Butterfly's Way: Voices From the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States

by Edwidge Danticat

  Haitians don't trust each other.

  Haitian families, whether they know it or not, teach self-hatred. I grew up with plenty of self-denigrating idioms, proverbs that offered such advice as: Don't let any Haitian boy touch the center of your palm; he'll steal your decency and turn you into a trollop. Don't let anyone read your books; they'll find whatever blessing was there for you. Don't eat from anyone; they'll steal your bonanj, your good angel. Don't study with others; they'll steal your intelligence. Safeguard your underwear because people could hurt your chances of having children. "Depi nan Ginen, neg te rayi neg," even in Africa, blacks hated each other. At first I thought this distrusting advice was part of my own family's proverbs, but I noticed that many of my Haitian friends also cautiously lived by these same rules.

  It wasn't until I went to live in Cameroon, Africa, that I realized that blacks in Africa and elsewhere did love each other as a rule and that those who hated one another were exceptions to that rule. Only when we were paired against one another in divide-and-conquer style did that hatred begin. This love was reaffirmed for me by my host family in Cameroon. Sleeping in the same bed with my host sisters, I felt a kind of peace I had never felt before in my life. I felt like a tiger cub resting beside her mother's belly. I still feel that warmth and love when I receive a nod or an acknowledging smile from a black person or a Haitian person in the streets of Boston, New York, or Miami. But according to the proverbs and idioms that we are taught, we are all supposed to hate each other.

  Haiti is a woman with two sets of children.

  I have always been told and have come to realize for myself that Haiti is like a woman with two sets of children, the elite and the masses. The elite are the children born to luxury, in wedlock, and the masses are the children born to poverty, the bastards. The elites abuse or completely neglect the masses. This reminds me of one of Pere's favorite sayings, "Se rat kay ki manje kay pay." It is the house rats who eat hay houses. I saw for myself, firsthand, the devouring of these hay houses in the summer of 1997, when I returned to Haiti with a group of students on a trip sponsored by the Ministry of Haitians Living Abroad. Our group was composed of students from France, the United States, and Haiti. This trip was intended to reacquaint people like me with the country that we had left at a young age and connect us with other students our age who were just finishing school in Haiti. While traveling in Haiti with the group, I got to see most of the country. The most startling sight I saw was the number of high-priced Landcruisers and Range Rovers traveling Haiti's roads. I couldn't believe that a country so poor could have people driving such expensive cars. The reason for those cars was revealed to me one rainy day when we were trekking in an old school bus from Port-au-Prince to the southern town of Cayes. I saw young children bathing in the muddy rainwater that had collected in the craters on the road. There were heaps of trash and debris all along the road. Whatever was in this collection of trash must have been decomposing because the smell was unbearable; yet the children washed their little angelic faces, arms, and legs in this sewage. On that day, I finally understood why the rich people need Land-cruisers in Haiti: to create craters for the poor to bathe in.

  Before that month was over, I got to see Haiti's prosperous sons and daughters at work. We were invited to dinner at Kinam 2, Haiti's Ritz Carlton. The purpose of this assemblage was to network and connect with the rich and powerful so that we could one day return to "rebuild" the country. Over dinner conversations, the students in the group who were living in France and the United States got job offers from the Haitian company heads, but the students living in Haiti were completely neglected and certainly not offered jobs. At that moment, I understood Pere's saying about the cigarette burning at both ends and his saying about the house rat eating the hay house.

  Pray to the I was on Saturday, pray to God on Sunday.

  In his final letter, Antoine Thurel stated three reasons for which he died: family, country, and religion. Religion is one of the most confusing aspects of being Haitian. Haiti's primary religion is Vodou, yet we are even more confused about Vodou than the white man who while enslaving us told us it was evil. I once heard a prominent Haitian pastor in Boston say that slavery was God's way of reaching out and saving the African continent. The Haitian parishioners echoed their assent with undiscerning shouts and praises. How long will we continue to pay for this kind salvation? How many Antoine Thurels will die to purge us from it?

