1960-00-00: (The Haitian Diaspora Begins Its Modern Expansion, Thousands of Educated Haitians Fleeing the Duvalier Dictatorship to Canada, France, and the Un…

1960-00-00: (The Haitian Diaspora Begins Its Modern Expansion, Thousands of Educated Haitians Fleeing the Duvalier Dictatorship to Canada, France, and the United States, a Brain Drain That Would Hollow Out the Nation’s Professional Class): During the 1960s, the modern Haitian diaspora began its rapid expansion as thousands of educated Haitians, especially mulattos, fled François Duvalier’s dictatorship. The Haitian community in the United States grew from five thousand to thirty thousand between 1960 and 1970. Most of these emigrants were professionals, lawyers, doctors, teachers, and businesspeople whose departure devastated the Haitian economy and education system. By the twenty-first century, over 2.5 million Haitians lived abroad, primarily in the Dominican Republic and the United States, each hosting approximately one million. Roughly three hundred thousand lived in Cuba, with populations approaching one hundred thousand in the Bahamas, Canada, and France. Remittances from the diaspora became a critical source of income for families in Haiti, a lifeline that connected the dispersed nation to the island it had been forced to leave.