NGOs

To me, one of the most interesting parts of Mark Schuller's "Killing with Kindness: Haiti, International Aid, and NGOs" are the parts that break down the reality of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). In the United States, people are generally less leery of NGOs. With NGOs, the assumption is that these organizations "empower local recipient communities to participate in all aspects of their work, from setting priorities to evaluation, and is autonomous from not only the state but also donor agencies" (9). However, that is the ideal-- far from reality. In actuality, NGOs potentially enable external nations "to establish foreign priorities and maintain foreign control over the country" (9).

Schuller uses Haiti as an example, to explore the space and place before and after the earthquake. He causes readers to question the hegemonic power relationship existing between NGOs and "third-world" countries. Schuller calls this power relationship "trickle-down imperialism." 

One of the most striking parts of Schuller's description of Haiti post-earthquake made me question my response to disaster in another country. I generally accept the "good" that NGOs are doing, without much thought to individual stories or identities. Just a general recognizing of tragedy. This omission of individual stories and identities is crucial to the oppressive regime maintaining power. (Shameless feminism plug: it's also why women's studies is a legitimate field, but you all knew that!)

Killing with Kindness

by Ben Woodruff

     I found this very interesting personally because I have worked in frontier economies and I have seen the systemic issues which exacerbated the catastrophes which occur virtually everywhere. Clearly Haiti is an example where a storm or earthquake which would be a small concern in the United States has a larger impact because of the lack of infrastructure. 

     I was not surprised that the organizations that focus on how to help the local people achieve their local goals had better results. Instead of this, most NGOs serve only to further the aims of the donors which are the governments of the United States and European powers. This allows those countries to open up those markets for their services and goods. This disaster capitalism allows for the countries to enrich themselves while at the same time looking to the rest of the world as if they are doing good.

     I personally had another take on this issue of post disaster aid. When I was in Switzerland last year, a coauthor and I looked at the economics of pre and post disaster aid. Giving money to a developing economy before a disaster and allowing them to build infrastructure is far more efficient than responding after a disaster. It is like the adage "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" writ large.

     It feels good to come in as the savior at the end of the day. You get your photo in the paper back home and you have the locals tell you that you are doing a wonderful job. The boring work does not get that same result even though focusing on helping countries build roads, build hospitals, build sanitation systems, and train locals to provide medical care will prevent much of the suffering from ever happening.

Killing with Kindness or How the West was Won

"NGOs are such a force multiplier for us, such an important part of our combat team." (Collin Powell, 2001).
I think this quote really sums up what Mark Schuller's Killing with Kindness is really about. NGOs are a force multiplier in that they are an extremely effective way of taking over a weakened state and using it to forcibly multiply the amount of imperialist power in a given geographical area. I had always known "that not all NGOs are 'good' NGOs," as a professor of mine had once stated, but the way in which these nations are so obviously blighted by these NGOs, more to be read as corporations, in order to advance a capitalist agenda. I really appreciated Schuller's use of the term "trickle-down imperialism" because that's exactly what the principle goal of so many of these organizations is. Imperialist agents hide behind go-to remarks such as NGOs are "non-political" organizations when touting the mishaps of dealing with crisis, only as a means to assert increased governmental control in a state that has already been systemically denied any government representation on behalf of the people who will actually have to live and thrive in this state after the camera crews have gone back to Los Angeles. In reading the lived experiences of the Haitians in Chapter One of Schuller's text I was reminded of Danticat's Brother, I am Dying when she explains that while the US was occupying Haiti in the early 20's Haitians were not delusional as to why the United States was involved and the greed that came from wanting to acquire 40 percent of their economy.
In the Farmer piece I really appreciated the way he discussed the nature of structural damage especially in comparison to the crises that have taken place in the US. You can't help but notice the political underpinnings of using tragedies like Hurricane Katrina and comparing them to the failure of the new Healthcare website. Clearly, there is a systemic blinding of the public. The way in which Hurricane Katrina has been depicted as an event that was "over in one week" and an ignorance to the understandings of the lived experience that alters one's understanding of any event. If these instances of forcibly stripping nations of autonomy and imposing a structure of power that is not observant of their individual needs in order to grow our economy, there is a blinded public weak at the knees for government "intervention."

The Problem with International Aid to the Third World

    My problem with international aid to the Third World, which is also discussed in Killing with Kindness by Mark Schuller, is two-fold. First, there exists the question, "Why do certain countries need aid?" This seemingly simple question may be answered with equally simplistic answers. Haiti needs aid because the country just experienced an earthquake, because the government is corrupt. Middle Eastern women need help because the women are oppressed. Indian women need aid because the women are raped. But doesn't the United States experience natural disasters, and don't we usually aid ourselves, domestically? Foreign countries do not come from the outside in to aide us, consequently controlling us. Also, many would argue that the US government is corrupt? Who will aid the people of this "democracy"? Are there no women and other people in the United States who are oppressed? Are there no women in the United States who are raped? So, the simple question of "Why do certain countries  need aid?" becomes complex when we examine what make a certain country certain in its status as Third World, developing, or insufficient to help itself and make its own decisions.
    Another issue with international aid is the reality of lived experience. We often hear, or read, or even draft, the mission of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and nonprofit organizations, the US equivalent to NGOs. In the nobility of their mission statements, we marginalize the reality of lived experience. How could the people of Haiti experience such detriment even after so many noble organizations travel there for the express purpose of aiding them? The hegemonic assumption is that if marginalized people cannot manage to be aided, unaidable perhaps, there must be an intrinsic, essentialist quality to them that even aid from noble, read superior, individuals, systems and countries cannot break through. The erasure of lived experience of Haitian people receiving aid reminds me of the erasure and marginalization of Hurricane Katrina victims. If the reality of their suffering, even post aid or because of supposed aid, comes to light, victim-blaming ensues. Individualization of suffering, seen as rare cases or just the way certain people are, exists as an effective tool to null and void out the reality of system of oppression -- imperialism, neoliberalism, colonialism, globalization.
     An expression states, "Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime." But where is the expression that leads us to question why we would need to teach a man to fish, that questions who is in a position to teach, and how teaching and giving can lead to control? All this reminds me that lived experience is essential to theory, also supported by Danticat's Brother, I'm Dying memoir. We all know the purpose of political asylum as granted to foreigners. What we don't know is the reality of asking for that aid in certain bodies, from certain countries. Lived experience is the only way to understand the reality of effects of systems of oppression -- racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, heterosexism, ableism. Our paradigms are one thing, and they vary from person to person; our experiences are another, and they also vary.

Helping or Harming: Haiti, International Aid, and NGOs

This week’s reading was based on the book, Killing with Kindness by Mark Schuller. In his book, Schuller explores the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that bring foreign aid to countries like Haiti and how they fell short after the tragic earthquake that hit the small country in January of 2011. In particular he looks at two women led organizations, Sove Lavi (“saving lives”) and Fanm Tet Ansanm (“women united”) and he looks specifically at their “civil infrastructure”, “the interrelated set of relationships between and among various stakeholder groups of a given social grouping” (177). By peeling back the layers of these two organizations, the reader gets a look into this “civil infrastructure” and see how foreign aid organizations are in some ways ran like businesses; some NGOs being funded by private donors and others being funded by organizations with political agendas in mind. Through Schuller’s work the reader gets to play detective and figure out what happened? What went wrong? And who is accountable for the incident? In comparison to other work written on Haiti, Schuller does a good job in telling the whole story not just from an outsider’s perspective but from an insider’s perspective as well, especially in regards to women. Something Chandra Mohanty proclaims is missing from scholarly work written by Westerners about women from developing countries especially in regards to violence against women. Mohanty’s states in her article “Under Western Eyes”, “Women are defined consistently as the victims of male control- the “sexually oppressed”. Although it is true that the potential of male violence against women circumscribes and elucidates their social position to a certain extent, defining women as archetypal victims freezes them into “objects-who-defend-themselves,” men into “subjects-who-perpetrate-violence”(339). This is not the case in Schuller’s book, he includes this part of the story but allows the women to provide an explanation of why it happens. Malya Villard a woman representing a victims organization says this, “Rape or violence are directly connected with the country’s economy. Sometimes a woman doesn’t have any earning power, which makes her a victim.” (27) From this as the reader we get to see how some of these NGOs, like Saving Lives and Women United came to be. They were meant to help women, educate them about sex, help them talk to factory owners about the conditions within the factories, but not be an answer to solving poverty which we can see where everything went wrong.

