Friday, August 20, 2021

Teaching About Haiti

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Once again, a humanitarian crisis in Haiti is being met with misdirected aid and misrepresentations of the nation. It's a reminder of how critical it is to center Haitian voices in teaching its history. Consider these resources from Teaching for Change.

https://socialjusticebooks.org/booklists/haiti/?fbclid=IwAR0z8o8HG_fvXaSZBPKnKJwZCJjQ9VbBJd6QgbO0Zw5JfeIftZVHlwbUkqU 

Teaching About Haiti

Elementary Middle School | High School Fiction | High School Nonfiction

All too often in the midst of the reporting on Haiti, we hear that the country is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. Seldom do students learn about the long history of U.S. involvement in Haiti which has directly contributed to that poverty and challenges today. Nor do they learn that Haiti's revolution of independence was the only one in the western hemisphere to result in freedom from tyranny for ALL people. We offer here children's and YA books to fill the gaps in the media and curriculum. We welcome additional suggestions.

Visit the Teaching for Change site for more resources to teach about Haiti.

Most of the books on these lists are linked for more information or purchase to Powells.com (an independent, unionized bookstore) and/or Bookshop (an indie bookstore platform). A small percentage from book sales through these links goes to Teaching for Change.

Titles with reviews on this site are noted with an asterisk (*).


Elementary

Auntie Luce's Talking Paintings
By Francie LaTour, Ken Daley (Illustrator)

Calling the Water Drum
By LaTisha Redding, Aaron Boyd (Illustrator)

Circles of Hope
By Karen Lynn Williams

The Deep Past of Haiti*
By Jubilee School's 2013 fifth and sixth grade class

Eight Days: A Story of Haiti
By Edwidge Danticat

Freedom Soup
By Tami Charles

Hope for Haiti
By Jesse Joshua Watson

Janjak and Freda Go to the Iron Market
By Elizabeth Turnbull, Mark Jones (Illustrator), Wally Turnbull (Translator)

The Last Mapou
By Edwidge Danticat, Edouard Duval-Carrie (Illustrator)

Mama’s Nightingale: A Story of Immigration and Separation*
By Edwidge Danticat, Leslie Staub (Illustrator)


Middle School

Behind the Mountains
By Edwidge Danticat

Haiti on My Mind: Stories by Haitian-American Teens
By Dana K. Vincent (Editor), Keith Hefner (Editor), Laura Longhine (Editor)

High School

American Street*
By Ibi Zoboi

Ayiti
By Roxane Gay, Nicole Gay (Photographer)

Babouk: Voices of Resistance
By Guy Endore, Michel-Rolph Trouillot (Afterword by), David B. Gaspar

Breath, Eyes, Memory
By Edwidge Danticat

The Dominican Republic
By Anne Gallin (Editor), Ruth Glasser (Editor), Jocelyn Santana (Editor)

Everything Inside
By Edwidge Danticat

The Farming of Bones
By Edwidge Danticat

Haiti Glass
By Lenelle Moise

The Loneliness of Angels
By Myriam J. A. Chancy

Love, Anger, Madness: A Haitian Trilogy
By Marie Vieux-Chauvet, Rose-Myriam Rejouis (Translator), Val Vinokur (Translator)

Masters of the Dew
By Jacques Roumain

Open Gate: An Anthology of Haitian Creole Poetry
By Paul Laraque (Editor), Jack Hirschman (Editor), Boadiba (Translator)

Krik? Krak!
By Edwidge Danticat

High School Nonfiction

The Dominican Republic
By Anne Gallin (Editor), Ruth Glasser (Editor), Jocelyn Santana (Editor)

 

Getting Haiti Right This Time: The U.S. and the Coup
By Noam Chomsky, Paul Farmer, M.D., Amy Goodman

Haiti: State Against Nation
By Michel-Rolph Trouillot

The Haitian Revolution
By Toussaint L'Ouverture, Nick Nesbitt (Editor), Jean-Bertrand Aristide

Images of Haiti: Stories of Strength
By Ruth Anne Olson; CreoleTrans.; Beth Harvey Designs.; St. James Episcopal Church (Minneapolis, Minn.)

In the Parish of the Poor: Writings from Haiti
By Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Amy Wilentz

The Uses of Haiti
By Paul Farmer, M.D., Jonathan Kozol (Foreword by), Noam Chomsky (Introduction by)

Voodoo in Haiti
By Alfred Metraux, Hugo Charteris (Translator)

Black History Month provides a key opportunity to launch this study. Haiti was the only nation in the western hemisphere to end slavery when it declared independence -- therefore the only nation to ensure true independence for all people.

Just as the study of Black History should be year round, so can our study of Haiti. For example, Professor Madison Smartt Bell suggests that "The Haitian Revolution, though seldom studied in proper detail outside Haiti, ought to be found near the center of any basic curriculum of American History."