Author: voicesfromhaiti

Celebrate Haitian Heritage Month with A.I.R. Gallery 2011 -2012 Fellow, photographer Regine M. Romain.

Arlington, VA – May 2012 – Régine Romain, an A.I.R. Gallery 2011 -2012 Fellow, is pleased to announce Portraits for Self Determining Haiti, an exhibition of photographs at ARTOMATIC 2012.

Régine Romain photographs and researches Haiti’s shifting yet distinct presence throughout the world in an ongoing visual diaspora project. Her work is grounded in individual and community portraiture.

This exhibition bridges two compelling views: Romain, the daughter of Haitian immigrants, as the composer of portraits on Haitian life rarely seen, and the reality of Haiti as a self-determining nation – a principle historically rooted in the people’s DNA as resurgent hope.

Portraits for Self Determining Haiti is an exhibition of vibrant photographs of Haiti, three weeks after the 7.0 earthquake that killed more than half a million people. Elemental themes of faith, dignity, honor and respect are keenly displayed.

The title is inspired by a series of essays published by The Nation in 1920 entitled “Self-Determining Haiti” written by James Weldon Johnson, a journalist, lyricist, and renowned civil rights leader of Haitian heritage.

In Ways of Seeing, John Berger states “…every image embodies a way of seeing, our perception or appreciation of an image depends also upon our own way of seeing.” The world psyche is awash in distorted narratives of Haitian people and society, and Romain’s acts of visual resistance stoke the collective imagination and keep new ways of seeing alive. Romain’s photo essay on Haiti, including photos from Portraits for Self Determining Haiti, is featured in Meridians, Vol 11, December 2011, a journal published by Smith College.

Romain’s work has been exhibited at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, NY; Teatro Nacional de Cuba, Cuba; UN Photography Society, NY; and the Charles Sumner Museum, DC. Her awards include Brooklyn Arts Council and the Trude Lash Fellowship. She is the editor of Diaspora Diaries: An Educators Guide to MoCADA Artists, and is the founder of Urban PhotoPoets and the Brooklyn Photo Salon. Romain is a native Washingtonian and received a BS from Bowie State University and an MA in Photography & Urban Culture from Goldsmiths, University of London.

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That Art Deco picture frame which you kept on your desk stayed vacant for years; it never held those chubby cheeks you’d hoped it would.

The matching porcelain boxes you picked up in Bruges, Belgium remain unused to this day: No first curl in one. No first tooth in the other.

The stock options that transformed your life in a single afternoon, the photographs of yourself in some marketplace in Istanbul will not alleviate that perennial ache.

You’re an intelligent woman. But it doesn’t take a genius to understand why your phone won’t ring much today. There won’t be flowers. The mailman did not bring greeting cards with filigree borders and corny poems written in barely legible curlicues.

Yes, of course, you are happy for all the moms on your contact list. They deserve to be honored today. If only they knew how many times you tried and tried and cried and prayed and tried and cried some more! If only they knew how many visits you made to how many fertility clinics in how many states. . .

You are not the woman they think they know at all. Yes, you are all fun and play and blueberry martinis and smart phones and business class all the way, but there is a secret side of you they’ll probably never meet.

You were always first to arrive and last to leave the office. You never missed a meeting. You were exemplary, dedicated, and so loyal that you received that coveted antique Tiffany Swiss clock—the one whose hands mocked and threatened you with its constant ticking. Ticking. Ticking.

Let it be known—for the record—that you have held umpteenth newborns in your own arms. Oh, yes, you have. And how many times did you stand before packed pews, vowing to assume all responsibility should the unfortunate thing happen?

How often have you driven past that billboard with the words Making Babies Does Not Make a Man a Dad? Well, giving birth does not make a woman a mommy either. You know this. You’ve got the caseload to prove it.

Here you are again: Childless on Mother’s Day. Can’t wait for the day to end. And to think you love so many as if they were your own! Godchildren, nieces, nephews, random faces on the subway or at the airport: You would give your very life to save any of them. That’s just who you are. Your maternal instincts have always been keen. It’s just that your baby never came.

So, to all the women still hoping, still trying, still praying for that miracle; to all the dads playing both roles because mommy is at work or serving time in the state penitentiary; to all the ladies who are mommies in fact though not in deed. Happy Mother’s Day!

To all military moms fighting gnashed tooth and broken nail to make this  world a safer place, Happy Mother’s Day to you!

To that unsuspecting Manman in Jeremie who sent her child to live with Ma Tante so and so, hoping that the child would receive a decent noonday meal with a little education on the side, Happy Mother’s Day to you!

To that woman who put up her child for adoption for too many reasons than she could ever list: Happy Mother’s Day to you!

To the supposedly childless ones who provide support to loved-starved children in their classrooms day after day after day: Happy Mother’s Day to you!

To my recently-deceased Grandmother, Felicie, who loved me more than anyone else dared: Mother’s Day is everyday with you. Even now. Especially now.

And to Manman Ayiti: Happy Mother’s Day to you today and on the Last Sunday in May.

Honor and Respect. Always.

“I’ve always felt like a stranger, even in Haiti.  However, I noticed that wherever I go, I always find similarities to parts of my country.”

At first glance, Deborah David’s blog appears to be whimsical, fun, and entertaining. The colors–like the countries where she lives or has lived–are lively; like roads on a 3D map, her posts pop off the monitor. The photographs of her thousand adventures draw the viewer right in.

Deborah’s blog chronicles the adventures of a compatriot in the “dyaspora” whose search for her own private Haiti ultimately leads to herself.

Yes, I do love the Ayiti-Forever sentimental stuff, but we’re not talking about melodrama here. Deborah is a busy mom, a wife, and she holds a Master’s degree in Administration. There’s not a whole lot of space for sap in her world.

VoicesfromHaiti honors and celebrates this creative girlchild. Check out her story:

My parents emigrated from Haiti when I was three years-old and my sister and I soon followed. I grew up in Marin County, California where I learned quickly to assimilate to the American culture. Throughout my childhood, I seesawed between the very conservative culture of my parents and the often times “liberal” culture of my peers. By the time I finished high school, I began to realize that I felt much more comfortable with the idea of being a Haitian immigrant in American society and started gravitating towards more of my parents’ cultural norms. When I finished college, I stood firm with the ability to enter and exit either culture with great ease whenever necessary. Now married to a first generation immigrant, and raising two children who are considered second generation immigrants, I often find myself struggling to maintain their sense of comfort with both the American and Haitian culture. I am constantly confronted with issues for which there is no right or wrong answer. To further complicate this issue, we recently relocated to Caracas, Venezuela. I now feel the need to maintain a balance of the Haitian, American and Venezuelan cultures to make the most of our experience.

Read the INNERview with Deborah.

Check out Deborah’s cool blog: Balancedmeltingpot