Foreign aid is meant to be given to people in need to help them temporarily through an unsalvageable situation, but how can it be helpful if no one from the underclass receives the aid? In this situation, sometimes they succeeded other times they failed, one organization in particular, Sove Lavi (Saving Lives), failed a lot more than Fanm Tet Ansanm(Women United). When the women asked for more help within the community they barely received any. Which raises a question of why give money to a country that the poor will never see? Sadly an answer is given at the end from a USAID representative, “The goal is to spend it all and say, ‘ See, we’ve done all we can for Haiti.’” (187). This only leaves me questions which remain unanswered. How do we get the aid to the poor? Should we stop sending money? Who is at fault? The organizations? The donors? The recepients? From the stories shared in Schuller’s book we as the reader can see the importance of having a voice and paying attention to the money we give in hopes to help others. This was definitely a lesson well appreciated.           

Structural Violence & International Aid

Paul Schuller's Killing with Kindness, though well-intentioned, is by far the most careless and oversimplified, and least self-aware, book that we have read this semester. Parroting Farmer, Schuller writes that "structural violence depends on its invisibility." (28) The structural violence he refers to could very well be the structural violence of traditional anthropology, of the ethnography with the supposedly rational, objective, non-bodied author. Unlike Ulysse in Downtown Ladies, Lee in Adopted Territories, or Parreñas in Children of Global Migration, Schuller does not sufficiently display an understanding of his own privilege, his own subjectivity, for me to fully trust any single assertion he makes in the entire work. I know. That's unfair. He makes plenty of fair and even good claims. But my surprise at his lack of awareness remained in the front of my mind for my entire reading experience. First, Schuller offers superficial, and often irrelevant, glossings-over of such fundamental black and transnational feminist theorists as Audre Lorde, Patricia Hill Collins, bell hooks, or Chandra Talpade Mohanty. He often reduces their entire theoretical frameworks to a single, quotationed, word. Okay, I think, maybe he is trying to rush through the background to get to the good stuff. But everything is rushed, except for the moments where he relishes in his own privilege, such as when he writes that he accepts a neighbors generosity "although I am not a huge fan of cornmeal and despite the fact that it was cold." (15) I cannot fathom how this sentence is supposed to deepen my understanding of the urgent contemporary effects of neoliberal/neocolonial policies and theories. The sentence does not humanize Schuller for me, which, best case scenario, was his intention. Rather, it illustrates the extent to which he has internatlized his (invisible) privileges. He also neglects to draw a distinction between anthropological writing and fiction; he offers an excerpt from a Danticat novel as proof of an anthropological claim. (32) While I do think Schuller makes some valid arguments, they are not new, here, and nor are they better argued than elsewhere.

Excuse my annoyance with Schuller, but his work felt sloppy, and the subject(s) deserve better. I much preferred the Farmer, although it was limited by its length. I was most interested in Farmer's discussion at the beginning about the nature of suffering, but I was also interested in his broader discussion of structural violence, its omnipresence, its invisibility. Every time there is a disaster or a violent uprising, whether it be Hurricane Katrina, 9/11, Rwandan genocide, Cambodian genocide, or any one of hundreds of other examples, the United States media presents the events as tragic and, most importantly, out of the blue. It is not by chance that the causes of violence and suffering are hidden far away from the popular imagination--it has taken much hard work from many people to preserve our ignorance. But to what extent are the media, the politicians, the corporations, etc. to blame? If the general public were to understand the historical inequities that result in these tragedies, would it, in the end, even matter? For example: Most people in the United States have a basic understanding of where their meat comes from. They understand that their chicken nuggets or cheeseburgers come at the price of a lot of suffering. Every child in a meat-eating family at some point realizes that her/his food comes from animals that suffered so that s/he could eat it. But the simple knowledge of the fact does not mean that an understanding of that fact necessarily follows it. Most children continue to eat meat, and they turn into adults who continue to eat meat. Somewhere, they have an understanding of what their meat is. But that does not mean they truly understand the process through which it arrives in their stomachs. This may seem like a stretch, this metaphor, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that there is a willful ignorance in both cases-- it's much easier to understand that Hutus and Tutsis turned on each other out of some evil that existed in the individuals, or in their "culture," rather than to unpack the tortured history that resulted in the genocide. As Farmer writes of two cases in Haiti, "the 'exoticization' of surffering as lurid as that endured by Acephie and Chouchou distances it." (377)

The readings for this week reminded me of a book I read a few years ago called Dead Aid by Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo. While I find her argument (as I remember it, four years on), that we should stop all aid arrangements as they create dependence and inhibit "progress," extreme, I also find it compelling. I believe that the aid structures as they exist are an example of parodoxical participation (as Lee discusses), or "another state," as Schuller calls it, in which NGOs replace the state and its social responsibilities. They also create dependence. To refute Moyo's argument, though, I would argue that the long-term negative effects of aid programs have little relevance to the people who will not live long enough to see the long-term positive effects of economic growth if they do not receive the healthcare they need in the form of aid. I believe that there should be some forms of aid, but I also agree that micro-lending organizations, such as the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and the web-based Kiva, are good alternatives to the mammoth international aid organizations.

Structural Violence

Killing with Kindness and “Suffering and Structural Violence” complement each other well.  Farmer’s article sets the tone and background for Schuller’s book.  I like Schuller’s idea of NGOs as a form of “trickle-down imperialism.”  Although technically a non-government organization, they are very political and funded by governments.  They also seem just as crooked as governments.  They come in, get a lot of foreign aid that is supposed to help, yet they do not involve those they are supposed to help.  Schuller’s work with hierarchies proves this.  Looking at the top-down system used by these organizations, he showed how an NGO’s relationship in Haiti depends upon the relationship with the institution/government at the top of the hierarchy. 

When looking at the situation in Haiti, you can see the social and economic forces that Paul Farmer talks about being utilized to limit the choices of Haitians to their detriment.  Along with this is the invisibility of the suffering poor.  As stated by Pablo Richard, “A wall between the rich and poor is being built, so that poverty does not annoy the powerful and the poor are obliged to die in the silence of history” (Farmer 383).  In a large natural disaster, such as the earthquake, the world took notice and sent aid.  Yet years later, Haitians are still suffering from that same disaster despite the millions of dollars sent in aid.  There is nothing about this on television now.  Their suffering is ignored.  Along with this invisibility of suffering comes the nonchalant way that people donate.  A natural disaster provoked telethons and text campaigns for donations, and millions of dollars were given, which allows the donator to give him/herself a pat on the back and continue on with his/her life without giving a second thought to where the money is going or how it is spent.  Yet, if asked to donate prior to the earthquake many of these same donators would not even consider it, assuming that these poverty ridden, black Haitians either got themselves into this situation or they prefer to stay there…ignoring their extreme suffering and the structural violence that aided in their situation.

