The Beach Bum Chronicles

A few weeks before my graduation from high school, I was awakened in the wee hours of the morning by the glare of headlights beaming into my bedroom window. Confused and blurry-eyed, I sat up and peaked through the curtains, unable to make out any faces or even the model of the car through the lights in the driveway. Seconds later, my door creaked open and I turned and watched my father walked into my bedroom and sit beside me on my bed.

My father had always left the affection integral to parenting up to my mother- he was the bred-winner, the disciplinarian, the patriarch. In our household he was Alpha and Omega, so much so that he could silence my siblings and I with a single glare if we dare disturb his sleep. And so, when he walked in, I knew it wasn't for a goodnight kiss. My teenage mind immediately began preparing  believable-sounding excuses to whatever I 'd done to disappoint him. I stop short of blurting out an incoherent explanation when I saw what seemed like tears in his eyes. Immediately alarmed, I sat up and waited with baited breath, not daring to speak before he did.

He handed me a $20 bill that he had in his hand and instructed me to split it with my 2 younger siblings. I took  the money, assuming it was for our school lunches, and laid back down as he walked out of my room without another word. Soon after, I heard the front door slam shut and the headlights fainted into the distance, returning my room to the comfort of darkness. The next morning,I found my mother distraught with the realization that my father-her husband- had walked out on us, taking every dime they had in the bank except the $20 dollars he'd given me.

For years, I never allowed myself to dwell on that night. I could never find words or emotions in any language adequate enough to capture that moment and fill that void. After my father walked out on my family, I promised myself that I'd never give another man the opportunity to do the same to me again. Throughout undergrad, I became engulfed in a cycle of unhealthy relationships where I would leave the men who truly cared for me, never giving them an opportunity to get close enough to hurt me. In contrast, the men I devoted too much of myself to in order to prove that I could keep whatever man I wanted, were men who, like my father, were never relationship material in the first place. Although I've come to recognize this cycle that I was in, I am never quite sure if I've broken it with this realization or if I remain romantically crippled, continuing to redefine and reinforce my "daddy issues" in different forms at different stages of my relationships.

As an adult, I've tried to overcome this insecurity by loving those who deserved to be loved by me wholeheartedly but, in the back of my mind, I always wonder if I love too long, give too much of myself, and get too little in return. Am I my mother? I do not know if I can tell the difference between the signs that a relationship has become unhealthy and needs to end vs. the regular trials and tribulations that are necessary to strengthen a bond based on love and mutual respect.

Now that my current relationship is experiencing a rough patch, I find myself increasingly thinking of the humiliation, heartbreak, and betrayal my mother endured because of my father. As I prepare to turn twenty-five, my mother also secretly prepares to commemorate her twenty-sixth wedding anniversary alone, still in love with the memory of my father. In his absence, he's become a burden that defines her present and haunts my future. Thus, if you could take sorrow and package it in the stains of dried tears and whispers of generations of careful disappointment, you would find me, as much of a reflection of the women who've come before me as I am of the men they loved.

For one whole week I sat by the phone after my interview at The Organization. I thought my interview had gone well...but maybe, I started thinking, I should have gotten a round trip ticket. With every passing day, my emotions wavered between trepidation, despondency, and resignation.

Finally, last Friday, I got the email on my BlackBerry:  "Thanks so much once again for your patience!  I spoke with ____ just now and can now tell you officially that we'd be thrilled to have you on board as a Fellow here at the Organization this summer..."

I think I exhaled for the first time in a week as tears came to my eyes. I now have something to do each day- meaningful and interesting work- and an income.  Most importantly, I can begin laying the foundation for a career based on the opportunities for professional growth and networking this fellowship would provide!


I put on my power suit and showed up for the first day wide-eyed and excited. During the first week , I immediately noticed that:

• The CEO's abrasive management style would take some getting used to. I would have to hold my tongue, learn to work with his personality type, and try to appeal to his interests buy showcasing my own talents.
• 2 of the former interns had become permanent staff. Thus, the possibility for advancement may be possible within the Organization! I am making sure I'm the first one in and last one out each day. I'm also becoming familiar with the current projects so that my quality of work can make me indispensable to the organization and I can take up new projects of my own. 
• Many of the people in management have MBA's and the Organization has a very straight-forward, business approach to international development. this was initially intimidating to me but, I've realized, that, I can pick up on the lingo and become comfortable with using it with practice.

