Learning My History…
I am Haitian-American … and have so much to catch up on…
Growing up Haitian-American, I hear a lot about the motherland. But honestly not a lot of great stuff… Sure my grandparents like to talk about its beauty and abundance in resources. How we could get the juiciest of mangos and best avocados and fresh goats and all that if we came to visit their lil house on the hill. But often times we hear about the scary stuff… the voodoo practices of jealous people sabotaging better-off neighbors and the demonic mermaids and the corrupt politicians and the lack of internet… much nightmare fuel.
Though I know most of it to be just stories they tell us to scare us — ‘better be good or I’ll ship you to haiti’ (which is counter-productive to their assurances that we really should visit) — I still have grown up to view Haiti as a terrifying place. Made worse by the fact that I’ve never learned the language… neither Creole or the French forced on them by a people still indoctrinated in the shadows of their past; so I always feel inferior and excluded from most other other haitians, at least of the older generation (the granmoun).
Still, despite all that… I realized the strength, pride, and amazing work ethic evident in just about every haitian you come across. I realized also the tragedy… the fact that many granmoun are stuck in their troubled past, between trying to make their hard-earned opportunity more familiar by imposing their (ironically americanized) cultural ideas in terms of die-hard christianity and traditionalism; and failing to actually educate we of the younger generation of our history. Sure, we hear about Toussaint Louverture, about what it's like in Haiti, about how the US robbed haiti of its many resources, about Haitian food and music… But only just recently, when I took to learning about my people’s history did I feel like I really know what it means to be a Haitian.
Whether its the reasoning behind the flag, the oppression of the people in almost every sense from language to economy, the corruption of government ever since the Haitian Revolution, even exactly how amazing the revolution was/is in terms of being the only successful slave revolution in the west… I am really learning a lot… and also saddened a lot for the plight of my people.
Honestly, we havent even had a chance to flourish. In the past 200 years, its just been one corrupt or myopic mismanagement after another. Its been so bad that most Haitians are still stuck with the slavery mindset… or what we call the poverty mindset in America. Such a thing is a very potent poison. Its what continues the lack of education and the stripping of the land and the self-sabotage of the people and so on. This coupled with the reign of despotic powers (foreign and domestic) alike, who only want to help themselves rather than the people, is utterly horrendous.
There is much to be done to help finally get to a point of independence, to be the worlds first and (one of the) wealthiest Black Republics. But I think it can be done.
And I greatly look forward to this ‘first draft’ of a series of solutions I will be proposing.
Granted, much of these will just be ‘theoretical’ for now, as a way of teaching myself about my own history and iterating on possible solutions. Eventually though, Im sure I will stumble upon something that works and figure out how to help where I can.
