Bon bagay

I hope today's post makes you smile. Sometimes I feel like I focus too much on the negative in my posts, giving the false impression that nothing good is happening in the world of Haitian culture these days. That is far from the truth.

For example, this past October 16th and 17th, the 4th annual edition of Artisanat en Fête was held. It was a great occasion for a family outing. It’s no secret that Haitian art and craftsmanship is not only beautiful, but usually of high quality, so it was a delight to wander the grounds of the Parc Historique de la Canne à Sucre and behold all the wonderful items on display. There were paintings and clothes, handbags and sculptures, furniture and sandals, jewelry and traditional foods. This year, the Office National de l'Artisanat (ONART) provided a wonderful addition to the festival, with hands-on workshops for the kids in attendance. The children were able to work with clay or make necklaces out of shells and beads, learning the value of Haitian craft and artisans from an early age. The art on display was out of my price range, but I did take pictures and collect business cards in the hopes that I could track down some of the artists when I’m able to afford their work. There seemed to be fewer artisans in attendance than last year and there were some organizational problems. Paying with a credit card was especially tricky. Still, Artisanant en Fête continues to attract patrons and artisans alike and constitutes an amazing showcase of Haitian culture and talent.

To continue with the bon bagay theme: last weekend, I had the pleasure of participating in the Haiti and the Americas conference, organized by Florida Atlantic University. From October 21-23, Rafe Dalleo, Carla Calargé and Clevis Headley brought together a wonderful group of scholars, artists and professionals to reflect upon and discuss the links and relationships that exist between Haiti and the rest of the Americas. Myriam Chancy’s keynote address, "A Marshall Plan for a Haiti at Peace: To Continue or End the Legacy of the Revolution" was especially noteworthy. Chancy examined the notion of aid, how it is distributed and the various motivations behind it. The other keynote speakers were Sibylle Fischer and J. Michael Dash. There were no simultaneous panels, allowing the conversation to flow from one panel to the next. Of course, that made for some very long days, but it also fostered a sense of community that was well worth it. Topics discussed included the rise of Protestantism in Haiti, the Haitian community in Cuba, representations of sex in Haitian literature, the reaction of African Americans to the US refusal to recognize Haitian independance and a reading of Wyclef Jean's candidacy by yours truly. The interdisciplinary perspective was quite stimulating, allowing us to engage the main topic from various angles. Many scholarly and personal connections were made over the course of the three days.  I look forward to the published volume that will result from this conference and encourage everyone else to look for it, too.

NM

Chimen lekòl

Lekòl Repiblik Ekwatè nan Delma ki poko janm ouvri ane sa a

Lekòl ta sanse ouvri mwa sa a ann Ayiti. Ministè Edikasyon Nasyonal te programe rantre lekòl la pou lendi 4 oktòb. Men pi fò lekòl nan zòn tranblemantè a te frape a pa t ouvri pòt yo jou sa a. Genyen ki ranvwaye antre a pou youn oubyen de semenn. Gen lekòl ki fèmen pòt yo nèt. Genyen ki ouvri men ki pa konn pou konbyen tan yo ka kenbe.

Selon tradisyon ayisyen, Oktòb ta sipoze vle di blokis nan lari, bak machann devan pòt lekòl. Inifòm tout koulè k ap pran chimen lekòl. Ane sa a, se yon lòt koze. Ane sa a, blokis la se pa paske gen anpil timoun ki pral lekòl, men paske wout yo vin pi kraze toujou, yo plen debri, tant nan tout lari. Pandan Minis Edikasyon Nasyonal ap mande tout moun montre solidarite, elèv Lise Tousen ap fè manifestasyon pou yo mande gouvènman an deplase moun k ap viv nan lakou lekòl yo pou kou kapab kòmanse. Profesè ki pa touche depi plizyè mwa pa al travay. Genyen ki fè sit-in. Sa fè plizyè mwa n ap tande pale de valè kòb ki pral bay pou kore sektè edikasyon nan peyi a, pou fè tout ti ayisyen al lekòl gratis. Men oktòb rive sou nou. Kisa ki fèt vrèman ? Anpil moun isit ak medya yo tou gentan pale de echèk. Anpil moun gentan wè distans ki egziste ant timoun ki soti nan fanmi ki gen mwayen ak sa k soti nan fanmi ki pa genyen ap vin plis. Sosyete a ap vin pi dezekilibre toujou. Preske di mwa apre tranblemantè 12 janvye a, rantre lekòl la pèmèt nou wè valè travay ki rete pou fèt. Valè travay ki pa fèt, menm pandan tout kantite moun ak òganizasyon vle ede Ayiti ak Ayisyen. Nan nouvo projè CIRH la fenk aprouve, gen plizyè ki konsène edikasyon. Men si se 7 oktòb, kòb pou bati lekòl sa yo aprouve, kilè y ap disponib pou timoun ki bezwen al lekòl ?

