A couple of weeks ago, while I was working in the Writing Center, I met a student named Carline. As I helped her with a job application, it came out that she was from Haiti. Immediately, my mind filled with questions. What was it like for her to see tragedies unfolding in her country from the vantage point of one of the most powerful nations in the world? Who did she turn to for support? What did she think about the campus’s response, both to the earthquakes and their aftermath and to her as a “representative” of her country? What will happen when she returns home?
In the wake of a disaster such as the one that recently hit Haiti, many voices and stories emerge. We have heard many such stories in the past few months, but Carline’s story is unique and comes to us from our own shores and from our own campus. Not only can her story help us to better understand her native country, but it can also shed light on our response as a campus community and our attitudes as Americans.
I have contacted Carline and she got back to me saying that she needed a little time to consider my proposition. She hasn’t talked to very many people about the events taking place in her country because it’s painful for her. I should have her response by today at 5. If she consents to talk with me, I would interview her and shadow her as she goes about her daily life in Kalamazoo. I would also talk to her friends, her professors, and the CIP.
I remember vividly the eerie feeling that I got during my time abroad, when I would turn on the French news and find that every channel was covering the 2008 U.S. election. It was the feeling of watching myself being watched. I can’t begin to imagine the trials that Carline has had to go through during the past few months, but I can remember that feeling, and hopefully that will give me a place to start.
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That could be such a great story. I hope that she is willing to talk to you, and even more so that she will be able to really open herself up to you. Being away from home when such a devastating tragedy happens makes for an interesting apprach to a story that has been prodominantly broadcasted in an impersonal way. It feels like an event becomes surreal and almost fantastical when most of what we see is image after image of disaster and death without something more comprehendable and common to connect with. I think that it will be refreshing to present readers with a very personal story of the tragedy which will help us relate to her feelings and thus the tragedy. It is also interesting that you share a similar feeling of being away when something urgent and important is happening back home. It is very very different like you said, but I think if you can show that shared feeling through your writing, the reader will be able to relate and connect on a deeper level because you are able to connect to her story on that level. Her expierience is not common, so hopefully familiarizing it make it more of a human story not a Haitian victim story.
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