  I have often imagined Pere and Antoine Thurel having a conversation. Pere would list his maxims expressing his disillusionment with our people and Antoine Thurel would list his dreams for our outward and inward liberation, the dreams that had motivated him to set himself on fire that morning on August 31, 1987. Perhaps they are having this conversation now in our ancestral African home in Ginen with Boukman, Toussaint, Christophe, and Dessalines; I wish I could hear that conversation. Perhaps I would get some answers to my questions, a few replies that would calm the tormented voices in my head, heal some of my continuing grief over Antoine Thurel's death. Still these questions, like Pere's final words, continue to haunt me. Why don't we see that the things we tell ourselves and our children become part of them, and part of us? When will we realize that all of Haiti's children belong to one family, the family of humanity? Why do we teach resignation in our churches? Why do we not respect our ancestors' words and legacy? Why don't we truly honor their sacrifices by treating ourselves and our poorer neighbors more humanely? Will we one day find the answers to those questions, or will we always remain a cigarette burning at both ends?

  MY SUITCASES

  Maude Heurtelou

  When I was nineteen years old, I left Haiti for Guatemala City to enroll in a bachelor of sciences program. To prepare me for my trip, my parents fixed me two large suitcases filled with farewell gifts: from a bookmark made out of dry banana leaves to family photographs. What I didn't know then is that my suitcases were not only physical but also cultural. These suitcases, both cultural and physical, have been essential to my survival as an immigrant in three different countries.

  Upon my arrival in Guatemala City, I whispered my aunt Didine's prayers to the saints, hummed Leon Dimanche's "Nostalgie" while longingly laying out and sifting through the items that had been lovingly packed in my suitcases: the talcum powder on my nightstand, which the vendor at the Iron Market in Port-au-Prince had wanted no payment for because I was leaving for university abroad. The multicolored kite that decorated my wall was made twenty years before by the neighborhood shoeshine man, who had presented it to my mother thinking she was carrying a boy. An unknown artist had sculpted the metal sheet lantern by my window. The small wicker basket in the corner of my room had carried dried Ilan Ilan flowers from my middle school in Port-au-Prince. The embroidered pillowcase where I rested my head each night was made by hand in the mountains of Jacmel. It was embossed with my great-grandmother's initials and passed down from my grandmother, to my mother, and now myself. My rubber sandals, a gift from my friend Marie, reminded me of traveling Haitian feet, steady, firm, and purposeful in their gait. I felt as though the ground beneath me was familiar whenever I wore my sandals. So many things in my suitcases comforted me, while reminding me of home.

  Soon my classmates became curious about "la haitiana," the one who couldn't speak Spanish at first but was learning so fast. Little by little, I opened my suitcases, both cultural and physical, to them, sharing music, Haitian konpa, foods—griyo, plantains, rice and beans, pikliz—and stories of the feuding Haitian folktale characters Bouki and Malis. One day, I received a surprise visit from the national Guatemalan soccer team. The team was scheduled to compete against the Haitian national soccer team and wanted to look at me to get a sense of what Haitians would look like. Because I was taller than all the Guatemalan players, they assumed that all the Haitians would be very tall as well.

  We were the only six Haitians reported to be in Guatemala City: a businessman, a female professor from the French Institute, and three other univer
sity students like myself. A few times a year, Claudette, the French professor, would invite me and the other three students to her home. During those afternoons at Claudette's, we would sit on her patio, eat Haitian food, listen to konpa music, and share stories from home. The oldest among us, Marijo, came from Jeremie, a southern Haitian town that had produced many famous poets. Marijo would recite verses that described the plush green landscape of the Haitian south. After her poetry recitals, Marijo would walk over to Claudette's piano and play the legendary Haitian ballads, "Haiti Cherie," and "Choucoune." One other student, Fadia, would dance while I told riddles.

  Krik?

  Krak!

  You go here. I go there. We meet in the middle. What am I?

  A belt!

  Those afternoons at Claudette's always eased my longing for home, if only for a while.

