Haiti in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s was a time when thousands of Haitians began to flee poverty and repression. They made their escape by sea, often arriving in south Florida. In the epistolary Children of the Sea, two anonymous lovers write letters to each other about their experiences on their unique paths. Their relationship is opposed by the father of the woman, who returns his disapproval with hatred until she begins to understand the sacrifices he has made for her safety and his desperate desire to preserve that safety. Her would-be Romeo is a member of the Youth Federation, an activist organization whose members are routinely killed by the military government. Even Romeo (for lack of another name) realizes the danger he was in, fleeing Haiti on a boat filled with huddled masses yearning to breathe free, though they aim for a less celebrated port than the one guarded by the New Colossus.
In the end, even …show more content…
There were terrorists on TV, on the Internet, in newspapers and magazines. However, these terrorists were not always simply derided as the mentally-ill maniacs of my mother’s generation. They were religious fundamentalists or Muslim extremists and entered the cultural zeitgeist as such. An entire community was tarred with the same ethnically dark brush.
I was born at the turn of the century, to a Muslim family. By Islamic law, I was born a Muslim. By the time I was four years old, when seemingly half of the world’s armies occupied Afghanistan and Iraq, I had begun to learn about my heritage and religion. Even (or, perhaps, especially) at that young age, my peers often mocked me for my differences. Though I could not have named the sitting president and I did not understand the concept of war, I knew that older kids thought, for some reason, that someone called Osama was my uncle, and if I wore a puffy jacket, they might accuse me of being a suicide
In the end, even …show more content…
There were terrorists on TV, on the Internet, in newspapers and magazines. However, these terrorists were not always simply derided as the mentally-ill maniacs of my mother’s generation. They were religious fundamentalists or Muslim extremists and entered the cultural zeitgeist as such. An entire community was tarred with the same ethnically dark brush.
I was born at the turn of the century, to a Muslim family. By Islamic law, I was born a Muslim. By the time I was four years old, when seemingly half of the world’s armies occupied Afghanistan and Iraq, I had begun to learn about my heritage and religion. Even (or, perhaps, especially) at that young age, my peers often mocked me for my differences. Though I could not have named the sitting president and I did not understand the concept of war, I knew that older kids thought, for some reason, that someone called Osama was my uncle, and if I wore a puffy jacket, they might accuse me of being a suicide