Butterfly's Way: Voices From the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States (16 page)

REPORTING SILENCE

Leslie Casimir

I make a living by telling other people's stories. These people are all strangers to me, a newspaper reporter, yet I am often able to convince them to pour out some of their most intimate thoughts, dreams, and miseries—details that are usually shared between close relatives, passed on from grandmother to granddaughter, mother to daughter, father to son. I can look grieving women in their watery eyes and ask them to describe their murdered sons or husbands— their ambitions, their scent. And amazingly enough, they will comply. I am moved to tell their stories for I am not certain of my own.

Details about my family have avoided me all of my life. In my twenty-nine years, I have been trained not to expect to learn much about the women and men who came before me. They are dead, my only surviving grandmother often insists. What would be the point in raising the dead?
Leve mo.
This is an expression I have heard over and over again. An expression I have grown to accept. A phrase that angers me. Frustration from not knowing much about my family, frustration that is now making me numb. For I have learned those words have helped shield my grandmother from pain and regret, as if their spirits would come back to haunt her and me.

From losing her home to a cyclone to struggling to put food on the table, her life's wounds still are fresh. And this American-born girl, this
ti ameriken,
who in recent years has professed a committed interest in Haiti, has no right—I suppose—to expect my grandmother to accommodate my curiosity as to her life before coming to America, the promised land, where money could supposedly be found on the streets and in public fountains, ready for the taking. When she got off that plane from Port-au-Prince nearly thirty years ago, she left behind a part of herself. And I cannot blame her for discarding a painful past. But it is not only her life she is guarding, it is mine as well, one that is filled with gaps and vague accounts of things, information scooped up along the years through passing mentions and aunts' conversations at the kitchen table. I can't get my grandmother to even mention my late grandfather's name above a whisper. Jotting down his name on pieces of paper helps me to envision this faceless man. I keep his name written in all my journals— otherwise I would forget.

During my college years in Florida, I would beg my grandmother to speak onto the blank cassette tapes that I sent her. But they would go unrecorded, collecting dust on top of the refrigerator. Our phone conversations would be full of awkward pauses when I would ask questions about her life, about how she had raised my own mother in a southern town in Haiti that is surrounded by breadfruit trees, about raising eight children for a man who lived in another house with his wife and children in that very same neighborhood. How my mother barely knew that man. She only would see and smell the cologne-scented man in the white linen suit, who would come by for late evening supper.

"I'll explain everything to you some day," my grandmother insists, changing the subject as she sits in her well-worn leather easy chair, for hours. That day has never come. Her silence infected my mother, my father, my aunts and uncles. They all share something that is unspeakable: our family's history. Sad stories are not good to be passed down from generation to generation, my mother reasons, siding with her mother who didn't tell her much either.

The only time I could get people in my family to speak freely about their past was when a relative would come back from Haiti, bearing gifts. I don't remember when I came to realize how important it was to receive these items: food, liquor, embroidered cotton bed sheets, even a pair of plastic slippers. But I now know those things helped them to remember where they came from, to relive their cherished memories. For it was through those items that I was able to catch glimpses of a sweet and bitter Haiti, of my grandmother and parents. The bites of molasses candy packed with cashews, the sips of egg yolk liquor, the spices, loosened their tongues and they would speak about hunting for pheasants, horseback riding, and summers spent on family farms. My parents would tell us fragmented stories from their childhoods. Pasts that were broken in tiny pieces just like the jars that carried the pickled peppers and fine-shredded cabbage soaked in white distilled vinegar, the fiery odor clinging to the gift-bearers' shirts. Of my father's father abandoning his five children to start another family in neighboring Santo Domingo or Havana, Cuba. No one is really certain where he ended up. Only thing that is for sure is that he came back to Haiti, dying of cancer, so that his children, the ones who made it to America, could bury him. It was as if the odors wafting from the soaked, rickety suitcase brought to our home stirred memories in my parents' minds that were otherwise kept buried deep. In their new lives, in their home on a street called Phillips on the South Side of Chicago, these items served as a truth potion that helped soothe their ripped hearts, as they were transplanted to new jobs where they swept up powdered gum at a Wrigley factory and lifted sharp, cold iron parts at a steel mill.

