Haitian Culture - Communication Interactions between Children and Parents - Essay Example

Haitian Culture Table of Contents Summary 3 I. Overview 4 II. Haitian Family Structure 6 III. Beliefs- Education, Disabilities, Religion and Health 8 IV. Communicative Behaviors- Verbal and Non-Verbal 9 V. Communication Interactions Between Children and Parents 10 1References 11 Summary This paper explores of Haitian culture with a focus on language and communication. The proceeding discussion situates Haitian language and communication in the context of Haitian culture, and in accordance with the following stated aspects for exploration: family structure; beliefs relating to education, religion, disabilities and health; verbal and non-verbal behaviors in communication, including literate and oral verbal communication behavior, and aspects of non-verbal behaviors in communication; interactions in communication between children and parents. The general findings with regard to Haitian family structure is that evolving from extended families that shared resources, work and which functioned as support units, the modern Haitian family is more nuclear in orientation, with the traditional extended families giving way to modern structures found in the west. In terms of  education and language, as well as religion and health, Haiti’s problems relate to the use of Creole and French in classroom instruction, problems with inclusion and the use of Creole in intellectual discourse, the poor health prognoses of Haitians in general, and the role that language plays in stratifying and keeping class boundaries in place. Language has implications for literacy and the ability of government to educate the Haitian masses effectively, and that in turn has implications for the ability of government to uplift the conditions of the Haitian masses.  Language has implications for social mobility, and in the main, communicative behaviors also are delineated along class lines, with the Creole masses being kept in place by their inability to speak and write in French fluently. On the other hand, with regard to the behaviors in communication among families, they are complex, and are defined by larger social and cultural values and the patriarchal systems that dominate many households.  (Bellegarde-Smith, 2006;  (Haggerty, 1989 (b)). I. Overview This paper explores of Haitian culture with a focus on language and communication. The literature tells us that Haitian culture is an amalgamation of various cultural influences resulting from its long history of colonization, by successive waves of foreigners, from Indians to the Spaniards, to the French, and to the Africans. One can therefore get an inkling of the kind of culture that emerged from this amalgamation by investigating the individual foreign colonizing cultures, with the Spanish for instance and the French exerting a heavy influence on the development of vital aspects of Haitian culture, including language and communication. From the 15th century on to the 17th century, for instance, the initial influence of Spain uprooted the Haitian aborigines called the Taino-Indians from traditional ways of being, and into western and European cultural contexts, even as the exploitation of the aborigines went hand in hand with their brutal subjugation and the exploitation of the country’s natural resources, as well as the education of some of the native Indians into western literacy also occurred with the guidance of the Franciscan missionaries. From the 17th century onwards, on the other hand, with the entry of the French colonialists, French influences would gradually seep into Haitian culture, even as the mass importation of slaves from Africa to power colonial agriculture and the need to educate local French and the affranchis resulted in the gradual seeping of knowledge and French culture into general Haitian culture as well, in spite of the limited access to education among people in the islands during this period (Pamphile, 2008, pp. 1-5). The idea that one gets from this cursory discussion is that of Haitian culture being something of a flux and an evolution in terms of colonial influences melding with each other through time to create something unique. From the perspective of the outsider, on the other hand, this uniqueness translates to the stereotypes of the Haitian and of Haitian culture as primal, instinctive, primitive, sensual, and something that needs to be tamed and ordered by the rational and modern sensibilities and culture of the west (Twa, 2014; Munro, 2013). Early narratives of Haitian culture in the west, moreover, have been regarded as overly paternalistic and lacking in rigor and objectivity with regard to the outward manifestations of the culture, including what early writers deemed as the population’s “primitivism” and belief in magic and rituals, as represented by its voodoo practices. These early narratives of outsiders looking in in America, on the other hand, totally negate discussions on language and communication, and can be regarded from the perspective of American culture being divorced from the heavy French and to some extent Spanish influences, as well as the African influences, that are to be found in Haitian culture. Focusing on language and communication in Haitian culture, on the other hand, removes the barrier and the separation between the one studying and the object of the study, because of the intimate link between Haitian sensibility and subjective world view and the language that the Haitian uses to communicate with himself or herself and with his loved ones, as well as the general community and the rest of the world. It makes sense therefore to undertake this exploration from this point of view of language, to pierce through some deeply ingrained stereotypes of the Haitian sensibility and psyche in various western disciplines and in western academic literature