Publisher's Synopsis
In Haitians in Michigan, Michael Largey chronicles the challenges facing Haitian immigrants and their U.S.-born children as they seek to maintain their cultural identity in the United States.
Beginning with a useful outline of Haitian political history, Largey explains how Haiti and the United States have become linked by a shared history of commerce and colonialism. Largey brings to life the political aspirations and expressions of Haitians in Michigan in a historical and ethnographic examination of Michigan's three principal Haitian enclaves, in Detroit, Grand Rapids, and Lansing. As Largey makes clear, Haitian-American civic, religious, and cultural organizations in these cities offer spaces for the creation of a culture that is uniquely Haitian and American.
Haitians in Michigan demonstrates the rich contributions of a people whose long and difficult struggle for self determination brought them into a historical convergence with the United States. Largey shows how much the United States and Michigan in particular has benefited from this convergence. Illustrations, maps, notes, references, index. Discovering the Peoples of Michigan series
