1915–1934: (Rites of Passage — the Stories of Ghislaine Eleanor Estrea Caroline Adirenng Claire Louise Ismael Marilia Lindor Claircia Delva Claircilia Telism…

1915–1934: (Rites of Passage — the Stories of Ghislaine Eleanor Estrea Caroline Adirenng Claire Louise Ismael Marilia Lindor Claircia Delva Claircilia Telisma Marie Louise Vieux-Chauvet and Madeleine Communicating a Literal Transformation Akin to Francis’s “Antiromance” in Which Caribbean Girls and Women Connect Pivotal Scenes of Subjection to Subject Formation, Being Surveilled Through Legal and Cultural Discourses Their Historical Experience Exposing the Folly of Believing the National Diasporic or Intimate Sphere Are Privileged Spaces for Reconciliation, Caribbean Women Writers Using “Sustained Self-Examination” to Think of Moments Not as Tragedy but as Hyperconscious Awareness That Makes Use of Past Failures to Build Usable Futures — This Awareness a Critical Component of Haitian Women’s Political Wayfaring): Taken together, the stories of Ghislaine, Eleanor, Estrea, Caroline, Adirenng, Claire, Louise Ismael, Marilia Lindor, Claircia Delva, Claircilia Telisma, Marie Louise, Vieux-Chauvet, and Madeleine communicate a literal transformation of young women under occupation that is akin to Donette Francis’s articulation of Caribbean girls’ and women’s postcolonial lives as antiromance — in which they connect pivotal scenes of subjection to subject formation. Being surveilled through legal and cultural discourses, their historical experience exposes the folly of believing that somehow the national, the diasporic, or the intimate sphere are privileged spaces for reconciliation of otherwise impossible differences. Yet rather than letting these stories be glossed over for their cumulative effect, Caribbean women writers use sustained self-examination to think of the many moments, like those of the occupation, not as tragedy, exhaustion, or nightmare but as moments of hyperconscious awareness that make use of past failures to build usable futures. This awareness was a critical component of Haitian women’s political wayfaring. As girls and young women walked the streets of Haiti, kicking up the same unsettled dirt, marching in the same altered streets, and recounting their stories to one another and to occupation officials, they were drawn close to and apart from each other while being simultaneously transformed. Located at the intersection of girls’ and women’s different forms of transformation and accounting for the tactile experience of occupation, Haitian women’s postoccupation politics emerged and reflected a new configuration of national belonging through, around, and beyond the state.