YORK, Pa. (WHTM) — This isn’t York’s first wave of Haitian immigrants, but — as one measure of how much the community has grown — it is the first wave arriving to find a Haitian restaurant: Ramapou, on West Market Street, which opened in early June.
Ramapou’s owner, Joubert Fils-Aime, moved first to Miami, then New York and then Lancaster, Pa., a decade ago and speaks barely-accented English; the hostess/waitress is a new arrival who depends on Fils-Aime to translate a question from a customer about whether or not a chicken dish has all white-meat chicken.
Loucena Emile, now a community health worker with Family First Health in York, couldn’t have had that conversation in English either when she first came here in 2014 after a brief stay in Georgia, her first stop with her mother after leaving Haiti; Emile’s uncle already lived here and thought they would like the city.
“It was difficult,” Emile recalled. “I learned English in Haiti, but it’s nothing compared to the English Americans speak here.”
Emile’s uncle and other earlier immigrants helped her then; now she helps the latest wave, which — although no one knows for sure exactly how many Haitians have come recently — everyone involved agrees is growing in the wake of natural and manmade disasters in Haiti, where gangs are believed to control 80% of the country’s capital.
“We’ve seen significant increases in the number of minutes and hours that we’re using in terms of translation” services between English and Haitian Creole, said Ruth Robbins, chief program officer with York’s Community Progress Council, which connects local people with social services and is actively recruiting — and offering higher salaries to — Haitian Creole-speaking employees.