Origin and Evolution

Recent Roots
The first Haitians arrived in Delray Beach via Miami in 1979-80, around the time of the Mariel boatlift, which originated when Fidel Castro opened Cuba’s ports and allowed the country’s citizens to sail to the U.S. freely. Haitians seeking to leave Haiti and the Bahamas took advantage of this outflow of mass migration to come to US shores as well. Many of the Haitians who arrived at that time were from rural areas, the Artibonite Valley and the north of Haiti, especially Port-de-Paix. Having nothing more than agricultural work experience, they migrated northwards toward the vegetable fields of Palm Beach County. It was at that time that they began to settle in Delray Beach.

Francois Appliances was one of the first Haitian businesses in Delray Beach.

“I am the only Haitian here.”
Pasteur Frank, of the Bethel Evangelical Baptist Church, the main Haitian Protestant church in Delray, remembers moving to Delray from Miami in 1980 and thinking, “I am the only Haitian here.” For those first few years, he says, Haitians were often living 30-40 in a house. The Delray Beach they found was experiencing urban decay that would not end until the next decade. Despite its proximity to the sea, Atlantic Avenue, its main drag, was littered with boarded up shops. Haitians worked hard during the day and lived quietly at night. It was around that time that Pasteur Frank began organizing prayer sessions for many disoriented Haitian immigrants living in Delray Beach who were having trouble making rhyme or reason of their new country. These informal prayer gatherings would evolve into his modern-day congregation.

Waves of Immigration
The relative anonymity that this small number of Haitians enjoyed in Delray Beach in the early 1980s was shattered with the 1986 end of the Duvalier dictatorship in Haiti. The fall of the repressive regime caused a large outflow of migration from Haiti to Florida’s shores. The City of Miami, the primary destination of most of these migrants, was unsure if it would be able to absorb any more Haitians and was unwilling to risk another mass migration by accepting the incoming Haitians with open arms. The city’s leaders appealed to the Florida State legislature to assist them with the newest wave of Haitian migrants. A solution was found by relocating the refugees to other towns which might be more capable of welcoming them. Delray Beach was one of these communities.

With this new wave of immigration, Delray had become a bona fide Haitian center for Palm Beach County. While other nearby towns such as Boynton Beach and even Boca Raton began to have some Haitian settlement, Delray was the largest community in the county. The town itself did not have much going for it and many of the newly arrived Haitians were relocated to a neighborhood called Osceola Park which was in the southeast quadrant of the town center, just off of Atlantic Avenue. While the downtown area was still moribund, Haitians began building their community in a neighborhood right next to it. By the time of the next wave of immigration to South Florida, in 1991, Delray Beach, and the Osceola Park neighborhood in particular, were large enough that they had begun attracting migrants from Haiti directly, but also via Miami.

After the coup of 1991 toppled President Jean Bertrand Aristide, a new wave of Haitian migrants arrived in Delray Beach just as the town was experiencing the lowest point of urban decay. As Joel Millman describes in his excellent book, The Other Americans, “By 1990 Delray Beach was a notorious crack zone. Tourists may have bypassed its beaches on the way south, but everyone else knew where to dart off the freeway to score.” By this point, the community had grown enough that it was accustomed to periodic arrivals of migrants and was able to cope with large scale migration.

Rapid Growth and Economic Transformation
Helping large numbers of newly arrived Haitians was no easy task, but it was certainly easier than when Pasteur Frank began organizing prayer groups in 1980. Since 1991 the Delray Beach Haitian community has continued to grow as Haitians have relocated there from the increasingly crowded Miami community and as Haitians in Delray have worked and saved their earnings to eventually be able to bring family members to live with them in the U.S. According to the 2000 US census, there are 6,300 Haitians living in Delray Beach out of a total population of 60,000, but local community leaders find that number too low. Many in the community consider the number to be closer to 12,000, thus representing close to 20% of the population.

Concurrently, Delray Beach has transformed itself in ten short years. The boarded up shops on Atlantic Avenue are now chic restaurants and antique stores. A large tennis center downtown hosts a women’s tennis tournament every year. The once economically depressed and drug-ridden downtown area is now a vibrant, clean shopping district. The town owes this to smart management as much as anything else, and to leaders who courageously faced the problems of urban blight head-on. In 1993 and again in 2001 it was named one of nine All-American Cities.

Despite their relatively low profile, the Haitian role in this transformation can not be ignored. Haitian residents, who are oftentimes homeowners, stabilized what had been a volatile setting. With the accelerated growth of the economy in the mid-90s they were able to grow economically as a community. With their increased numbers they were able to combat the predatory service providers of the mid-1980s and establish community structures to provide the services they needed at normal rates. They are realizing in 2002 that the fruit of these efforts is the newly found political power which they did not even know they had. And yet despite these accomplishments, like most immigrant groups, their hearts tug them in the direction of their homeland.