Sometimes The Earth Is Cruel By Leonard Pitt Summary

As an American from the Midwest, the image that comes to mind of life on a Caribbean island is of paradise and tranquility. It’s a place to escape and not have to deal with long winter months of snow and freezing temperatures. A place one could enjoy beautiful beaches, tropical trees and foliage year round. Everyone has their own perspective of things whether they’ve experienced it first hand or formed an opinion based on things they’ve formed based on resources or second hand information. In Judith Ortiz Cofer’s poem, “On the Island I Have Seen” she provides a glimpse of what life in Puerto Rico is like from a unique perspective. She was born in Puerto Rico, but growing up she moved back and forth between Puerto Rico and America. In an interview she shared: “But I think culture is very complex. You could say that I’m Puerto Rican by birth. I certainly enjoy and appreciate my heritage, and have used a lot of my culture for my art and incorporated it into my life” (Kevane and Herdia, 753). The experience allowed her to see life in Puerto Rico from through a different lens. The use of imagery contributes to the theme of the poem which illustrates the struggles of life on the hot Caribbean island.

He has a very apparent way of making you gain a picture of what he’s trying to describe to you in your head. The way he describes nature is captivating. He uses word devices including similes such as “like a fist”, personification such as “heaves” and “bullies” and metaphors such as “the earth is cruel” to help the readers relate to these actions and vividly picture them. Not only does Pitt’s depiction of the disasters taking place paint you an image of how harsh nature can be, but his description of natures relationship with the Haitian people really drives his ‘sometimes the earth is cruel’ theme home. He persuades you to believe that the earth really is against the Haitian people. He uses words like “monster” to describe an earthquake and words like “smashed”, “tragedy”, and “devastation” to strongly depict how catastrophic this natural disaster was. These efficient language techniques make you resent the earth for causing so much pain, misery and turmoil and sympathize or empathize with the poor people of Haiti; which is exactly what it’s supposed to

In the story Krik? Krak!, author Edwidge Danticat provides insight into the everyday lives of Haitians living during a tumultuous time period. Danticat, a Haitian native, understands the struggles that nearly all individuals endured passed on from generation to generation. Through the description of one's struggles, Danticat wants the reader to understand the dangerous power that hope entails.

There are several similarities and differences between the American and Haitian Declarations of Independence. The Haitian Declaration of Independence seems to focus primarily on freeing themselves from the French’s influence and slavery. Several times throughout the document, the French are referred to as a tyranny. It is very clear that the new Haitian government wants nothing to do with the French. In fact, they want to “wash away” all memories of what life was like with the French in power. Furthermore, this document uses a lot of figurative language to further prove the points being made.

In comparison to the African society, the United States is richer in their currency system, overall nutrition, and technological advancements. This wide gap between society is no surprise and is noticeably more evident now due to the industries in the first world countries. Campbell’s overall message in her visual argument, “Thinner than ever”, establishes the issue regarding the absence of the United State’s concern to third world countries and depicts the results of doing so. The goal of the organization that posted the visual seems to be to shed light on the selfishness of the America, highlighting the fact that Africa’s starvation is a bigger issue than creating

According to Samuel Lagerlof “Culture is what remains when that which has been learned is entirely forgotten” (as cited in Usunied,1996, p.94). Every single country in the world possesses his own culture no culture is more important than another. They’re just different. However, Haiti’s culture differs from the United States in three major points; Values, religion, and norms.

After witnessing the Haitian people's response to the earthquake that destroyed their homes in 2010, journalist Leonard Pitts wrote an essay about his observations. Although many different conclusions can be reached after reading the essay, one message stood out.The main point of the essay is that sometimes, the earth is cruel, but human beings are strong. Pitts proves his point by describing three things: the disasters that fill our world today, the people who suffer through these disasters, and the hopelessness of the situation.

Pitts uses a diverse vocabulary when he is talking about the Haitians and the scary disasters that they face all the time. For example, Pitts calls an earthquake a monster. This is obviously personifying the things that cannot be seen. He talks about how the ground opens up when

In the wake of the devastating earthquake of 2009 and the other subsequences that rocked Haiti into complete chaos, had the Haitians in great need of help. The U.S. is only minimally involved with Haiti, but it is not our fault. Most of Haiti’s problems result from an extremely corrupt government (Aronson 1). To provide Haiti with healthcare, housing, and schooling, the U.S. needs to learn to help the Haitians alongside of their government while keeping the culture alive. Therefore, the U.S. as a whole should find a way to persuade the Haitian government to let America provide the Haitian people with the basic human needs.

