A COMPARISON OF HAITIAN AND FILIPINO CULTURES IN NEW YORK CITY

My culture is Haitian and I will compare that to the Filipino culture in New York City where, according to the Federal Reserve Bank report on the 2000 census, Haitians are included in the first rank of immigrants, accounting for the highest percentage of immigrants; included in this group as well are others from the Caribbean (and South America) including Jamaicans, Trinidadians, and Guyanans. By comparison, the Philippines ranks 10th of the top 11 “feeder” groups of immigrants. In New York City, Haitians have settled in large part in Brooklyn, where, according to the website Voices of New York, the majority of New York Haitians live—about 200,000. By comparison, New York Filipinos today number approximately 60,000 and have made their homes mostly in Queens. Thus, Haitians outnumber Filipinos by more than 3 to 1.
One of the most telling factors in examining any immigrant culture is language, specifically to how easily and quickly the immigrant culture can adapt to their new culture linguistically. While the national language of the Philippines is Tagalog, currently, English is taught extensively throughout the entire Filipino sch...