Cambridge Forum; WGBH Forum Network; Edwidge Danticat: The Immigrant Artist at Work

I'm now very happy to introduce Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. who will introduce and begin a conversation with Edwidge Danticat tonight. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University professor and the director of the WPB boys Institute for African and African-American Research at Harvard University. Professor Gates is editor in chief of The Oxford African-American Studies Center and of the Roueche an online news magazine. He's also the author and editor of numerous books anthologies and essay collections. Among them finding Oprah's Roots is again Signifying Monkey and many many others. His book colored people has been called a classic American memoir his many honors include a MacArthur Foundation genius grant an over 40 honorary degrees. Professor Gates is a very important member of this community and I'm so thrilled that he's part of tonight's conversation. I'll turn the introductions over to him now. Everyone please join me in welcoming Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.. Thank you. Nice to see the home team here in the old church. Greg you're in for a real treat

tonight. There's no one writing in the English language today who more precisely and more passionately articulate the exiles experience in it. Edwidge Danticat literature has always been about journeys and discoveries of course about new places and old places about searches for self and the relation to others of home and homes away from home. Dante God's great gift is to render these journeys and discoveries in language that is at once delicate and bold lyrical and direct. Amy Lynch's review of anti-cuts new book Create Dangerously The Immigrant Artist at Work captures beautifully what Wallenda calls her singular achievement. And I quote She has woven the fabric of Haitian life into her work and made it accessible to a wide audience of Americans and other outsiders. Through her quote unquote made up

stories she has brought Haiti to life for countless readers who otherwise would have understood nothing. Anti-cuts tender new book. About loss. And the unquenchable passion for Homeland makes us remember the powerful material from which most fiction is wrong. It comes from childhood and place no matter her Geographic and temporal distance from these anti-cuts. Danticat writes about them with the immediacy. Of love. The immediacy of love that anti-cuts first novel was breath eyes memory published in 1994 and later an Oprah Book Club Selection and followed a year later by Crick crack a national book award finalist. In 1998 she published the farming of bones which won the American Book Award and the deal breaker in 2004. Brother I'm Dying probably in the year

2007 is a memoir of profound honesty and haunting beauty. She's published numerous stories essays and opinion pieces in publications such as The New Yorker the times the progressive anti-cat. Graduated from Barnard College with a degree in French literature. In 1995 her alma mater awarded Heard's woman of achievement award in 2009 she received the MacArthur Foundation genius award in a more apt recipient. I cannot imagine. Ladies and gentlemen it's my great pleasure to introduce one of the greatest writers of our time. Edwidge Danticat. Such extraordinary kindness. Thank you. Thank you all

also for coming. I have had many moments in the in the journey towards it of writing this book or I felt like my life was borrowed from someone else. And the first of it was being asked to deliver the Toni Morrison lecture that led to this book and an on its way is tonight being here with you. Thank you so much and thank you all. Think all of you missed if we ask you I say with the new. CEO Bill. Thank you all for coming. For representing us the young people say I can see young people now because I'm I'm like leaving the category. I'm going there with Jay Z. Well as I mentioned this book came out of a lecture that I thought I gave in 2008 and when I was asked to give this lecture

I was I can honestly say that I was I was terrified for a whole year. And and with the notion that you know when you give the lecture. Toni Morrison is in the front row because it's named after her and then the first person who gave the lecture was Cornell West and he's sitting next to her. So no pressure. So. Just like tonight and I spent a lot of time just trying to figure out a subject and I was reading. I was reading a lot of a lot of you and I came across this essay called larches saw tar which had been then been translated by someone and given the title create dangerously which I thought was so perfect and mostly what the lecturer lectured spends a lot of time talking about the ambivalence of artists and and I always say to people who criticize one's artist and criticize people who in their work I said you know no matter what you're say you can't say more than the

