1 day Ago By Edwidge Danticat
Edwidge Danticat is a Haitian American writer and the author, most recently, of the essay collection “We’re Alone.” In our middle school in Brooklyn in 1981, there were two dismissal times — one for the other children and one for those of us who were Haitian American. Our teacher of English as a second language, Mr.
Dusseck, who was born in Haiti, would keep us in class an extra hour so that while leaving school we would not be beaten up, spat on or called dirty Haitians, boat people and, in the early days of HIV/AIDS, AIDS carriers. Being 12 years old and having just arrived in the United States from Haiti, I didn’t understand why we were being targeted..
