Remembering 9/11: The lives and losses that touched the Haitian community
A look back at Haitian victims, first responders and medical professionals whose lives were shaped by the Sept. 11 attacks — and the stories that too often went untold. The post Remembering 9/11: The lives and losses that touched the Haitian community appeared first on The Haitian Times.
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NEW YORK — To count the myriad ways that the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks changed our world in an impossible feat. What is possible, on the 25th anniversary of 9/11, is a glimpse into the toll of the day on Haitian Americans who lost, survived or helped.
At a time when Haitians in the U.S. face new headwinds about belonging and being part of the American fabric, it is possible to remember that Haitians or their loved ones have been here. To recall, to mourn and to lift up survivors, each other and their city.
To that end, The Haitian Times is revisiting the stories of those most known to us. We hope that anyone who has a remembrance to share will share theirs as well for future anniversaries.
A young boy looks at the Brooklyn 9/11 Wall of Remembrance during the annual Candlelight Ceremony in Coney Island on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attacks, Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis) 
Destroyed mullions, the vertical struts which once faced the outer walls of the World Trade Center towers, are the only thing left standing behind a dust covered bus and subway entrance, after September 11, 2001. File photo by Mark Lennihan for AP. 
Firefighters work beneath the destroyed mullions, the vertical struts that once faced the soaring outer walls of the World Trade Center towers, after a terrorist attack, Sept. 11, 2001, in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File) 
Rubble and ash fill streets in Lower Manhattan after two hijacked airliners crashed into the World Trade Centers twin towers, causing both towers to collapse, Sept. 11, 2001, in New York. (AP Photo/Boudicon One, File) 
A commuter stops by the fence at the WTC site early morning on September 10, 2006, in New York, to look at the photographs that captured the tragic events of September 11, 2001. Photo by Dima Gavrysh for AP.
Three Haitians — Mark Y. Gilles, André Bonheur Jr. and François Jean-Pierre — are memorialized among 110 known Caribbean-born nationals killed on 9/11.
Born in Haiti, Jean-Pierre had built a quiet life in Queens, working as a utility steward in the kitchen of Windows on the World, the restaurant atop the North Tower. He was 81, one of the oldest victims of the attacks, and one of many immigrant kitchen workers — dishwashers, porters, stewards — whose labor powered the city.
Many more who died or went missing that day had ties to the Haitian community.
Among them Maxima Jean-Pierre, 40, a food-service administrator on the 105th floor of the North Tower, The New York Times reported in October 2001. She was known for leaving handwritten notes taped to the meals she delivered: “Please eat this. You might get sick. When I come back, it better be gone.”
”She was very small, but so are hurricanes until they start,” said Michael Zinkofsky, her husband at the time of the attacks.
September 11, 2001, was supposed to have been her last day on the job.
One of her children, Anjunelly Jean-Pierre, told an outlet in 2021 that Maxima immigrated from the Dominican Republic and had married a Haitian-born man, Ajax Jean Pierre.
No remains were ever recovered.
“It always played on my mind. I thought, ‘What if they find something, then what?’ But I have to be OK with what it is,” Jean-Pierre said in The i Paper article five years ago.
The aftermath of 9/11 also shaped a Haitian doctor’s legacy. Dr. Gérard Breton, a forensic pathologist born in Port-au-Prince, led the 2006 autopsy of NYPD Detective James Zadroga, establishing the first medical link between Ground Zero dust and a first responder’s death.
Dr. Breton’s finding led Congress to pass the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act. He died June 22, 2022, at age 89.
For a personal take, The Haitian Times’ special projects editor Macollvie J. Neel writes about how 9/11 shaped her own identity as a Haitian New Yorker. She recalls the morning of the attacks from her family’s Flatbush apartment and the decision to apply for U.S. citizenship.
Have a remembrance to share? Include it in the comments below or write to us to potentially be included in future articles. Email your story to The Haitian Times with the subject line “9/11 Remembrance: Mwen te la.”
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