Pitit pa m lan kòmanse premye ane fondamantal ane sa a. Eske l ap fè tout ane lekòl li nan lekòl prive ? Menm jan avè k lè m te lekòl, menm jan ak lè granparan l te lekòl ? Anpil moun te espere apre sa k te pase 12 janvye a, t ap gen kèk gwo chanjman nan sosyete a. Mwen poko wè chanjman sa yo. Si semenn sa a, gen kèk timoun ki kapab pran chimen lekòl, pi fò pa ka ale. Swa paske lekòl yo pa egziste ankò, swa paske espas lekòl la okipe, swa paske paran yo pa gen mwayen. Olye chak ti fondasyon, chak ti ONG, chak gwoup moun k ap anonse sa y ap fè pou timoun nan tèl kan oswa tèl lòt, ala bèl sa ta bèl si te gen yon anons nasyonal ki di bon jan lekòl ap gratis pou tout timoun jan konstitisyon an mande l. Ala bèl sa ta bèl si sa te fèt vre. Gen peyi kote lekòl prive se yon chwa, yon privilèj. Isit la, se sa ki nòmal pandan nou konnen majorite popilasyon an nan difikilte ekonomik. Se lekòl leta a ki vin yon privilèj. Gen yon epòk, lise yo te pami pi bon lekòl peyi a te genyen. Fòk nivo akademik lekòl leta yo tounen nan nivo ekselans sa a pandan tou yo kapab resevwa tout timoun nan peyi a. Tout paran vle sa ki pi bon pou pitit yo. Paran ayisyen pa ta dwe nan tout difikilte sa yo pou voye pitit yo lekòl.

Semenn sa a mwen kontan, mwen fyè paske ti pitit mwen an rantre nan lekòl fondamantal. Semenn sa a, mwen tris, mwen wont paske pi fò ti konpatriyòt li yo pa ka fè menm jan avè l.

NM

How to Build a Course on Haitian Literature

How do you construct courses about Haiti?  Or, what are some classes that you have taken that focus exclusively on Haiti?  This semester both of my classes have a Haitian focus:   "Haiti Chérie:  Haitian Literature and Culture" and "Haitian Studies 101 or Haiti and Globalization."  The former is in the department of Romance Languages and Literatures and the latter for the African and African Diaspora Studies Program.  In compiling my syllabi and preparing to teach I have been confronted with what has become an increasingly daunting task.  How to you cover the vastness of Haitian history, the depths of Haitian culture, and the vicissitudes of Haitian literature, and the ebbs and flows of Haitian politics with nuance and complexity in one short semester? I set out to begin with the books.  What are the essentials?  Moreover, how do I approach teaching such a range of material knowing that this would probably be the first and only class on Haiti my students may take?

I set out to begin with the books.  What are the essentials?  The French department class appears to be a bit more straightforward due to its literary focus.  The interdisciplinary approach to literature as I see it necessitates examining history along side other fields such as anthropology and sociology so I was determined to use other sources such as historical documents, films and music.  Since the title of my course is Haiti Chérie I let my students listen to the original version of the song during the second week.  Doing so allowed me to give them a taste of “sound studies” as a new field in African diasporic studies, encouraging them to listen to these novels for their rhythms, sonorities and musicality rather than only for the words. I also gave them an excerpt of l’Acte d’independence to expose them to work from that formative historic time period.

Certain books from the literary canon like Jacques Roumain’s Gouverneurs de la Rosée and Jacques Stephen Alexis’ Compère Général Soleil were among the first I placed on the syllabus.  I also wanted to be sure to introduce them to important literary movements such as La Ronde, indigenisme and spiralisme. The Roumain novel helped to cover indigenisme, but I was at a loss for which to include for the latter.  Despite my abiding desire to include something by Frankétienne ultimately I decided that some of his work might be too challenging for my students at this level.  I decided to limit my discussions of these movements to lecture notes that would provide the students with an overview of what they entailed. 

