The Forgotten Occupation: Jim Crow Goes to Haiti
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Filmmaker Alain Martin frames the forgotten history of his country's brutal occupation at the hands of the United States as an epistolary that finds him penning a letter to his deceased grandfather about the subject. He confesses to Brunel Martin, the grandfather in question, his ambivalence and his sense of guilt in making a film which will frame him-Brunel-as the antagonist, given that Brunel is the one that raised him. The film, Alain tells his grandfather, is one that is going to be critical of the latter's view on race, class, the United States, Haiti and Haitian themselves. The making of the documentary, Alain informs his grandfather, was inspired by a particular childhood memory of him-Brunel-and another family member as they bemoaned the current state of affairs plaguing their beloved Haiti all the while dreaming about it being taken over by the United States, for they saw in the United States the only path forward for Haiti. And yet, Alain reminds his grandfather, a century ago, Haiti was occupied by the United States and that occupation, wrought with unspeakable violence, Jim Crow style racism, largely left behind the Haiti of today. Through the epistolary, Brunel Martin emerges as a man who loved telling stories to his grandson and yet, he never once mentioned the United States Occupation of Haiti, a fact that confounds Alain as his grandfather was not only born during the occupation but spent the first thirteen years of his life under its dictatorship. And so the grandson now assumes the role of the story teller, as he sets out to tell his grandfather the story of the now forgotten subjugation of Haiti by Washington.