ACLS News

ACLS Fellows: Perspectives on Haiti

The recent earthquake in Haiti has captured the world’s attention. Here, four ACLS fellows—scholars of art, literature, political science, and linguistics—describe how their research can expand our understanding of the disaster.

Lindsay Twa F’04, assistant professor of art history at Augustana College (SD), admits that the news of the devastating earthquake in Haiti “had me wishing that my calling had led me into medicine or engineering—something that could be useful in assisting this beloved country’s recovery efforts.” Soon after, however, Pat Robertson’s description of the Haitian Revolution as a “pact with the devil” reminded her of how important knowledge gained through humanistic research is to understanding our world.

Raphael Dalleo F’08, assistant professor of English at Florida Atlantic University, has responded to a wealth of requests for an informed perspective on Haiti. “Within a few days of the earthquake,” he reports, “students and acquaintances began asking those of us with some expertise in the region about the island’s political history, or why there are so many Haitians already in the U.S., or what on earth Pat Robertson was talking about.”

The media coverage compounded the already difficult task of teaching Haitian literature and culture. “Students look at Haiti through a thick layer of stereotypes,” Dalleo explains. “Haiti appears in North American media as the furthest extreme of poverty, of political dysfunction, of savagery.” Alan Gilbert F'99, F'89, F'79, professor of international studies at the University of Denver, concurs that “ordinarily, Haiti appears in American film and story as the dangerous place, the place of zombies, something to be feared.”

Twa, who studies cultural exchanges between the U.S. and the Caribbean, recognizes that these images have a long history, one that we can trace back to the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804). The success of the rebellion frightened slaveholders in Europe and the Americas. “As a self-emancipated, self-determined black nation,” Twa says, “Haiti was also a powerful symbol that needed to be diminished and controlled culturally. Hence the nineteenth century saw the rise of texts and images that sought to denigrate and demonize the society; for example, discrediting the social power of Haiti’s folk religion Vodou by reducing its complexities to a cannibalistic cult that formed ‘pacts with the devil.’”

Gilbert, a scholar of democratic theory and international relations, adds that the significance of the Haitian Revolution, which he describes as “the greatest and only successful slave revolt in all of history,” has often been ignored by historians. He identifies it as the “most significant social revolution of the eighteenth century,” noting that it wasn’t “taught when I took a course on comparative revolutions with Barrington Moore,” a leading scholar of comparative historical study. Gilbert asks us to imagine “how high school students, particularly blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, and poor whites, would react to learning the story” of 50-year-old black slave Toussaint L’Ouverture’s defeat of Napoleon as an event fundamental to the history of the Americas.

A broader understanding of our past may change how we view our current international relationships. Dalleo, whose scholarship focuses on postcolonial studies, argues, “In the U.S., our status as empire is something that works most smoothly when we aren’t paying attention to it. Forcing Haiti into the spotlight gives a chance for the repressed reality of the U.S.’s role in Haiti’s past to come to the surface.” This history includes the U.S. occupation from 1915-1934, and stretches all the way back, once again, to the revolution, which prompted France to sell the Louisiana Territory.

While the objects of humanistic scholarship contribute to knowledge, they also provide ways of healing after disaster. Twa, who is the director of the Eide/Dalrymple Gallery at Augustana College (SD), was struck by a New York Times feature on efforts to recover artwork, historical objects, and books. The article quotes Haitian sculptor Patrick Vilaire: “The dead are dead, we know that.  But if you don’t have the memory of the past, the rest of us can’t continue living.”  “History and culture,” Twa says, “still matter in the face of tragedy.”

Humanistic inquiry also reveals specific dimensions of Haitian suffering. “Burial rituals are important everywhere,” Gilbert says. “But particularly in Haiti where Vodou traditions and Catholicism mix. A particular tragedy is that there are too many who have died to be honored individually, to be linked with their ancestry, to have a grave for each constructed for the journey of the dead. There is nothing strange,” he continues, “in Haitians fighting to commune with those who have gone. That power contributes to the democratic poor in Haiti resisting oppression and disaster to this day.”

Iskra Iskrova F’07, doctoral candidate in linguistics at Indiana University, Bloomington, witnessed this solidarity first-hand while working on her Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship in Haiti. “A number of my consultants in both urban and rural environments were illiterate and had never been to school,” she says. “Many of the people I met in the city had one wage-earner per household, and yet managed to put two or three children through private school. They were commuting long hours in overcrowded public transportation, working hard and trying to meet their families’ needs. In Haiti, parents’ desire for education is huge and people make many sacrifices in order to send their children to school.”

“With chronically insufficient income and lack of social programs,” she explains, “community solidarity plays a central role for social cohesion. People cooperate to achieve community projects, help their neighbors, and pay for their children’s education. Compassion and helping others are fundamental values in Haitian society. This is precisely what we saw in the aftermath of the earthquake.”

The onslaught of images, narratives, and commentary from Haiti require deliberate and knowledgeable interpretation. Scholars and teachers can add their perspectives to a conversation that too often reduces a nation with a complex and significant history and culture to simply a sad tale. “Haiti,” Dalleo concludes, “deserves to have a more accurate version of its past, of its culture, and of its accomplishments presented to the public, and now is the time to do it.”

Read more:
Death in Haiti by Alan Gilbert
Haiti in Ink and Tears: A Literary Sampler
Cultural Riches Turn to Rubble in Haiti Quake 

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