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I see the sharp inequality between how Haitian and Cuban refugees are treated in Florida. Both groups come here because their lives are equally desperate. But on arrival, the Haitians are incarcerated, and some are immediately repatriated, whereas Cubans get to stay and are eligible for citizenship.

Edwidge Danticat

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Edwidge Danticat
Age: 55
Born: 1969
Born: January 19
Author
Novelist
Writer
Port au Prince
Come
Whereas
Arrivals
Equally
Refugees
Desperate
Cuban
Haitians
Immediately
Refugee
Cubans
Treated
Florida
Incarcerated
Groups
Citizenship
Eligible
Stay
Sharp
Haitian
Lives
Inequality
Arrival

More quotes by Edwidge Danticat

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I very much love a physical book myself. I think people who have had this experience of also seeing a book come together, from sitting down and writing the first word, to holding the binding in your hand, we have a deeper sentimental attachment to it than others might.
Edwidge Danticat
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I am very timid about speaking for the collective. I can say what I see, I can say what I've heard, I can say what I feel, but I can't speak for - no one can speak for - 10 million people, and it takes away something from them if you make yourself their voice.
Edwidge Danticat
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Whole interaction between the storyteller and the listeners had a very powerful influence on me.
Edwidge Danticat
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Someone has said that nations have interests, they don't have friends, and you see that over and over in U.S. policy.
Edwidge Danticat
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If a woman is worth remembering,' said my grandmother, 'there is no need to have her name carved in letters.
Edwidge Danticat
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There [Haiti] were also leaders like Jean-Jacques Dessalines, whose motto was, Cut their heads off, burn their houses.
Edwidge Danticat
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I don't know what will happen to the physical book and what it will mean for authors. I worry whether it will mean people can still make their careers this way. Will whatever comes next allow people to be able to own their ideas and be able to take time to develop them?
Edwidge Danticat
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People think that there is a country there that these people are only around when they are on CNN. I don't think that's limited to Haiti.
Edwidge Danticat
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When you write ,it's like braiding your hair. Taking a handful of coarse unruly strands and attempting to bring then unity.
Edwidge Danticat
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We've had fiction from the time of cave drawings. I think fiction, storytelling, and narrative in general will always exist in some form.
Edwidge Danticat
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All anyone can hope for is just a tiny bit of love, like a drop in a cup if you can get it, or a waterfall, a flood, if you can get that too.
Edwidge Danticat
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You have all these people in the city and everything has become centralized. If you live outside the city and you need a birth certificate or some official paper from the government, you have to travel to the city.
Edwidge Danticat
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People aren't really aware of what's happening in other places.
Edwidge Danticat
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There is something human about the way people react to and identify with suffering. There's a lot more empathy in the world than we perhaps realize.
Edwidge Danticat
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I was able to not fold and go in a corner because I had my writing as therapy, but also as my tool for struggle.
Edwidge Danticat
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We need literature because we wouldn’t fully know ourselves without it. We need good literature to be fully human.
Edwidge Danticat
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I come from a place where breath, eyes, and memory are one, a place from which you carry your past like a hair on your head. Where women return to their children as butterflies or as tears in the eyes of the statues that their daughters pray to
Edwidge Danticat
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The way the media cycle works, the way the news works, and the way people's attention span works, is that we only learn that people exist when there is crisis.
Edwidge Danticat
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Create dangerously, for people who read dangerously. ... Writing, knowing in part that no matter how trivial your words may seem, someday, somewhere, someone may risk his or her life to read them.
Edwidge Danticat
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I can't wait for both my daughters to be old enough to read all my books. I loved it every time I saw my parents acting like more than just my parents. And I'm looking forward to that with my daughters too. I am looking forward to having them discover me as someone completely other than their mother.
Edwidge Danticat