Roots Across Borders: Daughter of Haiti

I left Haiti when I was nine, carrying a small suitcase, a handful of memories, and a heart already tethered to a homeland I was leaving behind. The scent of rain on red clay, the distant rhythms of drums in the streets..all of it stayed with me, quietly stitched into the fabric of who I was becoming. My mother’s political career had placed our family at the center of Haiti’s turbulent currents, and moving to the United States was both a leap for safety and a step into the unknown.

Even as I learned new streets, new schools, and a new language, Haiti traveled with me as a persistent pulse beneath my own. It lived in the songs we sang at home, the stories my mother shared of courage and endurance, and the flavors of meals that made every bite feel like a bridge to the past.

For years, I never felt fully at home in either place. Memories of Haiti sometimes felt distant and romanticized, a homeland I could not fully inhabit. The United States felt foreign, a place where difference marked me in ways I couldn’t always name. I was neither “here” nor “there,” and that in-between space could be lonely, confusing, and tender all at once.

Yet it was in that tension that I began to grow. I learned that belonging isn’t about geography but it is about the stories you carry, the values you embrace, and the faith and resilience that guide you. I discovered it’s possible to honor your roots while stepping into a new life, carrying both heritage and adaptation without diminishing either.

I am proud of my Haitian roots, though I do not define myself as a nationalist. My faith as a Bahá’í teaches me that we are part of a global family, yet my culture remains a compass, shaping my worldview, my creativity, and my capacity for resilience. Haiti’s history shows that endurance is not a single act, it is a rhythm, a steady ability to rise again and again.

Creativity flows through my heritage like a river: vibrant, uncontainable, and full of life. From the music and dance of my childhood to the way my mother’s political work wove story and purpose together, I inherited an instinct to create, to transform challenges into expression, and to find beauty in the act of making. Today, whether through cooking, writing, photography, or living intentionally, I feel those roots guiding my hands and my heart.

Moving to the United States layered my identity, taught me that roots and wings can coexist.

I carry Haiti with me, as a heartbeat beneath my own. I am proud of my ancestry, my culture, and the stories that shaped me, without needing borders to define my belonging.

To grow into oneself is to honor the past while stepping fully into the present. My Haitian heritage is both anchor and compass. It informs my worldview, nurtures my creativity, and deepens my sense of connection, faith, and possibility. Leaving Haiti at nine did not mean leaving it behind, but to carry it forward, quietly and persistently, in every choice I make and every story I tell.

Haiti lives in me, nostalgic yes, and as an ongoing pulse of strength, artistry, and heart. And in that pulse, I continue to grow, fully alive, deeply rooted, and ever becoming myself, learning still that belonging is not a place, but a journey.

Now, as a mother to a boy, my connection to Haiti takes on new meaning. I dream of a time when he will speak our language with ease, walk the the land, gaze at the mountains that shaped my childhood, and swim in the ocean that has cradled generations of our family. I hope he will know Haiti in his own way, not just as a distant memory or a story I tell, or worse; from the news channels but as a living, breathing part of who he is.

In guiding him, I see the legacy of resilience, creativity, and heart that my ancestors have passed down.

My journey; leaving, belonging between worlds, and growing into myself now extends into his story. Through him, Haiti continues, vibrant and alive, in new rhythms, new discoveries, and new beginnings.