  After four years in Guatemala City, I moved to Quebec City, Canada, to look for work, and took my suitcases with me. I carried along my favorite comb, which I had learned in Haiti could be both a grooming tool and a musical instrument. To play the comb, all one had to do was put a strip of paper across the teeth, press one's lips against the paper, and hum to produce a harmonica-like sound. My new Canadian friends and I would have evenings of comb recitals and story telling, turning off the lights for an atmosphere that would make the stories sound scarier and the comb sound more mysterious. During cold winter nights, I would entertain my friends with descriptions of the deep earth smell and the thumping sound of Haitian rain on tin roofs. I would make them ginger root tea and peanut confections. However there were a few things I resisted sharing. I didn't tell them that at times what I missed most were the imperfections of my country: the large potholes that always forced our feet or our cars to slow down, the crowds of vendors at the markets who sometimes made it hard to move freely, but sang melodiously of the fruits and vegetables they were selling.

  One day I accepted the invitation of some friends to accompany them to the carnival of Quebec. Having been part of the colorful and lively street party that was a Haitian carnival, I never imagined that the carnival of Quebec would be an outdoor procession of ice sculptures in minus-thirty-degree weather. More and more, I began to miss the gorgeous range of colors of Haitian people, from honey, to chocolate, to dark coffee. I missed the aroma of coffee, freshly ground every morning by my neighbors. I missed being greeted with a smile by people who had known me and my family for years. Back home, I had a name and a past, had a family, and a legacy. In Quebec City, I was rootless, just another immigrant.

  A few years later, I made yet another move, to the United States, to Florida. At last, I felt, I could rest my suitcases for a while. Florida, home to hundreds of thousands, maybe even a million Haitians, is close to Haiti both in miles and in climate. South Florida, where I live, is full of Caribbean markets whose shelves are stacked with home-grown treasures such as mangoes, plantains, and breadfruits. There are many restaurants, large and small, that serve Haitian dishes like stewed conch and fried goat. Our voices are heard across radio air waves, singing, laughing, and arguing about politics. We have television programs that bring us news and images of home. It is somewhat easier to simulate Haitian life in Florida, but of course being in Florida is not completely like being home.

  After more than two decades away from Haiti, I still reach out for my suitcases, both physical and cultural, for all of the items in them, linked as they are to memories and traditions, that have helped me, and still continue to help me survive the immigrant life. However, my suitcase has now expanded with a few more items gathered from other cultures, with the letters and photographs of the friends I have made in Guatemala, Canada, and Florida, with their stories, and languages, and traditions that have slowly merged into my own: the particular lilt of Guatemalan Spanish that I eventually mastered, the hand-made fabrics from San Andres, the cabane a sucre parties in Quebec City, where I indulged in maple syrup candies out on the street, along with the other residents, natives, and immigrants alike. What my own cultural isolation as an immigrant in these places has taught me is that I am part of a living culture that in no way stops being a part of me, even when I am not completely immersed in it. With everything I do and say, I am perpetuating that culture, enriching it, modifying it when necessary, but contributing to its regeneration. My suitcases, both physical and cultural, have always, and will always, make me proud of my culture. They are perhaps a microcosm of what I am missing living abroad, but will never completely lose.

  THE WHITE WIFE

  Garry Pierre-Pierre

  My wife is white. When I told my friend Rosemonde over lunch that I intended to marry Donna, a petite woman of English, German, and Irish ancestry from Indiana, Rosemonde's jaw dropped as if she'd been hit with a Mike Tyson hook. Rosemonde's reaction foreshadowed what was to come for Donna and me. (We did indeed marry two months later on a cold, rainy December morning in Crawfordsville, Indiana.) If a black friend could have such a visceral reaction, then you know strangers could be far worse. And they have been.

  Responses to our being together depend on the level of agitation and gall people have. Most often, we get the Why is he with her? stare, the rolled eyes, the sucked teeth. Every once in a while, a brave soul gets cocky, like the sister in the parking lot one day who muttered, "Jungle fever," as we passed by. We paid her no mind.