person has already spent them beating themselves you know saying at least myself. But what I've shared with you tonight. Before we start the conversation is is one of the things that I attempted to do in the book is try to understand how people how some people come to their art. And one of the people that I profiled in the book is a photojournalist named Daniel Mora and Daniel is really one of the iconic photo journalists of Haiti a chronicle visual chroniclers of Haiti. And I realized when I met him that we had a common obsession with an execution that had happened in Haiti in 1950 64. It was it happened five years before I was born. But Danielle as a schoolboy happened to have been brought to this execution by his by his teacher because it was ordered by volume and can trace his becoming a photo journalist to that to the moment of that

execution. So I will. That is the part that I will I will share with you tonight. Last week when I read this in New York and Danielle was there it was it was really extraordinary because of course he was crying and then I was crying. So it was a kind of healing cry. We don't get enough of those. This chapter is called up. It's the opening chapter but it's also merged with the ending chapter which is called Actio poor to us which is something not made by men divine like the oracle of the signifying monkey on November 12th 1964 in Port au Prince Haiti. A huge crowd gathered to witness an execution. The president of Haiti at the time was the dictator Francois Papa Doc Duvalier who was seven years into what would be a 15 year term

on the day of the execution. He decreed that government offices be closed so that hundreds of state employees could be in the crowd. Schools were shut down and principals ordered to bring their students. The two men to be executed were my cell Numa and Louis DWA Marcel Nguma was a tall dark skinned 21 year old. He was from a family of coffee planters in a beautiful Southern city called me which is often dubbed the city of poets. Norma had studied engineering at the Bronx merchant Academy in New York and had worked for an American shipping company. Louis DWA was 31 year old and he was a light skinned man who was also from Gibeon me. He had served in the U.S. Army and had studied finance before working for several banks in New York. Marcel Numa and Louis Duero had been childhood friends NGV me.

The man had remained friends when they'd both moved to New York in the 1950s. After Francois Duvalier came to power there they had joined a group called Jordan. You see our young Haiti and were two of 13 Haitians who left the United States for Haiti in 1964 to engage in a guerrilla war that they hoped would eventually topple the Duvalier dictatorship the men and I spent three months fighting in the hills and mountains of southern Haiti and eventually most of them died in battle. Marcel Newmar was captured by members of Duvalier's army while he was shopping for food in an open market dressed as a zone. Louis Duero was wounded in battle and asked his friends to leave him behind in the woods. According to our principles I should have committed suicide during reportedly declare iddle final statement at his secret military trial. Chandler

and geodes two other NATO members were wounded Sundlun asked his best friend to finish him off. Gadis committed suicide after destroying a case of an mission and documents that did not affect me he said. I reacted only after the disappearance of Marcel pneuma who had been sent to look for food and for some means of escape by sea. We were very close and our parents were friends. After months of attempting to capture the men of the night he and after imprisoning and murdering hundreds of their relatives. Papa Doc Duvalier wanted to make a spectacle of pneuma And whereas deaths. So on November 12th 1964 two pints are erected outside the National Cemetery. Radio print and television journalists are summoned pneuma and Dway are dressed in white in an old black and white film seems to be the clothes in which they had been captured.

Pneuma the taller and thinner of the two stand erect and perfect profile barely leaning against the square a piece of wood behind him. Douar who wears brown line eyeglasses looks down into the camera that is taping his final moments. Time is slightly compressed on the copy of the film I have and in some places the images skip. There is no sound. A large crowd stretches out far behind the cement wall behind the bound pneuma and one or to the side is a balcony filled with schoolchildren a young white priest in a long robe walks out of the crowd with a prayer book in his hands. The priest says a few words to Dwyer who slides his body upward in a defiant pose. Duero motions with his head toward his friend. The priest spends a little more time with Nguma who bobs his head as the priest speaks. If this is namaz extreme unction it

