Rony Gilot (pictured above) sat on a stool in an empty room at the Haitian Refugee Community Center on Fairmount Avenue recently for a short break before he resumed working again. Gilot, 56, a lean man with an unhurried manner oversees all financial and operational matters at the Center.

The agency provides food, clothing and shelter to Haitian refugees. Staff show them where to shop, get a phone and catch a bus among other tasks most people take for granted. The Center helps support them financially, too, stretching its budget to the limit. It’s difficult, Gilot conceded, but he and his colleagues do what they can.

These days a new challenge has been added to his work.

After the election of Donald Trump, Gilot noticed fear among new Haitian arrivals. They worried about deportation and did not want to leave their homes.

Gilot became a U.S. citizen in 2017. He wondered if other Haitians would be as fortunate given the administration’s antipathy toward immigrants.

“In Haiti right now nobody can live because of domestic terror,” Gilot said. “They are afraid for their kids, they don’t have good water, good food. People live in terror.”

Ongoing gang war since 2020

Since 2020, the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince has been the site of an ongoing gang war. The government and Haitian security forces have struggled to maintain their control even with international assistance and many Haitians have fled to other countries with the hope of entering the United States.

Gilot recalled a very different Haiti from his boyhood. In those days he ate fruit directly from trees and swam in the ocean and had no fear of going outside or of gangs.

He grew up in the city of Jérémie in the eastern part of the island and was raised by his mother, a single parent. As a young boy he had fun. Every home in the neighborhood opened its doors to children. Boys and girls attended school, played, ate meals with their families, studied and played again before going to bed. Children learned about their history from old people who explained how life had been when they were young. The folktales of Ti Malice, a trickster character and nemesis of another character, the hardworking but greedy Bouki, provided entertainment.

Life in Haiti changed significantly in the 1990s, Gilot said.

A coup ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1991. The coup regime collapsed in 1994 under U.S. pressure and threat of force and Aristide became president again from 1994 to 1996. By then rival gangs aligned themselves with different political factions and street violence and instability became commonplace.

In 1994, Gilot joined the police force. He supervised more than 100 officers. Corruption ran rampant in the force. Every officer earned the same salary but some of them demanded that Gilot pay them more. When he refused he made enemies. You have to save yourself, one officer told him or you will be killed.

One day Gilot remembered walking to the bank. When he left two men followed him until one of them stopped him. I want you to give me your money, he said. He held his hand under his shirt as if he had a gun. Gilot pulled out his gun and both men ran away. Looking back, Gilot said he was lucky. Things like this happened over and over.

He told himself he had only one life to live. If you’re killed it’s over, he said. Gilot didn’t want to leave Haiti but one night a police officer stopped at his house and told him, If I were you I’d leave.

Gilot departed Haiti in 2005.

At first he stayed in the Dominican Republic hoping the situation in Haiti would improve. When it didn’t he flew to San Diego where he had a cousin. He liked being in a city so close to the ocean although the cold water made him miss the warmth of the seas around Haiti. Everyone in San Diego treated him well, he recalled. People like to help those less fortunate than themselves, he said, but he misses Haiti.

His mother still lives there. In a recent phone call she described life as very difficult in the midst of so much violence. A deeply devout woman, she remains inside, and no longer attends church. A cousin lives with her but finding food can be hard.

“Haiti makes me very sad,” Gilot said, “but what can I do but help people here and get on with life.”

He worried what would happen to Haitian refugees here if the government deported them.
“I was a refugee and sought asylum,” he added. ”My priority is to serve the people whomever they are.”

(Courtesy image)