Haitian Heritage Month: Honoring Language, Culture & Identity

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:05] Speaker B: Welcome to Localization Today. Today we have an amazing panel titled Haitian Heritage Month honoring Haitian language, culture and identity with three amazing panelists. So in celebration of Haitian Heritage Month, Multilingual magazine is bringing together leading voices from the Haitian linguistics, cultural community to reflect on the richness, resilience and global impact of Haitian identity. This panel will explore the intersection of language, culture and representation, from the role of Haitian Creole in education and community building to the challenges and opportunities in the language services industries. Join us then for a meaningful conversation today with Marlene Julien from Creole Solutions, Junior Mesa Moors from JR Language Services, and Webster Cornell from Indiana University. I will be your host today, and today we'll share personal stories. Please help me welcome our guests. Welcome, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today. [00:01:19] Speaker A: Hello, Eddie. [00:01:20] Speaker C: Hello, everyone. Hello, Eddie. Hello, everyone. [00:01:25] Speaker D: Hello, Eddie. Hello, Marlene. Hello, Webster. Junior Mesomore with JM Language. [00:01:33] Speaker B: Fantastic. And thank you, Junior, for taking the lead on that one. I will ask each of you to give us 30 seconds, if you might, introducing yourselves to give the audience some background and know what they can expect from this conversation as they are tuning in, whether they are joining us live or if they are listening to this conversation at a later date. So if we can do Marlene Webster and then Junior, just the way we did it, please tell us a little bit about yourselves. [00:02:03] Speaker A: Thank you, Eddie. And thank you so much for having us. And I want to say congratulations to you and your team for putting together such a wonderful panel and. And we appreciate that. As you mentioned earlier, my name is Marlene Julien. I am the founder of Creole Solutions, a translation and interpreting company specializing in one language Haitian Creole. We have three main objectives. You know, providing language access to the Haitian population by facilitating communication with organizations, with their employees, students and patients. Our second objective is job placement. We offer training to Haitian professionals and translation technology and things like plain language and translation techniques so that they can succeed as language professionals. And a very important part of our mission is to elevate the Haitian Creole language and culture. And we've done some work in Haiti and social media to promote the Haitian Creole language and educate people on its importance. And I'll hand it over to Webster. [00:03:12] Speaker C: How can I introduce myself? That's such a lovely presentation. So, hi Eddie. Thank you everyone for having us and happy Heritage Month to our Haitian fellows and also like friends of Haiti around the world. We're so happy to be here today in the localization and today. And for me, I am an adjunct lecturer of Haitian Queer language and Haitian Studies at Indiana University where I teach Haitian Creole Languages and also Haitian culture and society classes. That means I'm every day inside the Haitian between the intersection of language and culture. And also I created like the Haitian Creole program in 2023 and Junior is part of it. He's a very good part of it. It just the idea was because I also work as a reading interventionist in Indianapolis at an elementary school with Haitian kids. There's a lot of Haitian kids, but there's a diverse background students. And I realized that we had a need so better understand the Haitian needs, the family needs or the kids need sometimes. And we created and also we offered some cultural trainings so educators also professionals in Indiana. That's a little bit about my work. Well. [00:04:26] Speaker D: Yes. At JM Language we provide interpretation and translation services nationally and internationally. So we our teams travel a lot all over the US and also abroad to offer services and different languages including Haitian Creole, French, English, Spanish and others with different partners. So we help a lot in the community. Especially that our motto is accuracy and compassion. We don't see link just as words, but also we see the people behind the language needing the service. So we try to address issues. You will. We will develop a little more that when we are in the field we do more than just trans. We try to make the community better by making many recommendations to providers as per how to service better the Haitian community. [00:05:35] Speaker B: Thank you, Junior. Thank you Webster and Marlene and of course everyone who is listening to the conversation. Like I said, whether you are live or if you are listening to this on our podcast, please let us know how you are hearing us wherever you are in the world. And also whether you're on YouTube or LinkedIn. Tell us where you are tuning in from. Tell us which city, which country you're tuning in from. We'd love to hear to see where you are located. Ideally, of course as well. In this conversation, we will make sure that you get as much insight as possible from our amazing guests. Please everyone remember, if you are not talking, mute your microphone so that we don't get the echo which could affect the quality. But without any further ado, of course we have questions prepared for this conversation. And you know, if, if we stay the first question on the first question, it's. It's one of those that everyone can answer. It is related to the reason why there is a Heritage Month, right? Haitian Creole has often been marginalized despite being the language spoken by a majority of Haitians. And that probably poses significant pressures on academic, business, the professional world and even in the world contexts. So I'd love To hear your perspectives on. On why this heritage is important. You know, what, what. How do you think things have been shaped because of this marginalization? And what do you think we can do about that? [00:07:20] Speaker C: I think I want to start. Well, I think it does, you know, it's about localization. [00:07:28] Speaker D: Go ahead. [00:07:29] Speaker C: Beginning of the Haitian Heritage Month could be localized a little bit because sometimes in the US or UK or outside of Haiti, you can see the meaning of like such an initiative, but which is not the same way. And we see in. In Haiti because sometimes, you know, what is the topic of discussion or debate in such corners. Maybe not of good interest in another one. And what I wanted to say, like for this, for me it's very important here. And I heard that the history and started with in Boston. We gotta pay a homage to our friend in Boston and also like Florida and now and all over the U.S. chicago. Chicago, yeah, Chicago. I know, I know you're Chicago. We're not going to let it behind. So. Yeah, I know. This initiative helps us realize that the importance or the richness of the Haitian culture, the Haitian language or the Haitian music, and also makes us understand why we're still talking about marginalization of Haitian language, for example. And we know if we can go back to the. And kind of a historical tone. And we know like in post colonial societies, usually we have two or three languages at play and colonizers language and also the Creole language. And usually like inside the society, the Creole language is considered as like the poor relation of this interplay and which is not different in Haiti. And I think like this such a month helped us realize that we need so acknowledge what has been done to pay homage to people like who devoted themselves so and create and meaningful interaction or conversation about the culture or the society overall. But also to take a step back to say, okay, there is a long road to go. And also like another step to make about what we can do or what we should do for a broader recognition in so global context of the Haitian Heritage Month and overall Haitian culture, society and identity. [00:09:47] Speaker D: Yeah. What I would add is that even though colonization is over from a historical standpoint, the way Haitian Creole is treated both internationally and