Dragooning the Destitute

      Paul Farmer's "Suffering and Structural Violence" highlights the disparities between suffering populations around the world.  He points to the dominant and deadly force of capital in divvying out sufferings; "...the world's poor are the chief victims of structural violence..." (Farmer, 383).  The world's poor are merely invisible pawns to the majoritarian, hegemonies of global capitalism and neoliberal sociopolitical economics.  "Developed" nations that maintain and dominate "global" economies control nation-states and peoples of the global South through economic and political coercion via capital-rich NGOs.  The people of Haiti recognize their illusory agency over their status economically, politically, and socially within Mark Schuller's Killing With Kindness; "'We have elections.  And we pep la, what do we get?  How have our lives changed'" (Schuller, location 114 of 3646)?  The neoliberal aims and NGO-operated notions of "exporting democracy"are merely cover stories for neocolonial and imperialist regimes' own power (capital) building.  The real, influential power lies in the hands of those who fund NGOs, thus their interests are generally self-promotional economic advantages rather than the health and agency of "Other" humans.  Schuller writes, "...Haiti is sliced up and given to NGOs, ceding near-sovereign control to these NGO 'fiefdoms'" (Schuller, loc. 162/3646). 
     The United States employed its military might and economic prowess to open up markets and capital opportunities within Haiti during the Aristide controversies, exposing the country to neoliberal "Reaganomics;" "...Aristide signed the Governor's Island Accord...ceding control to international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Band, and Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) through privatization and structural adjustment" (Schuller, loc. 404/3646).  Intersectionality is key in understanding the varied ways in which Haiti has been constructed as a, "...resource-starved, foreign-occupied, deliberately underdeveloped, class-divided, male-dominated society...," for all of these sufferings are related and built upon one another (Schuller, loc. 587/3646).  Haiti and other nation-states of the global South are treated as lab rats and capital mines for socioeconomic and political neoliberalisms.  Schuller states, "...policies such as privatization and state devolution are field-tested first in foreign development settings..." (Schuller, loc.2392 of 3646).  Because governmental agencies and big businesses would stir the global media and the moral compasses of many peoples, NGOs function as neoliberal, imperialist Trojan horses, coercing and dragooning impoverished states and peoples in ways that benefit their own capital building.  NGOs operate between the walls of poverty and affluence; "...NGOs are structures that flue together local communities from across the globe: they are intermediaries" (Schuller, loc.2828/3646).  "Suffering and Structural Violence" notes the quickly-growing divisions between the capital-starved and capital-obsessed; Farmer, quoting Pablo Richard's points on the (meta)physical constructions of walls, "'A wall between the rich and poor is being built, so that poverty does not annoy the powerful...'" (Farmer, 383).

Responsible International Giving

In Mark Schuller’s book Suffering and Structural Violence, he discusses the ways that international aid (particularly aid coming from the US) has affected the prevailing situation in Haiti.  He discusses especially how donations of different kinds cause certain kinds of practices in terms of NGO priorities and autonomy.  This brings up for me the question of what kind of practices people in the US have in regards to international aid and where they spend their money.  

As someone who went to Catholic school, I remember receiving cardboard boxes to hold donations for the international missions of the Catholic church.  These were printed with pictures of children looking happy and information about how much rice or how many pencils the money in the box would buy.  While the missions were always framed in a religious context, little time was spent discussing whether or not schools set up by the missionaries taught Catholicism along with other subjects, and no time at all was spent discussing the ways in which the teachings of the Catholic church interfered with its self-defined mission of helping people.  In addition, every reaction shown was that of gratefulness for the kind assistance of the Catholic church.  There was no discussion of any other kind of reaction or even of the possibility of one.

The issues with whether the local organization or the one providing the funding has control that run through Schuller’s book come to the forefront for me in this situation.  Wanting to help people who have been negatively impacted by some sort of natural disaster or political situation is all well and good, but I feel it is important to consider carefully what kind of impact any donations I might make would have.  For example, I would not want to fund an organization that dictates to the local organizations to which it gives its money how they can use said money.  Even if I agreed with the solutions mandated by the organization, I do not understand fully the situation in some other country, and neither, I would argue, do US-based organizations funding organizations in other countries.  

How, then, might we donate responsibly?  What is it possible to do to change the ways in which donations paid for through taxes are spent?  How implicated are we if our tax dollars are used to reinforce a system of US imperialism?  How could we deal with such things as language barriers when researching local organizations to decide where to give money?  What could we do if we decided we wanted to help but did not have enough money?  What effect might this have on our implication in the system?

Final Blog- "Sadness in the eyes of my people"

           Gender, race, and class, are the definition to colonialism and imperialism by Europeans (the West), and the U.S. The United States of America is a country that profits from the “dependence” of other countries such as Haiti. The relationships built among other countries have been confused with the meaning of help and savior with control and profit.  Liberalism is a term that has been used extremely loosely when referring to natives of Haiti, Dominican Republic, Mexico, and many other countries in direct financial gain with the United States. Liberal means favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs. The U.S. is a nation that is rooted in political affairs transnationally through foreign and state affairs. It also is a country founded on Christianity. This correlation is given to stress the means of supposedly caring for individuals outside of the U.S. territory yet, inside their boundaries. Christianity is the moral belief of treating people with kindness, respect, and morality. If this is a nation that is supposedly engulfed in their people and well-being among themselves, why haven’t the same attitude been exerted among the neighboring countries to which they gain millions of dollars through goods and services? Haiti is a country not a part of the United States, but a part of the production and stability of the U.S.’s financial foundation.

            Women in Haiti seem to be the number one target of socioeconomic concern. In the research given by Schuller, women are the bodies dying from social and domestic violence as well as one of the deadly diseases known as HIV/AIDS. This cultural phenomenon is distinctly the discourse the West would like to promote. The NGO’s sent into Haiti were supposed to be labeled as “non-profit” organizations promoting abstinence and condom uses among women and men to help prevent this deadly epidemic of AIDS; however, these “non-profit” organizations were actually profiting through the government with certain criteria of promoting these teaching through a particular format. Encouraging Haitian females to practice abstinence was a start, but it was definitely not going to prevent AIDS. This is the same technique given to women in the states with privileged means, so what made Bush, Clinton, or the NGO’s for that matter believe this idea would work within a poverty stricken country who were rapped and or forced to become hypersexual beings for survival? This was a notion to brainwash the natives in accepting such environments and eventually blaming themselves for their inherited disease.

            “Killing with Kindness” as well as the Paul Farmer piece brought a realization to suffering, community education, and the nature of human decision. These episodes mentioned placed structural violence in a realm of eye-opening truth, and why left the pondering question of why the West participated in such horrific endeavors. The display of power dynamics almost made it seem as if these Black bodies positioned themselves in these experiences. Race and the gender politics of these women and men put these helpless individuals in the line of fire for complete failure and subordination under power. This notion placed disease, discourse, the UN, the U.S., Black women, and knowledge association in an origin of question for me as far as facts and capital T truth is concerned. Words can’t explain the mortality rates of the Black bodies’ still taking place as we speak at the hands of those who classify themselves as Christians. 

Invisible Aid

            Killing with Kindness, by Mark Schuller the topics of International aid and NGOs in relation to Haiti. This study takes place before the disastrous 2010 earthquake that left 1.5 million people without homes and basically leveled Potoprens, although not largely covered facts were given that allowed me to form an opinion in regards to the International aid and NGOs assistance efforts to those obviously desperate for aid. There was said to have been around two billion dollars given to aid those in who were affect by the earthquake. Although, as you read, it tells of the people who are basically holding the “power”(food cards) and using them to exploit the women for sexual favors in order for them to be able to receive the aid. It was not only an issue of sexual favors, but also of needing to know someone in a good position. This automatically recreated the idea that was discussed in Ulysse’s, Downtown Ladies, in regards to privileges and power. The privilege of having money or presenting yourself as if you are at the top of the hierarchy allotted you certain privileges that people of the lower end would not receive. In the case of the people of Haiti in need of aid those who had the connections were the ones who were privileged enough to get food cards for so their family could eat while other women may have had to demoralize themselves in order for their families to eat. Also, the power of the government to see an opportunity to make money and take it upon themselves to place restrictions on the items that could be imported and exported along with assigning the women a title was an extreme exercise of their governmental powers. In the case of the Haitian government not being as structured there was room for those to obtain power that would control the livelihood of the Haitian citizens (NGOs, International aid, etc.) using their problem to profit and not completely using it to aid the citizens.

