WEBVTT - The Destroyed Palace 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:09.480 Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. In fact, 0:00:09.840 --> 0:00:12.200 I am consumed by the whole conundrum of being a 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:16.320 child and a parent, the spiritual hurt of absentee parents, 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:20.600 the way that parents have complicated lives before having children, 0:00:21.360 --> 0:00:24.560 the parents one thinks one has, the parents one might 0:00:24.560 --> 0:00:27.639 wish to have had, The way that family members go 0:00:27.800 --> 0:00:31.000 missing on each other, And the way, no matter how 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:35.159 kindly a family thinks, it is bonded by hardship. Parents 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:39.640 and children sometimes become more intimately known by strangers than 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:44.240 by one another, and more children don't know their parents 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:52.680 or deals. That's rich Benjamin political analyst, cultural anthropologist, speaker, 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:57.160 and author of Searching for White Topia, An Improbable Journey 0:00:57.200 --> 0:01:00.440 into the Heart of White America. We which is is 0:01:00.480 --> 0:01:03.440 a story of silence within a family, the kind of 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:07.200 silence that is like a blanket, muffling every potential question, 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:11.560 thrown over every curiosity, until there are no more questions. 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:15.800 There is no more curiosity. But when an inquisitive child 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:20.560 evolves into a deeply thoughtful adult, a journalist, there comes 0:01:20.560 --> 0:01:23.560 a time when the need to know and understand becomes 0:01:23.600 --> 0:01:39.679 more powerful than the silence itself. I'm Danny Shapiro, and 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:42.720 this is family secrets, secrets that are kept from us, 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:45.399 the secrets we keep from others, and the secrets we 0:01:45.480 --> 0:01:54.680 keep from ourselves. I grew up mostly in a suburb 0:01:55.280 --> 0:02:00.200 of Washington, d C. Called the Festa Maryland, and it 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:03.480 was so monochrome that one of the people who went 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:06.720 to high school years before I did was called Darren 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:11.720 Starr And who came up with a script called Potomac 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:14.720 two oh eight five four, which is the suburb I 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:18.920 grew up with. But Hollywood studio executives didn't want it 0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:21.440 to be about Maryland, and so he changed his script 0:02:22.080 --> 0:02:24.720 and he called it Beverly Hills nine to one oh. 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:26.960 So that gives the kind of sense of where I 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:29.640 grew up and how I grew up a suburb of Washington, 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:32.560 d C. But we also moved around quite a bit 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:36.120 because of where my father's work took me. I have 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:40.919 a twin sister, an older sister, and an older brother 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:43.600 in my twin and I we are the youngest in 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:48.680 the family. What was your mother like the mother of 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:53.480 your childhood? The mother of my childhood was very fierce 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:58.519 and determined. She was stern. My friends at the time 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:04.320 were required to call her Mrs Benjamin. And sometimes if 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:08.120 you asked her something and you replied, you didn't just 0:03:08.120 --> 0:03:13.040 say yes, because then she would quit yes dog, cat monkey, 0:03:13.120 --> 0:03:16.400 and that was your cue to say yes mom or 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:20.560 yes mother. So that being said, she had to be 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:24.560 attentive to me because I had a blood disorder called 0:03:24.560 --> 0:03:28.799 sickle cell anemia, so we spent a lot of time 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:33.840 going to the doctor together. A lot of conversations were had, 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:37.080 but also a lot of silences. Even though we'd spent 0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:40.960 a lot of time going to medical doctors, there were 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:45.960 no exact stories at all ever told about her past 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:49.440 when I was in grade school and when we commuted 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:52.960 to the blood doctors together. But there was a fierceness 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:56.760 I remember of her protectiveness to me, the way she 0:03:56.800 --> 0:03:59.680 wanted me to be batt already, the way I always 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:04.520 fell uh survivor mentality in her, and I couldn't understand 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:07.720 what it was or why it is. I just assumed 0:04:07.840 --> 0:04:10.680 it was medical that she wanted me to survive this 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:16.200 blood disorder because when I was born, one and four 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:21.040 children would not survive this disease, and the life expectancy 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:23.400 for me at the time would have been forty years old. 