Ruthzee Louijeune was sworn in as Boston’s City Council president two months ago. She’s the first Haitian-American in the role.
In this first episode of “Kwani has Questions,” we checked in with the Mattapan native and Harvard alum to ask about the work she’s done so far and how her upbringing led her to leading Boston City Council.
She shared what it meant to be sworn in, explained what the first two months have been like and went in depth about some of the policies she’s been working on. She also shared how she finds joy outside of work.
Plus, why March 2 is Burna Boy Day in Boston.
If I can’t win you on the moral argument as to why we should support our migrants, or humanitarian, there’s economic benefits to our city and to our Commonwealth that we need to realize.
Boston City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune
This transcript has been lightly edited. Watch the full interview above.
NBC10 Boston: You were sworn in on Haitian Independence Day. What was the significance for you of being able to have a historic moment on a day that means a lot to Haitians in general?
Ruthzee Louijeune: It was it was definitely a day to remember. By law, we are required to have our swearing-in on the first Monday of the year and it just so happened that the first Monday of this year fell on Jan 1. As people were coming home from their parties, they had to go to Faneuil Hall, so that we could be sworn in, and then we went into chambers where my colleagues unanimously elected me as the president of the Boston City Council.
I had all of my people packed into City Hall Chambers. There were so many Haitian flags flying around and so it was just very, very, very special.
I think I even undervalued what it meant for me to be the first Haitian person on the Boston City Council — the first Haitian Boston City Council president. The third Black woman to all of that to happen on the day when Haitians, after a 13-year struggle with the French, won their liberation, enslaved Blacks won their liberation against colonial and imperialist power. And so it was incredibly special. We had our traditional Haitian independence soup joumou for everyone in chambers that day and so it was just it was just so incredibly special.
Soup Joumou is a traditional Haitian food that has been eaten since the 1800s. Chef Flexx visits the studio to tell us about himself and share his recipe for the delicious dish.
NBC10 Boston: You’re two months into the role. How has it been?
Louijeune: It has been a learning process, and I’m incredibly grateful for my colleagues that I get to be the president of the Boston City Council and that I get to serve them alongside my vice president, Brian Worrell — the first time we have a Black duo leading the council.
I’m grateful for them. I continue to lean on the council of presidents who’ve been in this role before me, like, you know, Attorney General Andrea Campbell, those who have been on this road before, and I’m just grateful that I get to do this work every day as I continue to learn and fight for a Boston that’s affordable and equitable, that is inclusive, where all of our people, all of our residents, whether you’ve been here for five generations or you arrived yesterday, that Boston can be home for you.
NBC10 Boston: Let’s just get into some policy and the role that you have as a leader here in the city of Boston. I know it’s still very early in your tenure, but when you talk about education, what do you think are one of the biggest things that needs to be addressed and eventually fixed?
Louijeune: There are two things that really that I think are really important to our schools.
I think it’s really important that we have in our school buildings loving and caring adults who care for our students. And that’s not just teachers, because teachers can be expected to be doing the role of the guidance counselor, the family liaison, all of the support that our kids need. Especially when talking about kids in our public schools who are, you know, high poverty, often have learning disabilities or are learning English as a second language. There’s so much need. And so we need to make sure that our schools are equipped with, with social workers, with guidance counselors…
A guidance counselor in my life was transformative. Again, my parents didn’t go to college. My guidance counselor made me believe what was possible, steered me in the right direction for resources. And that’s what we want to see for more of our students. We want to give them a team of adults who believe in their success and who they can turn to because we don’t know what people’s home situations are. And frankly, for a lot of our students, it’s really difficult.
NBC10 Boston: One of the biggest topics, I would say right now in the city of Boston, is the migrant crisis, as some are calling it. From your perspective, what has the migrant situation in Massachusetts, specifically Boston, looked like, and what work have you been doing with it?
Louijeune: It’s a big question. Even before I was in office, we’ve been working on this issue because we have been seeing states, Southern states, really sending people to the city of Boston as much as there are people who are coming here of their own volition. There are people who are being sent here.
