Life in the Diaspora

“So Joseph got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt.” Matthew 2:14

When we think of Christmas, one of the first images that comes to mind is the baby Jesus lying in a manger, sleeping peacefully under the watchful eyes of his parents while angels, shepherds, Magi, and even barnyard animals gather around to worship him. Such tranquil images often cause us to overlook the fact that this momentous event—the birth of our Lord—took place amidst great political, social, and economic turmoil.

We forget that the baby Jesus was born into a backwater province of the Roman Empire where strong anti-Roman sentiment characterized the feelings of Jewish peasants who were barely able to eek out a living after paying their share of taxes to Rome. Likewise, we overlook the brutal tactics employed by Roman rulers in order to insure that nobody—not even an innocent baby boy rumored to be a king—would challenge their hold on power. Thus, Joseph and Mary soon found themselves fleeing with their newborn to escape the politically-motivated slaughter of baby Jewish boys in Bethlehem.

While Matthew briefly records Joseph and Mary’s flight to Egypt and notes that, following the death of King Herod, they were able to return home to Palestine, he mentions nothing about their actual sojourn in Egypt itself. While we can’t be certain, it is not unrealistic to assume that Joseph and Mary might have taken refuge in the large Jewish expatriate community in Alexandria and, as was the case with Jewish migrant communities elsewhere throughout the empire, they undoubtedly faced the stigma of being foreigners in a Gentile world.

Twenty centuries later, Matthew’s account of the flight to Egypt continues to resonate with migrants around the world who have had to flee their homes due to political, social, and economic turmoil. And like the expatriate Jewish communities scattered throughout the Roman Empire (and beyond) during Jesus’ day, today’s migrant communities must also confront the stigma and discrimination so often inflicted upon them by the majority culture.

We first met Kevin two summers ago when a Haitian lady who lives across the street from our church came to register him, along with her own small children and grandchildren, for vacation Bible school. Later we learned that when he was just two years-old, Kevin’s pregnant mother was arrested by Bahamian immigration and, lacking proper documents, deported to Haiti. Since Kevin’s father, who had never married his mother, works on one of the Family Islands and only comes to Nassau once per year, this lady offered to take Kevin in to her already overcrowded home. While accepted into her home, Kevin has never really become a part of the family and, frequently, is blamed and severely beaten for the misdeeds of the other children.

Now six-years old, Kevin has been a regular participant in our weekly after-school homework program for the past two-years. Even though he is in the second-grade, Kevin—like many other public school children his age—is still unable to read. Despite his turbulent home life and poor academic performance, Kevin is surprisingly very pleasant and helpful. He is often the first child to arrive at the church and the last to leave, insisting on helping us to load and unload supplies from our car. And one night last summer when Estela stopped by the church to take care of some things for the next morning’s vacation Bible school, Kevin appeared out of nowhere and followed Estela around as if he were her bodyguard, refusing to leave her side until he saw that she had safely gotten in the car to drive away.

What does the future hold for Kevin? Will he learn to read? Will he someday be reunited with his mother and siblings in Haiti? Will he graduate from high school? Will he regularize his immigration status and find a job? As this year’s Christmas season comes to a close, let us not forget the many Haitian children just like Kevin who—like the Jewish migrants of Jesus’ day—routinely face hardships and discrimination because they are foreigners in a strange land.

This article originally appeared in News from Daniel and Estela Schweissing on 2 January 2009. The painting, titled "The Flight into Egypt," was done by Vittore Carpaccio in A.D. 1500.

¡Feliz Navidad!

El Ayuntamiento (City Hall), Higüey, Dominican Republic.

Museo de Las Casas Reales, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

Plaza de la Hispanidad, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

El Ayuntamiento (City Hall), Higüey, Dominican Republic.

On Soup Joumou, Stollen, and Junkanoo: Celebrating the Holidays Away from Home

For most of the world--at least those of us on the Gregorian calendar--today is New Year's Day. But for those of us who are Haitian, married to Haitians, or otherwise living in Haiti or its Diaspora, today is also important because it is Haitian Independence Day. While of special significance to Haitians, today is important for all Caribbean peoples and, indeed, all of us who are--in some fashion or another--descendants of the Atlantic slave trade and its legacy. You see, the Haitian Revolution was the first--and only--successful slave revolt in the New World, making Haiti the the oldest Black Republic in the world and (after the U.S.) the second independent country in the Western Hemisphere. So in typical Haitian Protestant fashion, we observed this dual holiday by attending New Year's Eve services last night at Emmaus Baptist Church here in Nassau and then ushering in the new year by wishing each other Bon Ane! and eating soup joumou and pain Haïtien.