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:27.040 If I were lucky. How long was that period of 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:30.200 time of that kind of fear about your health? How 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:35.039 long did that last? It lasts to this day, but 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:38.960 at the time, you know, it's lasting in my childhood. 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:43.960 It's kind of really creeping up into every dynamic of 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:48.120 our relationship. And sometimes if I don't return my mother's 0:04:48.120 --> 0:04:53.719 call soon enough, or if she suspects something in my voice, 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:57.960 such as she suspects I might have an infection, it 0:04:58.080 --> 0:05:00.320 returns me to that six year old self where my 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:03.560 mother is saying, what did you do to deserve to 0:05:03.560 --> 0:05:06.400 be sick? Or oh, my goodness, are you really calling 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:08.599 me from an emergency room and not letting me know. 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:12.400 I remember, as a full grown at all, I went 0:05:12.520 --> 0:05:18.120 hiking in Montana and I caught walking pneumonia and with 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:20.680 they also the altitude of the high kick. It kind 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:25.520 of triggered this medical crisis. And then my mother and 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:28.279 I are having the same conversations and dynamic that we 0:05:28.360 --> 0:05:31.279 had when I was a young boy. Just lives inside 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:35.680 the relationship lives inside both of you. And tell me 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:39.360 about your father, the father of your childhood, the father 0:05:39.400 --> 0:05:45.080 of my childhood was very breezy, very effusive. People loved him. 0:05:45.320 --> 0:05:49.159 People wanted to spend time around him. He worked extremely hard, 0:05:49.760 --> 0:05:54.800 it was extremely generous. He was ebulent, and we often 0:05:54.880 --> 0:05:57.200 joked that if you wanted something, you went to my 0:05:57.320 --> 0:05:59.719 father and not my mother, because if you went to 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:01.599 my mother, you'd get a stern no, but if you 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:05.400 went to my father, you get a yes. And this 0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:10.200 pertains to our dogs spending antica, and it pertains to 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:14.000 one thing. And my mother always scolded my father for 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:17.120 being impractical as she saw it. I mean, one time 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:21.520 he returned and it's a Saturday afternoon and there's a 0:06:21.600 --> 0:06:25.479 scold Lexus in the drive way and all the kids, 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:28.440 needless to say, are enamored by it, and we're jumping 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:33.480 and hooting around this car. And my mother was furious 0:06:34.120 --> 0:06:37.880 and she gave my father a dressing down. You know, 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:41.160 why do you borry this car o on a whim? 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:43.320 You know we're going to be suffering for this if So, 0:06:43.400 --> 0:06:46.880 there was that dynamic. And also the final thing I'll 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:51.720 say is my father tended to have the better taste. 0:06:52.320 --> 0:06:55.800 He was the more humanistic and the more creative, and 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:58.680 so he was often delegated with kind of decorating our 0:06:58.720 --> 0:07:03.400 houses and that kind of thing. Partly they came from 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:06.080 similar backgrounds in the sense that they both grew up 0:07:06.120 --> 0:07:11.680 with so many siblings seven and eight apiece. Um. They 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:17.680 both grew up under very ethically honest parents who wouldn't 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:23.040 steal a penny. They both grew up under stern, hard 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:27.640 working parents. So the irony is they had very similar 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:34.200 backgrounds growing up in these sort of uh nuclear families 