We have been trying our best to deal with the issue. You know, one of the first things I did when I was in office is dedicate money for emergency housing for those seeking housing. The City of Boston is responsible for individuals. The state has a responsibility for families and we are the only “right to shelter” state in the country.
There are more meetings Friday over the controversial proposal for a new migrant shelter in Boston’s Fort Point neighborhood. While Gov. Maura Healey insists its necessary amid a migrant shelter crisis, residents of the neighborhood are not thrilled.
We are really dealing with a national problem. And we, need more resources, frankly, from the federal government to address these issues. We’ve been fighting for quicker worker authorizations.
Traditionally, when we have problems in our labor workforce like we do now, we solve those problems with immigration. And so we have people who want to work. We need to get the authorizations. And I have been pleading with our federal leaders for us to continue that advocacy so that the Biden administration can turn around those work authorizations with all deliberate speed, so we can move people out of shelter so they can get gainful employment and be able to rent their own units. But we also need to make sure that once we have folks in shelter that folks are, you know, have their basic needs met in a culturally competent way, have caseworkers who are able to speak their language, have food that they will be able to eat and that we have their children enrolled in school. We have so many of them, of our migrant children who have been out of school for so long, who have never entered public education. The Boston Public Schools has been doing a good job at enrolling them. We have more work to do to make sure that parents understand the school system and understand what the needs of their children are.
My office has been really central in this issue. A lot of the migrants are coming who are Haitian, but they’re not exclusively so. They come from Venezuela, from Honduras, from Mexico, from El Salvador. They’re really coming from all over in Latin America. And we are a city that welcomes our immigrants.
One migrant family from Haiti is sharing their experience searching for shelter in the Boston area. They recently found a host home in Brookline and are now looking for jobs. These last few weeks have been life-changing for them.
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I’ll say this: If I can’t win you on the moral argument as to why we should support our migrants, or humanitarian, there’s economic benefits to our city and to our Commonwealth that we need to realize.
NBC10 Boston: How do you find joy when you’re not sitting in your office?
Louijeune: Yesterday I showed up for a Black History Month event at a school in Roslindale, the school where my nephew goes, and just seeing him and being able to grab him and his mom. That was incredible.
I am really an extrovert. I get my joy being with people, so that’s my family, my friends. I love trying new restaurants in the City of Boston, especially Black-owned restaurants. I love concerts. We declared March 2 Burna Boy Day.
NBC10 Boston: You stole one of my questions! Let’s get into that quickly. Why give Burna Boy March 2? I know he’s going to be performing for the concert at TD Garden.
Louijeune: He was here in concert two years ago at the Pavilion. It was an amazing show. It was hard to really describe the energy, especially the energy and the joy among our African diaspora, among our Nigerian community, and it was just beautiful to observe.
He really has helped bring Afrobeat to a global stage in an era where, you know, it’s been really hard for African artists to get on the global stage.
Nigeria is one of the– I believe we have the largest number of Nigerian immigrants among all of African countries. Here in Massachusetts, we have the ninth largest Nigerian diaspora in the United States. We have a very big Nigerian diaspora in the City of Boston. And so we just wanted to acknowledge Burna Boy with the day.
The mayor did it for Bad Bunny and we’ve done it before for other artists and it was the right moment, I believe, for Burna Boy to have his day in our city.
It’s Bad Bunny Day in Boston, and the Grammy winner is marking the occasion with a sneaker launch exclusive to the Hub.
NBC10 Boston: Before we close out, is there a fun fact that you’d like everyone in the City of Boston to know about you? It could be something that we may have known already or something you’ve been holding in your sleeve for a minute.
Louijeune: I’ll do two fun facts.
One fun fact is that I have an electric scooter and I love riding it. I don’t ride it as much as I would like, but whenever there’s an Open Streets event, you’ll see me out with my scooter.
And then another is that, when I was in middle school for a summer, I was a ball girl for the [Boston] Celtics rookie team.