As an expatriate American living in the Bahamas (and married to a Dominican of Haitian descent), you can imagine that our holiday celebrations reflect a number of cultural traditions that have shaped us over the years, making for a truly cross-cultural celebration. I've already mentioned, of course, our tradition of eating soup joumou and pain Haïtien for New Year's/Haitian Independence Day. But when we are in the U.S. and the Bahamas, we also eat more traditional American holiday foods such as turkey and stuffing or baked ham. When celebrating the holidays with Estela's family in the Dominican Republic, however, American-style foods are replaced with Dominican foods such as cassava fritters, beef empanadillas, spaghetti, and fried chicken. And while I'm a couple of generations removed from my German ancestry, we still bake an Americanized version of stollen, made from a recipe handed down from my great-grandfather who was a German baker.

Here in the Bahamas, the Junkanoo parades are an essential part of the holiday festivities, beginning with Junior Junkanoo in mid-December and, then, the two big Junkanoo parades held in the wee-hours of the morning (or, as we say in Spanish, por la madrugada) on Boxing Day and New Year's Day. Dating back to the days of slavery, Junkanoo is perhaps one of the best known (though hardly the only) and most popular forms of Afro-Bahamian culture.

As I generally tend to avoid places where large crowds congregate, we've never attended Junkanoo before. But this year, Estela and I took advantage of the opportunity to join Stephen Aranha, president of the Bahamas Historical Society, and his family to watch the Boxing Day parade from the excellent vantage point of the Bahamas Historical Society Museum. I'm glad we went as it was well worth the experience.

While much of what takes place in Junkanoo (especially the numerous, smaller activities throughout the year) is packaged for the consumption of foreign tourists, Junkanoo is actually a very profound and complex expression of Bahamian culture. The Bahamian anthropologist Nicolette Bethel has written a number of helpful blog posts (see here and here) that have helped my artistically-challenged mind to get a better grasp on Junkanoo's deeper meaning.

But perhaps the best way to understand Junkanoo is simply to observe it first hand. To that end, I've posted a couple of video clips below. (Thanks, again, to Nicolette Bethel for pointing these out.) The first is a scrap group, which is basically an informal--and usually small--group of friends who get together to rush. Back in the old days, all Junkanoo groups were scrap groups and today's groups continue in that tradition. The second video is of the Valley Boys, one of the large A-Groups that competes for prizes. Since Estela and I live near and work in Mason's Addition, we chose to root for the Saxons and One Family, both of which hail from our neighborhood.

Christmas is Not Your Birthday

This is the time of year when everyone is looking forward to what they’ll be getting under the tree on Christmas morning. So we were wondering, how would Jesus answer if we were to ask him, “What do you want for Christmas?”

Perhaps Jesus would direct us to the song that his mother Mary sang shortly after discovering she was pregnant (Luke 1:46-56). In this song, we find that Mary anticipates that the coming of Jesus will challenge the social order as we know it: Rulers will be brought down while the humble are uplifted and the hungry will be filled while the rich are sent away empty.

It is precisely these earth shaking kinds of social changes that we are committed to bring about as American Baptist missionaries. By ministering to the needs of Haitian migrants in the Bahamas, we are attempting—at least in a small way—to proclaim the Good News of Jesus’ birth in both word and deed. So when Jesus looks under the tree on Christmas morning, he won’t be getting a new stereo, the latest video games, or even that fancy new electric can opener that doubles as a camera—at least not from us! But he will be getting the best gift of all: Our commitment to serve him and join him on his mission to transform the world.

But too often we don’t think about what Jesus wants for Christmas. We just think about what we want. But Christmas is not our birthday; it’s Jesus’ birthday. So we hope that you will take some time this advent season to remember whose birthday it really is and, more importantly, to reflect on ways that you and your church can truly celebrate the birth of our savior Jesus Christ.

This post originally appeared in News from Daniel and Estela Schweissing on 11 December 2006.