I have always wondered about this picture.  It was one of the last ones taken before I left Haiti, so I imagine it was for Carnival 1981 or so.  As I grew older, I wondered what my parents thought when they received this photo and others like it in the mail in New York.  One of the more perplexing things about my initial journey to the states was seeing photos of me in my parents' NY album, the same photos that riddled my grandparents albums in Haiti.  It was if I had a life--a doppleganger even--in NY that I had no idea existed.  When Claudette and Francy received these photos did anyone ever tell them about how I fussed going to the photographer or all the prodding it took to get me sit still. 

Coming to NY and discovering images of myself in a family album of a family that I did not know gave me a certain double-consciousness.  I couldn't understand why I needed two lives, one in New York and another in Haiti when the one in Haiti suited me just find.  Did I really need a dad when I already had "Papa?" 

My parents album was a beta version of facebook-littered with images of friends and connections who I did not know.  Even the familiar faces, such as my aunts and uncles from Haiti, seemed unfamiliar.  Is that how we looked? 

There are any number of relatives that I wish were still around for me to meet and get to know better, but there has never been anyone in my life who I have yearned to meet and greet more than the young man standing in this picture.  I often ask myself whatever became of the young man in that album resting in Petion Ville.

F

The world's best 6'7" Haitian photographer, Richard Louissaint, strikes again.