is an abridged version. The priest then returns to DWA and is joined there by two uniformed policemen who linin to listen to what the priest is saying to where it is possible that they are offering Duero some time a face or cover that he is refusing Dorsch shakes his head as if to say let's get this over with. No blinders are hoods placed on either man. The firing squad. Seven helmeted men and khaki military uniform stretched out their hands on either side of their bodies. They touch each other's shoulders to position and space themselves. The police and army move the crowd back perhaps to keep them from being hit by ricochet bullets. The members of the firing squad pick up their Springfields rifles load their ammunition and then place their weapons on their shoulders offscreen. Someone probably shouts fire and they do pneuma and where his

head slumped sideways at the same time showing that the shots have hit home the next day. Lamott to the country's national newspaper described the Stonn looking crowd as quote feverish communicating in a mutual patriotic exhortation to curse adventurism and began Dadge the morning pamphlets circulating in Port au Prince last week left little to the imagination reported the November 27 1964 edition of TIME magazine Dr Francois Duvalier will fulfill his sacrosanct mission. He has crushed and will always crushed the attempts of the opposition think well renegades. Here is the fate awaiting your kind. On November 12 1964 after Marcel Numa and Louis whereas bodies were carried away some say to the National Palace to be personally inspected by Francois Papa Doc

Duvalier. A lanky 13 year old boy who had been standing in the back of the crowd to avoid the thunderous sounds of the executioners guns stepped forward as the spectators and soldiers scattered. He walked towards the bullet ridden poles bent down and the blood soaked dirt and picked up the eyeglasses that Louis Dewa had been wearing. The young men the photojournalist Daniel more will only momentarily held the eyeglasses and his hands before they were snatched away from him by another boy. But in the moment that he had them he had noticed tiny chunks of toys brains splattered on the cracked lenses. Perhaps if he had kept them he might have cleaned the lenses and raised them to his face to try to see the world the way it might have been reflected in a dead man's eyes. Often in Haiti it is said that the eyes of murder victims are gouged out by their

murderers because it is believed that even after death the last image a person sees remains imprinted in his or her cornea as clearly as a photograph before witnessing the execution of Marcel Numa and Louis Dwaine. Danielle Morrell was not particularly interested in Deadman's eyes. He had been like any other boy going for long walks all over Port au Prince and playing soccer with his friends. He sometimes worked in his father's bakery and tried to climb aboard Haiti's commercial train which bought sugar cane stalks from the southern fields of legal gun to the sugar making plant in Port au Prince. But that execution that execution changed everything. The next day Daniel Moyal walked by a photographer's studio near his father's bakery in downtown Port au Prince. And on the open panel doors were

enlarged photographs of Marcel Numa and Louis whereas corpses purposely put on display as deterrents for the country's potential dissenters. These pictures were exhibited there and elsewhere for weeks. And young Daniel moil would work past them and even though he had been at the execution he saw them each day as if for the first time and was unable to look away. That's when I decided to be a photo journalist Daniel recalled. More than 45 years later photography is an L.A. art the novelist and essays Susan Sontag writes an on photography or photographs or memento mori that is they remind us that sooner or later the subject will no longer exist. To take a photograph Sontag continues to participate in another persons or things mortality

vulnerability mutability. Photography has something to do with resurrection. Lambart wrote. Might we not say of photography what the Byzantines said of the image of Christ which impregnated sent Veronicas napkin that it was not made by the hand of men that it was Cayrol poor toes. I never intended to become a photojournalist Daniel Moyal tells me more than once in the time that I have known him. I became a photojournalist because at Nguma endways execution I felt afraid and I never wanted to feel afraid again. I take pictures so I am never afraid of anyone or anything. When I take pictures I feel like something is shielding me like the camera is protecting me. Did he as a boy want to protect