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:40.560 of multiple children with hard working and effective and successful 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:44.520 parents in their own worlds. But they had very, very, 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:49.680 very different personalities. And I think my father had more 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:55.120 stability growing up. My mother's had more instability growing up 0:07:55.160 --> 0:08:02.440 with all the political turmoil surrounding her family's home. One 0:08:02.480 --> 0:08:05.320 thing Rich does know about his mother's family history as 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:07.480 he grows up is that she came to the US 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:10.480 from Haiti when she was thirteen, But this fact is 0:08:10.560 --> 0:08:14.080 shrouded in mystery. It's never spoken about. He doesn't know 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:19.040 any specifics about this journey. I couldn't have told you 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:22.280 whether they came on a boat or raft a plane. 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:26.160 I assume it was a plane. But I couldn't have 0:08:26.200 --> 0:08:29.440 told you when they left. I couldn't have told you 0:08:30.400 --> 0:08:33.920 precisely why they left. I couldn't have told you what 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:38.240 their mood or their fears or their anxieties were when 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:41.200 they left. I couldn't have told you what happened when 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:45.120 they landed. I literally didn't have a detail to tell you. 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:50.679 When you say they, who's they? They is my mother 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:55.240 and her younger siblings who all came together. But it 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:59.760 also applies to her parents, Daniel and Carmen. I couldn't 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:03.760 tell you the circumstances and the details of how her 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:08.840 parents arrived to America in ninety seven. Either when was 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:12.840 the first time that you felt in any way curious 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:16.920 or that you registered the absence of the stories, you know, 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:23.320 the stories that weren't being told. That's funny looking back. Subconsciously, 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:28.120 that I was not being told these stories was registering 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:33.760 because I was hearing from classmates, you know, in high school. 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:38.040 They would say, oh, my ancestors came from Ireland during 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:41.920 the potato famine, or oh, you know, my ancestors came 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:45.320 from Ukraine during the programs, you know, at the turn 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:48.959 of the last century. So it began to register subconsciously 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:52.040 that this was a secret and that it was not 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:56.280 being talked about. But I never pressed it more. And 0:09:56.400 --> 0:09:59.440 also I would say when I graduated from high school 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:03.559 and people's grandparents turned up, you know, with their white 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:06.760 hair and their sweater sets in their cardigans and that 0:10:06.840 --> 0:10:10.080 kind of thing. Or when I would see a grandfather 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:13.400 in a Christmas commercial, it would register to me that 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:18.720 way a second, Uh, where's your grandfather? But in those 0:10:18.800 --> 0:10:22.000 kind of subconscious and subtle ways it registered to me 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:27.240 growing up, and then it really hit me only as 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:31.920 an adult, like many kids who have grown up in 0:10:31.960 --> 0:10:35.800 strict homes. In riches home, there's no cursing, no dating, 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:39.600 no smoking, no drinking. So when it comes time for college, 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:44.040 he flees to Wesleyan University, an ideal environment in that 0:10:44.120 --> 0:10:48.360 it's intellectually rigorous and also a hard party school. Rich 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:51.240 loves it there, and upon graduation he moves to New 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:56.679 York City, hungry for more. It was a similar trajectory 0:10:56.720 --> 0:11:01.720 in similar circumstances, where there was a fever in me 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:05.360 and I'm running from my past, I'm running from strictness. 