An Evening of Haitian art, music and stories

On November 15 at 7 pm at the Hyatt Hotel in Medford Square, there is a celebration for the new website of Haitian stories and culture. This website was created by Sharon Kennedy and the Medford Transcript with a grant from Medford Health Matters. The link is http://wickedlocal.com/medford/hatitian. The website is full of Haitian culture from Haitian- Americans who live in Medford, Malden, Everett, and Melrose. On the site, there are oral histories including "Coming to America" stories and true tales of life in Medford and Melrose, traditional folktales, music, poems, photos, and paintings.

In partnership with Medford Arts Center, Inc., the November 15 evening of celebration will highlight a performance by amazing fourteen year old singer, Rebecca Zama, and the storytelling and poetry of Charlot Lucien. Mr. Lucien is the founder and director of the Haitian Artists Assembly of Massachusetts. He a poet with a new

book just published, as well as a painter, so some of his

paintings will be on view. William Descilien, another great

Haitian-American painter, will also be celebrating with us and his

paintings will be displayed as well. During the whole month of

November the paintings of Lucien and Descilien will be shown at two

galleries in Medford Square: Mystic Coffee Roasters and Mystic Art

Gallery.

Other special guests at the Friday night celebration are Nunotte

Zama, mother of Rebecca, and a lawyer who lives in Melrose and teaches at Roxbury Community College. She  is featured on the website talking about her native village (L'Asile) in Haiti and how Mayor Dolan and the city of Melrose has donated soccer balls to the team in

L'Asile which usually had to make do with water bottles.  Henry and

Evelyne Milorin are two more people from Medford who will be in

attendance that evening. They can be found on the website talking

about "the three P's - persistence, politeness, and persuasion" - the

qualities they needed as immigrants  and the qualities they needed

even more as a the parents of an autistic child. The Milorins are

heroes within the disability community and both of them have been

honored with numerous awards including  the ARC of Massachusetts

Distinguished Citizen's award. Henry is also known for his work on

political campaigns over the last thirty years.

Grammy-nominated storyteller Sharon Kennedy will do a power point

presentation of highlights from the website and she will act out one

of the "Coming To America" stories she collected. Nell Escobar

Coakley and Nick Iovino, editors at the Medford Transcript, will be

honored for their creative ideas and their hard work over the last year, and Elysee Castor of Medford Housing Authority for his crucial role at the beginning of the project.  We will also celebrate the work of interpreters Kettly Tucker and Josiane Bistoury, who were present at many of the interviews, translating them  from Haitian Creole to English.

For more information please call 781-393-7566 or email sharon @sharonkennedy.com