in general (Latta and Goodman, 2005; Pierre-Pierre, 1996). Focusing on Creole language, on the other hand, one finds from the literature that while marginalized in other countries, Creole’s being the only language for all but 15 percent of the population, and the native tongue for all Haitians, have profound implications for the development and on-going evolution of Haitian culture and artifacts of that culture (Schieffelin and Doucet, n.d.; Howe, 1993; Hebblethwaite, 2012). Here some representative perspectives include French as a “superstrate” foundation of basis for creole, and the interrelationship between Haitian creole language and “substrate” languages, and several novel and related aspects of Haitian communication and Haitian culture in general (Koopman, 1986). The proceeding discussion will situate Haitian language and communication in the context of Haitian culture, and in accordance with the following stated aspects for exploration: family structure; beliefs relating to education, religion, disabilities and health; verbal and non-verbal behaviors in communication, including literate and oral verbal communication behavior, and aspects of non-verbal behaviors in communication; interactions in communication between children and parents (Parham, 2004; Bellegarde-Smith, 2006). II. Haitian Family Structure The modern family structure in Haiti revolves around the nuclear family, even as extended clan relationships still persist. On the other hand, extended family structures, while still providing some measure of social organization and a sense of belonging among Haitians, no longer had the same kind of economic weight that it did in prior centuries, owing to the continued erosion of extended family values in exchange for the strengthening of nuclear family bonds. The lakou was the key structure of family in earlier times, to as late as the 19th century, which was a true extended family that worked cooperatively and shared the spoils of work in communal fashion. The lakou then was organized along the family lines of the father, so that members of different families strung together by kins of the father gathered together to form the lakous. It is indicative of the strong economic and social orientation of the lakou that it both referred to the family structure as well as the group of houses where they dwelt in communal fashion. This was also a support group with members providing not just material and financial support for each other, but also providing companionship and many other kinds of interpersonal and social kinds of support to their members. On the other hand, the different houses represented different owners of the land, so that in lakous ownership of the land was tied to particular households, to be inherited and partitioned along family lines and not along lakou lines. Over time land ownership became very fragmented, and population increases further led to the effective disintegration of the lakou as a family structure in the old sense of being a communal economic and support group, with the present-day lakou being reduced to the physical clustering of abodes among members of a community or loosely aggregated kins and nuclear families. Among the peasantry, however, these lakous somewhat have retained the character of the traditional lakous, offering different kinds of support, but such has been disintegrating as well, with lakou arrangements among peasants also breeding in-fighting and disputes over property at times (Haggerty, 1989). Family structure is also a function of class in Haiti, insofar as class determined how well-documented and in what ways families were formed and maintained in Haiti then and now. The upper classes enjoyed the benefits of strong and well-defined lineages and properly documented family lines, and families were more stable owing to greater opportunities at work and in education. On the other hand, the lower classes did not enjoy the same kinds of stability, and therefore family structures and relationships were more ad hoc and less documented, and more prone to disruptions in continuity of family lines and formal documentation, as well as having fewer formal marriages to cement family arrangements owing to the economic costs of marriages. Where the rich had formal marriages, the poor had so-called plasaj relationships that were defined. are defined by loose arrangements for responsibilities sharing, with the man providing shelter and work and food, and the woman basically tending to the home and the children, and undertaking the domestic duties while the male went out to work. For the lower classes, marriage was a kind of status signal and usually deferred or altogether skipped. On the other hand, in both the upper and lower classes, husband and wife relationships were not always monogamous, and that likewise has profound implications for family structure, continuity, and the numbers of families that men are able to maintain. Religion also has a role to play in family structure and formal marriages, with Protestant Haitians gaining access to economically viable marriage ceremonies that fortified the union of many Haitian members of the sect with such cheap formal marriages (Haggerty, 1989). III. Beliefs- Education, Disabilities, Religion and Health Education issues in Haiti are often linked back to language and to Creole in particular, and the role of language in education, with language policies being plagued by a lack of consistency historically. That inconsistency had negative impacts on Haiti education policy and outcomes. French was primary, and for a long time until the 1970’s the status of Creole was uncertain. Creole was eventually integrated as a primary language of instruction after that, but progress remained mixed, with issues remaining relating to spelling, and the use of Creole for primary school education as an elementary school instruction