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:09.120 I'm running from just kind of a mi las I 0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:12.160 couldn't put my finger on. And the same story. I 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:16.319 came to the village, I read seriously, I did culture seriously, 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:21.320 but I partied my face off around this time as 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:23.640 we're just coming to really know himself in that early 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:27.520 twenties kind of way, his family still doesn't fully know him. 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:32.520 There are more secrets I never formally came out. They 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:37.360 were clues. So for one example, you know, gay men 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:39.480 were getting what we call a Caesar haircut, you know, 0:11:39.640 --> 0:11:43.320 dusty sprinkles of hair on your head. My mother saw 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:47.120 this haircut and she shrieked, she hated, and she's like, 0:11:47.160 --> 0:11:49.720 are you gay? And at that time, I must have 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:54.520 been seventeen, I denied it, but I think word cut 0:11:55.320 --> 0:11:58.480 to her. And there's a point at which a mother 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:02.360 knows would be someone in my family told her, and 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:06.280 I would say that would probably be when I graduated 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:12.320 from college. But it was never discussed. Never. It's so 0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:16.920 interesting when secrets are kind of baked in, when they're 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:19.800 just part of what you know, the air that you breathe, 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:23.920 They're part of the dynamic of a family. There's never 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:26.840 just one of them, right, there's just all these silences 0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:29.040 and all these ways in which people don't talk to 0:12:29.080 --> 0:12:34.000 each other. Yes, and that was the case on her, 0:12:34.120 --> 0:12:38.880 and it was only as an adult. I'm beginning to think, well, 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:43.280 if her childhood is a secret, what other secrets are 0:12:43.360 --> 0:12:46.479 kept on that end. And if, as you said, secrecy 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:50.600 is the culture of the family, they were just all around. 0:12:55.440 --> 0:13:08.240 We'll be right back. Secrecy and silence build up so 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:11.680 much pressure, and that pressure has to go somewhere, right, 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:15.439 Hard partying can be its own pressure release valve when 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:19.040 it all feels like too much to handle. For many 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:21.840 of us raised in secrecy and silence, we want a 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:25.439 quick fix, a release from holding all that is unexpressed. 0:13:26.280 --> 0:13:29.080 In the East Village, rich immerses himself in the club 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:32.840 scene and surrounds himself with running buddies who aren't too inquisitive. 0:13:34.120 --> 0:13:38.360 It was so raucous, Danny, because on the one hand, 0:13:38.480 --> 0:13:41.960 the parting was so anonymous. You never wanted to be 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:45.440 surrounded by people who asked too much questions because that 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:48.960 invaded your privacy. In it kind of punctured the air 0:13:48.960 --> 0:13:52.040 of secrecy that you were that I was containing. But 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:55.960 at the same time it still managed a form of 0:13:56.080 --> 0:14:00.960 intimacy where you saw people kind of doing crazy things 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:05.080 at vulnerable moments, you know, and by vulnerable I mean 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:09.600 drug related vulnerable moments, vulnerable sexual moments, And so that 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:15.720 was the ideal party, Buddy, is this air of anonymity, 0:14:16.120 --> 0:14:20.160 people who don't ask to any questions. But also there 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:23.800 was a level of intimacy, people you could trust to 0:14:23.960 --> 0:14:28.320 also not devulge your secrets. And some people describe the 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:31.080 East Village at that time as a kind of queer 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:35.960 Heyday because by that time, you know, the police or 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:44.440 city forces weren't enforcing strict nuisance laws or imbibing laws, 0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:49.920 and it was just rampant with nudity, with drugs, with sexuality, 0:14:49.960 --> 0:14:54.160 with fantastic DJs. And we didn't know what was going 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:55.920 on at the time, you know, we were just like 0:14:56.080 --> 0:15:01.280 ratty libertine kids, ingesting our drugs and just carrying on. 