Brush with Haiti (2 page)

The difficult days following the earthquake turned into weeks. More people than I could imagine wanted to talk about it, and I had so little to say. It was hard to make sense of why anyone would want my take on it. People were suffering. And I wasn't there. That was it.

As the weeks turned into months, I began piecing together what I had come to know about the country, and how I came to know it. I found a delicate balance between the processes by which Haiti came into my life and of my active pursuit to learn more. And through it, I came to remember the passion I once held, and the realization of how little I knew at all.

The first time I taught
anything about Haiti was in the spring of 1995, as part of a Modern Latin America history class at Valparaiso University. I had successfully defended my Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Chicago the summer before, and was still on the "adjunct circuit" alternating courses at any of three campuses near my home in northwest Indiana. My children were young and my husband secure in an English teaching job at local high school, which he did not want to leave. Teaching U.S. History surveys was satisfying enough, but I actively kept my eyes open for other opportunities.

In the first week of classes during the previous semester, a professor teaching a course on the American Revolution had suffered a severe heart attack and a colleague at one of my other campuses mentioned in a department meeting that they were looking for a replacement. I called the Valparaiso history department that afternoon. Such circumstances help to give academia a reputation for being heartless, and it is a bit horrifying to admit I found myself taking advantage of the situation. But the students needed an instructor, and the class turned out to be a success.

While I was there, I learned they were looking for someone to cover a Latin American History course the following semester. It seemed their Latin Americanist had died a few years earlier and they had not replaced him. This was an even worse set of circumstances. In the other case, I could at least convince myself I might be helping in the professor's recovery by relieving him of the worry surrounding his American Revolution class. But this guy was dead. Perhaps it is the academic historian in me who sees life and death as something wholly common and inevitable and that is what gave me the courage to volunteer. After all, our work centers on the lives of dead people. It is not as if any individual's life or death is inevitable. How they play out depends upon a myriad of conditions and choices. But people do come and go; even history professors. And I heard he did a wonderful job and had left a legacy, which was heartening.

"I can teach Latin America," I told the department chair. "It was my second field." Perhaps it was the confidence that the U. of C. instilled, making us believe we could teach anything. Or perhaps it was my call to duty. The students needed the course. As homogeneous as the student population was, Valparaiso had nobly infused multiculturalism into the general education curriculum, requiring all students to take courses such as Latin American history.

"They do need this class," he replied. "And I have heard good things about you from your students." Knowing that made all the difference. Not just in that moment, but in the long trek ahead of forging a career path. I wanted so much to be good at teaching.

The students enrolled in my classes there differed significantly from my students at the other institutions -regional campuses of Purdue and Indiana University, which were both public schools. At Valparaiso they were more prepared for university study, more likely born of parents who had attended college, and had met admissions requirements that did not exist at the other campuses. Also, they were about 99.9% white, or at least it seemed so. That somehow made a difference. It does matter when teaching about the world. World history in itself is diverse, if written and told authentically. It is the history of all people. Among a more diverse student body I had been able to bring all their backgrounds into the human story, or I at least tried to. In this case, they would act more as observers, looking in from the outside. But so would I. I was white, too.

While we are physically detached from history, and when approaching it as an academic subject should remain intellectually so, there is a somewhat more disturbing disconnect when lecturing about the human story in a room full of white people. Teaching about the American Revolution, at least from a political and military perspective, was different. The majority of players in that story were white. Teaching about Latin America would pose new challenges.

"You're not Mexican," a student once told me years later on the first day of my first History of Mexico class.

"You're right. I'm not." It was a learning moment for me, as I discovered just how bold and provocative a student could be. It was a teaching moment, as well. "I'm not French either, but I can teach the French Revolution. Anyway, there is no one Mexican history. You will learn in this class just how culturally, socially, politically, and economically varied Mexico is, and how its history is packed with vastly different perspectives." I am not sure whether my reply satisfied him, but it served as a starting point for discussions through the semester on how history is written.

The Valparaiso class was not nearly as diverse, and I wondered how I might get them to feel connected to Latin America. I casually made a comment about there being a major city in South America named Valparaiso, to see what their reaction might be. A prepared and studious group, some nodded while others wrote down what I said. Clearly they were serious, and it seemed they might take well to the semester curriculum I had planned for them. It would be challenging for them and me, as we covered at least a dozen countries from the time of their independence in the early 19th century to the present. The task of approaching history both chronologically and regionally presents unique demands when the subject is Latin America. It is far more complex than many realize. But that is one of the aspects I most wanted to emphasize, and I found myself adding to the complexity by giving substantial attention to the Caribbean. And if I were to do that, I could not ignore Haiti.

There were good reasons for including Haiti in the course design. First, it was part of Latin America. While other scholars might not consider it representative of the area, I knew if it were not included there it might not be covered at all. Second, Haiti was in the news. That is not always a good reason, as historians shy away from "presentism" - the examination of history through prisms of the present. However, I did not intend to encourage students to judge past actions in or regarding Haiti through late 20th century sets of cultural or moral criteria, which is what presentists tend to do. Rather, I wanted to make the material relevant for them. The Clinton Administration had recently intervened to give President Jean Bertrand Aristide his rightful place in power, and this might be a chance for my students to make better sense of Haiti's unstable past and understand why this move was so significant.