            Also, the discussion of AIDS/HIV still being a “death sentence” simply because they do not have the resources, can’t afford the medicine, or other unnoted reasons. This is something that is not considered a “death sentence” in the United States, which is why if we can help aid them with other forms of relief why is it so problematic to ensure aid to those who are in need of medical assistance? Why is the supposed assistance and aid that is being giving to a country so in need not seeing the efforts that are being put into place that are supposed to assist them?

Week 14: Structural Violence and Development: A View from Haiti

        Farmer states in "Suffering and Structural Violence," that "it is one thing to make sense of extreme suffering--a universal activity--and quite another to explain it" (378).  This implies that suffering is easily understandable and that everyone knows what suffering is.  In this universalizing sentiment, it seems odd that we would not be able to explain suffering given that all of us already know what it is.  And why must suffering be explained if it is universally felt?  Nevertheless, organizations have been created in order to cater to, if not explain suffering, then at least make sense of it.  NGOs are particularly at fault for this, although their egalitarian methods do not absolve them of their own problems.  In Killing with Kindness: Haiti, International Aid, and NGOs, Mark Schuller tries to make sense of the suffering Haitians experienced during the 2004 coup and its aftermath in relation to the international aid Haiti received through NGOs and anaylzes the extent to which those NGOs forged a bond with the local Haitian communities.  One issue to contend with, which was brought up in Schuller's introduction, is what does or should democracy look like and how should it interact with others?  The coup in Haiti seriously jeopardized this understanding and provided mixed feeling as to how Haitians received international aid.
        In his study of two NGOs, Fanm Tet Ansanm and Sove Lavai, Schuller exposes the internal hierarchies embedded within these organizations that are meant to help the suffering citizens of Haiti.  Interestingly, the physical space and layout of the buildings invoked there own hierarchies whether it be the middle office, back office, clinic, upstairs or downstairs.  There were physical barriers that emphasized the work and rank of those individual workers.  However, at lunch at Fanm Tet Ansanm, hierarchies are temporarily abandoned.  Indeed, "it is no accident that his liminal space--outside the official 'work' space--was generally the most open, deliberated area, where divisions are temporarily suspended and everyone participates in the brass lide" (85).  But how are we to understand such organizations that, whether consciously or not, develop this hierarchy?  Are their aims and intentions any less pure because they hold to their own systems of oppression through the construction of hierarchies?

Voices to the Voiceless

by Ben Woodruff

All I could think of when reading this is that "Giving voice to the voiceless" meme that gets used whenever Western activists try to help people in the Global South. These are people that have a voice. Too often we are simply ignoring what they have to say. We attempt to silence them whenever they say something that goes against the narrative we have created for them. 

In Brother, I'm Dying this idea of being voiceless or being silenced is addressed by a person from Haiti. So often people in the book were forced silent. It could be through distance while moving or through surgery but still they pushed through to make their voices be heard. 

Transnational Voices

      Edwidge Danticat's book Brother, I'm Dying illustrates the lives and histories of her family members in relation to their space and place. The book highlights the lived experiences on a transnational level by accentuating the importance of voice within all of the narratives she reviews and amalgamates.  As a daughter of Haitian parents that move to the United States to achieve financial stability, her narrative is similar to those within many of the texts we have already read (especially Taking Haiti and Adopted Territory), as a child of "globalization" and transnational economic policies crafted by Western hegemonies. The loss of her mother and father's voices for eight years of her life were seen as harmful and confusing times in her life. Danticat notes how her father had to tiptoe around his "lost" children's psyches; "...dispassionate letters were his way of avoiding a minefield, one he could have set off from a distance without being able to comfort the victims" (Danticat, 20).  Here, Danticat effectively portrays her youth as one of the many examples of victimization by Western imperialists. 
       Another tragic example of lost or stolen voices is a literal one, of her uncle Joseph's throat cancer.  As visiting, white, Western doctors were visiting Haiti, her uncle took advantage of the "advanced" medical knowledges and technologies, and sought help with his throat issues. After a very brief examination, the Western doctor easily delivers a prognosis of throat cancer and a need to, basically, remove his throat and voice; "He needed a radical laryngectomy.  His voice box would eventually have to be removed" (Danticat, 36).  This narrative of her uncle's life is a reflection of the ways in which the Western powers could coercively remove the public voices of "others," economically and politically, and in her story, physically as well. Not all her descriptions of transnational voices were negative and traumatic, for her father bestowed upon her a public voice. During the eight years of their transnational separation, Danticat had begged for a way to express her words without her "slanted" written cursive. Once they were reunited, her welcome gift was a public voice she could use to communicate more fluidly and openly. She writes, "Still, they feel like such prescient gifts now, this typewriter and his desire, very early on, to see me properly assemble my words" (Danticat, 117).  The power of the voice and a public space for it was important to her family, as their transnational and personal experiences emphasized them as tied to existence.  Her words concerning her uncle's vocal loss highlight the power of the voice, "If you had no voice at all, he thought, you were simply left out of the constant hum of the world, the echo of conversations, the shouts and whispers of everyday life" (Danticat, 36).

Edwidge, I'm Crying

So many emotions came up for me while reading Brother, I'm Dying by Edwidge Danticat that I decided that poetry, rather than prose, was a more effective medium to get my points across. Ironically, Danticat is one of my favorite authors. Her writing makes so real for me a type of subject that can seem to not effect me as much as I think it should, which is how I felt when I read Taking Haiti by Mary Renda. The emotional disconnect might have also had to do with the perspective that Taking Haiti was told from, that of US Marines, who while their story deserves to be told, as all humans stories should be, I felt hungrier to hear the side of the story from Haitian citizens, whose stories are more marginalized. Indeed, Danticat asserts at the end of the first chapter of her memoir, "Have You Enjoyed Your Life?", "I am writing this only because they [my uncle and my father] can't. (26)"

Edwidge, I'm Crying

Congratulations, Edwidge
Your Brother, I'm Dying managed
to do what Taking Haiti could not

Make me cry

And anytime i find myself crying i
in a defensive self-reflection ask
why am i crying

reading about Uncle Joseph's death
made me weep. He said
"live long enough and you will see everything"
They had killed him
i was convinced

there are many ways to kill someone
they all boil down to the root of
not caring whether they live
or how they live

and that's how Krome killed Uncle Joseph
and how the neighborhood gangsters killed him
and how the paramedic killed him
they did not care if they lived
they did not care how lived

why am i crying
because i've been reared to review the elders
i have romantic notions that the old
especially the old and good, like Uncle Joseph
should be rewarded for surviving so long
that instead of harship in old age
be given some touch of paradise on earth, rather
it seemed the world on worked to motivate Uncle Joseph
to die sooner

and so i was angry
at my birth country
and reminded
of why i don't feel i belong
who is trying to kill me
(who does not really care if i live)
(who does not really care how I live)

even when i watched Babel
i was frustrated

whenever a story is told
i wonder
this is the story you felt needed telling
this is how you chose to tell it
what is missing

tears, reality, truth
the first two i can do without
truth is most important
and everyone's truth deserves telling
and hopefully from their point of view
but if not their point of view
at least from those who do not wish to kill them
but instead from those who cared if they lived
from those who cared how they lived

(Note: Please bear with this first very rough draft poem. I almost didn't post it, but I didn't know what else to do)

Post Script/Poem: Babel was mostly enjoyable to watch, but I had reservations about how the stories of the Korean characters and how the stories of the Moroccan characters were told. I felt aspects of it were unnecessarily sexual, but then I wondered if this was just my being overly sensitive as a marginalized human being (as in, of course they would oversexualize they stories of the Middle Eastarn and Asian characters). Then, I tried to see what nobler purpose these aspects of the story held, what message it was trying to convey. I'm still trying to figure it out.