 This really feels like the first day of the rest of my life and I am so grateful that I took the risk and had the support of so many people! I haven't allowed the difficulty of the transition to temper my excitement. I'm still broke until the first of the month and I have to turn down opportunities to hang out with friends because I simply don't have and extra few bucks for happy hours or dinner. My bills are stacking up as I wait for my first paycheck and the oppurtunity to get back on my feet. More importantly, I've been lucky enough to have friends who give me a place to rest my head at night.

Not surprisingly, the highlight of my week was when the Operation Manager gave me $40 worth of metro benefits. Not having to worry about the cost of transportation would relieve so much of my financial stress. Until I've had to base my travel around the simple cost of transportation, I never understood how relieving it is for someone to take that burden off your shoulders! Now, I feel like the summer has so much potential and I can actually start laying the foundation for my future!

Last week, I had an preliminary phone interview for an unpaid internship with an organization I'd love to work for. I'd originally applied for the internship with the hopes that I'd have my tax refund to stretch during the summer. However, the IRS kindly informed me that I supposedly owed them money from 2008 and kept my refund! The timing couldn't have been worse and, thus, when I got the call for the internship, I was trying to figure out how I was going to be able to work for free for 3 months.

In terms of international development and reconstructing Haiti, this organization was THE place to be. They had name recognition, an exceptionally smart, well-connected staff ,and a vast network that I could tap to network and find a more permanent position. As my little sister once said about her national elementary school honor society, "This will look good on my resume!" At the end of the 30 minute interview, they mentioned that they'd be willing to offer me a fellowship and a small stipend, given my education and language skills. I was floored, not by their incentives, but by the fact that someone had finally noticed that I actually have a masters degree!

They asked if I could come in next week and meet the staff...in Washington, D.C. I said sure, I'd check my schedule and let them know when I'd be back in town from my "short break". We set up a meeting for Thursday afternoon. Once my excitement tempered, I weighed my situation carefully. I have $11 in my bank account and I need a last minute plane ticket to D.C. My first decision was to borrow the money for the plane ticket from my uncle- but I only asked him for enough for a 1 way ticket.

My second decision was that failure was no longer an option. I was going to go to DC to get this fellowship. I would sleep on couches the whole summer if I had to until I got back on my own 2 feet. I have nothing to lose and so much to gain. Even though I don't know how much the stipend they're offering is for, it's surely more than I'm making now! The worst case scenario: I call my uncle and ask him for money for a flight back home. I'm willing to brave the potential indignities to gain some valuable work experience, get back on my feet,  and  potentially launch my career in the near future.

And so here I am, on a wing and a prayer, hoping to step off this plane and begin the rest of my life. I've weighed all my options carefully and have decided that not taking the risk would be the biggest mistake I;ve ever made. For, He who risks and fails can be forgiven. He who never risks and never fails is a failure in his whole being. 

As someone who's been asked to show proof of student ID  by campus security in undergrad  or to make coffee by people who are less education than I am but unwilling to believe it, I was disappointed in how President Obama and the media handled the Trump/birther situation. It is my position that one should never argue w/ the willfully ignorant or acquiesce to the pressure of covert racism. The underlying premise of the birther argument is similar to that of the current anti-immigration activists: only certain people can ever be to be "real" Americans. Everyone else is rendered second class, hyphenated Americans forever, and must be willing to "show your papers" to the satisfaction of those who think you were handed some back road path to your supposedly undeserved achievement. At some point, being ten times better to be thought of as equal can get tiring, but Trump proved how necessary it still is. As Goldie Taylor said, when they say they want to take their country back, they mean from us.

Lately, I have to constantly remind myself  that I am still intelligent, ambitious, kindhearted, hardworking, and good-looking (I throw that one in for good measure ;).These positive affirmations sustain me when things don't go as planned. And as I prepare to turn 25 next month, I realize more and more what the proverb 'God laughs at your plans' means.