Haiti is rooted in history because it is not only the language that is marginalized, it is almost everything, the foundation of our identity and also everything that links us to the motherland, Africa. It's the language, the religion, it's the food, the way we see ourselves, our skin color, the texture of our hair. Everything is marginalized as long as it doesn't belong to the colonists, to a colonizer, it's marginalized. Now how? What are the effects of that on the society? Like in the US when our teams go out in the field to serve the Haitian community, what do we see? We see lack of access to information because it is not available in a language that they understand. And sometimes even it is available, but the quality of the translation is not the best. I remember when I was first coming to the US I would rather read when I would be on the bus in Miami going home, I'd rather read the Spanish or the English version instead of the Creole version because the language is butchered, literally. And it's the same sometimes my kids, when we get a letter from the school here, and because they know we're Haitians, they send a Creole version, but it is not proper Haitian Creole. So we have to tell them this is not good Creole. So it's also lack of access to resources, lack of access to information, lack of access to services, and also unjust arrest by the police, unjustified loss of custody by Haitian parents to foster care. So there are so many different incidents on families, on the community because of lack of access to Haitian clothes. Those are just a few of them. [00:12:24] Speaker A: All right, I think, you know, I'm speechless now that everyone basically laid out everything that we're dealing with. But to piggyback on what Webster say, Haitian Heritage Month is, is mainly celebrated in the United States. Last year, the mayor of Chicago recognized May as Haitian Heritage Month. And it's been happening throughout the U.S. it's Boston, Florida, and it's a way to recognize the contributions of Haitians in the United States. And as many of know, I'm from Chicago, and I always proudly say how Dusabo, of Haitian origin, is the founder of Chicago. But a lot of Haitians have contributed in science, medicine and history. Haitians fought in the war in the Savannah. So we have contributed, we have always contributed to the US History. And this is why it's so important to celebrate Haitian Heritage Month. And I'm happy that companies like Multilingual Media are seeing the importance of doing that, because Haitians are very important to the economy and culture of the United States. To answer the second question about why Haitian Creole has been marginalized, we know that 95%. Well, the statistics say 95%, but I know that all Haitians speak Haitian Creole. I haven't met a Haitian who doesn't speak Haitian Creole. But Haitian Creole is this sideline like juniors did in courts and hospital for emergency services. So that's why it's very important for us to understand the importance of Haitian Creole and why we need to give more access to Haitians. And Haitians also need to contribute to this. It's not just asking for the government to promote language access, but there's a lot of things we can do. At CROW Solutions, we have a literacy program where we teach people in Haiti. We have partners with a company called association with 101 schools as beneficiaries. We have a literacy program where we educate the community about the importance of their language because a lot of them didn't go to school to learn it. And we introduce concepts like linguistic justice, language access, because some of them may not know that they have these rights. It's their constitutional right. So we need to educate them about that. We teach them about the four foundations of the Haitian Creole writing system and then we also give them a call to action, inviting them to defend the language and to also use the correct writing system and educate others. So I think that's one way. There's also, there's the policy that we may not have control over, but there's a lot that we can do as people for our communities. [00:15:28] Speaker B: And that's particularly true. Right as you start thinking about what language enables. And especially in this day and age, right when we're talking about technology and how artificial intelligence is going to make things so much easier, you have companies like Duolingo that their CEO is saying that the artificial intelligence is a better teacher than the humans. Maybe in the following up, it does help me follow up with my streak and make sure I don't, you know, drop it. And when I drop it, make me feel bad. With that said, there are some elements of language that are intertwined with. We won't talk yet about that, but intertwined with business and the creation of content and when you create those contents is when you're able to engage so that transactions can happen. But we'll talk about that later. Right now, as we embark this conversation and then we look at language as an enabler, what role does language play in preserving and promoting Haitian heritage, especially among younger generations? We're talking about, you know, the diaspora, especially if you are thinking of Haitian Creole as a marginalized language, it becomes a second class language. And then you have to go with the language that, you know, makes you sound like the ones in charge. And that is a very important conversation to have. So what role does language play in increasing that Haitian heritage? And also then how do we balance with our young communities? How do we balance the Cultural preservation of the Haitian heritage with the adaptation to multicultural environments and also accepting and respecting other cultures. [00:17:09] Speaker A: If I may, Language is the backbone of our culture. So for Haitians or second generation Haitians in the diaspora, that's the last link to Haiti because a lot of them probably have never been to Haiti, but they speak the language, they eat blio and they listen to compa. But the language is very important. One thing I notice is that a lot of Haitian Americans like my children, they understand Haitian Creole perfectly, but they don't, they're afraid to speak it because they may get laughed at or, you know, they don't because they speak a Creole that's spoken at home, not at a professional or academic setting. So I think it's very important to, for parents, for the parents listening here, to make sure that your children not only speak the language, that they read it, they have access, you know, the books that we have available, they have access to it because that's what's going to keep Haitian Creole alive. And right now there's a lot of, you know, if you go to the digital space, you see Haitian Creole on TikTok, on Facebook, on LinkedIn. So it's, it's, it's, it's a living language and it continues to grow. So it's important to keep the children connected to the language, not only as an identity thing, but also because when a child is bilingual, they get paid. If you are a bilingual candidate for a job, you may be able to get 5 to 20% more if you're working in health care or in logistics. So it's also economic capital to have your child connected to their language and their culture. [00:19:01] Speaker D: Not only economic advantage is also it makes children smarter when they speak more in languages. And I can tell as somebody who speaks four languages, going on to five. Every time you speak a language, it's like you're a character. It allows you to connect to more people in a deeper and a more genuine way. And Creole is essential, like Marlene said, is the backbone of the culture is a vessel of collective memory. All tradition, the culture and the Haitian experience at large. When I meet somebody who speaks Haitian cult in the US I meet Nlai. I meet somebody I can have unique conversations with and I start speaking to especially black people out of the blue and Haitian Creole. And if they happen to be Haitians, we have a conversation. This is great. Creole is part of the DNA of who we are as a nation. And it's essential to continue practicing Haitian Crow with our kids. My kids came to the US when they were seven, when they were eight, when they go to school, it's very challenging because kids want to look like their peers, they want to sound like their peers. They will embrace whatever