Taking Haiti

            Identities are not fixed, nor are they easily defined. Terms like “American”, for example, mean different things to each person who uses it as a part of their identity. This was true of the marines who went to Haiti during the Occupation. The only thing they all had in common was their whiteness, Americanness, and being marines, which united them against the strange—to them—and sometimes frightening country and culture they were going into. The presence of immigrants and the children of immigrants, who had experienced “Americanization” processes through history lessons, patriotic lessons, pageants/ceremonies, derogation of immigrant customs, and etc. must have not only made “American” more difficult to define, but also, influenced the ways individual marines interacted with Haitian culture and citizens. The fear of losing their identities and becoming like the Haitians, of joining their way(s) of life seemed very strong. The lines had to be very clearly drawn. The marines were men; the Haitians were non-men, even the males. The marines were the fathers, or at times, wise older brothers, and the Haitians were the children and younger siblings, benefiting from their guidance.

            This fluidity of identity reminded me a bit of Freedom Papers. The identities of that family changed constantly, at least outwardly. Acquiring new documents, losing or destroying old ones, leaving one country for another, all could change their identity, and if French citizenship papers are enough to change one’s citizenship status in spite of publicly claiming U.S. citizenship previously, how much more fragile might a person’s identity be living for years in a new country?

            The paternalism displayed by the marines and in the writing supporting the Occupation sounds very similar to the ways we—the general, blanket we, as “Americans” talk about people from Third World countries, and it reminded me a lot of the need to “save” Third World women. The marines saw the Haitians culture as primitive; they needed to civilize them and bring them into the modern age. While some of the “improvements” they made may not have been unnecessary or unwanted—who would argue a hospital or sewer system are bad things in and of themselves?—the ways they went about making the improvements made them so.

            The ways marines interacted with Haitian women reminded me of “Making Empires Respectable.” The rape and abuse of women in both situations is obvious, but the absence of white women and respectable white households and gender relations being cast as one of the reasons why marines in Haiti were experiencing a moral breakdown. When European women were brought into the colonies, they were supposed to maintain the moral standards of the European community. Before and without their presence, such standards weren’t nearly as important.