If you have read the writing piece by Leonard Pitts, "Sometimes, the Earth Is Cruel" then you will understand why they think they are being treated cruelly and unfairly. The "bad guy" in this scenario would be, plainly, Earth and the victim would be Haiti. It mostly focuses on Haiti and what has happened throughout the recent years but it is actually talking about all the poor countries that can't catch a break. Countries like, but not limited to, Congo, Niger, Burundi, Mozambique, and so much more. Being treated cruelly is willfully causing pain or suffering to others and/or feeling no concern about it. In this case the people of Haiti might think that the earth is willingly trying to cause them pain and suffering but the earth is just a planet so it just causes pain and suffering sometimes. Like Leonard said though, it is actually the people's fault. All these disasters and sufferings are all caused by "human hands, by human greed, human corruption, human economic and predation." It also says that "Sometimes, the earth is cruel" and it gets bad, it is bad, and we just have to deal with it and go on with our lives.

The United States tried to protect Haitian Immigrants but has ultimately failed. Immigration policies are only impactful if the system is willing to protect them. In 2010, Haiti was struck by an earthquake that killed thousands and displaced millions of people, and many of them came to the United States seeking asylum. Due to the increase of Haitian immigrants, Congress instituted the Temporary Protected Status (TPS). While Temporary Protected Status has been granted to groups from El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Honduras, the government continues to fail them by ignoring their importance. Implementing a policy to help immigrants is important, but the continuation of the policy increases its significance. Until the United States prioritizes immigrant

She traveled to the northern Haitian-Dominican border in the year of 1994, which was 57 years after the massacre. She explained that she wanted to place her hand in the massacre river where the colonists of the Spanish and French had once butchered one another over how to split the island of Hispaniola, which Haiti and the Dominican Republic currently share. While she sat by the side of the river, she jotted down in her journal that “nature has no memory.” She observed children who were bathing in it, men watching their animals drink from it, and women washing their clothes in it. Thus, instead of seeing blood in the river, which is what she was expecting, she saw people living and thriving. People were living even with such a painful and dark past. However, living does not entail forgetting. Parents and grandparents stories’ were inherited and passed down from generation to generation. Confused as to why there were no plaques or even a memorial to remember and honor the thousands of individuals who died, she asked an old Haitian cane worker why he thought that was. The cane worker was unsure why there were no plaques but he replied with the following: “the best way to commemorate the horrors of the past, is to stop the injustices of the present” (Danticat,

In the book Taking Haiti: Military Occupation and the Culture of U.S. Imperialism, author Mary A. Renda discussed the United States occupation of Haiti between the years of 1915 and 1934. When the United States decided to move into Haiti for military occupation, it wanted to establish not just control of the country, but it also wanted to secure its interests there. American politicians and many marines viewed Haiti through a racist lens and viewed their people and government as inferior. They believed the nation required a helping hand from the United States. American politicians justified the tactics of forced labor, economic manipulation by American politicians, and murder by the marines, as part of the paternalistic policy it had implanted there. Renda’s main thesis was how the idea of paternalism and the military occupation in Haiti not only affected the Haitian people and the country itself, but also how it affected the culture and mindset of Americans.

In the essay by Leonard Pitts "sometimes the earth is cruel" he talks about how in Haiti the people are constantly being hit by natural disaster on top of being one of the most poor countries in the world. Haiti in constantly being unstable because of political powers ignoring them. Haiti on top of being always hit by natural disasters are hit with disasters that are caused because of human greed, corruption, and economic predation of the nation. Yet these people at the end of the day they rebuild and go on with their lives they mourn and weep because they insist to live despite that the world and the cruel things it does to them.

Haiti, a sovereign state located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, is one of the world 's poorest and least developed countries. Same to other developing countries, Haiti developed agriculture instead of industry. Furthermore, Haiti is a country which always happened flooding, droughts, hurricanes and other meteorological disasters that were mainly caused by climate change. These disasters did affect Haiti a lot in the aspect of economy change, diseases like malaria or cholera caused by tropical Cyclone hotspots and vulnerability and adaptive capability of this country.