Edwidge Danticat Describes a 'Death by Asylum' (by Rose Marie Berger)
A few of us around Sojourners have been reading award-winning Haitian-born writer Edwidge Danticat since she published her first novel Breath, Eyes, Memory in 1994. Ten years later we were thrilled when she sent us a lovely vignette, Indigo Girl, which wepublished in December 2004. It might be the only short story Sojourners has ever published.
When we heard that her newest book, Brother I'm Dying, dealt with the death of Danticat's 81-year-old uncle, the Reverend Joseph Dantica, who died in the custody of U.S. immigration officials while seeking political asylum, we knew we wanted her to tell Sojourners that story—and what it says about the deadly debacle that is our immigration policy today.
In March, Brother I'm Dying won the National Book Critics Circle award for best autobiography. "I only hope my dad and uncle are proud," Edwidge told me. "The book, I feel, was written with them and for them so the award too is for them."
From her home in Miami, Danticat graciously responded to our interview questions:
BERGER: As an artist you are able to witness against injustice through the crafting of story and word as you have done in Brother, I'm Dying. Does the book vindicate the indignity and death your uncle suffered? How has the experience of writing the book changed you spiritually?
DANTICAT: People sometimes think, or say, that you should have closure now, Edwidge. You've written this book. Writing the book was part of a spiritual process which does not end with the book being published though. I was changed a great deal by this process, of course. I lost two very important people to me, my father and my uncle. They both suffered so much at the end, in part so we—my family here—can thrive. The gift I ended up with at the end was my daughter, who was born as these men were dying. I wouldn't say that the book vindicates the death or deaths completely. It's certainly the only vindication we've had, so I am glad I wrote it.
Read the whole interview ("Death By Asylum," Sojourners April 2008) here.
Rose Marie Berger is an associate editor at Sojourners.
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Comments
I am sure that a lot of Christians, who by virtue of considering themselves conservative, have unthinkingly adopted some of the worst aspects of attitudes towards immigrants by those they have become unequally yoked with, politically speaking, would recoil in horror if they could see how our systems are actually treating our fellow human beings first hand.
I remember living in Miami and watching televised news reports, in the early nineties, that showed Haitians hunched over in dog cages on the Port of Miami docks, as immigration police patrolled among the cages with automatic weaponry. The leaking of those images led to two things - a temporary cessation of that policy of treating black migrants as subhuman and a bar on all picture-taking by journalists.
If only we could often see up close what's done in our name, instead of press conferences couched in soothing and deceiving assurances.
The treatment of Cubans is quite the opposite in overwhelmingly Latin Miami - when they touch US soil, they are granted immediate legal status and released.
Sadly, even within immigrant communities, there can be extraordinary racism, particularly against blacks, and that racism is part of the sad history of Miami and Florida.
Posted by: Sojourner Truth | April 2, 2008 2:46 PM
I agree that the disparity between treatment of Haitians and Cubans is a scandal. I also agree that illegal immigrants should be treated humanely. That doesn't affect my belief that only legal immigration should be condoned.
Posted by: Gordon | April 2, 2008 2:53 PM
It's important to note that Danticat's uncle arrived in Miami with correct, complete, and valid documents. Nonetheless, he was put in hand and ankle manacles by officers of the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement and sent to Krome Detention Center. Two days later, he was dead. When Homeland Security examined the matter, they concluded that nothing wrong was done.
That's it? A man died, but no one did anything wrong? Perhaps they thought that he, being Haitian, didn't count as a human being? Or perhaps it was plain ordinary garden variety racism.
Posted by: bren | April 2, 2008 7:55 PM
Well . . . I went out and read both sides of the story. I didn't see any evidence of racism, although I did think ICE did a terrible job of dealing with an obviously very sick old man.
Posted by: Gordon | April 2, 2008 10:08 PM
"I didn't see any evidence of racism..."
Western Europeans and Cubans arriving receive entirely different treatment. African Americans in Miami-Dade County are at the bottom of the socio-economic-political ladder there and wield little influence. The Cuban vote is a very important one for Republicans. You will note it was during a Democratic administration that a Cuban boy who had made it to Florida while his mother drowned in the attempt, was repatriated to his father in Cuba, against monolithic Cuban exile political opinion.
Cubans arriving without any documentation are not removed in chains and leg irons to Krome Detention Center, a former nuclear missile installation far outside Miami on Highway 27 (Krome Avenue) in the Everglades, but instead released to relatives, under a presidential executive order dating back to JFK. Krome has had previous scandals - notably forced sexual intercourse by guards with women prisoners held there.
Posted by: Sojourner Truth | April 2, 2008 10:35 PM
I agree, the different treatment for Haitians vs. Cubans is a scandal.
Posted by: Gordon | April 2, 2008 10:44 PM
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