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:05.520 And it was an age before Instagram and Facebook and 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:08.920 now the myth is, you know, to put yourself out 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:12.800 in the public to have followers, to be seen. At 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:15.920 the time was the reverse. It was the more private, 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:20.760 the more exclusive, the more unseen you were a the 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:24.560 better the partying and the more caschet you had. And 0:15:24.600 --> 0:15:27.400 so we partied for each other. We partied for the moment. 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:31.840 We didn't party to have followers, and this contributed to 0:15:32.280 --> 0:15:35.600 the success of the Secret. The gay rights movement has 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:38.640 changed so much, but at the time it was shameful. 0:15:39.000 --> 0:15:41.240 I mean, it was shameful at work, it was shameful 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:44.320 among families. It was you know, there was just so 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:47.880 much shame in your tide and associated to this quote 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:55.920 unquote shameful disease that is consuming a community. And so 0:15:56.160 --> 0:15:59.280 you know, it was a very different culture of shame 0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:04.520 back then, the late nineties in the East Village or 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:08.360 an immersive whirlwind for Rich he's consuming culture along with drugs. 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:12.320 He's writing, he's finding the truest version of himself. Meanwhile, 0:16:12.520 --> 0:16:15.680 the truth of his ancestors and his family history is 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:23.000 still obscured. Even at that time, the ancestry and my 0:16:23.120 --> 0:16:28.360 mother's story coming here was deeply secret. I did not 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:32.080 give it a thought, nor did relatives tell me during 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:34.960 all those years in the East Village of what was 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:39.920 going on. And there's a funny incident. I remember a 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:44.840 cab driver looking at me and asking are you Haitian? 0:16:45.520 --> 0:16:49.520 And I just worded no, because in my mind that 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:53.720 was so secret and it was just so undiscussed. I 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:55.760 think there's a deep part of me that didn't even 0:16:55.760 --> 0:17:02.360 think I was Haitian years past, and which is a 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:05.800 lot less interested in partying. He considers himself more of 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:08.640 an adult. He has a great job, and he's published 0:17:08.680 --> 0:17:11.359 a book. This is also the year his life is 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:16.480 forever changed in the worst recorded earthquake in the Western 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:23.520 hemispheres history. It's Haiti. So By I'm working in a 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:27.159 serious think tank, I had just launched a book that 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:31.880 had done well, and leaving the think tank. One night 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:36.520 I caught glimpse of the news and I remember vividly 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:42.160 was Anderson Cooper on the Plasmas green hanging in the lobby. 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:46.879 And then I'm hearing Hadi, I'm hearing had on the 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:53.000 screen crawl and I'm seeing, you know, things going on 0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:57.320 in Haiti. And my body clenches because as an American, 0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:02.000 any time Haiti has mentioned, it's in the context of catastrophe. 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:08.040 But this felt absolutely devastating, and I could not take 0:18:08.080 --> 0:18:10.760 my eyes off the news for the next ten days. 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:17.320 And watching it, all the suffering people, all the faces 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:22.720 peering at me from the television, from the internet, It's like, 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:25.560 what is going to be our witness? Who will be 0:18:25.600 --> 0:18:31.320 our witness? And the one indelible image that spoke to 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:35.119 my family history, the images of Haitians suffering, that's just 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:38.920 spoke to me as a human being but an indelible 0:18:39.000 --> 0:18:43.040 image flashed across the screen, and that was the huge 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:49.439 damage suffered by Hate's presidential palace. And it's just, you know, 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:53.200 the quote unquote seat of power of that country could 0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:57.679 not protect itself. It was just a crumpled building and dust. 