Tequila Minsky writes about Leyla McCalla. People find circuitous routes to their careers and sometimes you have to leave home to come back home. This is how it is for Leyla McCalla, who plays the cello and after moving to New Orleans, has at least briefly returned back to NY to record her first CD. [...]
Meet Ibi Aanu Zoboi. She was born in Port-au-Prince as Pascale Philantrope. She is a talented Haitian author whose pen faces the future. “I want to see Haitian Sci-Fi,” Ibi says. “We need new narratives.” Her story, “Earthseed” appears in the Caribbean Writer’s 25th Anniversary mega issue: Ayiti/Haiti. Earlier this year, Ibi’s showed her ‘noir’ [...]
When they call you Dyaspora, this is meant to be an insult. They use the word like a stick; they prod and poke and stab you with it. The word Dyaspora has become like a scar on your reputation. On your life. To be called Dyaspora is to be considered stained. Branded. They object to you claiming [...]
In this VoicesfromHaiti InnerView, MIT Linguistics Professor, Michel DeGraff, speaks about his life work: empowering Haitian children through education. Imagine a classroom in Haiti where students are forbidden to speak their mother tongue, Kreyòl. Instruction in most subject areas is in a foreign language: French. Students who lapse into Kreyòl are punished by [...]