Sak Pase

Dad asked me to book airline tickets for him online. Even as a teenager and before the Internet I had always served as his travel agent. While searching for his flight, we talked about why he and mom decided to come to the US. After nursing school, Mom was employed five years as a charge nurse at Port Au Prince's General Hospital. She made $70/month working full-time. Serving as a nurse in any developing country meant that you can find yourself performing minor surgery. For a brief time in the early 60s the Haitian Gourde was as strong as the US dollar so it was the equivalent of $2.50/day US. My dad made $3/day as a laborer in a sugar mill. At ages 24 and 31, my parents hit the top of their pay scales - $6/day was the most money that they could ever expect to earn if they remained in Haiti. At ages 24 and 31, they hit the top of their pay scales - $6/day was the most they could expect to earn if they remained in Haiti. My parents were also motivated to leave Haiti due to...

I called my sister the other day to wish her a happy 30-something birthday. "What are you talking about?" she said, "Everyone in Cali thinks I'm 29, and I like it that way." She's just like Mom. We left her story on New's Year's Day 1968 when 25-year-old Yolande Mangones took up residence on Chicago's South Side. It had to have been one of the coldest days on record to date, whipping winds made it feel like it was 20 degrees below zero. On January 2nd she trudged through feet of snow to her first day as a staff nurse at Provident Hospital. Fortunately, her upbringing afforded her education in Haiti that included French, English, Spanish and Latin. Adapting to English wasn't insurmountable. While growing up, Mom insisted that we speak only English at home. She felt that it was the best way to integrate into American society and that it would help us with our studies. Yolande was a social and vocal person, so embracing the nuances of A...

I had the honor of telling my mother's immigration story to my daughter's 6th grade class. As I was talking, it struck me that we don't have her remarkable life written down, so I am dedicating this blog to her. My mother, Yolande Mangones, was born in Au Cayes, Haiti in 1943 to a colonel in the army named Corneille Mangones. Yolande's mother, Anaria Beacejour, was a Cuban-African who migrated to Haiti as a child with her parents. Corneille and Anaria were never married, nor did they ever live together. Anaira had nine pregnancies, with four children that survived passed childbirth. Yolande, along with her sister Solange, were raised in their father's house and cared for by their nanny, stepmother, along with various maids, cooks, maintence workers, and drivers. Corneille could afford higher education, so Mom was trained as a Registered Nurse, as were many educated Haitian women at that time. While in nursing school, she met my dad Jean Guichon. They married a...