Simmonds-Nastili’s meditations on Haiti, the Haitian diaspora, and the Haitian joy and potential that is overshadowed by the media’s unrelenting focus on its violence and corruption is on the shorter side for a #longread but no less lovely for it. The warmth emanates from her words, and the elephant metaphor at the heart of the piece is a valuable lesson for anyone facing an uphill struggle (i.e., nearly everyone).
Defending Haiti feels like defending a beloved family member that I have never met directly, but who I have known of my whole life – through family stories and the gifts shared in the mail. I love this family member in the same way my children feel affection for my deceased mother, who they know only through the stories I pass onto them. They might not know the smell of her perfume or the warmth of her hug, but their eyes light up at the mention of her name.
I am a diasporan—born in Brooklyn into a large family whose migration from Haiti to the US, Canada and back again extends from the 1920s to today with no linear story. Within this 100-year cross migration there are layers of stories and identities. In my family, some of us are third-generation Americans or Canadians. Some of us have never left Haiti and some of us have never set foot on Haitian soil. Some of us are fluent in Kreyòl, and some of us only know slips of our mother tongue.
I have always known Haiti through the mouths of others, only learning through them about the smell of its air, the feeling of its soil, the sound of its breath.
