One morning about 10 years ago a policeman pulled up in front of the Nadir Esso gas station to ask about the long line standing in front of the station.
Proprietor Hans Oriol explained he was working with the Haitian consul from Puerto Rico.
"’We are helping them fill out passport applications because they cannot legally travel to Puerto Rico.’ The policeman was satisfied," Oriol says today. "That was shortly before I had to close the station because of construction of the nearby bridge, ‘The Bridge to Nowhere,’ for a flood control project."
Over the years the station had become a focal point for the Haitian community, a place where folks knew they might find a day’s work, and advice.
"I helped them find a means of supporting themselves in exchange for a place to live, until they became eligible to work. They aren’t allowed to work legally until 150 days after the asylum application."
Oriol left his native Haiti in 1967at the age of 14, never to live in that country again.
"My father sent my sister Kathleen and me to New York for our safety, ostensibly on a vacation," he says. "He wanted us out of the country. Shortly before we left, 19 military officers had been executed by firing squads."
Oriol and his sister Kathleen finished high school in New York, after which Oriol attended Hunter College where he studied romance languages, leaving to join the U.S. Marines.
That seems a far cry from romance languages. Oriol speaks four languages – Creole, French, Spanish and English. He is unfazed by the apparent contradiction.
"I deeply regret that I had to leave the Corp after four years," he says. "I wanted to make it a career. I was an instructor for jet technology, in charge of a squadron of 13jets."
He smiles slightly. "To really be a Marine, you have to be single, you’re away, always in the air. I was married with two children."
Oriol and his family moved to St. Thomas in 1978 when he was offered a business opportunity running the Tutu and Nadir Esso stations.
The activist has become the public face of the Haitian community here, vice president of the three-year old Haitian Association of the V.I.
"The influx of Haitians came in 1991, right after the coup that unseated Aristide, inciting violence."
Oriol says he remembers that September day distinctly. "I was on the phone wishing my father a happy birthday, and I could hear the machine gun fire."
Oriol has no use for the present regime –– "Preval is a complete failure; his government has done nothing in five years – and thoughts on previous regimes that may seem surprising.
"Papa Doc (Francois Duvalier) could have been a great president," Oriol says, "but he had a personal vendetta [he had to satisfy]. My grandmother Andree was a nurse who worked alongside him when he was a country doctor. He respected my grandmother’s honesty," he says, "when she told him she could not vote for him because her cousin was also running."
Oriol says it was likely that relationship that spared his father’s life. "Maybe that was why he lived so long. Papa Doc knew he was a man of integrity, too."
Raymond Oriol, who died 10 years ago, was multi-lingual, speaking seven languages. He was director of the Army Corps of Engineers Geodetic Survey. Oriol’s mother is 90 and he visits her regularly. She was a professor of French literature at the Ecole Superior Nationale.
Oriol and his wife, Carol, a Haitian he met in New York, have raised a family on St. Thomas – a son Jean Pierre Oriol, assistant Coastal Zone Management director, daughter, Stephanie, and Hans Junior, both living in New York. Oriol is branch manger for Terminex, St. Thomas and St. John.
"Communication is still our biggest problem," Oriol says.
And he knows. For a January meeting to inform Haitians of the Temporary Status Program enacted after the earthquake, Oriol personally walked through the Haitian neighborhoods to alert people to the meeting which turned out to be a mob scene. The program ran 18 months; the final day to file was July 22.
Oriol laments that the radio program he sponsored for 10 years is off air now, currently without sponsors. He works as a court interpreter and makes himself available to the Family Resource Center and the V.I. Police.
"They know they can all any time, day or night," he says. "If you are bad, however, I will be the first to see you are deported."
Then came the earthquake. Oriol was on the front lines coordinating the relief effort in the community, packing equipment for the first USVI-HaitiRelief flight. He and Dr. Alfred Heath collected hundreds of pounds of donations at Four Winds Plaza along with 11 other centers, 30,000 pounds in all..
"Right now," he says, "we have four containers packed at Crowley, waiting to go. I"m still amazed at what the Virgin Islands did, how everybody came together."
Oriol is concerned about Port-au-Prince’ immediate future.
"There’s the threat of disease, cholera, typhoid, malaria, the rains are coming."
This is an election year, and though Oriol is holding out hopes for a better regime, he is realistic.
"We have to re-do the voter list, we lost more than 300,000 lives, we need a new electoral commission."
Following in his grandmother’s footsteps, Oriol is modest. "I know how my grandmother helped. I don’t think I’ve done enough. We are all human beings, here to help each other."
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