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:03.040 And then that's when it was very strange. Danding is 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:09.280 just this sort of denial, this cloud of secrecy, this shame, 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:14.119 this all of it just kind of busted open, and 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:16.639 I'm like, this is untenable. You know, I have to 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:20.800 find out what's going on. I had known as a 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:26.720 fact that my mother's father had been the president of Haiti. 0:19:27.600 --> 0:19:32.359 But it's that knowing that fact being told to me 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:36.880 by a stranger, for example, Knowing that, you know, as 0:19:36.880 --> 0:19:39.760 a historical factor, is a political factor. Knowing that from 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:43.680 a stranger, you know, you can't avoid that. Knowing that 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:48.119 it is very different than knowing why he came, what 0:19:48.280 --> 0:19:51.840 his tenure was, like, what impact it had on my mother, 0:19:52.240 --> 0:19:54.880 how it shaped her as a human being, how he 0:19:54.920 --> 0:19:57.800 shaped her as a human being. That's what I meant 0:19:57.880 --> 0:20:03.239 by you know, all all these dark intangibles that were 0:20:03.320 --> 0:20:07.080 unknown to me, but the fact itself I had known, 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:12.919 And do you remember how you knew that fact. Well, 0:20:12.960 --> 0:20:17.200 I think a cousin might have, you know, mentioned it pridefully, oh, 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:21.560 our grandfather was president of Haiti, Or for example, my 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:24.639 mother's own aunt, who was a witty woman, might have 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:29.280 made a sarcastic remark of, oh, you know, that man 0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:34.600 was deranged by his politics in reference to my mother's father. 0:20:35.320 --> 0:20:38.720 So the fact of it would slip out either as 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:43.800 a tart remark or as a point of pride in 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:47.800 those kinds of ways. But everything that surrounds that fact 0:20:48.520 --> 0:20:52.880 was kept a secret when you were growing up and 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:56.159 having that one fact, but then all this silence around it. 0:20:56.480 --> 0:21:00.920 I'm even more interested in that because it's like there's 0:21:01.000 --> 0:21:05.000 the mythology or the easy mythologizing of, you know, the 0:21:05.119 --> 0:21:08.480 idea that grandparent was the president of a country, right, 0:21:08.760 --> 0:21:11.120 and then yet nothing is known and nothing is spoken 0:21:11.160 --> 0:21:16.080 of about that person exactly. It's very kind of bizarre. 0:21:16.640 --> 0:21:19.200 On the one hand, you have a fact that one 0:21:19.240 --> 0:21:23.160 would think generates a lot of pride, and I think 0:21:23.240 --> 0:21:26.240 for some cousins or aunts it did generate a lot 0:21:26.280 --> 0:21:29.800 of pride. But the fact that it's not discussed that 0:21:30.160 --> 0:21:34.280 made me curious, especially in the context of that earthquake 0:21:34.400 --> 0:21:39.679 and seeing that palace destroyed. Seeing the destroyed palace made 0:21:39.680 --> 0:21:44.919 the secret more visually real. It made him in his life, 0:21:44.960 --> 0:21:51.320 and more importantly, my grandmother's life more visually real. My grandmother, 0:21:51.920 --> 0:21:56.200 which is to say, my grandfather's wife, who I grew 0:21:56.280 --> 0:22:00.199 up knowing. I was extremely fond of her. She was 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:08.360 such a poised, kind woman, and people who describe her 0:22:08.440 --> 0:22:11.440 after the facts say that when you were in her presence, 0:22:12.280 --> 0:22:14.639 you had the sense that you were in the presence 0:22:14.680 --> 0:22:19.240 of someone substantial, not someone who is arrogant and important, 0:22:19.440 --> 0:22:23.680 but someone of substance and character. So I grew up 0:22:23.680 --> 0:22:26.919 with her. And even though she could be funny and 0:22:27.040 --> 0:22:31.800 say these hilarious you know things about x y Z 0:22:32.440 --> 0:22:36.679 when she was no nun or schoolmarm. She smoked, she drank, 0:22:37.520 --> 0:22:41.440 but at the same time there was a melancholy lingering 0:22:41.560 --> 0:22:45.440 to her. You know, there's like a sadness around her. 0:22:46.520 --> 0:22:49.440 And I had no idea what it was or why, 0:22:49.720 --> 0:22:52.240 or who she had been married to, you know. And 0:22:52.280 --> 0:22:54.960 she spent substantial amounts of time in her home. She 0:22:55.000 --> 0:22:59.359 succumb for Thanksgiving, she succumbed to Potomac for many Christmas Is. 0:23:00.080 --> 0:23:03.360 She used to send birthday cars. But you know, how 0:23:03.359 --> 0:23:06.080 did she get in America? And she spoke with an accent, 0:23:06.760 --> 0:23:10.600 so clearly she wasn't a native born American. And so 0:23:11.080 --> 0:23:16.240 the presidential palace destroyed in the news also made me 0:23:16.280 --> 0:23:21.600 think of my grandmother who had died by then. Did 0:23:21.680 --> 0:23:25.120 you know, growing up and being close to her, where 0:23:25.880 --> 0:23:28.679 your grandfather was or whether they were still together or 0:23:28.720 --> 0:23:30.520 had he died or what was the story that you 0:23:30.600 --> 0:23:36.040 knew if any uh, nothing, nothing. Isn't that bizarre? And 0:23:36.080 --> 0:23:40.360 that's what I'm saying. Most grandparents come in sets, or 0:23:40.680 --> 0:23:44.280 they come with an explanation. This couple has been divorced 0:23:44.920 --> 0:23:47.840 in some kind of you know, backstory as to why 0:23:47.880 --> 0:23:51.240 they're divorced. But here I have this single grandmother with 0:23:51.280 --> 0:23:55.040 no context as to where her husband is, why he is, 0:23:55.080 --> 0:23:58.400 where he is, when they got divorced, and all of that. 0:24:04.800 --> 0:24:07.320 We'll be back in a moment with more family secrets. 