Daniel Apatiga
Reading Response #2, Edwidge Danticat’s The Immigrant
Artist at Work
In the first chapter of "Creating Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist
at Work," Danticat attempts to give a brief history of what shapes her
life, which in his past was about injustice and fighting for causes that one
believes in. She sees herself as somewhat lesser than those who gave
their lives for their country, of the two famous examples were Drouin and
Numa. Although Danticat’s brief introductory chapter makes it sound like
the “immigrant artist” fall under a strong category, too, (because of the risk
that they run in criticizing authoritarian regimes), Danticat does not outright
say that what Drouin and Numa did is the wrong approach. Nor does she say fighting in guerilla warfare
should be avoided but that instead Numa and Drouin are justified in their
actions against the authoritarian Haitian regime. Danticat also uses metonymy
in her writing style, though the following example may be ambiguous: he uses
“passport” as the vehicle for freedom, though this is not explicit (Danticat,
10). The reason why I suppose this to be true is that when I first read a
sentence containing “passport,” it seemed to be out of place since it would not
have made sense. The next paragraph contains a section about her book
that she wrote, The Dew Breaker, which
passport could also be a symbol for. Although, the case might be
that she has an American/Haitian passport of some sort, or, simply, Danticat meant what she wrote in the most common denotation.
Earlier in the chapter, Danticat uses biblical language, like Achebe, to
argue that writers and artists who are on the cutting edge or who are putting
themselves most at risk, like Numa and Drouin. Her metaphor that she uses
is the Eve story from Genesis of her plucking the apple, which she uses as a
strong metaphor for one’s daring role in society, whether it be an artist,
warrior, or an intellectual woman making headway in women’s rights. Where Danticat was going with her country’s history and connecting it with her own, she makes an argument about how immigrant writers tend
to know more about a country’s history, especially since they have a more knowledgeable
perspective than just the country’s to where he/she ended up. She creates a
most beautiful argument for why there should be history as a field of study,
that knowing where one’s ancestors came from is also part of this, and being in
touch with one’s family from whichever country one’s from, like his
grandmother, Tante Illyana. In a few ways, I’m like Danticat in
that I have an immigrant father (though not an uncle) who came from another
country—Mexico. I, however, know a lot less of his own motivations for
coming to this country. As a second generation immigrant, I’m most
inclined to believe that he left for economic reasons, or, merely to get away
from his parents to his rebelliousness, perhaps. In a lot of ways, my
father and I are alike.
Chapter two is about the abject poverty people live under in
Haiti. In the countryside, I had no idea that education is a desired privilege
that only a few can enjoy, still. On a separate note, I also have a
grandmother who reminds me of the character, Tante Illyana. In Danticat's
autobiographical second chapter, she describes her as being pretty, and young
for her age, which my grandmother is, too, who’s having her 80th birthday in Mexico. I hope to
see her in time for her birthday if she does not pass away.
