At the Emporium last week, Luckens Merzius, a Haitian immigrant and Springfield resident, laughed as he explained why “Caribbean Colors,” the music and culture show he co-hosts on WYSO on Thursday nights, is prerecorded.

“Because it’s 10 to midnight,” he said. “Who wants to be there at that time?”

The light moment arose in spite of heavy news; it was the day after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration could move ahead with ending Temporary Protected Status for people from Haiti and Syria. For thousands of Haitians living in Springfield and elsewhere in Ohio, the decision carries the threat of lost jobs, lost services and deportation.

But Merzius preferred not to let the ruling swallow his story, or the stories of other Southwest Ohio Haitians, whose lives have often been discussed in the same breath as controversy or with the air of a problem that needs to be solved. He said that’s not the kind of story he wants to tell.

“I’m OK to talk about excellence,” he said. “It’s a way to show our resilience.”

The work Merzius has done to document that resilience was the impetus behind his interview with the News: In June, the Ohio’s Best Journalism Contest awarded Merzius first place for his feature reporting for WYSO. He told stories about Haitian Flag Day and an immigrant-focused poetry and art showcase, and interviewed a Haitian filmmaker — stories that presented Springfield’s Haitian residents as artists, organizers, parents and neighbors.

“We are talented, we are resilient,” Merzius said. “I wanted people to see that.”

He also shared first-place honors for best documentary and best minority issues coverage with fellow WYSO producers Virginelle Jerome, Miguelito Jerome, Gerly Philidor and Jacques Adler Jean-Pierre for their work on last year’s WYSO documentary series “Haitians in the Heartland.” In that series, as the News reported last year, Merzius and his fellow producers presented stories from within Springfield’s Haitian community, including their own.

Merzius’ U.S. story began in 2017, when he left his job as a data-entry supervisor for a maritime shipping company in Haiti and moved to Florida; the following year, at the encouragement of a friend, he and his family moved to Ohio.

It wasn’t long before Merzius started building connections in Springfield; tasked with taking his friend’s son to Fulton Elementary School every morning, he formed a friendship with a member of the administrative staff there, who asked if he’d be willing to share his command of both English and Haitian Creole with students experiencing a language barrier.

“And I said, ‘I can help out if you want,’” he said.

Merzius started at Fulton as a volunteer while he studied at Clark State College and worked third shift in a warehouse, but he was soon hired as a full-time bilingual assistant with Springfield City Schools. Later, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Clark County Combined Health District tapped Merzius to become a bilingual community liaison. He initially offered to recommend someone else, but he had already become a trusted connection between Springfield institutions and Haitian families, and the county wanted him.

In 2022, Merzius met “two young Haitians, very talented,” Miguelito Jerome and Gerly Philidor, who had established New Diaspora Live, or NDL, a Springfield-based radio station aimed primarily at the area’s Haitian community. Jerome, then NDL’s CEO, asked Merzius if he would volunteer at the station as a public relations manager.

“And I said ‘yes,’ because I’m a community-oriented person,” Merzius said. “Anything that represents the Haitian community, I’m in it.”

Up until that point, Merzius’ community work had involved interpreting institutions for individual people. As he promoted NDL, and later became an on-air host, radio became a way for him to speak to, and from within, a whole community.

And it eventually connected Merzius with WYSO; in 2024, reporter and then-managing editor for the Eichelberger Center for Community Voices Chris Welter met the NDL crew at the station’s CoHatch home and broached a collaboration between the two stations. After months of meetings and production work, Merzius and the other producers launched “Haitians in the Heartland” as a kind of answer to the stories that had been told about Springfield’s Haitian residents without their input. The series’ producers spoke about migration, parenthood, art, activism, separation and reunion, giving shape and sound to individual lives.

“Everybody has a different story,” Merzius said in the opening episode. “I extend an invitation to people to share our stories, share our experiences. ... People will discover hope, faith, resilience and community.”

In another episode, Merzius told the story of leaving Haiti with his wife, who was pregnant with their second daughter, while their older daughter, the then-4-year-old Marley, stayed behind with relatives because he and his wife couldn’t secure a visa for her.

“It was sad. It was sad,” he said in the series.

The family was eventually reunited in Springfield, and listeners were treated to an on-air conversation between Marley and her younger sister, Sephora, who remembered finally meeting each other in person at the airport after having only previously interacted through phone screens. Their conversation moved from the reunion to school, friends and the things they liked and disliked, carrying the larger subject of migration through the ordinary details of family life.

“When you tell the story with dignity, it makes an impact,” Merzius told the News, adding that, rather than arguing with people who have already decided what they believe, a storyteller can “commit to the excellence, commit to the truth.”

Merzius’ connection to Yellow Springs began before he knew he would spend most of his weekdays here. In the summer of 2023, he visited the village with his wife and neighbors after hearing about it in the news and from others.

“I liked the way I was seeing people in the streets,” he said. “This is a beautiful town, like a small city.”

Two years later, he enrolled full time at Antioch College, where he’s currently studying social enterprise and social innovation, and where he said he considers both students and alumni to be his “extended family.” When it was time to choose his co-op placement, he chose WYSO, where he now works in several capacities. Between Antioch and the radio station, he’s in Yellow Springs five days each week, making the village a kind of second home.

To that end, Merzius said he’s starting to become a recognizable presence in the village — if not always by sight, then by sound.

“They say, ‘Oh, I heard your voice on WYSO — oh, Luckens Merzius, nice to meet you!’” he said.

Outside of his reporting, Merzius — along with fellow “Haitians in the Heartland” producers Miguelito Jerome and Gerly Philidor — is regularly heard by WYSO listeners on Thursday nights as “Captain Luckens,” the co-host of “Caribbean Colors.” The show aims to blend music and conversation about countries throughout the Caribbean and, as Merzius said in one episode, “keep the vibes alive for all our listeners.”

Recent episodes have featured the soca and calypso music of Trinidad and Tobago, rumba and bomba of Puerto Rico and Haiti’s kompa, as well as guests with connections to the musical traditions. Like “Haitians in the Heartland,” “Caribbean Colors” asks listeners to encounter a place through the voices and culture of the people who know it, Merzius said.

“You can stay home with your passport, and then you travel there with us,” he said.

He’s also currently developing an eight-episode audio documentary project that would bring immigrant and nonimmigrant voices together to speak about “belonging, stability and the changing American dream.” The project, tentatively titled “Negotiating the Middle,” is still seeking funding.

“There are so many stories still to tell,” he said.

Near the end of Merzius’ conversation with the News, the talk returned to Haiti.

“I love my country — I always dream of my country,” he said. “At the end of the day, if I have to go back to my country, I go back to my country, right? Even if it’s increasingly worse, I have to go — but I don’t want to go right now.”

Merzius paused as those conflicting truths hung in the air, revolving around one another.

He continued: “I feel like you make yourself vulnerable [when you] tell the truth — I’m OK with that. I think sometimes you have to speak up. Every community has stories; every community. You can make yourself vulnerable. It’s worth it to tell the story.”