their peers is doing. So it's a big challenge for parents in the US but the worst part is parents not wanting their children to speak Haitian Creole. I met somebody from New York, a commissioner from New York, a few weeks ago, and she told me that New York has lost a lot of funding for bilingual schools because Haitian parents complain. Listen to that. Haitian parents complain about the school system teaching their children their language. So I guess to elevate Haitian Creole, we need to go to the root, to the root of the problem, which is Haitians embracing their culture, accepting themselves for who they are. That's why at the beginning we said that the problem is rooted in history. Because what colonization did, it makes you hate everything you are. Everything you are African. Practicing voodoo, connecting with your ancestors, eating your food, loving what you are and your skin color, everything. Colonization makes you question yourself and makes you want to look, to speak, and to be like somebody else. So the, the main thing, the base, the fundamental thing about this situation is Haitians embracing being Haitian, being African, and accepting themselves for who they are. [00:22:06] Speaker A: How do you like those? I'm sorry to interrupt. Like those parents. The story about the parents are always educated. Yes. I always sympathize with the parents because they were probably growing up in school and they were. They couldn't get services because they didn't speak French and they want the best for their children. The context is different here in the United States. We know that, but they don't know that. So when they do that, it's not because, well, it's a type of self hate, but it's because they want their children to have the best education. And, and they were taught that the education in Haitian Creole is subpar. It's not as good as French or other languages. So it's education. And this is why we need to sympathize with these people and teach them, you know, how important. Tell them like you said, when you speak five languages and you are like cognitive, you know, it's good for their brains, you know, it helps the memory. So teach them about the advantages of speaking, speaking my school languages, and then we can take it from there. I'm sorry, Webster. [00:23:13] Speaker B: No, no, that's. [00:23:14] Speaker C: No, that's good. I don't know if there is something less to say. [00:23:18] Speaker D: I just wanted to pitch in and say that, to say that. The thing is, it's that they don't know. Like one of the reasons why I want my kids to don't lose their Haitian Creole. That's gives them a job right off the bat. Once you turn 18, you become an interpreter. You come work for JM Language, you know, and you make money. [00:23:40] Speaker C: No, what I was. [00:23:42] Speaker A: I'm sorry. And that's what my father. I grew up, I came here at a very young age and my father always made sure that I learned how to speak and how to spell and how to speak. And I was also in an environment, you know, I'm privileged, where I was able to speak Haitian Creole. But if my parents didn't let you know, make me keep this part of my culture, I wouldn't be here today. So this is why it's so important for the parents to educate their children. [00:24:10] Speaker C: Absolutely agree with that. And I was before kind of grasping the question. I was thinking about two things because Marlene mentioned and bad Quill, of course there's a play created by Dominic Morisso and who is Micah Junius. And about this situation where there is a little confrontation between Haitian who think they speak better queer than other others. So there's a play and I haven't seen it yet because it was in New York. But I've read a very great piece, a story in the New Yorker about it. And secondly about bilingualism because Junior mentioned it. I remember last year in 20, in December, maybe like the former government launch program called bilingualism is a superpower, like so kind of value encourage people to continue also keep practicing their language. Okay, my point is mostly about like I was. I want to take one example because I work at an elementary school, there's a lot of Haitian kids. And two months ago I wrote a piece for Chalk Beat Indiana. It was about is Haitian queer is a social connected language for Haitians. Why I ended up with that because there are some Haitian kids at school and even there's a situation where they were talking in English with someone when I, when I showed up. They always talking to me in Haitian queer. And I'm talking about kids who are bilingual, like who speak because those kids are mostly well born in South America. They speak and Haitian queer, Spanish and Portuguese and you know, English as well. So they are really, really, really like a polyglot. And some of them like I remember I talked to one of them in fourth grade, fourth grader. And I asked her why do you always talk so many Haitian quill? And she said because I feel more connected to your Haitian quill. And I realized that that's the reason I ended up with the question. But the piece hasn't been published yet. But for. For some reason but it's like the. For these kids the. The language is kind of the. The place for social interrelation for them. That's the reason I think and for this kid like I said born outside of Haiti and has and really have and not little with Haiti but about the language. Their primary languages are like sometimes Spanish and Portuguese, not Haitian quill. They are really heritage learners or like Haitian heritage queer language learner or speaker. So and that's the first example. And also at Indiana University I have so many Haitian kids taking the Haitian Creole class because they haven't gotten the chance yet at home to speak Haitian Creole with family. And. And before that I remember I used to ask myself how that happened. Like Haitian kid not not speaking Haitian queer inside a Haitian household. And I always just think about it and I realized that a lot of them like sometimes these kids for one case study these kids sometime one of them Ted told me like sometimes they are the vehicle to learn the English language. For this family that means like family learning the language or grasping the language by them. That means that they ended up not speaking Haitian Creole and the family ended with the English proficiency. And I wanted to start it with the. To start with these two cases because I think like someone some of us I already mentioned like if you go on TikTok or social media you see there's a very willingness and inside this and diaspora and the youngest community so learn the Haitian Creole and for them a signs of identity or like to identify with the Haitian culture is sometimes to learn the language at least to know sac pace. And I also like to value the Haitian flag which is May 18th. Like they really really. And it's really a great deal for them. And sometimes about the. About the Haitian cuisine is like promoting this this part of themselves. And I think this is a very great sign because if we think and maybe like I I used to. I used to read stories about back in the day sometimes and some and Haitian kids born into the as well were a little bit shame of speaking Haitian queer for some contextual reason. For example in during the 19 the 80s in the US they were like where we used to identify AIDS with one of them as Haitian. Like you can imagine like how it's difficult for a kids to say that I am Haitian. Why you identify as someone living with hiv. Like you see like sometimes these situation kind of a push a little bit like the the individual so be identified with the with his or her own identity or a cultural identity. But I think it's, it's a very great sign for me. And also thinking about like the language also we know it's like we used to say it's a means of diplomacy. So and, and a lot of these kids sometimes ended up inside the U. S. Senate or like Representative, like so, so have this, these voices inside the political landscape. It's very important because at the end of the day it's about politics. And this when we have a Haitian representative or Haitian representative with Haitian background speaking Haitian queer inside the senate that says something about the country and also about the culture. And some kids are willing to identify with this piece of the culture. One, one last