Dear Sia Michel (Deputy Culture Editor, New York Times),
I hope you have been doing well since we last spoke. I’ve been following your Twitter feed and have gotten an idea of the direction in which you are taking your department. I’ve been doing a good amount of reporting in New York’s Haitian community and believe I have a story that will fit into your culture section. It focuses on the complicated relationship between Haitians and the United States and speaks to the broader issues of what it is like to be an immigrant in America.
Many immigrants can find common ground, but each person also carries the specific baggage of their own life and country with them when they arrive. Haitians face challenges such as the prospect of succeeding as dark-skinned individuals in America and an atypical language barrier—people in their home country typically speak neither English nor Spanish fluently. Many Haitians come to the US for the chance at a better life, but this hope is not blind. Every Haitian immigrant I have spoken with so far has expressed a definitively nuanced immigrant experience. The relationship with their adopted nation will never be black or white, purely good or purely bad.
Principally, I want to cover the general attitude of Haitian immigrants in New York towards both their home nation and the US. Interviews, GDP figures, and the prevalence of remittance payments back to Haiti will establish the former, while interviews with Haitian immigrants, diaspora data, and immigration statistics will ground the latter aspect of the story. Furthermore, I want to analyze how the US has interfered in Haiti over the last few decades, usually under the guise of humanitarian aid. This will contrast well with one source of mine, a Haitian immigrant who established a healthcare-focused, non-profit organization with infrastructure in Haiti. Going from there, I would also like to delve into what happened between the nations after the 2010 earthquake and Haitian’s attitudes towards the Clintons and American politics.
Please let me know if you have any follow-up question or ideas on how to adapt it for your publication. I look forward to hearing from you!
Sincerely,
Luke Stevens