America's Relationship With Haiti Has Always Been

For The Majority Of The People It Is A Difficult Place To Live. That's A Reality That We Can't Ignore. But There Is Also Great Beauty To It.

America's Relationship With Haiti Has Always Been Very Complicated. I Often Say To People, "before We Came To America, America Came To Us In The Form Of The American Occupation From 1915 To 1934."

The Justification - The Idea That We Have A Right To Invade Another Country And Determine Another People's Destiny - Is Frightening. And I Fear Really For The Future Of That Occupation. What Happens Now, And Twenty Years From Now, And Forty Years From Now, Given Our Case? People In The United States May Feel Like When We Don't See It On Cnn Twenty-four Hours A Day, It Sort Of Disappears. But It Doesn't Disappear For The People Who Have To Live Under Occupation - And Their Children And Their Children's Children.

Write What Haunts You. What Keeps You Up At Night. What You Are Unable To Get Out Of Your Mind. Sometimes They Are The Hardest Things To Write, But Those Are Often The Things That Are Worth Investigating By You Specifically. . .

We All Have A Tendency To Over Generalize Our Individual Experiences. After I've Published Something, I'll Meet Someone Who Says, "i'm Haitian, And I Don't Know This, So It Must Not Be True." Even If We're Talking About A Work Of Fiction. I've Gotten Very Angry Myself Reading Many Things About Haiti. We're Not A Monolithic Group; No Group Is. Also, It's Important To Keep In Mind The Genre In Which We Are Writing. Fiction Is Full Of Invented Stories About Exceptional People In Exceptional Situations. Those Situations Are Not Always Cheery Or Celebratory.