Edwidge Danticat is the winner of
MacArthur “genius grant”. She is a poet and a native of Haiti. Her poem Boat People was featured in Women’s
Voices for Change: Poetry Friday.
The poem is about the struggles
Haitian people face when they try to flee their country because of political
unrest. The first stanza refers to some of the first flees from St. Domingue to
Louisiana and how they were not accepted and killed at sea. Danticat writes
that the Haitian people do not care what the people call them because to them
they are just people. They are referred to as Boat People by people who do not
know them and who have prejudices against them. The Haitians were treated
poorly by Africans and treated poorly in Louisiana, Venezuela, Miami, and
Chicago. In these places people suspected them of carrying drugs and weapons
but they only carried “courage and strength to work”. Danticat also makes the
point that being called Boat People is a term that all other people have given
them, not to be called Haitians, but Boat People. They have gotten no respect
and have been treated poorly everywhere they go just because they are trying to
live a free life. Haitians come to other countries not to invade or to impose,
but instead to “come with respect” and to be treated equally.
The term “boat people” refers to
people who are political refugees, illegal immigrants, or asylum seekers who
come to other countries by boat. In reference to the poem, people from Haiti
traveled to the United States by boat. In January of 1996 there was a change in
Presidency in Haiti. President Rene Preval did not keep promises and the people
of Haiti did not respond well to the new President. There was an increase in
criminal activity and old practices remained the same. Nevertheless, the people
of Haiti constantly fled their country to places like the United States and
France.
In 2004, President Bush told the
people of Haiti not to flee their country to come to the United States because
they would be turned back.
This poem is very moving. I never
really thought of Haitians, specifically, struggling. I assume they have been
jumbled together with other groups and have just not been singled out. What
surprises me the most is how I have not heard of the term “Boat People” before.
Especially considering the term and laws against them was addressed in 2004
with President Bush. Then again, at the time I was 13 and was not interested in
what the President was saying at the time. Besides the point, I am surprised it
has not come up in any of my other classes. Danticat is a very passionate
writer and you can definitely hear the passion in her voice when she reads the
poem.
I also briefly read her other
poem, Tourist, and it just tear at my
heart. She goes into such great detail about how she is not worthy of having a
photo be taken. How even her lifestyle is dirty and ugly, saying that “Your
camera will break”.
These kinds of poems are the
things that get people to realize the hardships other groups go through. Poetry
has been a staple and a connection between literature and history. It has the
ability to tell a story with all the struggles and disparity that comes with
the racism and prejudices that follow a group trying to make a living in the
world.
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