Haiti: The Early Years

Although Danticat had been living in the United States for fourteen years by the time "Children of the Sea" was first published, the story draws upon her experience of having spent her early years in Haiti. With generations of experience in poverty, dictatorship, and oppression, Haiti's population knows hardship well. "Children of the Sea" takes place in the turbulent mid-1980s, when the longstanding Duvaher dictatorship was toppled, and people's brief hopes for democracy were dashed by the military government which succeeded the dictator.

Haiti shares a large island in the Caribbean Sea with the Dominican Republic. In 1492, Christopher Columbus landed on this island, which he named Hispaniola, and found what he believed was an earthly paradise. In the seventeeth century, the French and the Spanish divided the island between them. Spain received the eastern half, which later became the Dominican Republic, and France...