Brother, I'm Dying

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am extremely grateful to the Lannan Foundation for a crucial fellowship at a most crucial time. Thank you, Cheryl Little, Mary Gundrum, Sharon Ginter and the entire staff at the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center for the acquisition, through legal action and extremely persistent Freedom of Information Act requests, of Krome, Jackson Memorial, Department of Homeland Security records and Office of the Inspector General reports so extremely crucial to this narrative. I am grateful to the Harvard Law Student Advocates for Human Rights and the Centro de Justiça Global in Rio de Janeiro and Sâo Paulo, Brazil, for their March 2005 report Keeping the Peace in Haiti? An Assessment of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti Using Compliance with Its Prescribed Mandate as a Barometer for Success. Also to Irwin P. Stotzky of the University of Miami School of Law and Thomas M. Griffin, Esq., for their report Haiti Human Rights Investigation: November 11-21, 2004. Thanks to Representatives Kendrick B. Meek, Charles Rangel and Major Owens, Robert Miller, John Schelbe, Drew Hamill, Alix Cantave and Esther Olavarria for hearing us out. I am extremely grateful to Jonathan Demme, Joanne Howard, James and Stephanie McBride, Susan Benesh, Kathy Klarreich, Ira Kurzban, Leslie Casimir, Patrick Sylvain, Ron Howell, Patricia Benoit, Lewis Kornhauser, Daniel Wolff, Jim Defede, Gina Cheron, Tamara Thompson and Johnny McCalla from the New York-based National Coalition for Haitian Rights for their interest and counsel early on. To John Patrick Pratt, for representing my uncle under extraordinarily difficult circumstances. For support and love shown to my father, I’d like to thank Elycin and Lourdes Pyram, Denifa Rejouis, Drs. P. Krishnan, Paul Farmer, Ketly Elysée, Jocelyn Celestin and Hearns Charles, Reverends Rene Etienne and Phylius Nicolas, Reverend and Mrs. Elima Maréus. Thank you, Nick, Maxo, Franck, Josephine and Zi Dantica, Nicole Aragi, Robin Desser, Alena Graedon, Bob, Kelly, Rose, Mia and Karl Danticat, Ruth and Garry Auguste, Issalia and Fedo Boyer.

Diane Wolkstein recounts a remarkable version of “The Angel of Death and Father God” as “Papa God and General Death” in her marvelous collection The Magic Orange Tree and Other Haitian Folktales. Harold Courlander does the same with “Who Is Older?” and “The Voyage Below the Water” in The Piece of Fire and Other Haitian Tales. Ruth Auguste’s as yet unpublished memoir, Mom in the Mirror, tells Marie Micheline’s story in greater and more exquisite detail.