Brush with Haiti Read Free Page B

and concluded there was much more to the story of Aristide and Haitian presidential politics than I had understood.
    There were calls from the crowd asking that he run again. He humbly replied that he had no plans to do so. A sense of friction grew and the pro- and anti-Aristide factions seemed more apparent. However, this was different from other events where ideological rivals debated, and political players were distanced from the seat of power. Even where events have erupted into shouting matches the arguments were grounded in differences of opinion - or subtle and not so subtle variations in ideology. While Aristide is considered by some simply an ideologue the conflict in that room felt based on something other than ideas. And I say felt, because I could feel it. Here there was a deeper sense of fear mongering permeating the space - because the stakes were higher, I thought. The poverty more profound, the road to development more difficult, the possibility for change more sharpened. I thought the thuggishness of the Duvalier era was gone, and here in suburban Chicago, what seemed thuggish tendencies remained. Had they taken their battle to Illinois? Was what Aristide stood for still considered that much of a threat?
    Then the pro-Aristiders responded with equal intensity. In my mind there was no longer the meek, humble, peaceful, and poor on one side and the angry, threatening, and forceful on the other. The political behavior of Haitians seemed to be more complex than I had imagined. I thought about that complexity again years later, during a visit to Port-au-Prince in the fall of 2010. I sat in a restaurant following a wonderful early dinner of fish, rice, and rum punches. A friend of a friend had arranged for someone to keep me company while I waited for a ride to my hotel. I used my time alone to schedule a list of goals and office tasks for coming weeks in my planner; an activity more U.S. than Haitian. I would be returning to the States the following day, and as part of my cultural transition decided to embrace the idea of laying out what I wanted to accomplish in my research by week one, week two, and so on. It helped to pass the time, and somehow the work that lay ahead did not look so daunting under the influence of rum punches.
    The companions arrived, and proved to be delightful conversationalists. This was a post-earthquake visit for me, and it was good to engage in lively talk in the midst of where destruction had been so severe just months before. The young man and woman were very well educated, clearly from the upper class, and noticeably fair-skinned. We talked politics, religion, and economics in ways deemed taboo in the States, at least with strangers. I mostly listened, trying to make better sense of things. I suppose we have a tendency to filter new information and experiences through a lens of familiarity. Race and class play such prominent roles in Latin American society that I could not help but allow my perceptions to be shaped by what I had already come to know through study and travel. I found myself sorting, classifying, and categorizing what was coming out of their mouths based on who I thought they were, or what group I thought they represented. Becoming conscious of this bothered me, as I had apparently evolved, or devolved, into someone who could not simply enjoy an exchange in that place and in that moment.
    The young man - tall, lean, and strikingly handsome -had spent much time in the U.S. When the topic of Aristide arose, he was quite critical, and I attributed that to his race, class, and U.S. experiences. Without saying so openly - even after rum punches - I probed a bit deeper. He and the woman both agreed that they had held hope for Aristide and his promises early on, but became disenchanted. By this time, he had come to and left the presidency once more, and their youth suggested they had supported him in his more recent election. But they hinted at the use of intimidation against