The Butterfly's Way: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States

Abstract

The Butterfly's Way: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States. Edited by Edwidge Danticat. New York: Soho Press, 2001. 251 pp. In The Butterfly's Way, acclaimed novelist Edwidge Danticat sought the contributions of thirty-three writers of the Haitian diapora to produce volume that movingly describes the various facets of the Haitian migration experience. Collectively, these voices tell the story of the uprooted, and the pains associated with dislocation and relocation. The multiple realities, connections, and disconnections resulting from people's movement and displacement, yield different paths. Between languages and borders, identities and colors (Laforest: 30), different voices emerge, each with distinct timbre. Some demonstrate solid anchoring in Haitian cultural traditions while others reflect feeling of estrangement and isolation, of standing in a barren no-man's (Chancy: 229). Some long to return home (Cantave:167), to internal, mystical Haiti-[a] paradise lost (Phipps: 116). Yet, for others going home may no longer be possible, because they are made outside (Latour: 125). The Butterfly's Way is the story of people in transition, struggling to find comfort zone between their land of origin and their lands) of resettlement. It provides powerful images of the inner souls of displaced persons, living between two worlds and carrying heavy baggage of things past. These images, taken from variety of angles, paint heart-rending portrait of dyaspora children and deepen our understanding of the Haitian and Haitian American condition. The Haitian condition, which constitutes one of the major themes of the volume, is forcefully exposed in Danticat's introduction that alludes to the death of wellknown Haitian journalist, Jean Dominique, and the persisting climate of insecurity that plagues Haiti. Danticat reproduces the sorrowful words of the fallen journalist to make the reader feel the pain: country is suffering.... It is being held captive by criminals. My country is slowly dying, melting (p. xiv). In the words of Sylvain (p. 193), seems to be saying Good-bye, Democracy. The same image of burning away is taken up later in the volume by Theodore-Pharel (pp. 83-88). In her essay, she described the self-inflicted burning of Haitian man in Boston who, on the sign he left behind, explained: I want to offer myself in holocaust for the complete of my country... May live for the new liberation (p. 83). The sight of the martyr, burned to grostesque crisp, brought back to the author's memory the painful words of another elderly Haitian, who used to comment: Haiti is cigarette burning at both ends. Unfortunately, for most Haitians this metaphor accurately reflects the condition of their beloved country, and can be considered cry for help. This is the moan of suffering that permeates Gina Ulysses poem, How do you overturn four hundred years of history in less than one century? (pp. 219-20). Like sharp arrows, her lamenting words pierce the reader's heart and make it bleed: Cry, yell, let my people go, let my people go, right here, right now, right here, let me go.... The Haitian condition is further described throughout the childhood memories of several contributors to the first section aptly titled Childhood, and is also depicted in the subsequent sections, Migration, Half/First Generation, Return, and Future, respectively. Some of these memories revolve around the Haitian reality of class stratification, color ideology, and political persecution. For example, in Homelands (pp. 23-30), Laforest candidly recalls her childhood of privilege as member of the propertied Haitian mulatto elite. However, her life of privilege constructed with great conviction (p. 24) was soon to end when her family had to leave following her father's arrest by Duvalier's henchmen. It was during her exile in Queens, New York, that Laforest first came to the realization that she was Black, and member of an inferior race, who disturbed the world that her white neighbors had created for themselves. …