example I remember I was listening to so women like retelling the story when Wyclefs are. Which is a Haitian superstar when he received the Grammy at the end of the 90s and with the Haitian flag. And it was like. And she said that and tomorrow morning it was like almost every Haitian kid willing to show proudly their flags because we used to like Wyclef, you know, at one of the biggest stages in the world, Grammy, Grammy stage. And like proudly showing like the Haitians like you see this type of examples, even they are like examples, but also they mean so much for the culture, like for these kids willing to learn, but also willing to identify with the culture. Like which. Not their culture, but also it's a second culture for them because it kind of heritage culture. Yes. [00:30:43] Speaker B: Thank you so much. How much, how much do we miss? Oh, sorry, here's some huge echo. [00:30:50] Speaker C: Maybe for me it could be. [00:30:53] Speaker B: It could be. Yes, I think it was. But, but thank you. How much do we miss Every time a language is lost to the world and we've had conversations here in multilingual about indigenous languages and you know, the historical representations, the cultural expressions that get lost. The, the insights, the wisdom that gets lost when, when languages get lost and when, when you stop using languages, the interactions that are lost, the insights that are lost because you start kind of like adapting to something else. So thank you so much for, for sharing those insights with us. For those that are listening, for those that are watching live, we are today celebrating Haitian Heritage month and with an amazing conversation, a great panel with great guests. If you don't know them. Junior Mesa Moore is a community leader and the CEO of JM Language. And Marlene Julia, a community leader and CEO of CREO Solutions. Again, if you just joined us, thank you for being here. Share with us where you are listening from we have Jean Marc Julien from Chicago, of course, Camos from Newark in New Jersey. I've been there actually listening from the Dominican Republic, John Wisland and Yvelta. I don't know where you are, Ivelta, but thank you so much for listening. And Jeff Luisan, thank you for liking this initiative. Everyone else, please let us know what you're putting there. For those that are listening, if you want to know where this conversation is going to be at, going to be in Localization Today, which is one of Multilingual Media's podcasts. So on this occasion, we are recording live Localization today. You can scan the QR code and see these and previous conversations. You'll probably see the snippets as well on LinkedIn. Added to this. If you want to stay tuned on Localization today, C Suite, Hot Seed, Lang Talent, Echoes of Meaning and our magazine join our newsletter, which is the Weekly Digest, comes out every Wednesday. And you'll see this recording on the Weekly Digest. You can also scan the code and you'll be there together with 17,000 people in the industry. We talk about globalization, we talk about localization, and more recently, about content and culturalization. That's why this conversation is so important to us here at Multilingual. As we start understanding cultures and as we want to globalize our businesses, then we have to ask ourselves whether I'm in education, in linguistics, in language services. When you try to take a company to a place, then things can break apart really quickly and you can really perhaps not do what you are supposed to do throughout your mission. So as we are talking about Haitian Heritage Month in your lines of work, and I'll give this to any of you in your lines of work. What are the misconceptions about Haitian Creole? And you just mentioned something, Marlene, that I was a bit confused about. You say, you know, this is the Haitian Creole we speak at home. And I'm like, oh my gosh, are you telling me that then you wanted you speak with your, in your profession, at home, with your friends, with everyone else? That makes things more complicated. But of course it shows that type of diversity. Could you tell us a little bit more about that? [00:34:22] Speaker A: Yeah, well, there's a lot of misconceptions about Haitian Creole, and I write about that on social media, for example. One of them is that, first of all, it's not a, you know, there's going to be a debate about this. Well, I'll leave it to the linguist. But Haitian Creole has its own ISO. It has its own grammatical structure it no longer fits the Creole language category. It's a language. It should be called Haitian. But I'll leave that for another. You know, you invite us and we'll talk about that another time. So there's a lot of misconceptions about Haitian Creole. I'd have a client who asked me if Haitian Creole had grammar and Haitian Creole has its own. So I wrote, I wrote a blog about it and, you know, to talk about how Haitian Creole has its own writing system. It's probably older than Junior and Webster because it was developed in 1979. Since we've had this writing system and we have our own Haitian Creole academy that regulates, that's the authority on the language, just like any other major languages. So it does have a grammar, it does have a writing system. That's one of the most common misconceptions, of course, that heritage of colonization. It's always considered as like a watered down version of French. And that's another misconception. Haitian Creole and French are two separate languages. It would be as if you were saying that Portuguese and Spanish are the same languages. They're completely different. They have their own grammatical structure, their own vocabulary, although a majority of our terms derive from the French language. But Haitian Creole has grown up like we would say Haitian Crow is a grown up as a language that has its own linguistic structure and everything. So that's another misconception and finally a third misconception in the transition industry. I would go to conferences and when people ask me what I do and I had a hard time with that, they'll tell me, what do you do? And I'll say, I'm a Haitian Creole translator. And they're like, who needs that? Like, you know, who needs Haitian Creole translation? And I had to remind them that Haitian Creole is one of the fastest growing languages in the United States and Florida is the third most spoken language after English and Spanish. So there is a big need for Haitian Creole that is important globally. Haitian Creole is an important language. And if you are running a hospital, you could get fined $100,000 for not being compliant with language policies. And also if you have a company in logistics and you have employees working with machines and they're not properly trained in their language, you could be fined by osha. So Haitian Creole is very important. And, and like I said, there are, for those heritage learners or for those Haitian Americans who are listening, you could be paid just because you speak the language properly, of course, professionally. So Haitian Creole is very important and it is one of the fastest growing languages in the United States, it's not like a little, a small language. The people in the language industry know how important Haitian Creole is. But some clients may not know. I don't know if Redster and Junior can think of any other myths. I'm sure there's a lot more. I'll leave some to you guys. [00:38:01] Speaker D: So like you said, Moline, many people think that it's, it's a broken French. And one thing I get a lot is they ask me for French Creole and I get to ask, what is that? It is not Creole. It's actually, it's Haitian. Like you said, it's not a creole. It's Haitian. It has everything a full fledged language needs. Its own grammar, its own academy, its own vocabulary. And, and if you say that because it has a lot of French in it, that means it's our language. But French is our language either because French was not always French. French has evolved like any other language, you know? You know, so yeah, many, many places I go, people don't really know. And sometimes when they, they need to book a Haitian color interpreter, they book French. Luckily, when they get me, I can do either one. So I start introducing myself into both languages. Bonjour, je ma' am. Bonjour, Mont. The person can choose whichever language they want. [00:39:08] Speaker C: It's