Storytelling is really powerful in that.

We're all sort of trying to process so much of what's going on.

And if you reach back with stories as old as time, you find some circularity.

You find some hope in the sense that,

yeah, we've come through very, very terrible things before.

And even if not all of us make it, but the stories will outlive us.

From Futuro Media, it's Latino USA. I'm Maria Inojosa.

Back in February of this year, Edwidge Dontycott paid a visit to the class I was teaching at Barnard College.

She shared a message with my students which was all about owning our space and our voice in this country as writers of color and of conscience.

Edwidge was the last guest I had in person in my classroom before the pandemic changed our way of life.

And her words stuck with me, especially now, at a time when the United States is once again

facing a racial reckoning.

People all over the world are on the streets owning their space, owning their voices, and demanding change.

Shut him down!

Shut him down!

Edwidge is an award-winning author of several books,

including her debut 1994 novel, Breath Eyes Memory,

about a young Haitian girl reuniting with her mother in New York City,

and her 2007 memoir, Brother I'm Dying,

which goes into detail about the death of her own uncle, who was 81 years old when he died in an immigrant detention facility in Florida.

Her latest book is titled Everything Inside. It's a collection of short stories where Edwidge explores how people come to terms with death, among other themes.

Her reflections and writing on the immigrant experience, Haitian American identity and loss,

...