I'm not saying Cubans don't deserve asylum, but if it is a national security issue, there are people who are coming from Cuba on hijacked airplanes. Why isn't that a national security issue?

We need literature because we wouldn’t fully know ourselves without it. We need good literature to be fully human.

Once you're involved in the work, it's really just you and the characters and the words.

And the fact that Haiti was occupied for 19 years by the United States, from 1915 to 1934.

People often think of Haiti as a place where you're not supposed to have any joy. I wanted to show that this is a place with joy.

It seemed from the media that we were being told that all Haitians had AIDS. At the time, I had just come from Haiti. I was twelve years old, and the building I was living in had primarily Haitians. A lot of people got fired from their jobs. At school, sometimes in gym class, we'd be separated because teachers were worried about what would happen if we bled. So there was really this intense discrimination.

I also know there are timeless waters, endless seas, and lots of people in this world whose names don't matter to anyone but themselves. I look up at the sky and I see you there.