![]() ![]() There is also an unspoken assumption that Haitian immigrants like myself seek to assimilate, start over, forget everything and everyone left behind. Such pronouncements are couched in an "othering" of Haitians. So soon after the current catastrophes, I'm surprised to hear my American acquaintances referencing the 8/14 earthquake - and the hurricane that struck a few days later - as something banal, as if to say that, this being Haiti, we can expect little more than catastrophe and chaos. Still, in my mind, Haiti was home everywhere else was temporary. It was only when summer returns ended and family began to visit us, that I realized that we had left. Returns were frequent, to the point that I did not realize for years that I lived outside Haiti. When I was born, most of my family lived in Port-au-Prince. So much of me remains, or has come with me, from that mountainous landscape: the red of flamboyant trees the yells of market women the cry of a neighbor's rooster my grandmother's cooking. ![]()
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