Marcel Numa and Louis where. I ask him. He could not protect them he said. But over the years he has felt as though with his art with his work he has managed to protect other Marcel namaz and other Louis. And he makes me and that feeling even more certain and that to create dangerously is also to create fearlessly boldly embracing the public and private terrors that would silence us then bravely moving forward even when it feels as though we are chasing or being chased by a ghost creating fearlessly like living fearlessly even when we are cast not Bargello. On the other side of the water creating fearlessly creating dangerously as though nothing will ever stop us creating dangerously as though we full heartedly

or full hardly believe in r.k ro Porto's. Thank you thank you and Rich. So so very moving we're going to invite you all to come to the microphones to ask this great writer questions it's a rare privilege that you have. But I want to take the moderators prerogative and ask just a couple of things because we don't want to. I know you all want to get your book signed and that's really good thing to do. As you know I'm making a film. I've shot a film about for a film series for PBS called Black in Latin America and when I was on Haiti and the D.R.. So I filmed there and in June and I was shocked at my own naivete about the slow pace of progress from that earthquake. And when I met many of my friends here email me and say well you know everything almost fixed.

Then people went and people are going to be going back to their new homes. The most conservative estimate was well the Minister of Tourism was a good man. Patrick Delatour said What will these people be out of the tents in five years. The NGO people I asked said 20 years 25 years you can't imagine half a port au prince is living in tents with no running water no electricity by and large no private sanitation facilities. What do you think the prospects are for the recovery. Post-quake What do you see and feel. So we're starting with an easy question. It's I mean that's the it is that 11 billion dollar question. It's we recently in Miami had a.

Debate with some presidential candidates in one of the the leaders the Haitian president Haitian presidential candidate say we're not there yet in this country. And one of the leaders was sort of headline headliners but she's pulling really high. The woman name miss is my nigga I'm forgetting her first name. Shame on me. I shouted out you buy me a line. And she was she was saying she was giving exactly those numbers by five you know five years. But if you have you seen this. And sometimes when people talk about tense it's even overstating for a lot of people to see that it's a tactic. It's for a lot of people it's a stick it's a couple of sticks and some sheets. And the notion that people could live there and other years is unimaginable much less five years. So it's. And now we have with with the with the cholerae

reminding us as though we needed reminding how important how how critical sanitation and clean water and the rest of it is so I can't. I mean Haitian people are resilient they've been so resilient but I can't imagine how that how they could withstand another year much less another five years. And the situation that most people are living the reconstruction. My you know I have a similar experience when I talk to people they will say Well but you know Haiti got all this money and I think there's this misconception too that the money has arrived and that it's somehow been you know already been distributed. But it's it's it's been a very it's been very slow and I think it's not something people like to say but I have of a family member who just came back and we were he was the first thing he was saying is that it's like this election for example he's never seen this type of campaign.

You know this type of money being spent paradoxically on an election at the same time that you know people are in such desperate situation. So so I think but ultimately what I what I think is that the recovery is with the people with people in need. You know to have a true recovery we'll have to to empower individuals groups of people committees because people have this ability to organize themselves they're doing it in the camps they're doing it in the countryside and it will have to be people who want to rebuild Haiti need to rebuild to empower and empower Haitians to do it. And there are a lot of Haiti experts and in the room and I hope some will come in and share their experiences as well. Well let's make clear that the 11 billion dollars is pledged but very little relatively speaking has been sent or delivered with all

kinds of excuses offered. We don't want the money to be stolen. We need a comprehensive plan. President Clinton is organizing a comprehensive recovery. We're all waiting for that. What do you think about the you're one of the reasons that Americans are. Americans and to be naive about other people's countries anyway. I mean it's just part of our our DNA but and blissfully so. But what about the effect of these all these pop stars who have big concerts. You know they have these marathons and then they disappear and there's no follow up. Bono for example. You know is does great things. Where's this fall. Are they doing good things or do you have problems with them. I'm not talking about why cliff is Haitian. I mean the others. I think if they if they did their thing and we saw the money we saw where it was

doing in those instances I think I think you know sometimes a little wattage helps you know they drag Haiti suffers from this this phenomenon if you will of the world. Being aware of it only when it's at its extreme when it's on its knees and at other times you know there are a lot of pop stars who go quietly. You know I think Ben Stiller is one of them like he goes when it's not in the news and others and of course why Clifford had been doing that. You know if if it if it produces something you know I don't have I don't have any problems with it but doesn't produce something. Sometimes it does sometimes it doesn't. I mean we can you know it's debatable though. You do you think. And then I want to open this up.

