Joseph Noreus only goes to Haitian barbers – not because they cut hair better or charge less money, but because they are Haitian, like he is.
“If I’ve got Haitians cutting hair, why should I go to Americans?” Noreus said while waiting for a trim at Elton Degree Barber Shop on Southeast Second Avenue, a quiet strip just south of downtown that is lined with Haitian-owned businesses.
Noreus’ sentiments are echoed throughout the Delray Beach Haitian immigrant community, where the number of businesses has grown from two to 33 in 10 years, according to the Haitian-American Community Council.
“I want to support my people,” Noreus said, eyeing a wall across from him where the owner has taped Haitian money above a long, wide mirror.
Tucked between downtown East Atlantic Avenue and bustling Linton Boulevard is a thriving community of Haitian immigrants who prefer to shop among themselves for groceries, shoes, clothing, haircuts and just about everything else.
“As the population is growing, businesses are expanding,” said Daniella Henry, executive director of the Haitian council. “Business is booming.”
The businesses range from real estate and insurance companies to botanical stores, grocery stores and art galleries.
“They know exactly what we need, and that’s what they carry,” Henry said. “Ninety-nine percent of their clients are Haitian.”
Henry estimated there were 60,000 Haitians living in Palm Beach County, nearly a quarter of them in Delray.
The city’s Haitian population – the county’s largest – has grown in 10 years from 10,000 to 14,000, Henry said.
Official numbers from the most recent census, in 1990, show only 12,000 Haitians in Palm Beach County, and 3,100 in Delray. Henry said those numbers are way off.
She said Haitians typically don’t trust government because of their history with dictatorships, and they underreport their numbers to U.S. Census counters. Others are undocumented immigrants.
“They don’t want [the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service) to deport them,” Henry said.
Haitians started coming in large numbers to Delray in 1986 and 1987 to work the farmland, Henry said. When their friends and family learned Delray had a large number of Haitian immigrants, more began to come and live with them.
As their numbers grew, so did the businesses that serve them.
“Instead of going to Miami or wherever they went before, they stay right here with all the services,” Henry said. “But now, it’s not just that anymore. It’s family unification.”
Having their own little community within a community helps Haitians feel as though they are still in their native land, Henry said.
“In Haiti, you live in big communities, so you all know each other,” Henry said.
That link is evident along the narrow corridor on Southeast Second Avenue near Southeast Second Street, where Yves Elaus canvasses a long line of unassuming buildings, many of which house Haitian stores that are far more colorful inside.
Several stores are adorned with sculptures of Haitian women carrying baskets on their heads. On the door of a beauty salon hangs a painting of a long-haired woman who lies beside a tiger with Haiti’s mountains rising in the background.
Elaus stops from time to time to chat in Creole with business owners and their patrons.
“I come over just to talk to my friends,” said Elaus, 35, who also lives in Delray.
One of those friends he visits is Denise Dieudonne Jeudy, who sits in her small storefront full of women’s and girls’ hand-made dresses. Jeudy’s door is always open in the small shop that has no air conditioning.
She sits in front of a sewing machine in the middle of the store, crafting another dress. “I like Delray because I have many, many friends,” said Jeudy, owner of Denise’s Notre Dame Shop.
Other Haitian businesses are not so small – and getting bigger.
The owner of Our Lady Bakery, a Haitian bread shop on Southeast First Street, this month won city approval to expand its small storefront into a 2,854-square-foot center with 12 parking spaces two blocks west of its current location.
And a grocery store next to the Haitian council offices on Southeast Second Street is opening a take-out window in its storefront. The store, named In God We Trust, also plans to open a women’s and girls’ clothing store out of an adjacent office in the same building that used to house the council.
All along the strip, many Haitian businesses keep their radios tuned to WHSR-980 AM, a radio station that opened in Boca Raton four months ago. The station reaches Haitian audiences from Key West to Orlando with Haitian music and talk shows in Creole about Haitian politics and issues.
But not everyone in the Haitian community thinks having more Haitian businesses is a good thing.
Rosette Pomaphil, 40, has seen three Haitian-owned grocery stores besides her own open in the last three years. That’s kept her from seeing profits grow despite the growth in population, she said.
“There’s too many Haitian markets,” Pomaphil said, adding that she knows of seven other Haitian-owned grocery stores in the city, all concentrated in one area. “Too much of the same thing.”