I am also deeply committed to teaching contemporary authors, understanding that, as Barbara Christian once put it in “The Race for Theory,” writing disappears unless we read it and talk about it.   For contemporary Haitian authors I had on my original list Evelyne Trouillot, Gary Victor, Lyonel Trouillot, and Kettly Mars. Trouillot’s La chambre interdite could allow me to be more inclusive at the level of genre since it is a book of short stories.  I taught La chambre… two years ago in a survey of francophone literature and know how well Trouillot’s range of topics connected with students. Pairing Mars’ Saisons sauvages with Marie Vieux-Chauvet’s Colère would give me two for one, allowing me to explore the role of intertextuality as well as the category of “roman de la dictature.”

Another area to cover is Haitian writers living in the diaspora. I began with the Canadians—Marie-Célie Agnant, Dany Laffériere, Gérard Étienne,  JJ Dominique.  Marie-Célie Agnant’s La dot de Sara was particularly compelling  for how it addresses the themes of “ici” and “là-bas” and cross generational understandings of Haitian identity.  Reading Louis-Philippe Dalembert, and Fabienne Pasquet could broaden our discussion to authors who did not live in francophone countries, introducing us to the contested notion of the francophone category to begin with. I even considered for a brief moment teaching Edwidge Danticat in translation by using Le cri de l’oiseau rouge but that desire was only fleeting as I attempted to whittle down the list.  

Then of course there was the elephant in the room, given the demographics at my university, the majority of my students will have had little to no exposure to Haiti, Haitian culture and literature;  at the same time I could expect to have several Haitian born and Haitian-American students at the very least.  How do I teach about the earthquake? To this end I added a few pieces from the collection of Haiti parmi les vivants.  This book would certainly offer my students an indigenous source of information about the earthquake to measure against all of the outside information they had surely been exposed to.

With a semester made up of only 12 weeks and a limit for how much reading I can assign in a week (a mere 100 pages!) I was in a real quandary about how to divide my syllabus since I needed to pare it down to only five books.  In the end I chose the following:

1.  Jacques-Stephen Alexis, Compère Général Soleil (1955)

2.  Kettly Mars, Saisons Sauvages (2010)

3.  Fabienne Pasquet, L’Ombre de Baudelaire (1999)

4.  Jacques Roumain, Gouverneurs de la Rosée (1944)

5.  Lyonel Trouillot, Bicentennaire (2004)

The list, while not perfect managed to combine canonical authors with others my students certainly may not have heard of, classic novels with more contemporary ones, contemporary and diasporic writers. In the end some of these choices had to be made vulgarly, for example I opted for Trouillot’s Bicentennaire over Victor’s Le diable dans un thé à la citronnelle purely based on the length and number of weeks in the semester. Likewise, I did not include a Haitian-Canadian author only because La dot de Sara was on back order at the school bookstore, leaving me with Pasquet  alone to represent the diaspora.  However I still hope to at the very least include a story from Agnant’s Le silence comme le sang or a piece by Lafferiere. In   terms of poetry I decided to limit myself to the complete works of Rene Depestre, René Philoctète's  Poèmes des îles qui marchent and the anthology Brassage! A Trilingual Anthology of Haitian Poetry by Women.  The other required texts are:  

Poetry:

René Dépestre, Rage de vivre : œuvres poétiques complètes

Me voici 

            Poésie et révolution 

L’âge de Papa Doc 

Alleluia pour les femmes jardins

René Philoctète, Poèmes des îles qui marchent [excerpts]

Brassage : Une anthologie poétique de femmes haïtiennes  [excerpts]

            Mon pays, Marie-Thérèse Colimon-Hall

            Filles des iles, filles des Antilles, Lyssa Laraque-Piquion

Que vive Haiti, Mona Salgado

Films :  

1.     L’homme sur les quais/ Man by the Shore, Raoul Peck (1994

2.    The Agronomist, Jonathan Demme (2004)

3.   The Price of Sugar (2007)

4.   Poto Mitan: Haitian Women, the Pillar of Society (2008) by Marc Schuller

As I think back to what I learned about Haiti as an undergraduate and graduate student I remember the frequent revision of the classics such as CLR James’ The Black Jacobins and Jacques Roumain’s Les Gouverneurs de la rosée.  In fact both books were the token book by a Haitian author for at least two classes that I took in my academic career.  Teaching a class with an exclusive focus on Haitian authors allowed me the luxury of including more than merely the one text, but the challenge I encountered was how to choose from such a rich list of authors and manage to cover the range of themes, movements, historical events, time periods, and political moments that make up Haitian literature. 

