A married couple who fled Haiti for Virginia achieved their American dream when they opened a variety market on the Eastern Shore, selling hard-to-find spices, sodas and rice to the region’s growing Haitian community.
When they added a Haitian food truck, people drove from an hour away for freshly cooked oxtail, fried plantains and marinated pork.
But Clemene Bastien and Theslet Benoir are now suing the town of Parksley, alleging that it forced their food truck to close. The couple also say a town council member cut the mobile kitchen’s water line and screamed, “Go back to your own country!”
“When we first opened, there were a lot of people” ordering food, Bastien said, speaking through an interpreter. “And the day after, there were a lot of people. And then … they started harassing us.”
I clicked on this story by accident, but I’m glad I read it. There’s some real gold in here…
It said the council member cut an illegal sewage pipe — not a water line — after the food truck dumped grease into Parksley’s sewage system, causing damage.
“I’m mad at you for getting grease in the sewer…so I will cut this line which I supposedly believe contains grease so it can go all over the street, smelling great and eventually getting washed into this very same sewer anyway!”
But Henry Nicholson, the council member, allegedly complained the food truck would hurt restaurants that buy equipment from his appliance store.
“T’is but a coincidence!”
Nicholson … tried to block a food shipment and screamed: “Go back to your own country!” when Bastien confronted him.
“We did everything we’re supposed to do,” Bastien said. The couple came to the U.S. in the 2000s and received asylum after fleeing this hemisphere’s poorest nation. Benoir is a U.S. citizen, while Bastien is a permanent resident.
Several community members said the lawsuit unfairly maligns a town that has integrated recent immigrants into its 0.625 square miles (1.62 square kilometers).
Parksley has two Caribbean markets, a Haitian church and a Latin American restaurant
U.S. Census numbers show that 600 people identify as Haitian in Accomack County, with several thousand more on Maryland’s Eastern Shore and in lower Delaware. Sangaramoorthy said the region’s Haitian population likely numbers in the tens of thousands.
Sounds like this guy isn’t aware who funds this town… They must make up a large portion of the residents to have this much stuff there in this tiny little town.
“We’re waiting to see what justice we’re going to get,” Bastien said. “And then we’ll see if we reopen.”
The couple’s lawsuit is seeking compensation for $1,300 in spoiled food, financial losses and attorneys’ fees. They also want $1 in nominal damages for violations of their constitutional rights.
I wish my town was full of people as patient and civil as this couple!
She said Parksley’s Haitian food truck provided something vital — familiar foods that remind people of their homeland — to people often working long hours.
“It’s a community that is triply marginalized for being foreign, Black and speaking Haitian Creole,” Sangaramoorthy said. “They feel like they need to keep to themselves, so it’s surprising that this couple was brave to even file a lawsuit.”
How dare they?!?
Thanks for posting, OP, this was crazy!
How do I subscribe to your commentary?
Lol I’m live all day, every day at [email protected]
Stop by this weekend for the Superbowl Superbowl…it’s like the Puppy Bowl, but for owls, and you get to participate!
What’s the deal with $1 in nominal damages?
You have to make a demand for damages. Asking for $1 makes it symbolic more than anything. A jury can still go “Screw that, pay them a million bucks” though.
Oxtail, fried plantains and marinated pork; in addition to being racists, the town council doesn’t know good food. That all sounds delicious.
How we ended up with a native cuisine inferior to the English is something I don’t get. It isn’t like the entire planet is injecting us with immigrants at all times.
Gotta get out of WASP neighborhoods, there’s tons of good American food developed (mostly by immigrants and slaves) over the hundreds of years since colonization. And it’s not like the native population was eating dirt.
Fried peanuts and oxtail. Fuck Americans that don’t get it.
I’d argue Cajun cooking is native cuisine, granted that was cobbled together from the cooking traditions of several immigrant cultures.
Native to your area. I can’t get it without a bit of work.
The same can be said about provincial french cuisine. You are so used to a world of food chains that you can’t imagine a past history where EVERYTHING was regional.
The palate for oxtail is way different than mayonnaise on white bread. Or even plain rice and boiled chicken.
The plantains might be a little too much for them too.
That’s the sort of thing we eat down here all the time. What’s wrong with fried plantains? Oxtail is kind of hit or miss, but if you know someone who can cook it well… 👩🍳😘 Truly divine. And who hates marinated pork? It makes the best tacos.
What’s wrong with fried plantains?
Judging by their open bigotry, what’s wrong with all of this is that it was cooked by black folk.
So it would seem.
What a disappointing state of affairs.
There is literally no benefit to racism but a fucktonne of limitations and loss of opportunity. It really breaks my brain why people keep making it so central to their identity.
It’s sad that people are so ignorant and racist. Could’ve made friends with a nice couple and had some yummy new food. But no, had to be xenophobic assholes instead.
Racism is so ugly and stupid. It is always wild people saying go back to your own country when they are not natively from here as well usually.
I’m from the US and have been told to go back to where I come from based on my name alone.
I think they were referring to indigenous people. But you’re right, even 2nd generation immigrants who are American citizens get told to go back “where they came from”
In my state at least, native folks are sometimes mistaken for being hispanic based on the way they look… so I wouldn’t be surprised if it happens to them too on occasion. ×_×
I’ve been told to go back to my country. Which is Hawai’i haha
Samoan mistaken for Mexican?
deleted by creator
“Go back to your own country” isn’t something you yell if you aren’t racist.
deleted by creator
So a family comes to our country and does exactly what they’re supposed to do: Open a business and improving the quality of life in their community.
And what happens?
Redneck shitsticks absolutely lose it.
I bet you a billion dollars I know which presidential candidate those racist fucknuggets support.
If someone screamed go back to my own country at me I’d have a really hard time not punching them. And yes, I live in a country that I wasn’t born in so I can totally see this happening. Luckily my second home country is full of kind people and not assholes so in the 7 years I’ve lived here I’ve never experienced something like that. The worst I ever dealt with was someone laughing when my pronunciation sucked. I just asked him in his native language how many languages he could speak. Shut him up right quick.
I’m a foreigner where I live but I’m white like they are and speak the local dialect so I “don’t count”
I also live in a country where I was not born, and it is full of kind people. I am very visibly different from most of the population, so people usually assume I’m a tourist. They always seem pleasantly surprised to learn that I live here.
I’ve been here almost three years, and I haven’t mastered the language yet, but people are usually really kind about my limited vocabulary.
Oh the irony.
“…law firm it hired, Pender & Coward”
Shame they can’t move to the West Coast (or to any bluer area really). There are tons of people who would love to try authentic Haitian food from a food truck - myself included. They’d probably make a killing.
The town council is pushing back through a law firm it hired, Pender & Coward, which said its own investigation found many allegations “simply not true.”
Lol, imagine having Coward as a family name.
“Virginia”
Naturally.
Sad to see this racism.
Some days I’m just ashamed to be white. I’m English/Irish so I’m so pale I glow in the dark but the white hood brigade just have me seeing red.
So I’m either an eighth black or half that. I’m see through white in skin color. Fuck that shit be white as fuck. Tell them motherfuckers to eat gravel.
Racists make us all look bad. How are we supposed to expect people of other ethnic backgrounds or colour to be comfortable around us if the majority of white people they come in contact with are assholes to them?
Racists are embarrassing as fuck.
Brought to you by the ‘if you don’t like your country, you should just move’ crowd. Good grief.
move to a city that isn’t full of garbage people