a very important question. And. But I wanted to divide it into two parts. About Haiti, but also about the Haitian queer. But I'm starting with the Haitian queer. Of course. Like Marlin and Junior said, there are a lot of misconceptions and not into the professional world, but also inside the academia. And while preparing this in conversation, I was thinking about this book and the Quill debate. It was the, the name is like this, like. No, the Quill debate is. Yeah, the Quill debate. Yeah, it's a, it's a book because there's a misconception since the, I think early 20th century about what we call the Creole exceptionalism, that that means the idea that to think that and the queer languages are like an exceptional type of languages and with phylogenetics and typology, typological grounds, like different than any everyone else. And if I want to nail it down, the idea behind it is to say that like Marlene said, it's the, the queer language is like the Haitian queer, which is a French based queer. Maybe that's the reason like sometimes people like confuse. Are confusing with French and Asian queer. And and to say that it's a simplified version of the kind of European ancestors like for Asian queer, which is the French or The another idea is like they usually see like the queer languages are like languages that are willing to be, you know, to death. You know, like language death, like via dequalization. You know. This misconception has been like debunked so many times by scholars like Michel de Graaf, like Renault Gouverne or like Sally Coco Mfuere. And last year it was like for the. And you know, October is usually the Queer International Queer and Culture Month. And we realize at Indiana. At Indiana University center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies webinar with about the genesis. The title was Genesis of Queer Worlds and Historical Developments with four queer queer scholars like in the US and also like one in Canada actually and one in Seychelles. It was folk quills versions. And also like with Professor Sadikoko Mufwene as the. So give the special remarks. The idea was still today you encounter people asking you about the lexicon of the Haitian Creole. Why it's French. Yeah, it's French because it's a French based queer. And of course like around 70% of the a galaxical Adian queer came from France. That's okay. But also it's also a language and related to the grammatical or syntactical code and, and structure. We found like West African languages such as like EV for Igbo. For example, like if we take the. The. The article the in English, like which is the le or la in French, usually it comes before the noun. But also like in Haitian Creole, like it comes after the noun. For example, like if you are saying like in English the students are here in Haitian queer you will say like elevio. You say like the comes after the noun elevio la. That means like you said, like there's a blended between French and language and also West African and language. That's, that's the, that's the reason like when someone is trying so identify the quill. Haitian quill version. Like with only the French version. I understand because with the lexicon part but also about the grammatical structure. It's different like from. From French or like Latin roots and languages and. Oh yeah, yeah. But also there are like other misconception. Like for example like yesterday I came across social media and there was a question about did you know Haitian quill have an Alphabet? I said what? We had an Alphabet in 1960 and we had another Alphabet in 1970 and the last one was in 1980, which is the actual one. That's not the first time we had an Alphabet. And the first one was kind of created by. Were Created by. And, you know, usually, like, church are really engaged in. So what we call the standardization of languages because they have power, resources. And in Haiti, like, since the 1860, the. The country has kind of a sealed. I can say a pack with Catholic church, like, for education. Like, that's the reason you see the footprints of Catholics, Catholic church, and so many fields in Haiti, like education or like, administration, anything else. And that's some of this misconception about. About language, but also, like, as. As a. As a language or. And I could say that. And also because I'm inside the academia, I'm not trying to kind of criticize these people because sometimes. And they are maybe, like, listening. Some people like repeating again and again this misconception. And they need to maybe learn more information about it, even if sometimes if we. Based on their confirmation bias, they know what it is, but they choose to believe what they want to believe because this piece of information relates to their feelings, their beliefs and kind of upholds their beliefs. And another misconception I wanted to address about Haiti. That's. [00:44:45] Speaker B: That's. [00:44:45] Speaker C: That's something very important for me. Even I was raised in, you know, ways inside a Catholic family. Like, I almost be. You know, became a priest. So here's the joke about it. Yeah. So you can see, like, your style sometimes and. But as a misconception, because it's something very important for me, because I've been receiving this question a lot lately about kind of. And the Haitian voodoo or like, the voodoo. Like, for example, like, we remember after the earthquake, there was a question televangelist named Pat Robertson who said that we made a pact with the devil, like, to. To be freed from French colonizers in 18, you know, 1804. And I was in Maryland in 2023, in the summer of 2023, and a lady came to me and asked me, do you believe in the, you know, seal with the. With the devil? And Theo. Yeah, I said, of course I don't. But I had a conversation with her. So explain something about, like, and where this come from. And also, like, the fact that for what we call one of the moment. Very important moment in the Haitian battle. So that led to the independence and on August 14, 1791, which called, like, the ceremony. It's kind of a Cayman woods ceremony. And there's a lot of misconception related to this. To this. To this ceremony. And I was reading recently a book about maroons and to see it as a. As an act of resistance, because it was different, like, for some other countries. Like, that were freed because one day the colonizer, like, just wake up and said, okay, I wanted you to be freed. It was different for Haiti. That's the reason we're so proud of it sometimes to say, we fought for it. It's not a. It was. It was a given. We earn our independence. And also, like, since you can say, like saying that since the 20th century, we have so many movies about Vodo, that part portrayed this way Haiti. And also that carried out this misconception about the country to say, well, when you see Haiti, you see like a pact with the devil. And it's so popular in the US because have caused it many times and over the last few years. And I think that sometimes people need to know better because this time right now, people can. Can say that we don't know where to find information. There are available. There are a lot of information available. There's no excuse today about this misconception, whatever it's queer exceptionalism or whatever, about, like, this pact with the devil. Like, there are a lot of information available. If you're willing to go until confirmation bias, because that set of belief kind of strengthen yours about a country, about a people, about a culture, that's okay. But don't take that. That excuse, that. Don't take that word to say that I'm. I don't know where to go, where to find this information. [00:47:52] Speaker D: Again, it's. It's important to. To educate the world and also to educate our people. I come from a Protestant background, and most of my pastor, my former theology, would be very mad at his when I take a stance for voodoo because it's part of our culture. And as Haitians, we need to embrace who we are, and we need to respect our ancestors. Our creatures need to stop like Buakayima, and say that they are like battling over the spirits to make them go. They are part of who we are. And we need to accept. We need to embrace. We need to embrace our culture, and we need to stop portraying everything that belongs to us as something negative like the colonizers want us to make it, to hate