - an integral part of the provincial mosaic - are influenced by this complicated social and cultural paradigm, this book illustrates how Haitian youth are currently identifying and expressing themselves in Québec, and demonstrates how they resist categorization into a fixed ethnocultural group, creating a distinct, still-emerging societal and cultural classification of their own.

This first critical history of a street gang in a Canadian city is a result of a four-year collaboration between a university professor (Ted Rutland) and the leader of les Bélangers (Maxime Aurélien). Out to Defend Ourselves tells the story of Montreal’s first Haitian street gang, les Bélangers. It traces how the gang emerged from a group of Haitian friends, the children of migrants from Haiti in the 1970s. It documents the forms of racial violence they experienced and their battles against them. It also documents the everyday lives of the gang members, the petty crime some members engaged in to make ends meet, and how the police actions against the gang changed its nature and function – making it, finally, a more criminally oriented and violent formation. It is a story about a gang, but it is also a story of young Haitians making their lives in 1970s and 80s Montreal and a story about Montreal in a period of great change.

Etude bien documentée, accessible à un public assez large. Renseignements, statistiques, observations, réflexions, etc. Quatre parties : 1. L'immigration haïtienne au Québec : profil, cause, population, etc. - 2. La présence haïtienne au Québec : apport économique, culturel, etc. - 3. Les jeunes Haïtiens au Québec : éducation, scolarité. - 4. Le drame des 1500 Haïtiens au Canada, menacés de déportation en 1974.