Carnival in the Creole City: Place, Race, and Identity in the Age of Globalization

Abstract

In this essay I argue that Haitian-American artists Edwidge Danticat and Wyclef Jean employ Carnival symbolism to explore the practices and politics of belonging in "global" cities. While meditating on the cultural and social dynamism produced by transnationalism, they resist the impulse to idealize its effects. In song and nonfi ctional narrative, they refl ect also on the ways that historical and structural violence shape the lives of Haitian migrants in creolized cities.