ourselves. It's like the freedom fighter said. I can't remember his name. Who told you. Who taught you to hate everything that looks like you, to hate your culture, to hate your skin color, to hate your language, to hate everything? Who taught you that? Who taught you to hate your religion, to hate your ancestors? Whereas many of the things that happens and voodoo, they also happen in Judaism. They also. You remember when the queen, during the ceremony of the queen of England, they brought a goat. Just imagine something like that happened and a black country. The whole world would say, hey, voodoo, right? But they just do the same. But once they are the colonizer, they are the dominant ones. It's okay. But when. Once we do it, I mean, we. We don't. We learn to not like ourselves, to not accept ourselves. And so that needs to start at home. And our education needs to value everything that belongs to us. We need to be at peace with ourselves in order to elevate our language. [00:50:03] Speaker B: And Junior, and this is really well said, like Marlene letting us know, this is really particularly evident in the actual conversation, mostly for what's happening in the United States. But as we know, for many things, the United States become lead, and then the other nations lag the but end up following suit. And then when you have a nation that, through an executive order, which is not a law, establishes one language as their primary languages, disregarding the richness of other languages that are around, then perhaps we encounter one of the first challenges, especially when we're talking about the business of language, because, sure, we're talking about the huge part of the iceberg. That's why we're having this panel today, so that people can understand what language richness looks like and what cultural heritage looks like. And then that sometimes some of the things that you localize become the tip of the iceberg of something that's so much bigger. And this is the reason why training models becomes so difficult, which, you know, makes me think about translation and interpretations services from the perspectives that you have. And even if budgets are not changing as much as we were talking of the record, that budgets perhaps are not changing much and that there is still significant access. There are many, many changes that probably, at least in the psyche of the society will become policy changes in health care, in the legal system, in government sectors. How important do you think this conversation is? This is going to become an uphill battle now. Was it an uphill battle? Is it worse now, like all these movements, especially in the U.S. how are those affecting you? [00:51:52] Speaker D: I guess it was already an uphill battle. It's gonna be just worse. It's gonna be just worse. And it's not just. And services. Imagine somebody who is a truck driver right now who is wondering, what am I gonna do? Because I don't speak English? And you wonder, do I need to speak to the wheel? Do I need to speak English to the tires? Do I need to speak English to the roads? Because I can do my job even if I do not speak English. So I think unfortunately, these decisions making the country go backward and many advancements we have made over the years, we might lose some of them. Hopefully after this administration, things might get back into normal. But we're losing a lot. We're losing a lot right now. This is not a time to stop people from meeting each other. It is not a time to create more barriers. It's a time to build bridges, to bring people together. Because languages are riches. They are not to be seen. Languages must be friends. They are not to be seen as the enemy here. [00:53:02] Speaker C: So if I can say something about. I usually like with this conversation. I have suicides. And for example, I. I am. I recognize there is a. A lot has been done. For example, like in Indiana, where I live, I know there is like. And Indiana has a. The judicial branch has a language access plan and it was like put into effect in 2019. And also I know the mayor office for International affairs and Indianapolis in Marion county has a language access plan for the county because I talk to the person in charge. And for example, I can take another example, like where I am. I work as a Haitian queer interventionist, but actually as a reading interventionist. We have many Haitian queer interventionists, like Spanish interventionists inside the Marion Counties or Indianapolis public school or schools in general. That means like. And it's. It's a kind of recognition. There is a need and so diversify the body of the body of the staff, the body of educators because we have some specific segment of the population and in the beginning they need and some English proficiency. So reach the target goals for the. In terms of education or like. And results. Because at the end it's about the States, at the end it's about the education about the country. The other side is I always, even when I was in Haiti for French and Asian Creole, I always speaking about kind of what. What I call linguistics or cultural fraternity. And how I explain that is I. When someone, for example, like we have a lot of people, foreigners coming Saheti working specifically after the earthquake, that they kind of increase and we feel more comfortable when they came around and they learn our. Our language like Haitian queer, which is very good. And we feel comfortable because the conversation because for example, my mom, who is a queer monolingual, doesn't speak French or doesn't speak Asian English, doesn't speak English. When she found someone, for example, like from the west or like from France who's willing to speak Haitian queer, that kind of brought a little smile. So her face. That's what I. That's what I call the linguistic fraternity. That means like I usually encourage people to at least grab. Grasp a portion of the, of the. Of the language like of the receptionist. Because as a. If you were the receptionist, you would be very happy to see like the other person is willing to. To learn your language as much as you or yourself. You wanted to do your. To make extra effort so at least grabs the language. That's the, that's my. That's my linguistic vision. For example, like I have my friends, I have family. Or like I really, really usually encourage them so learn. Learn English. And because I said that that's the country. And also like that also created increased access to so many doors or like so many opportunities. For example, like I can say it by myself and at Indiana University and even like the three of three out of four classes or Haitian queer classes. But also like you teach them in English because you know, like elementary, like you need to have a basic of English. That's the reason I don't go into this, you know, this position to say that, okay, it's just like the receptionist who needs to engrage or your culture, you need to adapt a little bit because you are inside this environment. And for example, like I used to. We have a lot of Haitian kids at school. Sometimes they don't really eat US foods or US cuisine. And I used to reach out to some family to say, I know like this is not your food. I know you wanted them, so eat Haitian foods. But also remember that at school they don't serve Haitian school, Asian food foods. You need to train the kids at least to try McDonald's once a month because that's what we serve at school. You know, it could be McDonald's or something. What do we serve at school? It's not, it's not. Remember that. Does that mean like the kids. We have some kids who spent the whole day without eating anything. Would you want your kids to spend the whole day without eating anything or just try in McDonald's once? That's the, that's. That's what I was, I was thinking about. But also like with the current situation, my last take and with the, the last order about like the, the English becoming the, the. The. The. The. The language, the official language. I am also interested to see how states gonna put it into effect, implement it. For example, because we have, we did have some states that has. That have like English as a official language. Like in so many, in many states before this order, like we have. But also like some of them like are still trying so recognize the Diversity, the richestness of the, of the body of the, of