My soul came to me through the back of a tap tap. It ran alongside the bloody red pickup truck painted with the swirls of Caribbean sea blue, palm tree green, and sunshine yellow; colors I saw in the airplane above the island, but never up close. Once it caught up, it waited for the right moment to slip into the cracks of the roof that shielded the bed of the truck, and entered into me; a ten-year-old Haitian girl born in America sitting on a wooden bench built into the tap-tap, nestling into my father’s chest. I was unsure of what I felt at the time, but I knew a change happened within myself. As my soul entered through my skin with the cool, night breeze, it formed a bond to Ayiti, cheri mwen: Haiti, my darling. My home. I met my soul on the back of a tap tap, but I understood it on the front seat of my dad’s blue, 2007 Toyota Corolla. On the radio, every afternoon on the drive home from school, my dad played Blaize One and BIC Ti zon Dife, Haitian rappers that rhymed about the creation of corruption, gang violence, and poverty that Haiti was globally known for. My dad would then turn down the music and start our one-on-one Haitian history class. The lessons spanned from the victory of our ancestors in the Haitian Revolution to the effects of the Duvalier Regime and how the TonTon Macoute, the secret police force turned into the gangsters that terrorize Haiti today. I met my soul on the back of a tap tap, but I developed it with my mother’s “emergency room horror stories” from her perspective as a nurse. One story was about an old lady who spit on my mother once seeing her skin and hearing her accent. Yet, my mother wiped the spit off her face and continued to show compassion towards her. The same compassion that she showed Haitian children in poverty when she took a team of healthcare professionals every summer to provide them with annual check ups. Inspired by her compassion, mission trip and my passion for dentistry, my dream is to own an oral health clinic in a rural region of Haiti to provide dental care for Haitians who have difficulty accessing it. Ever since I met my soul on that tap tap, watching the rise of famed police officer-turned-gang leader Barbecue, gang violence, and kidnappings in Haiti from the comforts from the United States, makes my heart grieve with survivor’s guilt for my relatives and other Haitians falling as victims. Although I traveled to Haiti only once, I am connected to its travesties as a child of Haitian immigrants, a Creole speaker, and a griotic poet who understands the Haitian motto “l’union fait la force” or “unity makes strength,” I decided to take action by writing and performing a slam poem titled “The Mourning of the Land” at the New Jersey Poetry Ourselves slam poetry competition and the Collingswood Book Festival. Through “The Mourning of the Land" I have taught diverse audiences, Haitian or not, about Haitian history and the evils of gang violence, just as my parents taught me. My Haitian soul drives me to academic excellence as I continue my education to become a dentist and own a dental practice in Haiti, and motivates me to join a Caribbean Student organization in college and continue my poetry to share my soul with others.

When I woke that morning, I faced an army of doctors and medical students gawking at me and jotting down notes like I was their science experiment. Then, I began to recollect the events from last night; collapsing from stomach pain, my mom driving me to the hospital after her 14-hour shift, the abnormal CAT scan, and being transferred in an ambulance to the Bristol-Myers Squibb Children's Hospital. Groggy after the memory haze, I suddenly sat up in shock as the doctor said, “You have Crohn’s Disease.” I was devastated and hungry to learn that for the next few weeks, my nutrition would consist of no food or water, just the chicken-scented, yellow TPN liquid flowing into the PICC line. Needing to prioritize my health, I utilized this time of adversity for reflection. I created a daily routine of walking fourteen laps around the ward and reading the Book of Psalms to find peace and encouragement. After being released, I joined the Bristol-Myers Squibb Children's Hospital Youth Advisory Council, empathizing with other patients who have had the same struggle. We meet once a month to plan hospital events and to make improvements to the teen patient lounge. With the Helping Hands Club at my school, I have even organized a holiday card drive that were given to adolescent patients that spending the holidays in the hospital. Though this obstacle caused me to miss the first two weeks of my senior year in high school, I learned that the lowest point in my life does not signify the end of life because there is no where to go but up towards improvement. My diagnosis has not limited me but rather invigorated me to continue my studies to become a pediatric dentist. While my time in the hospital invigorated me to continue my interest in dentistry, it was the negative connotations associated with dentistry that led me to pursue the field in the first place. I learned that neglected oral care leads to calculus buildup, cavities, tooth infection, and in the most severe cases, death when spread throughout the rest of the body. Resulting from my passion, I felt a call to action into dentistry to serve underserved communities, where dental and oral clinics are inaccessible causing the people in those communities to be more susceptible to tooth neglect. My dream someday as a Haitian American dentist is to start an oral health clinic in rural Haiti because half of the Haitian population has little to no access to dental care, which is even more detrimental in the rural communities. Afterwards with a team of doctors and nurses, we can expand with building a healthcare clinic providing various healthcare services such as family, pediatrics, dentistry, and mental health services to Haitians in dire need of them. However as a senior in high school, my first start is to intern at the Southern Jersey Medical Center’s dentistry department as apart of my school’s Senior Capstone Project, and help local immigrants, including the undocumented, receive access to healthcare. Although my goal of opening an oral healthcare clinic in Haiti is ambitious, especially with the current political climate and gang violence ravaging the nation, I know that they are attainable because of my faith in God and determination that I have to overcome the challenges that I come across. From learning how to cope with my Crohn’s Disease to my parents teaching me how Haitian slaves defeated the French and founded our country, I learned that perseverance is in my veins and will help me achieve my goal owning a Haitian clinic in the future.