Why Haiti Needs New Narratives. Gina Athena Ulysse

      

       WHY HAITI NEEDS NEW NARRATIVES

      Petit-Goâve, Haiti, © 2010 Gina Athena Ulysse.

      WHY

      HAITI

      NEEDS NEW

      NARRATIVES

       A Post-Quake Chronicle

       GINA ATHENA ULYSSE

      Foreword by ROBIN D. G. KELLEY

      Translated by NADÈVE MÉNARD & ÉVELYNE TROUILLOT

      WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY PRESS

      Middletown, Connecticut

      WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY PRESS

      Middletown CT 06459

       www.wesleyan.edu/wespress

      © 2015 Gina Athena Ulysse;

      foreword © 2015 Robin D. G. Kelley;

      Kreyòl and French translations © 2015

      Nadève Ménard and Évelyne Trouillot.

      All rights reserved

      Manufactured in the United States of America

      Designed by Richard Hendel

      Typeset in Utopia, Sentinel, and LeHavre by

      Tseng Information Systems, Inc.

      Wesleyan University Press is a member of the Green Press Initiative.

      The paper used in this book meets their minimum requirement for recycled paper.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Ulysse, Gina Athena.

      Why Haiti needs new narratives : a post-quake chronicle / Gina Athena Ulysse; foreword by Robin D. G. Kelley; translated by Nadève Ménard and Évelyne Trouillot.

      pages cm

      Includes bibliographical references.

      ISBN 978-0-8195-7544-9 (cloth: alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-8195-7545-6 (pbk. : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-8195-7546-3 (ebook)

      1. Haiti Earthquake, Haiti, 2010. 2. Haiti—Social conditions—21st century. 3. Haiti—Economic conditions—21st century. 4. Haiti—Politics and government—21st century. I. Title.

      HV600. H2U48 2015

      972.9407′3—dc23

      2014048352

      5 4 3 2 1

      Typographic illustration on front cover by Gina Athena Ulysse and Lucy Guiliano.

       For

      Francesca, Jean-Max, Stanley

       and their peers on both sides of

       the water who are Haiti’s future

      Tout moun se moun, men tout moun pa menm.

      All people are human, but all humans are not the same.

      —Haitian proverb

       VOLUME CONTENTS

      WHY HAITI NEEDS NEW NARRATIVES (in English), 1

      SA K FÈ AYITI BEZWEN ISTWA TOU NÈF (an kreyòl), 113

      POURQUOI HAÏTI A BESOIN DE NOUVEAUX DISCOURS (en français), 251

      CONTENTS

      Foreword Robin D. G. Kelley, xiii

      Introduction: Negotiating My Haiti(s), xvii

       PART I: RESPONDING TO THE CALL

      1 Avatar, Voodoo, and White Spiritual Redemption, 3

      2 Amid the Rubble and Ruin, Our Duty to Haiti Remains, 5

      3 Haiti Will Never Be the Same, 7

      4 Dehumanization and Fracture: Trauma at Home and Abroad, 9

      5 Haiti’s Future: A Requiem for the Dying, 12

      6 Not-So-Random Thoughts on Words, Art, and Creativity, 14

      7 Sisters of the Cowries, Struggles, and Haiti’s Future, 19

      8 Tout Moun Se Moun: Everyone Must Count in Haiti, 22

      9 Haiti’s Earthquake’s Nickname and Some Women’s Trauma, 24

      10 Why Representations of Haiti Matter Now More Than Ever, 26

      11 Unfinished Business, a Proverb, and an Uprooting, 32

      12 Rape a Part of Daily Life for Women in Haitian Relief Camps, 34

      13 Haiti’s Solidarity with Angels, 37

      14 Haiti’s Electionaval 2010, 38