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UNIONDALE _____________ BEACON
Expect rents to go up this year
New bill battles fentanyl problem
Looking back at year in sports
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Pages 6 & 7
JUNE 29 - JULY 5, 2023
FREE
Graduation full of celebration, and mourning By BRANdoN cRUZ bcruz@liherald.com
Brandon Cruz/Herald
VALEdIcToRIAN TRIsToN MoHAMEd, far right, seated next to Salutatorian Yesica Arriola-Hercules and their classmates, happily displaying their diplomas.
The auditorium of Hofstra University’s David S. Mack Sports and Exhibition Complex was filled last Saturday with proud parents, family members and the 470 seniors who graduated from Uniondale High School this year — the secondlargest senior class in the school’s history, behind only 2004’s 505 graduates. Although there was no shortage of joy and celebration, there was also grief and a bittersweet feel, as the graduates mour ned two fallen
Knights who should have been there to walk across the stage with them — David Brutus, a talented musician and scholar, and Jomani “JoJo” Wright, who set to play NCAA Division 1 basketball. Members of Brutus’s and Wright’s families accepted their diplomas, honoring them and their high school accomplishments. “As I look into the crowd, I see a never-ending collage of color, courage, strength and education,” Uniondale High Principal Mark McCaw said. He praised the members of the Continued on page 2
New documentary shows faith, resiliency in Haiti By REINE BETHANY rbethany@liherald.com
With poignant music, haunting images and stark honesty, a new documentary, “Ayiti Pap Peri,” bears witness to the courageous love of Haitians — including a large number in Uniondale — for their homeland. The film’s title means “Haiti will not perish.” It is the third documentary about Haiti by its award-winning producer, Cassandre Thrasybule. “‘Ayiti Pap Peri’ is a film to try to change the narrative about Haiti,” Thrasybule said. The Caribbean nation of 11.4 million people is known to out-
siders for poverty, crime, political upheavals and devastating earthquakes. The documentary acknowledges its difficulties, but refutes the negative perceptions by showing effective remedies developed by Haitians themselves. Thrasybule began work on the film in 2019. At the time, Haiti was still recovering from the 7.2-magnitude quake that struck on Jan. 12, 2010, demolishing many structures in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, and killing as many as 300,000 people. The documentary follows three groups of Haitians: some who chose to not to leave the country after the earthquake,
and instead stayed to rebuild; some who had migrated before the quake, but moved back to help the nation recover; and some in the Haitian diaspora who have remained in the United States while committing resources to help those back home. Among the first group were Elizabeth and Jude Jean-Baptiste, who resolved to remain in Haiti after the earthquake destroyed their house. Jude says that they stayed in order to “be valiant hands.” They helped neighbors clear away the rubble while rebuilding their own home. Expatriate Gilbert Woolly
returned to Haiti in 2012, two years after the earthquake. With colleagues, he established a fish farm, cultivating tilapia. The business is called Taino, the name of the natives who were living on the island when Christopher Columbus first arrived in 1492. The business has thrived. “The founders (of Taino) are giving back to Ayiti, what Ayiti
molded them to be,” Woolley says in an interview. He explains that fish is a luxury in Haiti, and he makes it more available to lower-income families in a nation where, he says, the ruling class are living “on a different planet.” Dr. Nikita Sejour, who lives in the United States, worked with Continued on page 4