"You realize how much you miss everything," one family member explained. "How life hasn't been what you expected it to be."

Now that I live on my own, catching my family reflecting on their lives is rare. Instead, when we get together now, we sit at tables, talking about who got married, when will I get married, and who is sick. Superficial topics I can easily discuss with the strangers I now interview. Aside from blood, my family is not connected by much else. Not like a Korean friend of mine, who at a young age was given a book about his lineage that spans thirty-three generations. That's a lot of history, permanence, and family pride. I, on the other hand, cannot even break the silence past my own mother's generation. However, I have jotted down notes, and bits and pieces of stories. And I fill blank cassettes daily on my job, fill them with stories. None of them my own.

VINI
NOU
BEL

Annie Gregoire

A few months after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I was born in a Brooklyn hospital during a hot summer. Early in my life, my father introduced me to the civil-rights leader, for a picture of Dr. King hung on the living room wall of my parents' one-bedroom apartment in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Although my father never spoke to me about why he displayed a picture of the slain activist next to that of John F. Kennedy in our home, I later came to understand the significance of their portraits.

In elementary school, I started to understand that the portrait of Martin Luther King, Jr. symbolized the struggle for racial equality. During Black History Month, my classmates and I sang "We shall overcome" as loudly as we could and recited poems resonating, "I have a dream ..." Still, honoring Black History Month had a somber tone, not as exciting to me as the other cultural events celebrated at my bilingual public school. With great anticipation, I looked forward to celebrating Haitian Flag Day at school.

On Haitian Flag Day I always felt special marching in the auditorium wearing my Haitian folkloric attire, a red bandanna covering my head and a blue dress tucked in at the waist with a red scarf, while chanting the national anthem of Haiti. That was the only time I truly believed I was no different from my peers, as we all marched in unison, showing off the same colors of blue and red. My Haitian-born parents were there singing along with me while we paraded down the aisle. Celebrating Haitian history and culture at this elementary school seemed to foster a great sense of ethnic pride among many students in the French and Spanish bilingual programs, including the few students who were neither of Haitian nor Hispanic descent.

Other times, however, some of my schoolmates, notably the boys, reminded me that I was different. Instead of addressing me as "Annie" they preferred to call me "Blackie." Their teasing began to sound natural, since the term "Blackie" was often used by black people to describe their darker peers. Although I learned to tolerate the taunting, I was somewhat confused about how dark a person needed to be in order to be called "Blackie" since many of the individuals who belittled me were just a shade or two lighter.

As my preteen years approached, I wanted to interact more with young people of different cultural backgrounds. I grew tired of studying French and celebrating Haitian Flag Day. One day I convinced my parents to enroll me in a Catholic grammar school attended by some of the children living on my block. I was hoping to start anew. To my dismay, attention to my dark hue followed me to Catholic school. On the first day of class at my new school, I was greeted with loud laughter by a group of boys sitting in the back of the classroom. Thereafter, one of the boys from that group, who was of Jamaican descent, also chose not to address me as "Annie." This time my new name was "Crispy." He stopped calling me "Crispy" the day I exploded in Language Arts class and cried out loud before all my classmates. From then on, he referred to me by my proper name. The insults by some of the other students did not end though. Occasionally, I was "the Creature from the Black La- goon" or the child whose mamma left her "in the toaster too long." One time a female classmate snidely remarked, "It's getting darker in here," as I entered the classroom and when I was leaving she said, "It's getting lighter in here." A girl with fair complexion asked me one day, "Do you ever wish you were light-skinned?"