the language they have hated or like over the last decades. And I am willing to see because you know, sometimes I am from Haiti, I know sometimes in order doesn't mean FX in the country. That means even. Even though we know like in terms of reception or like you know, perception that gonna change a lot. They're gonna increase fear or anything else. But also sometimes I need to see how the state's gonna implement this. These changes to see if they, if they willing to take to cut budget like form and organizations that are doing the words kind of trust different people like in. In multilingual. And I wanted to see that. And maybe after that I can say okay, that. And it's not only about the federal level, on the federal level, but also on the state level they willing to make the change so like become a monolingual country. [00:59:12] Speaker B: And Marlene. And if you allow me, I have a question that I think Marlene Jr. Probably are really well equipped to do it. And of course Webster. Webster as well. But because I know time just got really short while you're having fun. [00:59:29] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:59:29] Speaker B: And it just disappears. And we could continue talking for a couple more hours. I think we should have a whole day probably happening all around. But I'm really happy we've done it and I hope next year we can come back to see where innovations are happening. What's going on with Haitian Creole. But policy in the United States is not the only advancement. In the past two years we've seen how artificial intelligence has basically just come in to every single industry. And it's very positive on some areas, very negative on some other areas. And when we are talking about marginalized languages, it's very easy to oversimplify what artificial intelligence probably can do with it. And when we're looking into scalability and automation, including artificial intelligence, machine translation, we have to think about what is the responsibility of integrating this for languages like Haitian Creole. And perhaps with Haitian Creole, there are many lessons to learn there on how to responsibly approach these technologies. So if you can tell us from the business side, of course you, you want to be as efficient as possible. You want to include technologies. You don't want to be wasting resources, but you also want to be responsible and culturally aware. What can you tell us about that? [01:00:49] Speaker D: Like Marlene was saying, we need to ensure we use human to loop workflow. That's essential. Now one thing that can be weird. Even if we're talking about AI, we're talking about technology, it goes back to the same pattern we have, we've been seeing over the years, like Haitian. Haitian Creole and Haitians and Africans and everything black is left to the side. It doesn't have the same recognition that they should have. [01:01:27] Speaker A: I would say. I would say all non Europeans. Maybe that would be better because there's also indigenous languages that. [01:01:39] Speaker D: I agree. I agree. So the. Unfortunately, technologies are built by humans, and they come with the same biases. So in order for AI to be built in a way that will serve the best interest of the people, it needs to be human led. And all the needs the foundations must come from must take into account Haitian expertise and Haitian lead. Because oftentimes we're gonna be seeing the same mistakes happen, happening over and over from what we have been doing to what we see in AI. For example, today, a Haitian who is black who goes on Facebook and uses an AI tool to see what they will look like in the future. They might end up look like a European. Right. Because even the AI does not recognize our features because the AI is built with so many biases. You see what I mean? So we need to start. That's. I don't remember which one of you mentioned representation. I believe it is Webster earlier. And everything that we're building, including. Including AI tools, representation matters. Haitian experts, Haitians who've been there, who know the needs of the community, who. Where the culture is really taken into account, all of that is very important to build AI tools that are relevant to our reality. [01:03:43] Speaker B: See. [01:03:46] Speaker C: And if Mole is. Molin, are you okay right now? [01:03:50] Speaker A: I don't know. Comes if I'm. If you guys can hear me or. I don't know what happened, but agree with you. Yeah. So, yeah, I. No, I don't have much to add to what he said, except that, you know, in our business, when you're talking about business, working with what we already have, because there's a lot of companies in the linguistic world, the translation world, there's a lot of companies that are creating their own language models and they use their memories from before. So it's. That were done by humans, but it's still. But Haitian Cross doesn't have enough data sets, so it's still not perfect. But I think, like, I don't know if you guys heard me earlier. Like, what I said was, I always make sure that there's a human in the loop and that the clients know that this is being done by. Of course, there's an AI or MT draft, and then there's the Haitian native working on it. But with Haitian curl It's not as advanced as other languages, but it still work. But one of the things that I'm very passionate about is using Haitian, using AI for education in Haiti. We talked about that last time. Edit. I think that if we. Because in Haiti, one of the biggest problems we have is there's like. I think one of the participants mentioned about the. We don't have enough materials in Haitian Creole in different fields like stem, so we could use AI to create the draft because in schools so many the educational materials are outdated or they're in French. So we could use AI to create these educational materials and Haitian Grill and of course, make sure that they respect our culture, the local context. But that would speed up the process. We didn't have a chance to talk about the fact that education is still in French in Haiti, although the Constitution says that Haitians. There's one language that unites all Haitians. Article 5 of the Haitian Constitution, Haitian Creole. And there has been a mandate by the Ministry of Education to have education in Haitian Creole. And one of the reasons that they haven't been able to implement that is lack of resources, because it's like starting from scratch, you're going to have to create textbooks in Haitian Creole. So I think that AI could, we could really leverage artificial intelligence in that context. But there's a lot of work to be done. And we're working with a company called African Languages Lab and they're very advanced, working with languages in Africa and low resource languages. Hopefully we'll be able to develop something that would be adaptable for a language like Haitian Creole. [01:06:44] Speaker D: Part of the problem, part of the problem is the overall consideration, overall treatment. Haitian Crow has both Haiti and internationally. So that's part of the problem. So from the identity aspect to governance through policies, it all encompasses the whole approach to the Haitian Creole. So I guess we need to better all of that in terms of, of advocacy for language, in terms of education, raising awareness with the people and doing our job as parents to make sure that our kids in the U.S. for instance, they speak the language, they be connected. Sure. [01:07:33] Speaker A: But I have to say over the past 10 years, I'm the optimistic one in the room. I have to say that over the past 10, 20 years, we have come such a long way. There's a lot of work to be done, but we have come a long way with the Haitian Creole Academy. And even in the US The Haitian Creole is in the digital space. It's, you know, it's, it's compatible with so many different platforms. So that's For a creole language, that's a big deal. I don't think there's a lot of. Out of those hundreds of creole languages, Haitian Creole is one of the most advanced creole languages, which is why it's leaving that category. So kudos to everyone and all the wonderful work they have done. And there's that big elephant in the room. The pink elephant is not the right expression. Haiti is going through unprecedented a political crisis right now. Even if we wanted to do something, I don't think that's