Overview:
On the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, The Haitian Times reflects on the lives of Haitian and Haitian-American victims—people whose stories remain under-told more than two decades later.
Each year on Sept. 11, names are read, bells are tolled, and tears are shed. But not every story makes it into the collective memory. Among the nearly 3,000 people who died that day were Haitian immigrants and Haitian Americans—working in kitchens, tech offices, and executive suites.
The Haitian community lost mothers, sons, and neighbors—some of them undocumented, some of them newly arrived, others well established. Their stories, often undocumented in national coverage, live on in their families and in diaspora memory.
These are two of them.
Maxima Jean-Pierre, 40
Food service administrator, Cantor Fitzgerald | Bellport, N.Y.
Maxima Jean-Pierre. Photo courtesy of In Memoriam Sept 11 Facebook page.
Maxima Jean-Pierre was described as tiny in stature, but unforgettable in presence. A food-service administrator at Cantor Fitzgerald, she worked on the 105th floor of the North Tower, feeding executives like they were her own family.
“She was very small, but so are hurricanes until they start,” her husband, Michael Zinkofsky, told The Patriot-News in 2001.
Born in the Dominican Republic to Haitian parents, Maxima lived in Bellport, Long Island, with her husband and their blended family of six children. She was known for leaving handwritten notes taped to meals she delivered in the executive suites: “Please eat this. You might get sick. When I come back, it better be gone.”
Sept. 11, 2001, was supposed to be her last day on the job. The commute had become too long, too draining.
Her daughter, Anjunelly Jean-Pierre, was 19 at the time. She recalled watching smoke rise from the Manhattan skyline and desperately trying to call her mother. The next day, she and her brother made missing-person flyers and posted them outside hospitals.
“To this day, you can see a replica of the wall in the 9/11 Memorial Museum with my mom’s poster on it,” she told BBC News in 2021.
No remains were recovered. The family continues to grieve in the absence of finality.
“There’s actually still a part of the museum where they’re still searching for remains,” Anjunelly said. “Because of that, it’s difficult to accept that that person is no longer there.”
At the time of the interview, Anjunelly was based in Washington, D.C., working at the U.S. Capitol and as a photographer documenting the lives of minority victims of 9/11.
“I started it because I believe you don’t hear the stories of the minorities who perished that day and their families,” she said in the same BBC interview.
François Jean-Pierre, 81
Utility steward, Windows on the World | Queens, N.Y.
Francois Jean-Pierre was. Photo courtesy of In Memoriam Sept 11 Facebook page.
Born in Haiti, François Jean-Pierre had built a quiet life of dignity and hard work in New York City. He lived in Queens with his wife and worked as a utility steward in the kitchen of Windows on the World, the famed restaurant on the 106th floor of the North Tower.
On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, François was at work when the first plane struck. He never made it out.
François was 81 years old at the time of his death. He was one of the oldest victims of the 9/11 attacks, and one of the many immigrant workers—dishwashers, porters, stewards—whose labor powered the city’s economy but whose stories rarely made headlines.
In tribute to his life, a white rose was placed beside his name at the 9/11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan on what would have been his 81st birthday.
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