RMJC

Remember to check out the book page!

This is a friendly reminder to check out our book page from time to time. Our latest review is courtesy of Nicole Brissac. You can read the first couple of paragraphs here, go to the book page for the complete review. Merci, Nicole!

This just in: La mémoire aux abois is on the short list for the Prix Carbet des Lycéens for 2011!

Evelyne Trouillot, La mémoire aux abois, Hoëbeke, (Etonnants voyageurs), 2010, 185 p.
Plus que de dialogues, il s’agit de deux monologues, deux paroles qui se croisent autour d’une même histoire, autour de souvenirs forts liés à Quisquéya.

Deux polices de caractère qui caractérisent les deux personnages fixent la frontière entre deux univers que tout oppose : celui d’une veuve de dictateur qui se meurt, exposée aux regards, tout en étant cachée par la direction de l’hospice qui l’abrite. Curieux et ironique destin !!! L’italique couché, comme cette femme fauchée par l’âge, narre à la 3ème personne les souvenirs d’Odile Doréval. Cette écriture tout en créant une mise à distance, un effet d’objectivité provoque chez le lecteur agacement, ressentiment mais aussi curieusement attachement quand la veuve évoque son enfance et sa volonté farouche de s’en sortir par le haut. L’autre monde est celui d’une jeune quisquéyenne qui ne cesse de raviver des faits douloureux et tragiques que lui a relatés Marie-Carmelle, sa mère. Evénements qui l’ont pétrie, qui continuent à la façonner voire à déterminer son être. Infirmière, elle a pour patiente la « gardienne de la révolution » dont le mari despote a décimé sa famille. Elle est pleine d’une haine contenue perçue par la veuve « Qu’elle la trouvait agaçante, cette fille qui s’occupait d’elle en la fusillant du regard » En son for intérieur, elle déplore : « …de la voir, de m’en occuper m’empêche de dormir » et se remémore les récits de sa mère : « …toutes tes histoires des Doréval reviennent me remplir la tête ». La police de caractère droite qui la symbolise, plus classique, plus normée pour un roman, raconte à la première personne les affres et souffrances de la jeune femme. Ce parti pris d’écriture entraîne, implique et saisit le lecteur qui s’identifie à ce « je » au point d’en prendre le parti, d’en épouser le point de vue. C’est en effet, là, le roman d’une double postulation, d’une double focalisation qui nous rend Quisquéya plus vraie et son histoire plus complexe. Les deux oppositions reconstruisent l’Histoire en rendant présente par des soliloques leurs histoires passées tout en refaisant vivre leurs fantômes intimes.

Représenter Haïti: entre fiction et réalité

La question de représentation haïtienne est d’actualité ces derniers temps. Wyclef Jean voudrait avoir le droit de représenter Haïti au plus haut niveau – même sans tenir compte des prescrits légaux du pays. La semaine dernière, Sarodj Bertin à participé à la phase finale du concours Miss Universe à Las Vegas aux Etats-Unis. Le problème est qu’il n’y a pas eu de concours Miss Haiti, mais plutôt une sélection à laquelle a participé Jean Bertin, le père de la « gagnante ». Donc, Sarodj Bertin, elle aussi, a choisi de représenter le pays, sans tenir compte des principes de base de l’éthique.

Les questions de légitimité dans le cadre d’une compétition spécifique sont assez faciles à résoudre. Pour être éligible à la présidence de la république, Jean doit avoir vécu au moins cinq ans dans le pays et Bertin doit avoir participé à un concours et non à une sélection pour être légitime comme Miss Haïti.

Là où le problème devient plus difficile est quand il ne s’agit plus de concours ni d’élections, mais de la vie de tous les jours. Qui a le droit de parler pour les Haïtiens ? Au nom des Haïtiens ? Et qui désigne ces représentants ?

En dépit de ce que les médias étrangers voudraient nous faire croire, tous les Haïtiens ne se ressemblent pas. Déterminer « l’opinion haïtienne » est une opération aussi délicate que de vouloir déterminer l’opinion américaine ou française, d’autant plus que dans le cas d’Haïti, on n’utilise presque jamais les statistiques.