the priority of the government. The priority of the government right now is security. With those gangs destroying the lives of so many people. And you talked about governance and policy. The reasons that we haven't been able to implement because the rules are there, the constitutions, there's been mandates by the Ministry of Education. But all Haitian institutions are weak right now. [01:09:03] Speaker C: So. [01:09:04] Speaker A: So it will be impossible to implement any of those things. We don't even have a government. So I think that to be able to implement these policies, we need to have a strong. At least not even strong. We'll take what we can get, but we need to have a stable government so that people can start working instead of going crisis after crisis after crisis. [01:09:34] Speaker C: I don't have. I have so much to say. And what are the. A few things and I was. I was reading maybe like earlier yesterday an article published after the 2010 earthquake and there was a professor, I think his name is William Lewis, talking about how after the earthquake they were trying to integrate into a machine translation the Haitian quill because after the FQ they wanted to have. There's a. There's a very good article available. They wanted to have you know, restaurants and on a hustle act because. And it was. [01:10:07] Speaker A: He. [01:10:08] Speaker C: He mentioned a set of problems about like standardization and. And also it was difficult and also you mentioned about like the register in the. In the Haitian queer language. Although sometimes we know as Haitian as native speaker when we are speaking in self formal stone and when not in informal. But sometimes it does not recognize for some categories like low resource or under resource language. Like that's the reason sometimes the content localization is a little bit difficult. And I wanted to kind of value the actions of Google I think around 2017 when they team up with MIT Haiti and MIT Haiti. So kind of like Marlon said, Haitian core is like the most advanced right now and into the queer varieties. And because we have this the highest speakers, the highest percentage of speakers and also like we the highest advocates and that for so many reasons. And if you go in so like for Google Google team up with a Haitian team at mit which is MIT Haiti. It's a very good initiative after the earthquake leads by Professor Michel de Graaf. And they see more for the. For the. What we see the automation or quilt translation on Google. And also I can. We can see like for Duolingo. And they also team up with a. A group of Haitian linguists. For example, I know Naya, I know Cesar Axinie, I know Nicola. Or is that Fi u dong. And that means that I think this and. And I think the system also like recognize or agency recognize the importance of having a Haitian voice in the room to avoid the repeated mistakes like we used to have after the earthquake or before. That means that. Which is a very great deal for me. And the last thing I want to say is in train station because I usually do train station for. From French Haitian queer. So English and English so both of them and I Spanish is Somali. And in general I am not a proficient in Spanish. And yeah what I can say what I It's about my problem. I struggle. It's nuances. What I could say nuances. And using idiom idioms using colloquialism or like using cultural references because those are very important. Because sometimes. And it's difficult like and when you. We have sometimes an expression or idioms in Haitian queer that is informal or like that is formal. And maybe like the equivalent in English is informal. And that's the reason sometimes they are usually encouraged to have if. When it's needed to have a second look a formal native. Because sometimes we can create inconsistency without knowing that or without wanting to do that. And. And also and these nuances for me because I am also an English learner. That is. That makes it a little bit difficult for me. So when I say difficult not to do the translation but also to pay attention. So the specific specificities of the language because we know like. Like Junior mentioned sometimes there's a lot of. And consistency in this translation. For example, even at school like at the elementary school like we know sometimes educators what I am out and educators are willing to use Google translation or like Canvas or Translate or piece of text. And it came with great inconsistency. And also one of the things that I realized from reading the article from Lewis is for example like if we in Haitian queer sometimes there's the. The tendency to write messi without the accent on top of a. It's. It's. It's very large. For example, we. We say messi M E Plus the accent. And sometimes without the accent. And William said, sometimes it's difficult for the machine translation. So recognize which ones to prioritize. Because we have two. We have two varieties here. And both of them. And when you can say that, when you are. When you're doing a research and if you, for example, if you add a comma at the end of the third word and without the comma, it could be a different translation. You can see that. And also he said, I said that's something very important. And another thing he pointed out is the fact that sometimes we, for example, if we said with us and Haitian queer avec. No, a lot of us said aven. Aven, like a one word aven, two word avec. [01:15:02] Speaker D: No. [01:15:03] Speaker C: And sometimes you said that they. They willing to create a false dictionary. A false dictionary with some. And with other words that are not like that. Recognize. Like this is the. The, you know, the formal register, like the frozen register. This is the, the casual register. But I don't know. I haven't heard. I didn't read another article from him to know where they are actually with this false dictionary. What. I think that could be a good help with the machine translation, having a false dictionary to say, to point it out. And okay, this is the, the register that's gonna help a little bit with the train station machine translation, I think. [01:15:45] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think it's important for the. For the Haitians watching right now. That's why it's so important to use the correct writing system. If you don't know it, learn it. The Haitian Creole Academy publish two resolutions on the writing system. They're available on their website, academy creole.org you can learn them. You can follow us. Like our social. This is one thing we advocate every day. We have micro lessons on social media to make sure that you learn the correct writing system. Because it's so important, because like in the search engine and machine translation and AI, they get confused because we have so many different variations to the writing system. [01:16:32] Speaker B: Thank you so much. Of course, I want to take a second to say thank you to everyone who has listened to this conversation, everyone who's seen it live, and of course, everyone who will look at our snippets and potentially also the summary that we'll put out there on the web. If you have any more questions as you're seeing this recording, leave it there or leave us a message. We will probably also be releasing this recording very soon. Marlene. Everyone else, Webster Jr. Thank you so much for joining us today. [01:17:09] Speaker A: Thank you. [01:17:12] Speaker C: Thank you, Eddie. [01:17:13] Speaker D: Thank you. [01:17:16] Speaker C: I wanted to give a little props to multilingual because I spent a lot of times on the website over the last few days. It's rich. I encourage people to visit it. There's a lot of great contents. I learned a lot about automation, about localization. I learned a lot. It's a very wonderful work and I want it so and you know, value a little bit. That seems work. And thank you for this. The magazine also the magazine is. Thank you very much. Yeah, I'm a subscriber. Yes. The magazine I like. So I like. [01:17:47] Speaker B: We're also full of jokes. [01:17:49] Speaker C: Look at. [01:17:50] Speaker B: Oh, nice, nice English dread again with no jokes. We have our jokes. We have our jokes. But thank you everyone. I will stay in touch. We'll see you next year. Talk more about Haitian Heritage Month. Have a rest of your day. [01:18:05] Speaker A: Happy Haitian Heritage Month. Bye.