Week 13: Brother, I'm Dying featuring Babel

This week’s reading is called Brother, I’m Dying by author Edwidge Danticat. Brother, I’m Dying primarily follows Danticat through her childhood in Haiti before she joins her parents who have already migrated to America for a better life. Through at first glance, it may appear as an autobiography it is actually a family memoir of sorts as she also dictates in her book the lives of her father Andre Danticat, and her Uncle Joseph Danticat and their trials and struggles before their arrival to the U.S and after also. Interestingly, this book in particular brought up problems that most migrants even face today. One of the problems being that of the unfamiliarity children of migrant parents face when they have not seen their migrant parents on a continuous basis throughout their childhood.

Rhacel Salazar Parenas makes a valid statement in her book Children of Global Migration when she says, “Distance breeds unfamiliarity and this unfamiliarity leads to discomfort.” (73) She attributes this quote to the feelings of awkwardness and estrangement one of her interviewees felt in her book when coming face to face with their migrant parent after their time away from them. There is one part in Danticat’s book that only further validates this statement when she sees her parents in Haiti after they have been away for a while. “Until that moment, aside from the butter cookies and restrained words of his letters, my father had mostly been a feeling for me, powerful yet vague, without a real face, a real body, like the one looming over the pecan-hued little boy who was looking up at Nick, Bob, and me.” (205/646) Danticat had barely seen her parents for a while so here in this quote she is describing this feeling of unfamiliarity with her father. Sadly, this is a normal feeling that children of migrant parents feel towards their parents, this unfamiliarity, but as I have stated above this is not the only problem Danticat brings up in her book. She also describes her Uncle Joseph’s desperate attempt at trying to enter the U.S after the chaos that breaks out in 2004 when the UN sends Peacekeepers to Haiti. He arrives in the U.S with possession of a passport and tourist visa, but because of the circumstances and his intent to return later, he insists on asking for “temporary asylum,” not understanding what it fully means. He then faces problems with Homeland Security after making this statement and being questioned he ends up in prison.  Danticat questions why this happens in her book, “While Hondurans and Nicaraguans have continued to receive protected status for nearly ten years since Hurricane Mitch struck their homelands, Haitians were deported to the flood zones weeks after Tropical Storm Jeanne blanketed an entire city in water the way Hurricane Katrina did parts of New Orleans. Was my uncle going to jail because he was Haitian? This is a question he probably asked himself. This is a question I still ask myself.” (525/646) There was another similar circumstance in the movie 'Babel' when the nanny illegally takes her charges across the border to Mexico and is unable to get her American charges back into the U.S. Interestingly, it was easy to get them into Mexico but not to get them out. These two different instances reminds the reader or movie watcher of the ‘walls’ the U.S has in place to keep people in and out. In Wendy Brown’s book, ‘Walled States, Waning Sovereignty’ she reminds us that this is not only what walls only do. They ‘confer magical protection against powers incomprehensibly large, corrosive, and humanely uncontrolled…. they produce not the future of an illusion, but the illusion of a future aligned with an idealized past (p. 133). So while the reader of this book or watcher of this movie may think this is typically ‘unfair treatment’ we have to realize that these walls do serve a lot of different and greater purposes. This is a lesson that has to be kept in mind while reading this part of the book or seeing this part of the movie. Sadly there were bad turnouts to both stories Danticat's Uncle Joseph ends up dying in the prison and the nanny is forced to stay in Mexico. 

Overall, this book was very well written, it allows the reader to think of the huge problems that people of foreign countries both face inside and outside the U.S. and how much change still needs to happen, and it makes you wonder, when will this change occur? 

Babel Response

      The film Babel is an emotional and thought-provoking pictorial exemplar of transnationality.  Heavily employing a powerful theme of loss enables the film to express the ways in which different experiences of loss throughout different peoples in different locations influence the ways in which we live and experience the world. The initial  circumstances of loss we experience as an audience are those of a lost child within the white, Western familial unit, a loss of personal agency for the Mexican home keeper,  and within the Asian girl's life, a lost mother and a loss of hearing. The white couple also portray a loss of individual comfort within a foreign, "dangerous" land, exemplified in the wife's disdain toward the ice cubes in Brad Pitt's coke. The Middle Eastern boys loss of innocence after their mistaken target practice with a crowded bus takes a transnational turn on the televisions across the globe, describing the, quite innocent, shooting as a "terrorist" attack.  Would the same headlines have spread if the boys were American and practicing their shooting in Texas?  

      Important to the transnational loss theme are the Mexican woman and her nephew's loss of dignity at the border and the Asian girl's loss of esteem after failing to achieve the socially-advertised mandates of sexuality. At the border, the Mexican man and woman are treated as if they are mischievous, dark-hearted children, and the border patrol agents act like hounds rather than border representatives of the United States.  The nephew's anger and fear-filled compulsions lead to more loss for the Mexican woman, who loses her job and home at the whims of the aforementioned hounds. Borders and citizenship become entangled and complicated in the minds of the viewer, who should see the woman as a hardworking and relatable character. Due to the Asian girl's deafness and harsh (depressed) persona, she loses every chance at expressing her, prescribed, sexuality. At the start of the film she is teased for not partaking in sexual activity, and the media scenes and people throughout the city pulsate with Westernized sexuality, one the the girl is never able to realize. Here, the transnational notions of sexuality and beauty overpower the already fractured individual. Babel's multiple, interweaving narratives illustrate the ways in which an individual's circumstances construct and are constructed by various transnational vectors. 

Border Crossings: Babel & Brother, I'm Dying

Both Babel and Brother, I'm Dying illustrate how gender, race, and nation intersect in neo-colonial/neo-liberal settings to limit mobility and access of certain groups of people.

In Iñarritú's film Babel, form echoes content. The argument is for the time-space compression that Massey argues against. In seconds, we shift from scenes in Japan, to Morocco, to the U.S, to Mexico. We alternate between drugged clubbing in Tokyo to a San Diego border crossing. The world, Babel argues, is inextricably interrelated and interdependent. I was interested in how childhood was constructed in the film. The children in Morocco are shown shooting weapons, peeping at naked women, and masturbating. The white children in San Diego are shown as being naive and innocent, as opposed to their Mexican counterparts, who are entertained by a dying chicken. Part of me thinks that this is Iñarritú's illustration of childhood as it exists in each of these places, but I simultaneously believe that he is perpetuating racialized notions of sexuality and violence.

The first thing that struck me after reading Danticat's memoir Brother, I'm Dying was the structure. For the first two hundred pages or so, I was somewhat bored by the quotidian details of the narrative. The last third of the book, however, with its violence, its horrifying human rights abuses, are where the heart of the story is, for me. Danticat could have written a diatribe against U.S. immigration policies. I think, however, that the history, the intimate moments, that lead up to these final pages make it all the more harrowing. The beautiful moment where Danticat meditates on the fact that her uncle was born and died under U.S. control would not have had the same power had we not traveled through the previous eighty years or so of family history with her. The most obvious connections that I made to other texts we have read were to the history and dynamics from Taking Haiti and to the familial relationships from Children of Global Migration. Danticat writes of Marie Micheline telling her and her brother stories about her parents and she says "these types of anecdotes momentarily put our minds at ease, assuring us that we were indeed loved by the parent who left." (54) This reminded me of the Filipino children in Children of Global Migration who needed constant reassurance of love from their parents (mothers) who were working in other countries. I also appreciated the moments where Danticat related her family's experience to larger historical moments, as when she writes that "the lawyer answered that their ages were determined by examining their teeth. I couldn't escape this agonizing reminder of slavery auction blocks, where mouths were pried open to determine worth and state of health." (212)

When I look at these two texts together, I think of several themes that we have been discussing all semester. I think, firstly, of subjectivity vs. identity, as it applies to both people and lands. By this I mean that the same way that subjectivity is a person in relation to other people, bodies of land also assume subjectivities through our arbitrarily drawn borders and the meanings we attribute to those borders. In Noam Chomsky's article that we read, he argues that we should call the Western and Southwestern United States "Occupied Mexico." To me, this is completely absurd. Mexico is just as much a colonial construction/project as the United States is. Before there was Mexico there were indigenous groups with varied ideas about territory, ownership, and land-use. And there has always been conflict over land. I am by no means arguing that the United States has a right to those areas. What I'm arguing is that no one has an inherent right to any land, or an inherent right to ownership.

