Understanding Haiti’s New Proposed Laws

Dr. Jean Eddy Saint Paul is a tenured full Professor in the Sociology Department at Brooklyn College and, between Fall 2016 & Spring 2020, served as the founding Director of the CUNY Haitian Studies Institute. His geographic focus is Latin America and the Caribbean, particularly Haiti and Mexico. He earned a B.A. in social work from the State University of Haiti, then served for 12 years as head of the library and as a member of the faculty of human sciences. He went on to gain a M.A. in Latin American studies from Pontificia University Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia. Saint Paul earned a Ph.D. in sociology from El Colegio de México. He was a visiting fellow at the select Institute for Political Science (SciencesPo). Mis most recent publications are Between Two Worlds: Jean Price-Mars, Haiti, and Africa, edited with Celucien L. Joseph and Glodel Mezilas, and “Sociedad civil: una aproximación teórica,” on Participación ciudadana y sociedad civil en el proceso de democratización de México, edited by Carlos Román Cordourier Real and Jesús Aguilar López.

Leonie Hermantin is the founder, Hermantin Consulting, LLC & Director of Development, Communications & Strategic Planning, Sant La Haitian Neighborhood Center. Born in Haiti and raised in New York City, she has more than 20 years of grassroots community experience in Miami’s Haitian community. She was a Visiting Professor at FIU’s School of Architecture; served as Executive Director of the Haitian-American Foundation (HAFI), and then Director of Research and Strategic Planning at the Haitian Neighborhood Center, Sant La.  She also served as the Deputy Director of the Lambi Fund of Haiti, a Haitian-led community foundation, focusing on the needs of Haiti’s rural population. She launched her own consulting firm, Hermantin Consulting LLC in 2011, offering Leonie the opportunity to work both in Haiti and in the US.

M.J. Fievre was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and moved to the United States in 2002. M.J.’s publishing career began as a teenager in Haiti with the Young Adult book La Statuette Maléfique. Since then, M.J. has authored nine books in French that are widely read in Europe and the French Antilles. Her titles include I Am Riding, her first children’s book, written in English, French, and Haitian Creole; A Sky the Color of Chaos, a memoir; and Raising Confident Black Kids, Happy, Okay?: Poems about Anxiety, Depression, Hope, and Survival. She is also a long-time educator and frequent keynote speaker. In Badass Black Girl: Questions, Quotes, and Affirmations for Teens (Mango) M.J. explores the many facets of identity through a number of big and small questions including family and friends, school and careers, body image, and stereotypes in this journal designed for teenage girls. She calls for embracing authenticity and celebrating who you are, so here’s a journal designed to help readers nurture their creativity, self-motivation, and positive self-awareness. This journal celebrates girl power and honors the strength and spirit of black girls. It provides words of encouragement that seek not just to inspire, but to ignite discussion and debate about the world. Mary Cowper, in the Midwest Book Review, noted that “Finding the courage to live as you are is not easy, so Badass Black Girl is an ideal journal designed to help young girls to nurture their creativity, self-motivation, and positive self-awareness.”

Alin Louis Hall is a frequent columnist for Haitian newspapers Le Nouvelliste and Le National. He has regularly written about Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome (PTSS) and the psychopathology affecting Afro descendants. As a result of several years of research, Hall has recently published the well acclaimed Ayiti-Exit series of articles and has developed the Transplantation Syndrome theory. Hall is also the author of La Péninsule Républicaine, an historical essay published in 2014 on the contribution of southern Haiti to the first Afro descendant self-determination experiment in America and the Haitian revolution. As a former private banker, financial advisor, and mortgage executive in Palm Beach County, Florida, Hall brings more than 20 years of experience in the banking, securities, mortgage, and insurance industries. He is currently a credit and risk analyst, and also holds the CFP designation from the CFP Board of Standards, a Bachelor of Science in finance from Nova Southeastern University, and a Master of Science in finance from Florida Atlantic University. Hall is also the founder of Xaragua Advisory Group (XAG), an initiative born of the earthquake that devastated Haiti in 2010. XAG is a group of recognized renewable energy design infrastructure and investment banking professionals. These professional have teamed up to provide unique resources, talents, and experiences to propose and initiate major macroeconomic enablers, such as the creation of a securities exchange commission, the incubation of the Haitian National Securities Exchange (HNSE), the Haitian Agricultural Exchange (HAE), and the Peninsula Development Authority (PDA) to oversee a special autonomous economic zone for