De même qu’on ne fait pas appel aux statistiques pour affirmer qu’il n’y a pas de classe moyenne en Haïti. Dans quelle catégorie ranger les professeurs et médecins et fonctionnaires et agents de police ? Seraient-ils tous riches ? Tous pauvres ? Mystère.

Les différentes discussions soulevées par les cas Wyclef Jean et Sarodj Bertin montrent l’urgence d’analyser les critères selon lesquels on rejette ou confirme l’identité haïtienne de chacun : son phénotype, les langues parlées, le niveau de langage, sa classe socioéconomique, son niveau d’éducation, son lieu de naissance, son lieu de résidence, le passeport qu’il détient.

En insistant à ce que les Haïtiens correspondent tous à une seule image, on nie la grande diversité de la population haïtienne. Si pour être authentique, un Haïtien doit être pauvre et illettré, il n’y a aucune raison de changer l’état actuel de la majorité de la population. Trouver des solutions à la misère impliquerait la destruction de l’identité haïtienne. Un tel raisonnement est certes absurde. Il faudrait donc des réflexions sérieuses autour de l’identité haïtienne et de ses différentes composantes. Il ne s'agit pas de nier que Wyclef Jean et Sarodj Bertin sont des Haïtiens authentiques, mais de dire qu’en tant que tels, ils devraient montrer un peu plus de respect pour les institutions du pays et sa population.

NM

Haiti on My Mind, Review

 Haiti on My Mind:  Stories by Haitian American Teens is a recent collection of essays by youth of Haitian descent edited by Dana Vincent.  The book was published by Youth Communication, a non-profit youth journalism program that publishes teen stories in books, magazines and other venues.  When I received a message about the book from a colleague, I was intrigued by the premise and immediately ordered it, eager to see youth perspective documented in essay form.

The foreword is written by Edwidge Danticat who herself began writing stories as a youth and had the opportunity to participate in the Youth Communication program. Danticat immediately acknowledges the Haitian issue at the forefront of our minds as she describes traveling to Haiti for the first time after the earthquake.  She writes about observing children of all ages that ‘these children, in many ways, are the symbol of Haiti that is to come.  We can either shield and protect them from a very difficult start or we can turn away and let their stories and voices fade…The young people of Youth Communication have decided not to let these stories fade or die…Haiti is on the mind of these young talented writers at this moment just as it has been on the mind of many others.  However, even before this disaster, as these essays poignantly show, Haiti was already deep in the minds, and hearts, of the teen writers at Youth Communication.”  (7) This is perhaps the strongest point of the book, that it reveals how teenagers—some recent immigrants, some the children of immigrants—conceptualize, imagine, and long for Haiti and how these thoughts translate in their daily lives.  

Just as the editor Vincent does through a game of word association in her introduction, the writers share “what comes to mind when you hear the words Haiti or Haitians” (9).  Few of us will not find the list familiar, “boat people, political instability, illegal aliens, refugees, poorest country in the…and [now] earthquake” (9).  Throughout the book different writers express their own troubling encounters with different variations of these stereotypes.  It is a reductive litany that we are all too familiar with given the dominant negative representations that saturate the media.  The voices of Haiti on My Mind engage these stereotypes directly and in many cases manage to move beyond them. 

For example, in “I May Not Look Haitian, But….” Marsha Dupiton recounts her uncomfortable experience with classmates who had reduced our culture to physical characteristics with which she did not identify.  The story describes Dupiton’s struggle from being embarrassed about her Haitian identity to transforming into a self-assured and self-loving young woman with great pride in her cultural heritage.  For Marsha the change was gradual, a major catalyst on her journey was the poetry of Prosper Sylvain Jr., who in “I Don’t Look Haitian”  the author’s imagined interlocutor  is someone who tells him that he does not look Haitian, to which Sylvain replies with a historical and cultural lesson that goes beyond the glare of media stereotypes.  He writes, “I apologize if there is more to me than voodoo dolls,
and I apologize if there is more to my country than slums, poverty and hunger, and I apologize if my poetry makes you wonder if I am really Haitian, product of years of miscegenation. 
I apologize if your idea and concept of me
is not what I have proven to be.”  By citing Sylvain’s poem and explaining its impact on her life, Dupiton displays the power of creative work to impact youth identity, just as the essays of Haiti on My Mind will surely impact the generation after her. 