Interwoven Paternalism

Brother, I'm Dying was the perfect reading to follow up our viewing of Babel, in terms of the way that the story is told. Throughout Babel, viewers are left wondering the chronology of the story. I found myself asking over and over again, "Wait. Is this happening after what we just saw… Or before?" When Edwidge Danticat weaves together her story with the stories of her Haitian family, it reminds me of the interconnectedness of the stories in Babel. Danticat says that "what [she] learned from [her] father and uncle… was out of sequence and in fragments. This is an attempt at cohesiveness, and at re-creating a few wondrous and terrible months when their lives and [hers] intersected in startling ways, forcing [her] to look forward and back at the same time” (25-26).

In Brother, I'm Dying, Uncle Joseph's experience with customs at the airport in Miami also mirrored the treatment of the Mexican man and woman at the U.S./Mexican border in Babel. The way these officials are trained discursively to fear the "dangerous foreigner" and not tolerate any form of identity aside from that of the docile-- it's racism and ethnocentrism sneaking its way into policy in a clear way. The transparency of how these people are treated is there, and yet we don't act. It's frightening, really.

Danticat's story also mirrored the stories of children of global migration. I liked Danticat's perspective a lot, because we didn't see a neglected child lacking a paternal role model. Danticat loved her uncle and does not seem to mourn the absence of her father too much. However, it was strange for me to have the relationship between Danticat and her father in comparison to the relationship between Haiti and the United States, as the latter is framed as so paternalistic. The discourse of the US as the paternalistic savior just doesn't make sense when you read it in the contexts of stories like Danticat's and Taking Haiti.

US/Haitian Violence and Danger

In her memoir Brother, I’m Dying, Edwidge Danticat points out a number of issues prominent in the relationship between the US and Haiti.  She mentions specific historical and contemporary examples of the way in which the US has interfered in Haiti while relating these to stories about her family.  She then uses her own experiences with trying to immigrate to the US to illuminate the ways in which the US structures ideas about Haitian asylum seekers.  These issues relate to the formulations of borders and immigrants related in Wendy Brown’s book Walled States, Waning Sovereignty.  

Brown discusses how conditions of colonization and imperialism have resulted in present-day issues, pointing out in one example the fact that the Palestinian conditions that motivate violence against Israel were prompted by the founding of Israel as a nation-state.  Danticat reflects this in her discussion of her grandfather’s involvement in the guerrilla resistance to the US occupation.  He is shown as trying to protect his family and himself by shielding them from knowledge of his exact activities, but his son witnesses US violence and realizes that that is what is making certain places unsafe.  Her discussion of the violence of Haitian politics after the occupation points out the ways in which it caused the violence rather than fixing it.

Brown also discusses the ways in which immigrants to the US are framed in popular ideas.  While her examples are in a US/Mexico context, they are applicable to other contexts as well.  Specifically, she states that immigrants are framed as threats to the nation-state and its people.  This is shown in Danticat’s book when she discusses the medical examinations she and her brother had to undergo in order to be admitted to the US.  They had to show that they would not infect the people of the US with a disease and receive treatment for said disease before they were allowed to enter the country.  

How might the ideas of immigrants as bringing disease and danger influence decisions about who is examined for disease and who is not?  How might this affect native-born US citizens with contagious diseases?  What might this indicate about popular perceptions of the role of the government in public health decisions?

"mòde soufle"

In reading Brother I'm Dying, the concept that was most striking to me was the creole term "mòde soufle" which author Edwidge Danticat describes as a Creole term meaning "where those who are most able to obliterate you are also the only ones offering some illusion of shelter and protection, a shred of hope--even if false-- for possible restoration (204). Danticant introduces this term when she is describing the emotions felt by her uncle upon seeing a large amount of UN and Royal Canadian Mounted Police (204). This term is not limited to this one isolated incidence, but I would argue can also explain the entire narrative given in "Limbo." Throughout the family's dealings with the UN, CIMO, and CIVPOL they are told multiple times that these agencies were not here to aid the citizenry, or to aid in ending the war and instead the family was met with multiple instances in which officers would excuse their  lack of empathy with comments such as "we're in a war now... we'll see what happens after the war," as well as "if his neighbors were wounded and killed by Haitian police, there was nothing the UN could do" (201-203). The UN "peacekeepers" were to be seen as an agency that would stabilize a troubled nation undergoing political transition. However, the officers of these institutions offer the citizenry of Haiti no aid, and in fact re-enforce the war zone that the nation has become by rivaling the gangs in the streets forcing all of those within the area to walk around their own streets and alley ways as if crossing a mine field in which they could be shot and killed on either side by the gangs or the UN task force that had done little more than to further tensions with the gangs.

Throughout this reading, while probably obvious, I noticed a lot of the same instances of "mòde soufle" that occured in Taking Haiti. This was especially prevalent to Mary Renda's depiction of the role of paternalism in the act of colonizing Haiti. Renda explains the process of fostering a paternal relationship from one nation upon the other as "the relation of power implicit in the father-child dyad. In the paternalist framework, the relation of father to child was not only marked by the care, guidance, protection, and affection of the father for the child, but also by the father's proprietary claims to, and mastery over, the child" (104). This mirrors the actions taking place in Brother I'm Dying in that the UN and other international "aid" organizations were merely there to reap the economic benefits of a nation riddled with violence and the confusing construction of institutions that accompany a transitioning government. These western international communities were willing to be the executive policing agent in Haiti with the appearance of being dominant (by carrying guns and their uniforms), but were unwilling to aid in the political, economic, and domestic improvement that they had so bravely ensured the global community, was their primary objective.

Babel

For me, this movie was centered around language. The way we communicate. Do we find a commonality or a sense of solidarity with people whose language we share? Taking that one step further, do we feel a sense of disconnect with people with whom we cannot communicate using a common language? In Babel, the lack of communication-- more specifically, the language barriers-- create unfortunate circumstances with the most severe of consequences. These consequences were often a result of fear. Fear of the "other", the "stranger", the "foreign".

Of the story lines depicting an undying desire to communicate, Chieko (the Japansese girl who is deaf) seems most longing. She cannot use her mouth to speak, to feel a connection with others. So she resorts to using her body. I thought it was interesting, though, that the director decided to use this particular girl as the one whose body is constantly on display. Is it intentional? Considering the often hypersexualized body of Asian women, it seems likely. (What I am about to say is completely irrelevant to the movie's relation to transnational feminism… but, did anyone else feel like perhaps there was an inappropriate relationship between Chieko and her father? I have mentioned this to others who have seen the movie, but they didn't take that away from it.)

Another story line I found particularly interesting was the Mexican woman taking care of two white children. This woman was treated as a total criminal, someone doing something unforgivably wrong. We saw, through how she cared for the children, that she obviously did not deserve to be treated that way. However, I became aware of my own biases as we continue learning her story. I kept wondering, "What about the children? Where are the kids?" Why was their story more important for me to hear? Is it because of their age or because I see that familial structure more affected by tragedy? I don't know.

The link between the foreign to terrorism (as seen with the young kids) or crime (the Mexican woman) is really preposterous. Is there any solidarity, though? How can we, as people living in the United States, change this lens? Can we? Should we?