I wrote an essay on the root called the curse on Haiti and it was right after. Pat Robertson. Robertson said that there was a curse on Haiti because the only way black men could beat the French was this pact that they signed on to the side of evil and I came in with the devil. And that's where the revolution broke out. And after they had a big tree they had a film of voodoo ceremony. And so this was the pact with the devil sign the blood and God has been punishing Haiti ever since and so in my essay for The Root dotcom I wrote yes indeed there is a curse on Haiti and it's traceable right back to the White House and Thomas Jefferson because that's where it started. Can you. I hate to put it this way but it's this Hades moment to reverse centuries of being traduced in various ways by the West. I mean it's it's interesting that he's always

asked to have these moments when it's most vulnerable. You know when it's earthquake ravaged and people said we can build better we can start over and win and at other moments where we're where Haitians have tried you know sort of less sensational moments where they've tried to quietly steer their ship. They've been squashed down. I mean we have the example of you know President Clinton's mea culpa about the destroying his you know by his own admission the rice the whole rice farming industry in Haiti to save our Ken Starr's rice farming. And there's been you know people do this quietly I think in Haiti day by day with you know raising their their animals and trying to send their kids to school and then we had all the pigs slaughtered at some at some point. So there have been other sort of less dramatic moments where Haitians and smaller groups have tried to take

take course and they've been squashed down and I think it's a lot to ask people when they're in a tent and have the least in case that then they've had that like suddenly now it's your you know it's your turn to you know to to start over in this dramatic way. But actually what we're saying is that yeah we'll start it over for you and then you just adjust or get out the way. Right. What can you please start to come up to the microphone and ask her questions. What do you want Americans to do. How can we help profoundly. Actually how can we help. I would love to hear from some of the people who work here who work with organizations here to tell me tell us what we what how how we can help. One way is to you know to inform yourself. And if you do work with organizations in Haiti work with organizations that are working on sustainability that are work that that some of them who have been there for a long time

and have been working with rural organizations with with education you know just to support organizations that help Haitians better themselves. OK. Sir would you justify yourself. And I'm I'm I'm a ruthless moderator. No statements in your politics. I don't care who you are for in the Haitian election. You know whatever. Just ask the lady a question. All right. Thank. You brother. Good evening Ms. I was just wondering if you could comment a little bit about the fact that so much of the intellectual capital of Haiti is in the United States Canada and France having read a study that said that some 80 percent of Haitians while in college degrees live in the United States. And I think also I read that the number two group of ethnic doctors behind Jewish people in New York is Haitian doctors. And at the same time Haiti itself you know

has a lot of problems. So I mean it suffers from a lack of doctors. I was just wondering if you could comment on what role you think the Haitian diaspora can play in Haiti's rebuilding. Thank you. Thank you very much. Are you Haitian. Yes yes. He's actually related to my husband. That was that was called a plant. I mean first of all I think we shouldn't we shouldn't underestimate the capital that is that remains in Haiti because they're there. They are very dedicated professionals doctors teachers and others who make their life in Haiti who have remained in the country. But there is also a very big section of. You know other professionals that are outside of

Haiti. And one of the wonderful things that I think we saw after the earthquake is that so many of these these people some some who had been loosely engaged in Haiti but became really committed to Haiti I know young teachers who just packed up suitcases and went and this other generation sort of younger around age who who became were committed to to Haiti. So I see more and more of that growing in the technology and other ways that makes it easier to you know there are young Asian-American teachers who teach by the Internet. Do you know to schools in Haiti and other other things like that I see. I see them more. A growing commitment of the Haitian American or the Haitian Diaspora to Haiti manifesting itself especially after the earthquake. Yes please.