Sabrina Rencher details a similar trajectory as Dupiton, chronicling her journey into self-love and self-acceptance after many desperate attempts to fit in with those around her.  For her the transition from Haiti to the United States involves changes on how her own aesthetics are perceived.  She explains “I’m originally from Haiti, there I felt gorgeous.  I felt as if I didn’t have to do anything to fit in with people at school” at the very beginning to introduce the sharp contrast with how she struggled to receive affirmation from her peers in the United States (99).  The first piece by Cassandra Charles, “Tomorrow is Promised to No One,” is actually the only essay with the earthquake of 2010 as its thematic focus, and is the first essay of the book. Charles’ heart-wrenching story is about learning that her cousin had died in the earthquake and her continued struggle with that grief. 

While many of the stories in the collection deal with the challenges of being a teenager, being an immigrant or child of immigrants, being cross-cultural, or multilingual, some of them simply narrate mundane aspects of life.  Among these we find a story about a boy falling in love as a child, and another of a girl who loses a precious pair of earrings that her mother had given her.  Another such story by Claude Fravien takes on the complexity of parent-child relationships across the cultural divide. As Fravien shares some of the conflicts he faced in dealing with his own parents, whether it was their restricted ideas about how he should dress or their stereotypical opinion about African Americans, he explains that his predicament is not unique.  “So far I have never met one Haitian teenager who thinks of his parents as friends,” although he does clarify the generalization by writing “I am not trying to say that all Haitian parents are like mine”(91). As such, the stories offer a range of experience and attempt to cover Haitian youth experience in its complexity.  

This book is ideal for middle and high school students, whether or not they are of Haitian descent.  It is especially effective as a tool for teaching and reflection since the end of each chapter contains a “Think About it” section with detailed questions directly related to the essay but that delve deeper into the issues addressed.  The penultimate essay, “Haiti’s Part in America’s History” by Cassandra Worrell reviews the intersections of Haitian and U.S. history, reframing that history by beginning,  “Except for the United States, Haiti is the oldest republic in the Western hempishere,” in my opinion a welcome change from the other superlative adjective in the Western Hemisphere more commonly invoked (124).  The final piece is a review essay of Edwidge Danticat’s memoir Brother, I’m Dying written by Kaela Bezard.  The book also contains a timeline of Haitian history that helps to contextualize some of the time periods referred to.  The purpose of Haiti on My Mind is largely educational.  Part of that education is more traditional as in the detailed timeline of Haitian history and section about vodou.  In the latter section, for example the authors distinguish between the term “voodoo” which is used throughout the book, the academic term “vodou” or “vodun,” and the way the religion is referred to as “serving the spirits”  (138). The deeper value of this book as an educational tool can be found in how it corrects popular misconceptions about Haitian culture and uses the voice of teens to do so. 

To me, the stories are especially compelling because they came from an age group that is often neglected in the sense that teenagers too old to be children and too young to be adults, can be overlooked.  Earlier this summer, the International Labour Organization reported that global youth unemployment is at an all time high. Programs such Youth Communication in New York, and A Long Walk Home’s Girl/Friends in Chicago harness the energy and the talents of young people through the use of the arts.  I could not help but think of the large number of unemployed teenagers in Haiti and wonder about the kinds of stories they could tell if given the opportunity as the writers on Haiti on My Mind had been given. Having worked with this age group through youth enrichment groups like AFAB’s (The Association of Haitian Women of Boston) Ayiti demen, I have been struck by the rawness and emotional realness of the experiences they share.  Haiti on My Mind captures this raw and real essence without any pretense.  It is an important collection in which youth not only educate others about Haiti, but also empower those of their generation to tell their own stories for themselves.  

RMJC

Making the case against exile

For many people, summer means travel. My daughter and I recently left Haiti. Our first stop: Miami, Florida. We both have US passports. The immigration officer at Miami International Airport asked me if we live in Haiti, to which I responded in the affirmative. He then asked me why we live in Haiti, to which I responded “why not?” He replied he asked the questions. I told him that I was under the impression that I could live anywhere. He said “No, you can’t”. I guess my surprise showed on my face because he amended that answer: “You can with time, but you can live here now.” I was clearly getting impatient with him, especially when he tried to justify his interrogation by saying that things are so hard in Haiti, “especially with a little one,” gesturing to my daughter. In response to my impatience, he said “the sooner you answer my questions, the sooner I’ll let you go.” Okay, then. I told him I live in Haiti because Haiti has always been part of my life, because my family is there. It’s not something I spent a long time thinking about, actually. Living in Haiti comes naturally to me. The immigration officer was clearly not satisfied, but he did let us go.