At this grammar school, I did have the opportunity to make more friends of different cultural backgrounds: African-American, Trinidadian, Irish, Italian, Puerto Rican, and others. But there was also a large student population of Haitian descent. Being of Haitian descent at my school brought little pride and prestige, however. The 1980s rolled in with the rise of the AIDS epidemic, linking the disease to Haitians. Meanwhile, numerous Haitians were fleeing their homeland in shabby boats to reach American shores. Unfortunately, the Haitian-American students were not exempt from being stigmatized even in a school in which they dominated. Some students pretended they couldn't speak a word of Haitian
Kreyol
while others tried to distance themselves from their Haitian-born parents, identifying themselves as Americans.

From grammar school, I moved on to a high school with a mixed student population of African, European, Hispanic, and Asian origins. Although the different ethnic groups were tolerant of one another, they hardly intermingled. Occasionally I heard "ethnic jokes" told by students of various groups, but I was only truly affected by the derogatory remarks about dark-skinned blacks or people of Haitian descent. In high school, I purposely stayed away from the lunchroom and tried to avoid the comments by taking unpopular and extra classes and working in the school office.

It was not until I entered college that I faced prejudice from some white students and experienced racial discrimination and tensions between black and white people. Dealing with the race issue and black-white relations helped me to better understand the seeds of narrow-mindedness while shedding light on the reasons behind the class and color politics among many black people. The summer after my sophomore year, I studied in Rome. I was the only black person in my program. In Italy, I was so self-conscious that my eyes often dropped as I saw individuals pointing me out in a crowd. I also learned about prejudices within the Italian community, mainly the negative views that southern and northern Italians have about each other. Some southern Italians saw their northern fellow citizens as snooty city dwellers; whereas certain northern Italians looked down at their southern counterparts as lowly peasants or
"terroni."

A year later, I embarked on another adventure: I went to study in Paris. The week before I left for France, Yusuf Hawkins, a black teenager, was killed by a group of white youths in Brooklyn. At the time, hoping to find solace in the "City of Light," Yussef s death left me indifferent. Unfortunately, France, like all nations, has its share of social problems. Because of my color, I had to obtain the tenants' special approval before moving into an apartment. Likewise, most people in France assumed that I was either domestic help residing in the maid's chamber; an African-American student who loved jazz and came from Harlem; or a Senegalese immigrant to France. Even Senegalese greeted me in Wolof and often seemed insulted that I did not speak their language. There was also some tension between the West African and West Indian communities in France. Based on many conversations with members of both communities, a mutual resentment suggested tension between them. While a number of Africans believed that Francophone West Indians tended to promote their European or Indian ancestry while denying their African roots, some West Indians, particularly Guadeloupians and Martinicans, felt that the African presence in France was a reminder of past slavery and present colonization. Strangers often called out
"Africaine!"
when I walked by. To retaliate, I proudly let them know of my Haitian heritage, reminding them of the Caribbean colony France had lost through a slave revolt. Ignorance also dwelt in the minds of some American students in the study-abroad program. I was feasting on a French delicacy in a Parisian cafe when an American female student of Hispanic descent scornfully referred to Haitian
Kreyol
as a "tribal language." Sometimes it seemed safer to simply identify myself as "American." Consequently, during my year in France, I was accused by many different groups of people of lying about my nationality and not being proud to be African. By the time I left Paris, I was very confused about who I was.

All the while, strong racial tensions were brewing in New York City. Reactions to the killing of Yusuf Hawkins, the election of New York City's first black mayor, and the Food and Drug Administration's controversial policy banning Haitians from donating blood in the United States were intensifying. In April 1990, thousands of Haitians marched across the Brooklyn Bridge together, protesting the FDA's policy of labeling Haitians as AIDS carriers. Ironically, the AIDS stigma helped to create a sense of unity among Haitians, transcending social and ethnic backgrounds. Although I was in France at the time, my heart was in New York City that day.

With the arrival of the 1990s, a resurgence of Afrocentric fads in fashion, movies, and music began to appear in urban America: the music of Soul II Soul and Public Enemy; Afrocentric accessories prominent in Spike Lee's films. Lee's socially conscious films helped to expose color and class issues in the black community as well as race relations in America, particularly in New York City. During this revival of black pride, I went from being called "Blackie" and "Crispy" to "Chocolate" and "Dark and Lovely." While I didn't especially find being compared to an edible treat or a brand name of a hair relaxer to be a compliment, at that point I was ready to deal with my feelings of inferiority because of being dark-skinned.

