DEAR EDITOR:

I wish those who are so quick to criticize the Haitian immigrants could have spent some time in Haiti. As a nurse, I have seen poverty and volunteered to go with a medical group to help in Haiti following one of its weather disasters. This was the greatest shock I have ever experienced. I was not raised “in the lap of luxury,” and poverty was not new to me, but this was poverty beyond anything I could have imagined. It is indeed a land without hope. They have no control over their lives, no hope for a better way of life, and they live in constant fear.

I saw small boys rummaging in a dump pile and asked what they were searching for. They were seeking fish heads for their mothers to make soup. Later in my life, I joined a group in Florida called Hope For Haiti but soon became discouraged because it seemed there was no hope for Haiti. I freely admit I have said that if I had been born in Haiti, I too would have joined those who board a rubber raft trying to escape a hopeless situation.

What is life without hope? How does one watch children grow with no chance for a better life, an education, freedom from violence, and the safety of a home? These people have come into a culture so different from what they have known, they need and deserve our compassion and understanding.

I came from a family of immigrants, and I know that in America, hope and hard work can make possible what may appear impossible.

JUSTINE McCLURG

Naples, Florida