Much as this particular immigration officer annoyed me, I cannot brush his questions aside as mere evidence of his ignorance. This is the third time I’ve been faced with such an interrogation upon entry to the United States. Each time with the same amount of hostility and distrust emanating from the immigration or customs officer. My sister and cousins who also travel between Haiti and the United States with US passports tell me of similar stories. So, I’ve begun thinking about what is behind these questions. (And to be clear, I noticed this trend well before 2010.)

To my mind, there are two things at play here: the image of the United States of America -- land of the brave, home of the free -- and the image of Haiti -- poor and troubled black nation. For an immigration officer whose job consists of making sure that people who don’t belong in the US stay out, it must be troubling to come across someone who is allowed to live freely in the US and yet chooses to live elsewhere. Especially when that elsewhere is the antithesis of the US in so many ways. If the US is the greatest nation in the world as oft-repeated, what does it mean when some of its citizens decide to live in a nation as poor and troubled as Haiti? Does that call into question its greatness? I think it might. Perceptions of race also factor into the equation. How can a black person (one who is clearly not wealthy) not be doing everything in his/her power to move to the United States and fulfill the American dream? And if US citizens can choose to live in Haiti, then surely there are Haitian citizens who choose to live there as well. Who would not overstay their visa or try to find illegal employment in the US. Imagine that. I doubt the immigration officer would have had the same attitude had I lived in England or Canada. I obviously don’t know this for a fact, but those countries are probably not as loaded ideologically in the average US immigration officer’s mind. What really astounds me is the suspicion. The attitude that I am doing something wrong by living in Haiti.

The more I think about my run-ins with immigration officers and custom officials, the more I make connections with theories I’ve come across in my professional life. Minus the hostility, thank goodness. But the identification of exile as the dominant trope in Haitian literature has always bothered me. In one of her essays, Maryse Condé claims that the majority of Haitian (and Cuban) writers live in exile. So many conference papers, articles and books including the recent Exile and Post-1946 Haitian literature claim that exile is the most important theme in Haitian literature, that it’s become almost a given in the Haitian studies community. But what of the works of Trouillot (any one of them), Lahens, Mars, Victor? In his novels, Dalembert seems to focus more on migration than exile per se. In fact, the term exile is often used a catch-all term, describing everything from voluntary migration to transnationalism to diasporic writers.

What is it about people’s image of Haiti that makes it so hard to believe that someone with a choice could choose to live there? I think that everyone who deals with Haiti, including those on the academic side of things needs to be willing to ask themselves that question. When people in academia claim to love and respect Haiti, what does that really mean? Because if it remains unimaginable that writers and their readers could choose to live there, then there’s a problem. We need to be willing to look at Haiti from within. Instead of saying what a difficult place it is and wondering how anyone can live there, maybe the question should be what is it about this place that makes so many people passionate about it? What makes people love it so much? Let’s talk about return migration. How can we explain that? Haitians move around a lot. Simply focusing on exile means we’re leaving out a lot of the story. People leave Haiti and they return. Then they leave again. Or not.

When fellow critics and professors talk about the number of Haitian writers living “in exile” – here I’m using quotes because I really can’t think of any Haitian writer who is in true exile today – because it is so difficult for them to live within, I automatically think of the Haitian writers I know and the vast majority of them are living in Haiti. That does not mean that there’s anything wrong with living somewhere else. But why is it so important to be able to affirm that most of our writers live outside of the country? What is really being said with that statement? To me, it seems like the underlying message is that Haiti is not good enough or worthy of these writers and their works. To either produce or nourish them. That is problematic to me.

Even before the devastating January earthquake, people professed admiration for me because I choose to live in Haiti. I always feel vaguely guilty when faced with this sentiment. Moving to Haiti was not some selfless act. I did not give up much to go there. But I did gain a lot. Yes, I do work that I think is important at the State University, but I am not under the illusion that it will change anyone’s life, even less the country. I am not a national hero because I choose to live in Haiti. Nor do I have some hidden agenda. I live in Haiti because I want to. Imagine that. Now imagine many others like me.


NM