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This Haitian woman's memoir of coming to America in 1983 gives voice to her experience as a non-English speaking, uneducated, and unskilled female refugee, who left her Caribbean island country in a boat seeking to reach Miami. U.S. Immigration records for 1983 show that 8,424 Haitians came to the United States. In 1992, Haitis population reached about 6.5 million, with about 600 persons per square mile, one of the highest population densities of the world. Immigration waves typically corresponded with political turmoil in Haiti, but poverty has also been a motivating factor to leave.

Many Haitian refugees and immigrants settled in Little Haiti, which was onceknown as Lemon City. When 60,000 Haitian boat people arrived in South Floridabetween 1977 and 1981, the area became a spirited community with a unique Caribbean marketplace with shops offering Caribbean arts and crafts, foods and music. By the 1990s, the...