language. The bone of contention was with regard to the continued use of French to bolster the prospects of both the poor and rich families’ children and their economic prospects in life, with Creole being seen as detrimental to such prospects, when used solely as the language of instruction in place of French. The consensus remained that French was a desirable language of instruction, even as proponents argued that in the main, while the textbooks are in French, schools used Creole to teach and discuss in Haitian grade school classrooms. The use of Creole was associated with literacy drives from the 1960’s on, with impacts on overall levels of literacy among the Haitian population moving forward (Haggerty, 1989 (b)). Religion is officially Roman Catholic for majority of the Haitians, even as the dominant religion is voodoo in one form or another. Protestants shun voodoo, even as voodoo practitioners see their faith as being compatible with being Catholic. Voodoo is at heart the worship of family spirits, and in essence voodoo is a foreign invention, with Haitians themselves seeing themselves not as voodooists but as Roman Catholics. Vodoun, which is a kind of ritualistic dance, is an aspect of the faith, even as voodooists seem themselves as Catholics practicing aspects of kin spirit worship that are in line with their Catholic faith. The faith is centered on the worship of loua, or family spirits from both the mother and father side of a family (Haggerty, 1989 (b)). Health, disabilities, and mortality issues are tied to high mortality rates for children, poor sanitation and drinking water access, and general poor health prognoses leading to low life expectancies and high rates of disease. In the 70s more than three quarters of children suffered from malnutrition, and people were not expected to live past 50. AIDS was prevalent from the onset of the disease worldwide, with the relatively high numbers spilling out into immigrant families going to other parts of the world, including the US, brought into the country by foreigners in the 1970’s. (Haggerty, 1989 (b)). IV. Communicative Behaviors- Verbal and Non-Verbal The verbal aspects of communication in Haiti revolved around the use of two dominant languages, Creole, which is spoken by the entire population, and French, which is spoken by just 10 percent of Haitians. Just five percent speak both French and Creole, leading to the observation that the masses are not generally Francophone, and not generally bilingual. Most of the people therefore are just Creole speakers, and a few elite members of society were able to speak French. Public speech is a big aspect of social life in Haiti, and communicative behaviors mostly are verbal in this regard, and the mode of language that the public preferred was French when in this mode, giving French a higher status overall than Creole. The ability to speak French moreover was a prerequisite for entry into the higher echelons of Haiti society. The middle classes had a strict adherence to formal French grammar rules as a sign of their inherently tenuous position in Haiti society, and by way of differentiating themselves from the lower Creole speaking classes. From the 1950s onwards, with the coming of the Americans, attitudes and thinking about Creole changed, and the result was the increased use and acceptance of Creole as a valid intellectual language to be used for formal discourse as well, worthy of the same respect formerly given to French solely (Haggerty, 1989 (b)). On the other hand, literature also notes that non-verbal communication plays a large part in being able to successfully talk and understand Haitian interactions with each other and the rest of the world. These include touching behaviors, which are commonplace, kissing, eye contact, handshakes, and various hand and finger gestures to communicate beckoning and to attract attention, among others (Cook Ross, n.d.). V. Communication Interactions Between Children and Parents The dynamics of interactions between children and parents in Haitian culture are complex, and are situated in the context of large social and cultural dynamics that reinforce the use of certain language conventions and preferences, namely French for the elite and Creole for the majority, the patriarchal system, the preference for oral versus written communication for ordinary Haitians, and family structural conditionings relating to the role of the father as provider and the mother as the one holding the family together and in charge of the domestic duties and the children. Being patriarchal in some respects, the dynamic of children and parent interactions are largely also defined along the patriarchal power structure, with the parents having a large say in the decision making for their children, and for children with disabiliities, such power extends throughout the rest of the children’s lives. (Haggerty, 1989 (b); Jacobson, 2003). 1 References Bellegarde-Smith, P. (2006). Resisting Freedom: Cultural Factors in Democracy- The Case for Haiti. : Invisible Powers: Voudou in Haitian Life and Culture, Michel and Bellegarde-Smith (eds). Palgrave Cook Ross (n.d.). Background on Haiti & Haitian Health Culture. Cook Ross/in.gov. Retrieved from http://www.in.gov/isdh/files/cultural_primer_on_Haiti.pdf Haggerty, R. (1989). Gender Roles and Family Life. Haiti: A Country Guide. Washington, GPO for Library of Congress/Country Studies.us. Retrieved from http://countrystudies.us/haiti/29.htm Haggerty, R. (1989 (b)). Haiti: A Country Guide. Washington, GPO for Library of Congress/Country Studies.us. Retrieved from http://countrystudies.us/haiti/ Hebblethwaite, B. (2012). French and underdevelopment, Haitian Creole and development: Educational language policy problems and solutions in Haiti. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 27 (2). 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