I also saw this as an opportunity to appeal to their religious sensibilities. While not every student professed adherence to a faith, Valparaiso is a Lutheran school, and religion permeates the campus environment. I assigned Aristide's recently released autobiography. It was not a typical choice for a history class, but it would prompt discussion about objectivity and how it is we come to know what we know. It would also add to the complex dimension of combining religion with politics so prevalent in Latin American history. In the work he discusses his past as a priest and his commitment to the poor. And he opens the door for real world applications of liberation theology.

Liberation theology is a delicate blend ofNew Testament Christian principles, particularly those of progressive Catholics, with the basic tenets of Marxism. Introducing the concept to students was new to me. In fact, the topic itself was fairly new to me. While considered controversial and in some circles dangerous, history professors discuss religion and politics all the time. Liberation theology was reasonably fresh, however, articulated only since the 1970s, and comparatively radical. Still it weighed heavily in the contemporary history of Central America and some parts of South America. Here was a chance to see how it played out, or was rejected, in the Caribbean. And it was a chance for me to learn more about it and learn more about Aristide.

While covering nearly two centuries of development of the majority of the Western Hemisphere, there was little time to devote to the subject. As an educator, I wondered whether merely scratching the surface of such a deep issue was worse than ignoring it altogether. But I am not sorry for introducing it. It helped them to jar their minds and imagine alternative belief systems, which is necessary in understanding the human story. And it helped me to learn more about Haiti, without knowing that this was just the beginning of a long journey.

My fascination with Aristide
continued. Who was this man who so eloquently articulated the struggles of the poor, yet gained the support of the U.S. government? Backers of U.S. intervention under President Clinton argued that it was necessary in order to protect democracy and the electoral process there, but throughout the 20th century the U.S. had intervened repeatedly in Central America and the Caribbean to protect its own interests. Could this soft-spoken former priest survive as the first democratically elected President in Haiti after nearly two centuries of independence? The questions continued, and I cannot say I was ever truly satisfied in finding answers. Haiti was not my field of expertise and I never set out to investigate the truth of events there fully.

The U.S. did succeed in repositioning Aristide, and after serving out his term he stepped down. This was a clear sign that a clean, fair, sustainable electoral process might be taking root. It looked as if a peaceful exchange of power was possible. However, Aristide's prominence in political affairs did not come to an end. In a short time, there was talk that the might run for the office of President again. Still news regarding Haiti and discussions about Aristide subsided, and he seemed to be disappearing from the world scene. Then, in late 1999, I heard he was to make an appearance at a nearby conference on globalization. I had to attend.

My perception of Aristide changed, or perhaps deepened, when I had an opportunity to hear him speak. The conference was held at Governors State University, a small 4-year campus south of Chicago, and a seemingly unlikely place to host a former head of state. But the Haitian community in Chicago was strong, and with it, the support for Aristide intense. What he stood for was gaining more attention worldwide, as criticisms of neo-liberalism and the effects of globalization were permeating college campuses. A significant percentage of Governors State's students were minority, and their more progressive professors exposed them to stories of oppression and exploitation in the Caribbean and the rest of the world. The contemporary deepening of poverty in Latin America was seen as a result of neo-liberal policies orchestrated by the United States. Aristide remained a spokesman for the poor globally, and especially in Haiti. His message had been discredited by some, and those apparently threatened by his leadership engaged in character assassinations. At that point, however, I was there anticipating a visionary message grounded in peace. I arrived early as the auditorium began to fill not only with students, but also with faculty, staff, administrators, and many from beyond the campus community. The group included a significant number of Haitian-Americans from Chicago.

Aristide was a man small in stature and unobtrusive in demeanor, but he captivated his audience. Into his presentation it became clearer that he had a good number ofvocal supporters in the auditorium. They shouted in agreement with what he was saying, and soon others began to protest in response. I had been in situations before where politics polarized a room.

But this felt more intense. There was something eerie about the atmosphere, and a bit confusing. I found the underlying tension discomforting, and concluded there was much more to the story of Aristide and Haitian presidential politics than I had understood.

There were calls from the crowd asking that he run again. He humbly replied that he had no plans to do so. A sense of friction grew and the pro- and anti-Aristide factions seemed more apparent. However, this was different from other events where ideological rivals debated, and political players were distanced from the seat of power. Even where events have erupted into shouting matches the arguments were grounded in differences of opinion - or subtle and not so subtle variations in ideology. While Aristide is considered by some simply an ideologue the conflict in that room felt based on something other than ideas. And I say felt, because I could feel it. Here there was a deeper sense of fear mongering permeating the space - because the stakes were higher, I thought. The poverty more profound, the road to development more difficult, the possibility for change more sharpened. I thought the thuggishness of the Duvalier era was gone, and here in suburban Chicago, what seemed thuggish tendencies remained. Had they taken their battle to Illinois? Was what Aristide stood for still considered that much of a threat?

Then the pro-Aristiders responded with equal intensity. In my mind there was no longer the meek, humble, peaceful, and poor on one side and the angry, threatening, and forceful on the other. The political behavior of Haitians seemed to be more complex than I had imagined. I thought about that complexity again years later, during a visit to Port-au-Prince in the fall of 2010. I sat in a restaurant following a wonderful early dinner of fish, rice, and rum punches. A friend of a friend had arranged for someone to keep me company while I waited for a ride to my hotel. I used my time alone to schedule a list of goals and office tasks for coming weeks in my planner; an activity more U.S. than Haitian. I would be returning to the States the following day, and as part of my cultural transition decided to embrace the idea of laying out what I wanted to accomplish in my research by week one, week two, and so on. It helped to pass the time, and somehow the work that lay ahead did not look so daunting under the influence of rum punches.