Edwidge Danticat on Haitian Americans in a Time of Peril
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What is the New Yorker Radio Hour and who introduces Edwidge Danticat in this episode?
The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC and the New Yorker.
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm Evan Osnos, sitting in for David Remnick. For more than thirty years, Edouij Dandica has written about the experiences of Haitians and Haitian Americans. She's written fiction, memoir, and journalism. And in The New Yorker, Dandica has covered the impact of the Trump administration's campaign of mass deportation. Her new book is a novel set in Miami about a woman working as a real estate broker. She spoke about the book with my colleague, staff writer Doreen San Felix.
Idrich Dantika inhabits many genres and forms. In her latest novel, Dantika writes about Magnolia Ely, a woman in her early thirties who moves from upstate New York to Miami and starts working as a real estate agent and was living with her daughter and her daughter's father. She's also dealing with her parents' precarious situation back in Haiti in Kwarebuke. Idri Jantika is the first Haitian writer that I ever read.
How does Danticat’s new novel Dèy explore the idea of home for Haitian‑American migrants?
And myself being a first generation Haitian American, I was taught by her example that writing was something that could be available to me. I'd love for you to read a passage from from
Day. Thank you. Uh the book's title is Day D E Accent grave y and it means uh grief, m mourning in Haitian Kyor. On the day of the Brickle apartment closing in early February, I do a walkthrough with Zola that she had requested before Isis does hers with the Cabrias. Zola walks in and out of every room, her sparkly black leggings and matching top catching the morning light. So many people have been here since we listed, she says, flipping the light switch on and off in the main closet of the primary bedroom. That stops today, I say as she exits the room. She walks over to the kitchen faucet, turns it on, and lets the water flow. Is home the place where we are born, or is it the place where we die? she asked.
I'm not sure I say taken off guard. Her back is to me and I can't see her face, which I think is her intention. We are seeds in one soil and weeds in another, she continues, as she turns off the water. She opens and closes the refrigerator, then the dishwasher and oven. We don't always choose what we call home, she says to the walls. Sometimes it's others who decide.
I remember in reading this novel really catching myself feeling unmoored by that passage because Magnolia is such an interesting protagonist because she doesn't vocalize or verbalize a lot of her feeling. And in this scene it's almost as if Sola becomes the vessel through which we can hear Magnolia's anxieties about home. Can we talk about how you envisioned the idea of home when you were plotting this this novel?
Well, I mean, even you know, I borrow these words actually from something I wrote years ago when um in the Dominican Republic folks were getting expelled um by the thousands after this court decision last sentencia.
What impact does the revocation of Temporary Protected Status have on Haitian immigrants and their families?
And I had just gone to the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic with some journalist friends. And afterwards uh we're trying to put some thoughts together and you know, I was thinking like as Cyrus says, what what is home when home won't let you stay? And so when I was uh thinking of Magnolia as sort of like this generation, the next generation, like your generation, um, who feel in some ways entitled to a sense of home because they were born someplace. Well at the same time, you know, as we're talking about birthright citizenship in the US then there's like all these powers saying, Oh no, no, you thought this was your home, this isn't your home And how do you still like define home when home doesn't want you, when home is rejecting you?
while at the same time, you know, this idea that's this idealized idea of return that so many people of my parents generation has is just been obliterated by the circumstances and conditions of a place that you thought would be your your place to return to.
Yes. My parents came in the seventies, my mother and my father in the eighties, and you were born in Haiti and you came at the age of twelve.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the New Yorker Radio Hour and who introduces Edwidge Danticat in this episode?
0:02–1:17
2
How does Danticat’s new novel Dèy explore the idea of home for Haitian‑American migrants?
1:17–3:41
3
What impact does the revocation of Temporary Protected Status have on Haitian immigrants and their families?
3:41–6:21
4
How has Miami’s rapid gentrification reshaped Little Haiti and affected long‑time residents?
6:21–10:34
5
Why does Danticat blend journalistic research with fiction when writing about Haiti’s crises?
10:34–13:22
6
Why do some Haitian business owners in Miami align with conservative politics despite community struggles?
13:22–17:07
7
How are Haitian diaspora identities portrayed in today’s media and social‑media narratives?
17:07–21:19
8
What does Danticat say about the future of Haitian‑American communities and her upcoming projects?
21:19–25:09
Speakers
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