Book Blog
2020: Storytelling, Conga Drums, and Emotional Wellness
I didn’t set out to become an author. When I first began writing about my identity, I wanted a deeper understanding of where I was from, who I was then, and who I am now. I did not know it at the time, but writing memoir is a form of therapy, a way to put…
Read MoreRoom for Me
I never knew I was black until I came to Miami. I had spent most of my childhood in Haiti, in a community that was already made for me and people like me. Though I understood there were social classes that dictated my place in society, I was comfortable knowing where I belonged. But when…
Read More“Where in Africa are you from?”
The following is excerpted from Twelve Unending Summers: Memoir of an Immigrant Child: Years ago, when I was doing my residency in Chicago, I was making my way through the hospital cafeteria when a tall, slender, white attending physician approached. He looked me up and down, almost as though in resignation. “Where in Africa are you…
Read MoreUnder the Coconut Tree
The following is excerpted from Twelve Unending Summers: Memoir of an Immigrant Child: One warm morning in La Rivière des Nègres, my dad took me to the northwest side of the house and showed me four coconut trees. Given their size, I thought they must have been planted about six to eight months earlier. “One of…
Read MoreOne More Chance to Live
The following is excerpted from Twelve Unending Summers: Memoir of an Immigrant Child: I woke from a deep sleep in a frenzied panic, for a moment uncertain where I was. Cooking utensils flew across the cabin. Waves crashed over the deck and beat against the glass panel between me and the violent winds outdoors, and I…
Read MoreThe Boys and Girls Clubs: A Chance to Give Back
When I was sent from Haiti to Miami, South Florida, to join my mother here, I lost the community that had been central to my well-being as a child. I did not see a clear path forward in my new home. Then I joined the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, where I rediscovered community.…
Read MoreMango Treasure Hunt
The glaring hot Caribbean sun is losing its lustrous heat, at least from where I am sitting on the mound of yellow dirt, tracking the movement of my shadow. Once my shadow is directly beneath me, I will know there is enough shade, but even now I feel the cool breeze drying my sweat. It…
Read MoreSoccer Players and the Adventures of Tarzan: My Life in Libraries
Even as a child, I have always been curious, drawn to learning about the world around me. Possibly because I was born outside Haiti—I came from the outside, so I was constantly aware of a world beyond my community and home. At my elementary school, my French and Canadian instructors exposed me to other worlds…
Read MoreDid Voodoo Kill My Father?
It was mid-afternoon, the air humid and hot, but the sun cast a somber shadow on the white front porch of the hospital room when I finally summoned the courage to walk up to the bed. The man lay motionless on his back with his eyes closed. Tubes ran from his nose and mouth like…
Read MoreMy Mother’s Dream: Finding Optimism and Resilience in Life’s Challenges
“I knew that he was going to die.” That is what I heard my mother say one warm, humid Sunday afternoon three weeks after my father died. “I had a dream, and I knew.” Ms. Vivian had come over to visit with Mother as they had done for the past three years since…
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