Words That Wound: The Impact of Political Rhetoric on Haitian-Immigrant Communities
Conference: The 23rd Annual International Conference of the Igbo Studies Association (ISA) (2026)
Presenter(s): Laura Napoleon
Presentation Date: May 14, 2026 @ 01:26 AM
Abstract
This paper examines how political rhetoric becomes more than speech—it becomes policy, perception, and lived consequence for Haitian immigrant communities in the United States. Through Critical Discourse Analysis and Autoethnography, I explore how public statements made during the Trump administration framed Haiti and Haitian migrants through racialized and deficit-based language. Rather than treating rhetoric as symbolic noise, this study argues that words carry institutional weight. They shape public sentiment, legitimize exclusionary immigration policy, and influence how entire communities are governed. Drawing on the Africana concept of Nommo—the generative and life-shaping power of the spoken word—this research positions political language as both a creative and destructive force. Within African cosmology, words do not merely describe reality; they bring it into being. When political leaders deploy dehumanizing language, those words materialize through surveillance, legal precarity, deportation threats, and fractured family structures. Interwoven with scholarly analysis is a personal narrative from my family’s decade-long struggle to secure Temporary Protected Status (TPS), endure financial and emotional strain, and navigate a system influenced by national rhetoric. These lived experiences reveal how discourse travels—from podium to policy, from headlines to households. Grounded in the conference theme Ọsọ Ndu Agwụ Ike, this paper contends that Haitian resilience emerges not in the absence of struggle, but through cultural affirmation, faith, and collective endurance. If Nommo has the power to wound, it also carries the power to restore. Reclaiming language becomes an act of resistance and a pathway toward sustainable and dignified diasporic futures.
12 views