Explores the way writers address the formation and fate of the contemporary American working class in an age of neoliberal globalization. Specifically, the essay examines Russell Banks's 1985 novel Continental Drift, which interweaves the stories of two characters who pull up stakes and head to Florida in search of a better life: an oil furnace repair man from New Hampshire and a young, single mother from Haiti.
Argues that Haiti must begin immediately to lay the foundations for a society that will improve significantly on that of the last two hundred years, that two of the critical groups in that process will be women and young professionals, and therefore that high quality human rights education is needed to assure their political, economic and professional empowerment.
Child trafficking, under the guise of intercountry adoption, is a form of human trafficking that is often misunderstood by policy makers, governments, the media, and nongovernmental organizations. Uses the 2010 abduction attempt of Haitian children by American missionaries as a case to demonstrate how existing policies are insufficient to provide protection to victims and to prosecute perpetrators of this form of child trafficking.
While at its inception, the revolutionary ideals of the newly formed nation called Haiti held great promise, the reality as understood today detracts from this plesant image . Still , our rituals and their symbolic associations mirror these revolutionary ideals. For example, soup joummou, the New Year's and Independence Day celebratory pumpkin soup, signifies the communion of equals through the consumption of the once forbidden delicacy reserved for the colonial masters. Today, as family and friends gather around the dinner table, we are clearly proud of our freedom and accomplishments, yet know that there are countless Haitians who are hungry, sleeping under tents. Two hundred and eight years after independence, many Haitians live in abject poverty and have no rights as humans.