I like this back and forth between the past and the present, between memory and reality. - Évelyne Trouillot

These words come back to remind me that I am a slave, and it is in this truth that my strength lies. Whether a field slave or a house slave, man, woman, or child, the slave is a creature who has lost his soul between the mill and the sugarcane, between the ship's hold and its steerage, between the crinoline and the slap in the face. Shame stains our every gesture. When we place our feet, undeserving of shoes, on the ground, when we let our exhausted bodies fall on cornhusk mattresses, and when we swing the bamboo fans, we crush our souls under the weight of our shame. Only our gestures of revolt truly belong to us. (p62)

This is a year not just to celebrate the past; it is a year to build, to change, to question, to recover our history and demystify it.

After each of our encounters filled with love and pain, she would tell me: "Your story must dwell, vigilant, under your skin, at the tips of your hair. Each piece that you add to it grows roots and stars for your dreams." (p20)