Upon returning to college, I immediately joined the Haitian Student Organization, which had received a negative reputation on campus for protesting the Blood Drive. Learning that the FDA's policy had also banned Americans of Haitian descent from donating blood, I began to question the value of my American citizenship. With the approach of the Persian Gulf War, the U.S. federal government finally listened to the anger of the Haitian community and lifted the ban in December 1990.

The years after college graduation marked a major transition in my life. I had been so busy evaluating myself by people's perceptions of my skin color and ethnic background that I didn't seriously think about what I truly wanted to do with my life. After three years of working at the United Nations, I decided to become a teacher. Strangely, I first taught French at a Catholic high school in Brooklyn attended by a large student population of Haitian descent. Like me, most of these students were American-born of Haitian parentage. They were also proud of their Haitian heritage, often chatting in Haitian
Kreyol.
While blurting out the lyrics of the latest hip-hop songs, many of them teased one another in the language of their Haitian-born parents. However, the black students at this Catholic high school, whether Haitian or non-Haitian, were still influenced by the color-conscious sentiments of their peers and those who had come before them. I occasionally heard and saw some students being teased about the darkness of their skin; a few still compared the tint of the inner surface of their forearms to determine their true hue. I then realized that cultural pride went beyond one's language, history, traditions, customs, and ethnic makeup. I thought about the irony of Haitian history: the first independent black nation to successfully revolt against oppression and yet, among some of us feelings of inferiority still lurk, keeping Haitians of different classes and skin tones divided.

Although my father was greatly inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King's fight for racial equality, he had already internalized the belief that black people had limitations and could only succeed in certain fields. My father was very disappointed that I had become a teacher, believing that teaching was not prestigious and brought little wealth. Even after I earned a master's degree in foreign language education, my father still wasn't impressed, hoping that I would one day fulfill his dream of becoming a doctor. A few months after receiving my graduate degree, I lost my grandmother and my father; they passed away a few weeks apart. In 1998, a few months after their deaths, I went on a journey to Haiti for the first time. During the time I was there, I reflected on my late grandmother's words,
"Vini nou bel, ale
nou led."
My grandmother believed that our arrival on Earth was beautiful, but our departure from Earth was the contrary. Yet, her passing inspired me to finally visit Haiti; for she had a great love for her country.

I saw so much poverty and injustice in Haiti, but I also watched Haitians who were struggling and surviving despite these limitations. In Haiti, I visited my grandmother's and great-grandmother's homes. Painted in bright pastel colors, their houses stood in the middle of a grassy field surrounded by fruitful plants. There I was also introduced to my mother's cattle, branded with her initials. In the swarming heat, I sat with my cousins, who reminisced about their memorable childhoods in Haiti on our family's land as well as their escapades riding into town on mules and donkeys. I imagined myself climbing the Haitian mountains while carrying heavy baskets atop my head; I envisioned myself bathing in flowing streams while others washed their clothes in the rivers. Nevertheless, my imagination inevitably turned to reality as I remember the people struggling in their daily lives. Wading in the warm, clear-blue waters along a Haitian beach resort, I found comfort in knowing that my mother and siblings were still present in my life.

Overcoming my insecurity about my dark skin has been my greatest obstacle. I have always been proud of my Haitian background, never ashamed of my Haitian roots; never hiding my Haitian identity whenever the topic of AIDS emerged; never silencing the African sounds of the Haitian
Kreyol;
never feeling disgraced by the Haitian refugees who were risking their lives in choppy waters to come to the United States. Likewise, I have always found warmth in embracing the spiritual drive of black people. However, for a long time, believing that my dark skin was inferior often prevented me from living openly; walking along the beach; dancing wantonly at school parties; feeling attractive in a deep red dress; or laughing at someone's joke. Keeping quietly to myself, I hoped to attract as little attention as possible.