0:24:23.960 --> 0:24:27.000 As Rich stands watching the news on that plasma screen, 0:24:27.359 --> 0:24:29.400 as he remains glued to the television for the next 0:24:29.440 --> 0:24:32.280 stretch of days, he's stricken by the image of the 0:24:32.280 --> 0:24:36.320 destroyed Presidential Palace and becomes determined to know more about 0:24:36.359 --> 0:24:41.640 his grandfather his determination is visceral and immediate. He embarks 0:24:41.640 --> 0:24:44.879 on a research expedition, an expedition into the depths of 0:24:44.960 --> 0:24:50.720 his own family history. So the earthquake happens in January, 0:24:51.400 --> 0:24:55.040 and by June, I'm dropping hands and I'm telling my family, 0:24:55.760 --> 0:24:59.320 I e. My siblings and my mother that I intend 0:24:59.359 --> 0:25:03.520 to go to hate And part of my intention was 0:25:03.560 --> 0:25:09.920 to volunteer my time. And that's just independent of this story, 0:25:10.080 --> 0:25:15.600 because I know people are volunteing uh their time for 0:25:15.760 --> 0:25:19.000 different catastrophies around the world. So that was one intention. 0:25:19.480 --> 0:25:23.640 Another intention was I will go find this story, and 0:25:24.760 --> 0:25:28.920 so I start to tell them in June, and by 0:25:28.960 --> 0:25:32.040 November I'm on the plane. What was it like for 0:25:32.080 --> 0:25:37.360 you landing in Haiti for the first time? It was discombobulating. 0:25:37.920 --> 0:25:43.960 I think for any American it's totally disorienting to land 0:25:44.000 --> 0:25:47.520 in Haiti at that moment, because in November of that 0:25:47.640 --> 0:25:53.040 year of the capital Port of Prince was still in rubble. 0:25:54.200 --> 0:25:56.879 In other words, you're driving through the capitol and you 0:25:57.000 --> 0:26:02.560 just see rubble everywhere, and the whole it's just prevalent 0:26:02.800 --> 0:26:06.199 all over. There's also the fact that it was in 0:26:06.240 --> 0:26:10.480 the midst of a cholera epidemic, just an awful, deadly 0:26:10.600 --> 0:26:14.159 color epidemic. And also it was in the midst of 0:26:14.160 --> 0:26:18.880 a presidential election. So I land there and it's kind 0:26:18.920 --> 0:26:25.280 of a whiplash feeling of a landing in the midst 0:26:25.560 --> 0:26:30.240 of quite a bit of tumult and turmoil. Also landing 0:26:30.440 --> 0:26:35.399 and just feeling a sense of knowing nous And I 0:26:35.440 --> 0:26:38.359 say knowing this because when the Haitian women, when I 0:26:38.400 --> 0:26:41.000 hear them in border prints, I hear my grandmother's voice, 0:26:41.400 --> 0:26:44.120 I hear my aunt Ji Jean's voice, and I hear 0:26:44.160 --> 0:26:48.879 my mother's voice, and just the culture kind of envelived me. 0:26:49.160 --> 0:26:52.480 And there was an immediate I would call it familiarity 0:26:52.760 --> 0:26:57.360 landing in there. So that's the whiplash. It was very distant, 0:26:57.680 --> 0:26:59.920 but it would be for anybody given what was going 0:27:00.040 --> 0:27:04.000 on politically in the country. But it felt instantly familiar. 0:27:06.320 --> 0:27:09.080 While you were there, what were you hoping to find 0:27:09.080 --> 0:27:13.720 and what did you find? So I was hoping to 0:27:13.880 --> 0:27:20.399 find artifacts of my grandfather that might be in the 0:27:20.560 --> 0:27:25.679 National Archive in the Capitol, such as video footage of 0:27:25.760 --> 0:27:30.919 his inauguration, such as his KAI clip, such as some 0:27:31.080 --> 0:27:35.320 of his books. I was expecting to find that because 0:27:35.600 --> 0:27:39.439 speaking to scholars in the US. I was able to 0:27:39.520 --> 0:27:44.639 get what they call a manifest of what the archive contains, 0:27:44.760 --> 0:27:49.119 and the archives in Haiti supposedly contains some of his belongings. 0:27:49.520 --> 0:27:52.960 I was hoping to find that. I was hoping to 0:27:53.040 --> 0:27:57.760 go through original newspapers to learn more about his life, 0:27:57.840 --> 0:28:01.320 to learn about how he lived, about his domestic life, 0:28:02.040 --> 0:28:05.400 hoping to find all of that. But a monkey ranch 0:28:05.640 --> 0:28:09.360 was that the archives, the national Archives of Haiti, were 0:28:09.440 --> 0:28:15.520 destroyed and I would say debilitated by the earthquake as well. 0:28:16.480 --> 0:28:18.640 And so when I show up to the archive, it's 0:28:18.680 --> 0:28:22.679 also looking like a construction site, like many buildings in 0:28:22.680 --> 0:28:26.320 the country. So that's what I was hoping to find. Thankfully, 0:28:26.359 --> 0:28:29.439 I was able to locate some people who had worked 0:28:29.760 --> 0:28:33.879 for my grandfather in the nineteen fifties. I was able 0:28:33.920 --> 0:28:37.679 to find some of his political associates. But also I 0:28:37.720 --> 0:28:40.480 was just hoping to get a general sense of Haiti 0:28:40.560 --> 0:28:45.239 itself and what had this man been involved in. You know, 0:28:45.280 --> 0:28:48.840