"Alien 27041999"

Brother, I’m Dying connects to a few of the viewing and reading selections we have had over the semester.  First, there is a strong connection to Children of Global Migration.  Edwidge does not live in the Philippines, but when her parents move to the United States she lives a life that is relatable to the children/adults interviewed in Parrenas’s work.  Globalization has forced parents to seek employment in another country and an extended familial network has had to step in.  In this case though, Edwidge becomes extremely close to her uncle and this substitute family is not like a substitute at all.  This IS her family and she feels her uncle is a father to her, not an alternative that leaves her lacking in some way.

The death of Edwidge’s uncle also runs parallel to the situation of the Mexican nanny in Babel.  Overzealous, prejudiced, rude, and impatient border patrol officials forever changed the lives of people because of rushed moments of judgment and incompetency.  The rudeness is clear in the way she describes how some of the official spoke to her.  Examining the Discretionary Checklist also shows lies and a complete lack of concern about the welfare of Joseph Dantica.  I also found the disjointing of the way Babel was told to cause the same kind of rupture when reading about Danticat’s father and learning of her pregnancy.  The two stories also have a biblical connection.  Babel refers to the story of the splintering of languages and utter confusion in the Bible.  Edwidge talks about how her uncle was named after Joseph in the Bible and was experiencing his own “afflictions” in Egypt (231).  It is poignant to note that the United States had become Egypt for Joseph, when it is often portrayed to immigrants all over the world as the equivalent of a biblical Israel, the land flowing of abundance and milk and honey.  This shows how information is portrayed in different ways depending on the producer.

Joseph wanted to see temporary asylum.  Like in Transnational America, we see that not everyone will get asylum.  Only certain types of people, with certain types of stories are granted asylum, others get question, put in prison, and killed.  I do feel Joseph was killed, because when you make the decision to treat someone in his condition the way he was treated, which included taking away his medication, you are making an informed decision about this man’s health.  These officials not only decided who was worthy of asylum and why, they also decided that Joseph was not worthy of his life. 

Edwidge Danticat

         “Brother I am Dying” was such a heartfelt novel. It allowed for true meaning of immigration to be unlocked and expounded upon. Haiti as an island is now viewed under a different lens for me now. In the novel, Danticat places a strong connection of family and illness. She shows not only the pain of her Uncle and Father through their eyes, but also through the eyes and bodies of their offspring and wives. The diseases to which her Uncle Joseph and father possess are deadly. They are not diseases for which there is a cure or even treatment for that matter. These setbacks in their lives does not hinder them to the point where they cannot perform physically all together, but they definitely do not make the process easier. With this being said, their belief in God seems to guide their lives, which is very different from the Americanized way of thinking with Haitians believing in Voodoo (which was later mentioned in formal papers regarding herbal remedies by an American officer).

            A major relation to the US government and Haiti was the issue Maxo and Uncle Joseph had with customs while in the Airport in Miami. I am aware Uncle Joseph spoke badly on his behalf, but the ways in which U.S. policy has no mercy on immigrants is almost scary to a certain extent. This was an individual whom had been traveling to the U.S. for over thirty years and had the documents to show, but was still treated as if he was a foreigner. A foreigner was where they immediately placed this eighty-one year old man with high blood pressure, an over-sized prostate, and a voice box. This was simply saying the U.S. only cares about the well-being of their own, outsiders vs. insiders. This event reminded me of the many immigrants which try to enter the United States even with the correct documents, and still stereotyped as persons of “unfit bodies.” This reminded me of discourse associated around native women transnationally through their bodies by White European men.

            Lastly, my main concern was created though the image Danticat gave the doctors in the U.S. in comparison to the Haitian doctors. She revealed the different types of advanced technology presented in the U.S.; therefore, reinforcing the idea of First World vs. Third World. She also takes a couple steps back and mentions the after effects of such major surgeries. Although, America was the place for “supposedly” better medical treatment, it was also a place of “sorry, there’s nothing else I can do.” In which, the herbal remedies from the Haitian doctors were taken into high consideration for healing. In all, America is viewed as a place of freedom, but only conditioned freedom. It is only the land of the free for those who are truly free. Are any of us, people of color I mean, really free from bondage here in the U.S.? This is a question I would like to investigate as a U.S. citizen born and raised. 

Babel

One of the many interesting aspects of the movie Babel is the way its title reflects many of the themes of its plot and narrative structure.  The title is a reference to the Biblical story of Babel, wherein the people of that city decide to build a tower to reach to heaven, and God fragments their language and scatters them all over the earth as punishment.  

The same kinds of confusion and communication difficulties are a major theme of the movie.  This is reflected most obviously in the plot, which hinges on a number of communication issues.  The seller of the rifle misrepresents its range and accuracy, the tourists on the bus jump to conclusions, the border patrol officers do not listen to the woman they found in the desert, and the hearing boy refuses to try and talk to the deaf girl.  These communication issues range from deliberate lies to misunderstandings to genuine problems with communicative modes.  

Additionally, the narrative structure of the movie mimics the experience of confusion and miscommunication for the viewer.  The thread of the plot does not follow one part of the story to its completion and does not put the events in chronological order.  In this way the viewer’s experience is more confusing and difficult to follow than a movie organized more straightforwardly would be.  The choice to remove the sound from portions of the scenes in Japan with Chieko, and the juxtaposition of these portions with ones with full sound, creates a more acute sense of the societal communication problems she faces.

The plot and narrative structure thus find reflection in the title of the movie.  Important to note, additionally, is the number and variety of languages spoken in the movie.  Moroccan Arabic, American English, British English, Japanese, Japanese Sign Language, and Mexican Spanish are all represented.  The representation of these languages highlights, in a different way than does the plot, some difficult aspects of transnational flows of products, ideas, and people.  And, of course, it relates directly back to the story of Babel.

11/11/2013-Connecting

Edwidge Danticat’s Brother, I’m Dying, described her personal experience with being an immigrant in the United States. This not only made the reading more enjoyable but added to the ability to find significance in certain scenarios. When reading about what would have been a pleasurable time in someone’s life be compared to a level of death, made me question the actual relationship that existed among the parent and child. There seemed to be some sort of emotional disconnect, which was later to be discussed to have come from being raised not by her father, Mira, but by his brother, Joseph, until him and her mother brought her to live with them when she was twelve. She looked at them as if they were her parents and felt the parental connection with the ones who had raised her.  This reminded me of Children of Global Migration, but also of the many narratives I've read that involve the parents leaving their children behind to make a life for them and having a trusted relative raise them until the parents are ready for them.

            These types of parent-child relationships add strain to the relationships and often create hostility amongst siblings if some are with the parents while the others are being raise by other relatives. Edwidge felt this way towards her parents, I felt that there seemed to be more of a protective connection for her father from her brother who had known no other parents than their biological mother and father. This is not to take away from Edwidge and her father’s connection, because when she found out she was pregnant it seemed that his possible death plagued her ability to enjoy the moment, as she began to think of purely negative thoughts of her father passing, her passing, and even of her child passing. She even mentioned that she had felt the initial cramps she felt were due to her father’s illness that in itself felt showed that she had some type of connection with her father. My question for this is whether it would have been the same type of connection if it had been Joseph, or if it may have been viewed differently sense he was who she saw initially as a father?

