Mr. Joseph said it was not the first time he had been attacked because of his sexuality in Haiti, where homosexuality is not a crime, but gay men often hide their orientation to avoid being targeted.

A makeup artist for eight years, he had worked at “Journal de Loisirs,” a celebrity talk show, and often carried a purse and makeup bag to the office. Seven months before the stabbing, Mr. Joseph said, he was kidnapped from his workplace, hooded and taken to an abandoned home, where he was chained to a pole and beaten. Three men threatened to kill him, he said, and called him an embarrassment to his country. They later let him go.

“I always felt threatened,” he said. “And I never said anything back to these people. I was afraid of a violent response. There was always a fear.”

After the 2012 attack, Mr. Joseph applied for a tourist visa to the United States, hoping the country would be as welcoming as it was portrayed on the television shows he had watched as a child, he said.

“It was always my dream country,” Mr. Joseph said. “America is where you can make happen the dreams you envision for yourself.”

He arrived in April 2013 on a tourist visa and settled in New York City. A few weeks later, he attended his first party since the attack, at the Monster, a piano bar in the West Village. Feeling safe, he took the stage to sing “Lumane Casimir,” a well-known Haitian song.