Edwidge Danticat (Part 2)

In the second part of our conversation, Edwidge Danticat takes a “transnational” view of the “cosmic mobility” in a globalizing economy and culture. She says: “Even before people get here, they’re working for you, making your baseballs and denims.” About Iraq, she says, Haitian memory begins with the US invasion by President Woodrow Wilson in 1915 and the occupation of Haiti until 1934 — “one of the most scarring things that ever happened to us… The Haitian in me sees the circularity in these things… It takes a long time to recover from these interventions and occupations.” I ask her, as I did Junot Diaz, to write us an immigration bill that corresponds with real demography and her own heart’s experience.