  I know exactly what the stares are all about. Back in my days at Florida A&M University, a crucible of black activism and black power in Tallahassee, I used to be part of that crowd doing the gaping, perplexed and angered by the sight of a black-and-white couple. I took them as an affront to my race. That they happened to have fallen in love was the furthest thing from my mind. Then I fell in love myself, and my old foolishness became what Donna and I have had to learn to deal with. It doesn't faze us now; we've grown immune. But there was a time when we were on constant alert; ignorance is more often subtle—it tends not to shout. Imagine spending every day, walking into every gathering or restaurant, prepared for the slightest insult. It could wear you down if you let it.

  Black women and white men seem to be the most offended by the sight of a black man and a white woman. Some black women even seem to feel that my marrying a white woman is downright pathological. I must hate my mother or maybe myself, right? Wrong. I'm not ashamed or sorry or the least bit uncomfortable with my mother, myself, or my marriage. I do, however, get pissed off when my wife is slighted or intimidated, or when she has to contend with ignorant people. When we lived in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, some years ago, a white mechanic helping Donna with a flat tire became furious at the sight of a black-and-white couple driving into the station. "Look at that," he growled as Donna watched him in disbelief. "You would never do that, would you?" Donna opened her locket and showed him a picture. His face flushed red; he blurted out, "But he's educated, right?"

  We've come a long way since the days when a black man was lynched simply for making eye contact with a white woman. In fact there are more than three hundred thousand black-white married couples in the United States today, a number that has risen steadily since the 1970s. But still, this black man marrying a white woman was a big deal. I was one of those people who once led the arguments against intermarriage. Because racism remains a source of pain for so many of us in this country, many blacks and whites still view interracial couples as unnatural as horses mating with cows. We're treated as if we're traitors in somebody's grand scheme of things. I'm nobody's traitor; I simply followed my heart.

  Donna and I met in Togo, West Africa, brought to that obscure place by our mutual idealistic pursuit of trying to make a difference in the world. I was drawn to her midwestern naivete and easy smile, and she to my northeastern edge and tempo. The attraction—physical and intellectual—was immediate. Even with our differences, we were so much alike. We were both considered radicals in Ronald Reagan's America, where liberalism was a dirty word: We had volunteered for the Peace Corps to work in remote rural villages at a time when most of our con
temporaries were starting the management training program on the fast track to the Big Time, dreaming of becoming vice president of something. We wanted to teach a trade, share a skill, save a life.

  I was born in Haiti and grew up in Elizabeth, New Jersey, a smokestack-filled industrial city about sixteen miles southwest of Manhattan. In the spring of 1987, after graduating from college, I went to Africa to complete the last leg of my own reverse triangular trade. Blacks had left Africa, were taken to South and Central America and the Caribbean, then to the colonies, to keep afloat the peculiar institution that was slavery. I was seeking to connect all the intellectual and spiritual dots. I left FAMU a disciple of Malcolm X (long before X T-shirts were fashionable), and though I never believed in the innate superiority of any race, I was still known to take issue with interracial couples.

  So Africa was the last place I expected to be seeing a white woman—the first one I'd ever dated—let alone one I would marry. One of my closest friends, once asked me jokingly, "Garry, did you have to go to Africa to find a white woman? There were plenty in Tallahassee!" I laughed at the irony and thought that ours was in the classic tale of boy meets girl, except boy is caramel-colored and girl is lily-white, and they fall in love in Africa.

  When we started dating, I would often ride my motorcycle to Donna's village in the central part of Togo, a sliver of a country nestled between Ghana and Benin. Over the course of a year, we became closer. I was moved by Donna's spirit and the care and concern she showed when working and playing with the local children. Some nights we would walk into the center of town with a flashlight and the stars as our guide to a watering hole. Between sips of hot beer and bites of fried yams, we wondered aloud about how our lives together would be once we returned to America. Were we getting into something we couldn't handle? I was unsure if I could return to Tallahassee for FAMU's homecoming. I was anxious about the hostility that might come from the all-black environment I remembered. I didn't want people faking it either. But mostly, I didn't want to have all those stunned black faces staring at us, thinking I had let the race down.