The Film ‘Dual Citizen’ Launches Caribbean Tour Across Trinidad, Guadeloupe And French Guiana

Following its opening at the Miami Film Festival before a sold-out audience and a screening at the DC Caribbean FilmFest, presented at the American Film Institute’s AFI Silver Theatre, Haitian-American filmmaker Rachelle Salnave is taking her feature documentary DUAL CITIZEN into the Caribbean.

The Artist (Formerly) Known as Louis Rigaud

In 1963, Yale University’s Peabody Museum accessioned seventeen nineteenth-century portraits of Haitian revolutionaries, heads of state, and military figures from the United States National Museum, an entity of the Smithsonian. That same year, Saul H. Riesenberg, a curator of ethnology at the U.S. National Museum, wrote to Cornelius Osgood, curator of anthropology at the Peabody, that he “had not been able to learn anything about the painter, L. Rigaud,” whose signature appeared at the bottom of each painting. When Peabody staff later formally catalogued the paintings after five decades, they realized no one had learned much in the intervening years. Working with existing scholarship, however, staff at the Peabody came to believe the paintings were the work of Louis Rigaud.

Felix Jean-Louis participated in the documentary “The Troubled Island”

Haitian Studies Association’s board member Felix Jean-Louis, participated in the short documentary ‘The Troubled Island’ directed by Desha Dauchan in Film and Media at UC Irvine.
The documentary is about South Central Artist Noni Olabisi who was a fixture in the area and painted many murals as well as other works. The documentary centers on one particular mural based on the opera by William Grant Still, ‘The Troubled Island,’ which contains a libretto partially written by Langston Hughes. Felix was asked to serve as a historian and contextualize Haiti, the Revolution, and Langston’s relationship to the country. 

Regine O. Jackson was a panelist at the Atlanta World Cup premiere of “The Tropic Sun and His Eyes”

HSA President, Regine O. Jackson, was a panelist at the Atlanta World Cup premiere of an independent feature film shot entirely in Cap Haitien, Haiti, ‘The Tropic Sun and His Eyes’.
The in-person event was held at the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse College. The post-screening discussion and Q&A with the filmmaker, Mr. Elisee Junior St. Preux, was moderated by Dr. Edvige Jean-Francois, an award-winning, multilingual global journalist and the inaugural executive director of the Center for the Studies on Africa and Its Diaspora at Georgia State University. Mr. Muhammad Abdullah, the Vice President and General Manager of Mountain Arctic Pacific USA at The Coca-Cola Company (previously Vice President and General Manager for the Caribbean) and Dr. Regine O. Jackson, Dean of the Humanities, Social Sciences, Media & Arts and Professor of Sociology at Morehouse College.

Impact of Supreme Court TPS ruling on Haitians, Syrians and tens of thousands in the US

The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that the Trump administration can end Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, for Haitian and Syrian migrants, putting roughly 356,000 people at risk of losing work permits and facing deportation. To discuss the impact on Haitians in the US, we’re joined by Francois Pierre-Louis of Faith in Action International in New York City. We then hear from Krish Vignarajah, president of Global Refuge, to understand the wider implications of the ruling on the future of TPS.

FIFA’s Haiti jersey ban echoes the long campaign to discredit and downplay the Haitian Revolution

Ahead of its first match in the 2026 World Cup, the Haitian national soccer team was forced to make a last-minute change. But it didn’t have anything to do with its roster or travel plans. It was the team’s jersey.

FIFA, the sport’s global governing body, said the jersey design violated its rules, which ban political slogans or imagery.

Haiti at the World Cup is more than an underdog tale – it is the story of global migration

When Haiti’s soccer team lines up against Scotland on June 13, 2026, its players will be representing the Caribbean nation at a World Cup for the first time since 1974. They will also embody the complexities and possibilities of Haiti and its diaspora.

Of the 26 players selected for the squad, only 10 were born in Haiti. And just one, Woodensky Pierre, plays for a Haitian club. Twelve were born in France of Haitian parents, one in Canada, one in Switzerland and two in the United States.

Bêtes Noire – Sorcery as History in the Haitian-Dominican Borderlands

In Bêtes Noires, Lauren Derby explores storytelling traditions among the people of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, focusing on shapeshifting spirit demons called baka/bacá. Drawing on interviews and life stories of residents in a central Haitian-Dominican frontier town, Derby contends that bacás—hot spirits from the sorcery side of Vodou/Vodú that present as animals and generate wealth for their owners—are a manifestation of what Dominicans call fukú, the curse of Columbus. The dogs, pigs, cattle, and horses that Columbus brought with him are the only types of animals that bacás become. As instruments of Indigenous dispossession, these animals and their spirit demons convey a history of trauma and racialization in Dominican popular culture. In the context of slavery and beyond, bacás keep alive the promise of freedom, since shapeshifting has long enabled fugitivity. As Derby demonstrates, bacás represent a complex history of race, religion, repression, and resistance.

The Power of Language: Valuing the Haitian Creole Language

Jacques Pierre, the Kreyol editor for the Journal of Haitian Studies was part of the webinar ‘The Power of Language: Valuing the Haitian Creole Language’ with BIC-Building Integrated Communities.
In this webinar, Mr. Jacques Pierre, Haitian Creole scholar and language instructor, shares his perspective on how colonial mindsets have impacted their languages and the critical role higher education can play in valuing and preserving these languages. This webinar was part of the 2024 Language Access Education Series.

“I’ll Continue to Live”: Haitian Immigrants Face Uncertainty in Trump’s America

HSA Member Laura Wagner (and former member of our Board of Directors) wrote this piece for The Progressive Magazine on February 5th, 2025.

Haiti: A Story Shared in New Mexico

Filmmaker Alain Martin makes a visit to Raton, New Mexico for a screening of his compelling documentary film, “The Forgotten Occupation” and had a conversation with El Raton Media Works.

What Haiti Needs Is Human Rights Support – Not More Military Interventions

The past few days have seen unprecedented violence and an escalated humanitarian crisis in Haiti that has reached unimaginable proportions. De facto Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who was traveling this past weekend, is unable to return to Haiti as gang leaders threaten to create even more chaos if he returns. Meanwhile according to Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, the U.S. has asked Henry to ‘move forward on a political process that will lead to the establishment of a presidential transitional council that will lead to elections.’

The crisis in Haiti, explained

PODCAST
Haiti is in the grip of a deepening crisis. Armed gangs are expanding their control of the Caribbean nation through increasingly violent attacks.
A state of emergency was declared on Sunday after gangs raided two prisons, freeing thousands of inmates. Hours later, they launched an assault on the country’s main airport. One gang leader is warning of a ‘civil war that will end in genocide’ if Haiti’s Prime Minister remains in power.

Alex Dupuy publishes “Haiti since 1804: Critical Perspectives on Class, Power, and Gender”

Leading scholar Alex Dupuy investigates themes of class, power, and gender in Haiti in the capitalist world-economy—from independence and indemnity to the US occupation and current crisis after the assassination of President Moïse. This book provides new perspectives on Haiti’s political economy since independence and demystifies major forces that shape Haiti today.
In addition to the controversial indemnity, Dupuy looks at how the United States supplanted France as the major power occupying Haiti from 1915-34 and influenced Haiti’s economic and political development. Its policies and those imposed by international financial institutions transformed Haiti into the supplier of the lowest-paid labor, particularly in export assembly industries comprised mostly of women. In the present day, criminal gangs have plunged Haiti into an unprecedented political, economic, and security crisis since the assassination of Moïse, and Prime Minister Ariel Henri has called for foreign intervention to restore order.