I'm happy to be part of this chorus of people who are trying to tell more complex stories about Haiti. Edwidge Danticat More Quotes by Edwidge Danticat More Quotes From Edwidge Danticat I think novels just really show us the deepest parts of people's hearts, and you cannot walk away anymore and say, "I don't know." Edwidge Danticat heartpeoplethinking I think it's hard for an outsider to capture the flavor of a community and all its nuances, so ultimately Haitian-Americans need to start sharing intimate accounts of their stories. Edwidge Danticat nuancecommunitythinking It's hard to tell what people will do with the word and how they'll be circulating it but I think the storytellers and the stories themselves will always be there. Edwidge Danticat storiespeoplethinking The people did not elect me. I speak with one voice that may echo other people, but I am part of a group of people. That's not distancing yourself from a community, that's also allowing the space for others to speak for themselves. Edwidge Danticat echoesvoicespace AIDS was something that was put upon us [as haitians], and we were immediately identified with it. That is unfair. That is unjust. I always say, "We are all people living with AIDS." It's not like you can avoid it. It's part of our world. Edwidge Danticat unjustour-worldpeople The whole military structure in Haiti that existed until the early 1990s was put in place by the American occupation. At the top there were Southern white officers, who led an army that crushed the indigenous resistance - the cacos. A high-ranking U.S. officer said when he arrived, "To think these niggers speak French!" Later, Haitian officers attended the notorious School of the Americas at Fort Benning. The threat from the U.S. is something that is always hanging over people's heads: If we don't behave, we'll have occupation again. Edwidge Danticat armymilitaryschool Life's hard in Haiti right now. And the hardest thing is that the future does not lie with one person. Edwidge Danticat haitidoelying When you write, it’s like braiding your hair. Taking a handful of coarse unruly strands and attempting to bring them unity. Your fingers have still not perfected the task. Some of the braids are long, others are short. Some are thick, others are thin. Some are heavy. Others are light. Like the diverse women of your family. Those whose fables and metaphors, whose similes and soliloquies, whose diction and je ne sais quoi daily slip into your survival soup, by way of their fingers. Edwidge Danticat lighthairwriting There are many possible interpretations of what it means to create dangerously, and Albert Camus, like the poet Osip Mandelstam, suggests that it is creating as a revolt against silence, creating when both the creation and the reception, the writing and the reading, are dangerous undertakings, disobedience to a directive. Edwidge Danticat readingwritingmean One of the things that sparked my interest in this is the case of Emmanuel Constant, who started a militia called FRAPH that was backed by the CIA. FRAPH killed thousands of Haitians in the early 1990s. Now while Constant is living comfortably in Queens, other Haitians are being deported. I wanted to see how those who have been bruised by people like that deal with coming face to face with their torturers. Edwidge Danticat emmanuelqueenspeople The way the media cycle works, the way the news works, and the way people's attention span works, is that we only learn that people exist when there is crisis. Edwidge Danticat mediaattentionpeople The whole history between Haiti and the Dominican Republic is complicated. We share the island of Hispaniola, and Haiti occupied the Dominican Republic for twenty-two years after 1804 for fear that the French and Spanish would come back and reinstitute slavery. So we have this unique situation of being two independent nations on the same island, but with each community having its own grievance. Edwidge Danticat independentuniqueislands We still have our people working in the cane fields in the Dominican Republic. People are still repatriated all the time from the Dominican Republic to Haiti. Some tell of being taken off buses because they looked Haitian, and their families have been in the Dominican Republic for generations. Haitian children born in the Dominican Republic still can't go to school and are forced to work in the sugarcane fields. Edwidge Danticat takenchildrenschool Often when you're an immigrant writing in English, people think it's primarily a commercial choice. But for many of us, it's a choice that rises out of the circumstances of our lives. These are the tools I have at my disposal, based on my experiences. It's a constant debate, not just in my community but in other communities as well. Where do you belong? You're kind of one of us, but you now write in a different language. Edwidge Danticat writingpeoplethinking To be able to create you have to have peace of mind on some level. Edwidge Danticat peace-of-mindlevelsmind These were our bedtime stories. Tales that haunted our parents and made them laugh at the same time. We never understood them until we were fully grown and they became our sole inheritance. Edwidge Danticat inheritanceparentlaughing I can't wait for both my daughters to be old enough to read all my books. I loved it every time I saw my parents acting like more than just my parents. And I'm looking forward to that with my daughters too. I am looking forward to having them discover me as someone completely other than their mother. Edwidge Danticat daughtermotherbook That has always been a strength of Haiti: Beyond crisis, it has beautiful art; it has beautiful music. But people have not heard about those as much as they heard about the coups and so forth. I always hope that the people who read me will want to learn more about Haiti. Edwidge Danticat beautifulpeopleart Art is a luxury but also a necessity. Edwidge Danticat art-isluxuryart Sometimes family members will ask to be kept out of certain things that I'm writing, and I try to respect that. I'd much rather have relatives than a book. Edwidge Danticat writingtryingbook
