Haiti-born Winique “Willie” Orelus recalls that when his father Maxis Orelus fell ill and died in the mid-1990s, his family couldn’t hold a proper funeral because they barely had money for clothes, let alone burial costs. Days after his death, a group of neighbors came together and helped to collect Maxis’ body from his bedroom to bury him themselves.
After spending 24 years living in Haiti as part of a family of 15, Willie Orelus became desperate to find a better life for himself. He managed to secure passage on a small boat packed with some 250 people bound for the United States. Not everyone who boarded the boat survived the voyage across the Caribbean Sea, Orelus recalls, and his situation only worsened when he made landfall in Miami, Florida.
Immigration authorities quickly apprehended Orelus, and he spent roughly four months in prison before he successfully applied for sanctuary in the United States and made his way to Mississippi. He spent several months homeless before a member of a group home in Jackson introduced him to Jackson middle-school teacher Debra Poke, who mentored Orelus and helped him better his English language skills.
Another Haitian man named Louis Exilis, who ran a New Orleans-based electrical contracting business, also reached out to Orelus to offer him whatever support he could. Exilis trained Orelus in gas and plumbing systems and taught him the necessary skills to work as an electrician in Jackson, while Orelus worked as a dishwasher at Bonsai Japanese Steakhouse in Flowood…