Thank you for that wonderful moving talk. As a professor of literature I am afraid I'm not to bring this back to literature. My primary concern. I just taught that to break her in my first year seminar to my students who I brought with me. And one of the things that I was wondering about your use of Ossip stumps poem as the epigraph to the two pricker because it does resonate so well with the come to create dangerously. And this idea of transcending space and time and also kinds of affiliations which don't seem normal so that we have all said this Jewish Polish Soviet poet and. Do break her and I was wondering about your choice of that paragraph. And really what you wanted to do and and bridge and what kinds of affiliations you want to create by using Mandelstam with these various voices that do break her.

Thank you. Thank you. And I love that you were able to pronounce the name so well that you can't. And those are lines I use and the form is maybe this is the beginning of madness. Forgive me for what I'm saying but read it quietly quietly quietly. I I just you know one of the things about I think being you know an immigrant writer if you will is that you you are you know I feel like I'm sort of the bastard child of all of these people and everybody everybody you read becomes a kind of parentage and there are all these connections to you know the deal breaker. Sometimes you know Haitian families you know it's strange especially if you grew up in Brooklyn. There was sort of a Jewish model you know my my my father would always say the Jews were always there so together with them to be like that. And there was sort of this and then you know in and out of the communities and

sort of these things bleed into each other at night. You know I was like in this microcosm that was Brooklyn. And reading is like that too and that you sort of have these merged communities and. And that's how I started this Dubik are participating in all of this. No phone. Thank you thank you. We can talk a good talk with you. Yes. Hi. I'm a professor Alliss students. I was wondering when you when you write about the Haitian Experience and in trying to communicate it to an audience what kind of audience do you have in mind by your writing and also in how you communicate it does it differ versus whether you're trying to sort of explain it to a Haitian audience who have been there and who have experienced versus an American audience who have never experienced a dictatorship or those kinds of levels of poverty. And how do you how do you communicate that to someone who has experienced it versus someone who could never even really imagine that think well when I I it's a cliche and a lot of writers say it.

I think because it's true. When I'm writing it I'm writing it just for me and that and that's absolutely true. Sometimes I've been writing it for the 15 year old girl that I was who who went to the Brooklyn Public Library looking for these books about myself or. But it's really it's it's really for me I'm not. I think if you try to write with all these different audiences in mind you will you know it's it's just it just doesn't work. So I try to tell that for a story I know in the sures voice that I am that I'm able to and and I worry about the rest later I do feel like you know there's a Haitian proverb that that I've sort of adapted and change its power again I will again tell you that words have feet. Words have wings and I just I just trust that the words will travel that walk and will fly and find there and find the reader. But but in the moment that I'm doing it I'm not thinking outside of you know of the

people my the most intimate relationship at that time is to the sort of the people on the page the people I'm with at that. While I'm writing. Thank you. Thank you. I love my land. We know her. Hi. How we like to go back to the story you read if I may. This story has lived to the core of my being since I was a child because I was in Haiti when it happened. And although I was not a child brought by schools I was at home because it was broadcast on television and I watched it as it happened and it was broadcasted for weeks afterwards. All day long and my parents didn't know that for a week I watched it every day. Fascinated by this moment when my cousin's friends went from life to death. That moment when the head tilts. I was very

impressed by their courage. Also throughout the whole thing. Now my cousin when I was one of the three teens. And I learned a few years ago that actually there had been a second group of 13 that was scheduled to come but because they had learned that Duvalier knew of their arrival there had been some betrayal. They didn't go and those 13 who survived have spent their lives mostly in hiding running and also the guilt of the survivors. My question has to do with the ramifications. Just I know what happened after all this story there was the famous massacre of the family because once somebody did something all the family was affected and that was one of the ways of control. I was interested in your story and

hearing how Daniel Mohill lives that story and realized that this story lives in many people. So my question has to do with you since you said that you were not what you did not witness this. Why is it that it affected you so much and that you've been haunted all your life by it. It's I think my land is my land slips my land has a wonderful book of stories out in the company of heaven that I hope you will get a copy. There are wonderful wonderful stories and thank you for sharing that with us. And over the years in my in my journey through with this with this sort of come in the company of these men I always meet when when people do know of the story they're always so deeply deeply moved by it. I really I don't know why I just I remember the first time I saw the pictures and I kept you know I would ask my

