Summary
Tracing a loose arc from Edwidge Danticat's childhood to the COVID-19 pandemic and recent events in Haiti, the essays gathered in We're Alone include personal narrative, reportage, and tributes to mentors and heroes such as Toni Morrison, Paule Marshall, Gabriel García Márquez, and James Baldwin that explore several abiding environmental catastrophe, the traumas of colonialism, motherhood, and the complexities of resilience.

Review

I adored this collection. Each essay was so masterfully constructed that it made me both want to teach this writing and write again myself.

I really appreciated how much this book taught me about Haiti, but what really struck me the most were the pieces about family, death, and moving forward.

“Writing the Self and Others” was my favorite essay from this collection.

What I learned

• In the early 19th century, Polish soldiers were fighting along the French army in Haiti, but switched alliances to join Haiti in their battle of independence from France. When independence was won, these soldiers were the only foreigners granted Haitain citizenship.
  

• in the 1930s there was a large population of Haitians living in the Dominican Republic as agricultural workers and families of Haitian descendants. In 1937, dictator Rafael Trujillo imposed a quota of Hatians that estates could employ in the Dominican Republic. And a month later, he commanded his army to kill all Haitians in the northwestern region of the Dominican Republic. It's estimated that between 14,000-40,000 Haitians were murdered.
  

• In 1990, Jean-Bertrand Aristide was the first democratically elected president of Haiti after the 29-year Duvalier dictatorship. However, his presidency didn't last long as a coup by the Haitian military (where some members were on the CIA's payroll) outsted him. This happened again in 2004 after he was re-elected.

  • After this coup, more than 40,000 Haitians were arrested by the U.S. Coast Guard as they fled the country. They were thrown into prison at Guantánamo Naval Base.
    

• After an earthquake struck Port-au-Prince in 2010, UN peacekeepers released raw sewage from their base into one of Haiti's rivers. This caused cholera epidemic that killed 10,000 people.