People who want alternative information have to try so hard to find it.

Salt is a powerful symbol in Haiti, as elsewhere. Salt of the earth, for example is an American phrase. In Haiti, myth and legend has it that if you are turned into a zombie, if someone gives you a taste of salt, then you can come back to life. And in the life of the fishermen, there are so many little things about salt that I wanted to incorporate. The salt in the air. The crackling of salt in the fire. There's all this damage, this peeling of the fishing boats from the sea salt. But there is also healing from it, sea baths that are supposed to heal all kinds of aches and wounds.

I think it is important to reach people through arts and literature, because then you establish a connection that's not an instant crisis.

Toni Cade Bambara said: “Writing is the way I participate in the struggle.”

After the Dance was my first attempt at nonfiction. I'd never really participated in carnival, and I really wanted to go. It sounded like a wonderfully fun thing to do. And I wanted to write something happy about Haiti, something celebratory. And going to carnival gave me a chance to do that, because it is one of the instances in Haiti when people shed their class separation and come together.

There [Haiti] were also leaders like Jean-Jacques Dessalines, whose motto was, "Cut their heads off, burn their houses."

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?