Edwidge also captured a darker and less quintessential Florida experience that even ten years after it's publication is unfortunately still occuring: Her book Mama's Nightingale, came from Edwidge's visits to detention centers in Miami. Places like Boystown where there were often young or very young unaccompanied minors forced to appear alone in their immigration court hearings. The book was recently banned specifically for supporting open borders proving it's still unfortunately a very relevant book. Other titles from Edwidge: Anacaona, Behind the Mountains, Eight Days, The Last Mapou, Untwine, My Mommy Medicine, and a travel narrative, After the Dance. Her memoir, Brother, I'm Dying, was a 2007 finalist for the National Book Award. She is a 2009 MacArthur Fellow among many other honors.
STEM and STEAM issues dealing with severe weather, nature conservation, and animal welfare are present in Suma's V. Malar series right alongside celebratory and joyful explorations of holidays and cultural rituals because everything we have done seasonally as a society, including holidays, has been impacted by climate change.
Both Suma and Edwidge talked about the importance of storytellers in their own childhoods, namely their grandparents and older family members sharing oral histories of their cultural past, with both celebratory and cautionary tales being told, and both authors strive to carry on in those traditions of sharing and telling.
The subject of book bans came up again in this session. Edwidge, who grew up under a dictatorship, reminds us that tyrants in power go after writers and artists first because like us they know the power of the written word and drawn image.