Who I was at 18, or 21, is not the person I am  nearing 25. The personal and professional goals I had then have changed and evolved into the goals I have now. At 18, I had my entire life planned out.then at 21, I was struggling to keep my life together and reevaluate my goals. While, my plans have been derailed many times by, admittedly, my own mistakes and things that are completely out of my control, I still find some comfort in having a rough outline to look forward to. As part of my positive self-affirmation, I still remind myself that I want: a career in development, an opportunity to have a positive impact in the lives of others, and a chance to work in Haiti. I also want to be married and have children, a house with a drive way and a backyard, and a closet to rival Carrie Bradshaw's. Now at 24, I have a better idea of what I want out of life than I ever did before!

After being unemployed for months, however, I have to resist feeling dejected by reminding myself that I deserve these things and they simply may not happen within the timeline I'd originally planned.These goals give me something to look forward to. Turning twenty five presents me with another opportunity to reinvent myself!
What goals have you set out to accomplish?

In 1492, Columbus landed in Hispaniola. By 1535, the entire native population of  an estimated  8 millionwas gone

Last night I watched the first segment in PBS's 'Black in Latin America' hosted by Henry Louis Gate,Jr. The series on race in Latin America started with the Dominican Republic and Haiti. The first segment introduced Eurocentric racial construction in the DR juxtaposed against Haiti's national identity and history as a black republic. I found myself feeling very uncomfortable during the Dominican part, not because Dominican racism was something new to me, but because it had always been something kept "in house" between Haitians and Dominicans. An in depth analysis of the long-term effects colonialism and racial propaganda on Dominican identity alone could’ve filled a segment  but the 50 minute segment instead forced me to really think critically about this age-old conflict.

The strangest aspect of the tension between Haitians and Dominicans is that it is largely one sided. I remember a Dominican classmate in grad school telling me how, as a child, her mother would tell her Haitians would come eat her in the night if she didn’t eat all her food or do her chores. For most people, it is difficult to understand that Haitians are fully aware of how Dominican history, politics, and culture portrays us but the animosity isn't mutual. There are no folktales of Dominicans eating Haitians. No time is spent crafting or promoting anti-Dominican political propaganda in Haiti. For Haitians, the DR is nothing more than the other side of Haiti and its people are like distant cousins. That is one KEY difference the PBS special overlooked. 

What the show did highlight is the importance of nationalism to unite people for or against
another or a cause. For example, the Dominican and Haitian historical narrative depicts the same event very differently: 

In Haitian accounts, to prevent foreigners from ever taking control of the island again the troops of the Haitian president, Jean Pierre Boyer, invaded the Dominican Republic, captured the capital and unifying the island in 1821. For the slaves, it meant emancipation; for other blacks and mulattoes it promised a break from the racist hierarchy of Spanish colonialism. Radical land reforms benefited the poorest section of the population, largely the black and mulatto class, and adversely affected the white landowners. These reforms broke up many of the largest estates and Church-owned lands, which were then distributed to the small holders. 

 In Dominican accounts, Haiti was an unwanted occupier that quelled their own push for independence, infringing on their sovereignty. Haiti subjected the DR to 22 years of a brutal occupation. Boyer closed the university and prevented contact between the Dominican Church and the Catholic hierarchy in Europe. For a largely Catholic society, this unprecedented separation from the church increased tensions. Boyer broke up the large estates in the Dominican nation held by the Church. These policies increased anti-Haitian sentiment in the Dominican Republic. 

To be honest, even in the telling of the occupation/emancipation of 1821, it seems that tension with Haiti would've been inevitable. Another nuanced missed by PBS and an outsider in general is that black nationalism is so deep-rooted in Haitian culture that even Haitians who aren't technically black ascribe to it. The Haitian retelling of the events of 1821 is filled with black nationalist rhetoric such as “emancipation”,  “unification”,  “end of colonial rule”... This is clearly not going to go over well in the DR, a country that erected statues to the original architect of genocide, Christopher Columbus, and openly racist Thomas Jefferson.