family about it. It just and I would get snippets and it just seemed to me. I looked at their faces and they seem so young and they seemed like these young men who had you know. As my mother like to see with the Shar you know they had already escaped the dictatorship and they chose to go back. And I kept meeting all these older men who would say sometimes I am I was I was almost the 14th they would say. And then and then started having this feeling that we were all in a way almost the 14th it's like they died for us and in some way. And at this point their death signal the sort of doubling down of the dictatorship and things that's a you know after that and then Duvalier declared himself president for life and things started getting much harder. And I was and my uncle had these stories of young people you know who stage who tried to stage plays in response and barely aware where he was in other the

sort of reactions that people were able to have afterwards and I can't fully explain it it's something that I've sort of have been trying to explain to myself but I think it's also it's linked to all of these. We try to explain to ourselves often you know and I did when I was little why am I here. For example why am I in this country speaking this language. And I and for some reason I think this is one of the reasons you know and I'm I'm not sure why. Because it seems like we could up you know as I said I think we could have all been the 14th we could have all been these men. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to ask. The next three people. To ask your questions together. One at a time. And then we'll take three at a time otherwise you're never going to get out of here. OK. And short questions to you are ruthless smart. I am. I'm taking care of my guests. All right. Well I wrote mine down so you'll be glad. OK. OK. So on pay

I read your book and I and I've read all of them and hopefully you'll find all six of them tonight. Thank you. My question comes from page 112 of your recent book where you say that one of the advantages of being an immigrant is that two very different countries are forced to merge within one. And then you continue on to say so too with catastrophes and disasters which inevitably force you to rethink allegiances. And so I wanted to ask you to expound more on that and where do you find your allegiances. Ok we get that next question or I'm not going to remember all of you. Where do you find your allegiances. We to. Whatever feels or to the Haitian enemy. Yes it is good to see you a guy. How are you. My name is Manelli a charlatan. I'm the editor of The Boston Haitian reporter. You can show it to the people that

there are copies for those who want some. I'm here. My mentee Rick offense is actually sitting over there and I want to ask the question on his behalf. And related to my question. It seems to me that that title is a bit of a call to action for others who feel that they can support and bring their own contributions to Haiti and its story. So I wanted to ask you Do you see a role in younger artists and younger activists contributing different kinds of things to Haiti story as well as what role do you see your stories play in helping to break down some of the barriers and stereotypes about Haiti. Okay okay maybe. Yeah. I I think you know again one of the great things about the social media post earthquake is that we were able to hear directly from Haiti from some of the people from some of the

artists but also from from people who were going through this in their own voices. And when we know when a when a woman like a young woman who blogs from the tents when she tells her story her story joins the larger story of the world. So I think the more stories we have the more nuanced in a complex view that we have to Haiti. I'm not calling for for I don't want to commend or give any artist any kind of job you know or comment but it's just I think it's very it's very hard. It's been I think it's hard for for for for people when you know when when things like what's happening in Haiti is happening to just say I'm just going in my room to write you know that that is almost an impossible detachment. But the more voices we have I think that the more complex I think that the more we can break down those stereotypes because we all have a multiplicity of complexity in terms of

allegiances. I mean that there I was I was taught. I was thinking about Katrina when Katrina happened here when I was you know I was living in as I'm living now in Florida. And when I was watching the coverage first of all when one thing struck me that people were being called refugees and worst so we're so used to being called you know refugees being Haitian but I've never seen people being called refugees within their own country. And the other thing is that all the newscasters were saying you know they were saying oh you know these things don't happen here. They happen in Haiti or Mozambique and they keep saying it's like this is not Haiti as though they should have been in Haiti and it was one of those moments like 9/11 when you have these double allegiances. You know I think they're not so they're not so easy anymore when it's like all your communities are under fire at the same time. Thank you. Thank you. Next two questions we were unforced we have to stop in five minutes so

