People in the Shadows: Survey Research among Haitians in Miami

Abstract

This paper focuses on the methodology for a series of three random sample surveys of Haitian immigrants who arrived in south Florida during or after 1980 and whose legal status in the U.S. is mostly uncertain. It is the first known random sample survey of a largely underground immigrant population. The particular methodological problems discussed include access and representativeness, meaning, staffing, and tracing of the sample for a follow-up interview. The primary conclusion is that sample survey research among an immigrant population, especially a distrusting, largely underground one, can only by accomplished upon a firm foundation of anthropological methods. The paper closes by offering examples suggesting that the considerable effort required to obtain representative sample survey data is worthwhile having both theoretical and practical implications.