Afro-Dominican poet Blas Jiménez once said, “Now we are Dominican, because we are not Haitian. We are something, because we are not that.” Bemused, I can’t help but think that the Haitians lack of recognition of the Dominican national myth or its general sovereignty as a separate and distinct culture and nation further aggravates the DR’s hostility towards its neighbor. However, it is impossible for Haitians to accept history as told by the DR without disavowing our African ancestry and history. If we accept that Columbus’ annihilation of the indigenous Taino’s left enough survivors to populate modern DR with a population that is 90% “indio”, not black, then we’d have to then acknowledge that there was no need to import slaves to the island since the Indio labour was still so bountiful. Therefore, the 1804 slave revolution that is the cornerstone of Haitian culture would never have taken place...

As we have seen many times before, rewriting history has many dangerous consequences but, I ultimately believe that one can't force people to abide by unwelcomed racial constructs.

Carol Guzy, The Washington Post - January 14, 2010

Yesterday Pulitzer prize winners were named and, not surprisingly, many photo journalist and print journalist who covered post-quake Haiti were nominated. In the print journalism category, photo's of post-quake Haiti won big. The Washington Post photographers Carol Guzy, Nikki Kahn and Ricky Carioti all won the Pulitzer for Breaking News Photography based on pictures of the human suffering during the aftermath of the quake. 

 I've had a complex relationship with images, documentaries,and news coverage of Haiti since the quake. I remember how camera scanned over bodies lying in the streets after the quake with a voyeuristic sense of awe and trepidation in order to get the best shot in the aftermath. People, living and deceased, and rubble were given the same level of care and respect when news channels fought to present the most symbolic and heart-wrenching stories and images. As a Haitian person, it became unbearable to watch the news coverage because, with so many people unaccounted for in the aftermath, I was afraid to glimpse a familiar face in the rubble. The cameras had forgotten that these were people, too, who'd had friends, families, hopes, and dreams of their own.

Carol Guzy, The Washington Post - January 24, 2010

I understand the depth and scope of that disaster was unprecedented but there was nothing new about its coverage. For years,  the Western media has felt the need to remind us of Haiti's poverty, it's constant battle with man made and natural disasters, the differences between "them" and "us". NGOs harp on the "resilience" of Haitians to accomplish the overwhelming feat of survival against what they perceive as insurmountable odds and inhumane conditions. Zoom into the now standard picture of a poor Haitian child staring wide eyed into the camera, stone-faced,withered Haitian women, or "violent mob" of Haitian men protesting the latest injustice and the Haitian photo becomes an iconic representation of "third" world disorder and first world consciousness.

And, while it may be necessary sometimes to show unbelievers the reality on the ground and to stir emotion into those with deep pockets, the consistent lack of respect for the humanity of the people being photographed is an example of exploitation. Nowhere in the United States would a photographer feel entitled to capture the image of a woman or the elderly bathing after a disaster. There is an understanding that life should be valued and intimate moments should remain even more so in the face of  disaster or grief to preserve a semblance of normalcy. Thankfully, I have yet to see an image of Japan's dead under rubble. Unlike Haiti, Japan's Western identity has placed it out of the scope of the exotic, untamed, and unfamiliar.

What the Pulitzer photos and the post-quake coverage has solidified to me is that the mysticism and misconception that surrounds Haiti and its people allows for a disconnect that makes it hard for Westerners to view Haiti as anything but the "poorest nation in the Western hemisphere" or a constant charity case that they are entitled to capture, present, and exploit as they wish regardless of the wishes of its people. And, though some may  have sincerely sought to humanize Haitians in the eyes of millions, the constant coverage even now of bodies ashen by rubble, amputated limbs with no anesthesia, squalid IDP camps, and traumatized faces begging for food widens the disconnect, leaving Haiti frozen in memory as a ghastly production of epic and violent suffering. 

We can only accept so much devastation into our daily lives before it all becomes normalized in the larger story of human suffering, war, and disaster that has become a cornerstone of mankind. In order to move forward, Haitians deserve the opportunity to finally control their own narrative and shape their own image. The quake was, and will forever be, a defining moment in  Haitian history but the people deserves a chance to move out from under its literal and metaphorical rubble.