that's why I'm trying to be expeditions which my family is from Jamie and my father used to tell me stories about the execution of all the mulattoes in Haiti. But my question was what's your take on the U.N. and lived in the cholera outbreak because I've heard stories of them pumping sewer and rivers where people bathing get water for food and they're supposed to be there to help and they actually cause more harm. What's your take on that. OK. And next question please. My name is Carla. Also the United States when I was 12 from Haiti and you mentioned earlier that at the age of 15 you used to go to the bus and I mean the New York Public Library and look for books to learn more about yourself. And for me having read your first book BRAF eyes memory I found a Haitian voice that I could listen to. And I wanted to know your take on the literacy situation in Haiti because I think a lot of young Haitian people especially

50 percent of the population that's illiterate. What do you think is the role for artists for writers to provide voices for. For the Haitian population increase so that they can actually read and have an opportunity to explore a literary world out there. OK. Well I mean it continues to be I think the dilemma of both even writers who live who live in Haiti and that a lot of you know a lot of the people who people are writing about are excluded from from there you know or shut out unable to to read their work. I mean that aside from from the work that a lot of people do you know of the work that I do with with the schools that I that I work with here and there are a lot of them we used to do through my own called the you know in the provinces

we we try to make our books accessible in Haiti not yet not always in Creole translation. Unfortunately for that for for various For various reasons. But that's what that's coming. There are people who work on that we try to make them available reasonably. And maybe this is giving in. But we've we've done some of the I've done some of my stories as radio plays and things and things like that. But you know the literacy continues to be to be a very big challenge. As for the UN and the cholera I mean I I would I would. Echo. What a lot of scientific people have said including Dr. Paul Farmer who here is that that should be investigated as to as to the source of us the source of the cholera and I think it seems as though from what's come out that equal blame belongs to the Haitian company that disposed of the waste as to the U.N. people who were pumping it in the river. I mean if it's criminal that

that was able to even happen. Right. And I am sorry for those people behind the children. But our last our last questions are from the children and the rest of you can ask as she signs the books that you purchased. Please go ahead. Good evening. Good evening. Madam Edwidge Danticat please. It's a pleasure to be here with you. My name is Colleen desert with the association of Haitian women in Boston. We've spoken before once into law. One thing we can say definitely literature. Is political overtly. OK Vicky number one. Number two there are a lot of different things we can do to really support. Growth Development in Haiti. One thing is to believe in the Haitian population to ensure that we do things accordingly. We do things according to the Haitian ways of doing things the right ways.

And also we need to really look at U.S. foreign policy. We need to look a bit in terms of the past and in moving forward how do we collectively help make a difference in Haiti. And I believe we all can. Thank you. Now questions. Yes. The association of Haitian women does a lot of work in the greater Boston area. And one thing we do is tell you work. We when we read. Eight days and the two members of you may want to say a few words. I mean I had a few questions for you to pull it down toward you. There you go. One of them was how did you feel when you wrote eight days. OK. How did you feel when you wrote. Well I wrote it is it is this is a children's book we did that for for the International Rescue Committee after the earthquake with

Scholastic and it's a story of a little boy who's caught under the rubble after I wrote it. I have a 5 year old daughter who my mother in law was in Haiti during the earthquake and she kept she would say we weren't aware that we were letting her watch as much as we were. And she would always she kept saying is Grandma Issa under her house. So she was very. So I wrote it I wrote it to explain the earthquake to my to my 5 year old and Haitian children who are here who might have questions about it. So I felt you know I felt better after I wrote it because it was a way of sharing with children like you and my and my mirror what happened during the earthquake. OK. And the last question. Come on. Well I think you could do it.

You can do it. Why did you make the book. Why did you write the book. For my for my four little girls like you and for my Mira says she's smart she's like are. They. Anyway that's I get that