Hyperallergic

In 1990, Jan Mapou, the Haitian playwright, poet, and activist, rented a booth at the Caribbean Marketplace in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood. He set up 300 books, mostly in Creole, from his own private collection: books on Haitian history, folklore, religion, politics; romance novels and big, colorful children’s stories by Haitian authors. The “Haitian boat people” — as they were known in … +

There’s a 1954 photograph by Bunny Yeager entitled “Bettie Page, Carol Jean Lauritzen, and Kathy Stanley Jumping (Key Biscayne, FL),” featuring the three titular graces floating above the water, suspended in motion. It’s not difficult to romanticize women on the sea — easier still when the image’s qualities (leisure, the tropics as an exotic space, whiteness) are no longer unquestionably associated with … +