Week 13: Mobility and Containment: Historical Fiction/Autobiography

        Edwidge Danticat's Brother, I'm Dying has many connections to Children of Global Migration.  Indeed, Danticat's book is a narrative of her family's experience as they moved to their eventual home in the United States after leaving Haiti.  Examples of how Danticat is a child of global migration include being a child of an initial father-away family.  She states that, "Until that moment, aside from the butter cookies and the restrained words of his letters, my father had mostly been a feeling for me, powerful yet vague, without a real face, a real body" (88).  And once her mother left to join her father in America, Danticat was left with her brother Bob in the charge of her aunt and uncle.  Indeed, Danticat came to consider her aunt and uncle more like her parents than her real mother and father.  This is evident when her parents came to visit them in Haiti surprisingly almost ten years later accompanied with her two new siblings.  She recalled that, "Looking down at Karl, snugly cradled in our mother's arms, I couldn't help but feel envious.  If she could bring him here from New York, why hadn't she been able to take Bob and me with her when she left" (91)?  When it came time for her and Bob to join her parents and siblings much later, Danticat states that, "There's a Haitian saying, 'Pitit noun se lave yon bo, kite yo bo.'  When you bathe the other people's children, it says, you should wash one side and leave the other side dirty" (120).  Her attachment with her aunt and uncle made her reluctant to join her parents yet she performed in such as way as others would expect such as when they are at the consulate and the man asks her if she is excited to see her parents again.  What would the man have done if she had said no, not really?  Would that reflect poorly on the child or the parents?  The parents it would seem more likely because they were the ones that initiated the separation in the first place, thus it cannot come as a surprise if all children of paretn-away families may be initially reluctant to return to the care of their rightful mother and father.  In cases of parent-away families where the both the parents have willingly left their children to seek jobs and lives elsewhere, would it be better for their children to remain in the care of their relatives they are living with instead of rejoining their parents when and if there was such a possibility?

Babel

The interconnections in this film were highly complex.  The film gave the audience clues as to these connections with the many different narratives that unfolded.  The one that I was most surprised with was the story that took place in Japan.  How could such a highly technological city be connected with a family in the Morocco?  In the beginning chapters of Brother, I'm Dying we see how transnationalism is alive and well due to the vast array of racial backgrounds she and her father encounter at the doctor's office much like there is a vast array of ethnicities in the film "Babel."  People across the globe unseemingly connected to one another.  The connection is an interesting one since the item in question that has brought all these stories together is a gun.  A masculine and deadly device, the exchange of the gun foreshadows the ensuing exchanges between the American victim, her husband, and the local community that they take refuge in as well as the exchanges involved when the American family's maid and their children cross the border into Mexico.  Perhaps the most obvious exchange is present in the Japanese girl.  Her exchange lies within her developing sexuality which must compensate for her deft and muteness so that she does not seem like a "monster."  All encounter a bordered space whether physically or mentally through identity.  The border between the U.S. and Mexico is the most solid example of this, something that Wendy Brown discusses in her book Walled States, Waning Sovereignty.  The border patrol acts to invoke the sovereignty of America by monitoring who gets in, which in this case happens to be the caretaker of the American family who was involved with a accident in Morocco.  The police officers that come to question the Japanese girl's father, one of these officers the girl tries to take advantage of, question the man as to whether the gun he owned was that which was used in the shooting, thus connecting the Japanese narrative to those unfolding in Morocco.  There is also a bordered network involved in the American shooting where there is a language barrier and a larger political one wherein the American family must wait for the the necessary precautions to take place from the American consulate in order to get the woman to a hospital.  And then there is the a similar barrier with speech and overall understanding between the Japanese girl and those she is attracted to.     

The Common Connection

The Common Connection

 

by Ben Woodruff

I really thought about what really connected the stories in the cleanest way possible. Naturally when discussing the characters I must look at the larger culture that they are part of and conformed by. The character that I was really drawn to was in my eyes the star. 

It was that Winchester 70. I couldn't tell from the scenes if it was chambered for 7mm or .30-03 but I looked it up later and discovered it was in fact a 7mm (.270). The Winchester 70 is a classic sporting rifle that was very popular in the United States during the 40's and 50's. I knew the rifle because it was the rifle used by US Marine snipers during the Vietnam War and in particular it was the rifle used by Carlos Hathcock. I bring this up because of the story of the boys. 

The boys were wishing to perform an impossible task. When selling the rifle to the father, the merchant told him that the range was 3 kilometers. Even Gunny Hathcock, former holder of the greatest range of a successful sniper shot and former holder of the greatest number of confirmed kills, could not hit a target at that distance with that rifle. They were ignorant of course and because of this, coupled with the lack of understanding in over penetration, they shot at vehicles driving on a lonely road. American children have done similar actions because they see cars in movies stopping bullets while the police and bank robbers shooting at each other. 

But from where did this weapon come? We later learned that it came from a Japanese hunter. This was very interesting to me because unlike the United States, citizens of Japan do not own rifles (with very few exceptions being those that legally owned rifles in 1971). It is not uncommon for Japanese to go to other countries for hunting or sport shooting but they will generally rent weapons in that country. That means that while the movie has the Japanese hunter as the origin it necessarily cannot be the case. Instead he must have acquired the rifle in Morocco. 

The story with the Japanese family therefore how the fact he flew to a country to kill an animal on safari, acquired and then disposed of the weapon, and returned still had that weapon follow him. The police were investigating because a Japanese man with a rifle is something so unusual that they really felt that they must investigate and in so doing they were reopening wounds in that family that still had not healed. 

When looking at the impact in San Diego and TJ, that was really interesting. The rifle of course was manufactured in New Haven and Marines train in San Diego but the connection really had nothing to do with that. Instead it was the fact that the rifle suddenly delayed the return of the parents that impacted the domestic laborer (who was not legally allowed to hold that job by US law).  

The nanny had made arrangements to be free to see her family down in Tijuana for the wedding of her son. The fact that this was such an important event in her family did not matter to her employer because of the injury to his wife. 

The children were able to see Mexico but the fear of the stop at the border would more likely be internalized as Mexico being dangerous than the US being fearful. 

I found it so interesting that the law enforcement in Japan, Moroco, and the United States were the point of conflict. Obviously the results were very different in each case but it was still the action of the power of the state that resulted in people being hurt in each country (except of course for the woman shot).

Babel Analysis

One of the most obvious ways in which Babel presents a transnational image is through the interwoven stories of each of the individuals in the narrative, though they are positioned in vastly different geographic locations, communities, and political environments. The film is staged around the American family and their involvement in foreign geographies that result in subsequent problems spanning around the world. This is obviously a tip of the hat to the Western world constantly expressing its supremacy over all other nationalities, in a way that all of their actions are centered around the decisions of the white, western family. Kate Blanchett's character represents the imperialist American society and our disgust with things of foreign origin, as well as her fear of the dark skinned natives of the Middle East. Her disgust with their entire community peaks with her refusal to accept help from a local veterinarian to patch up her gunshot wound. Though, she needs this man's aid to close the draining hole in her shoulder/neck for fear she would bleed out, she fights him every step of the way screaming and kicking as he sterilizes the needle and begins to sew her back up.
A second topic that is directly portrayed on the screen is Massey's space-time compression in which the mobility of the white imperialist family, disallows their nanny, Amelia's, mobility. Because of the needs of those privileged enough to move and take advantage of the ever progressing space-time compression, her ability to move is lessened. By their traveling to the Middle East she is unable to leave the children and must consider the white family's needs before her own. She is ultimately deported because of her involvement with white children.
Amelia's nephew is also the victim of transnational problems when he is criminalized by the border patrol. Because he and his Aunt are presumed lying about the white children that they are returning home, he must turn to criminal action in order to flee the racist and violent border patrol. Amelia's nephew was a well meaning man, with no intent of disobeying the American laws to the extent to which he did upon contact with the border patrol.
The children that are taken to Amelia's son's wedding also represent budding, though ignorant white imperialism when one of the children proclaims, "isn't Mexico full of criminals?" When the children are mixed in with the celebration of all of the darker Mexican children, they have as good a time as any. They fit in with the family and are made to feel content. This raises the notion of an ignorant white imperialism that objectifies the migrant and the community from which they come as "savage" and "brutish."
I would also like to mention something Sierra brought up in class that it is the white woman who gets away safely with all of the support of the political institution, yet it is the Asian girl and the Latina that suffer as a result of the white family's choices.