Poverty
The imagery that shaped the life of this memoirist was an experience of serious poverty in Haiti. After generations of chronic colonialism, the economy in Haiti can no longer support consistent employment for its citizens. By Danticat's time, the economy was irreparable. She writes about her experience of poverty. When her parents leave to try and find some sort of work in America, she is left behind to appreciate the life that was already unlivable for her parents who are fully grown. She is up against a poverty that slowly defeats everyone around her, searching daily for any meal she can possibly find.
Chronic abandonment
The emotional landscape of Danticat's suffering is one clearly defined by the imagery of abandonment. This is because, even though she is not technically forsaken, she is quite literally abandoned by parents who are allowing her to suffer so that they can more easily establish a livable situation in America. But why not just take the kids and suffer together? The children have to wonder if they are truly forsaken, and that chronic feeling of crisis and hopelessness defines their experience of that time, and when they are reunited with their parents, they feel intimately betrayed and are unable to capture their feelings.
Relationship tension
The result of this is an imagery of tension within the family as secret grudges and silent arguments happen. The family slowly re-acclimates to the old dynamic. The children remember what it is like to have parents who are in charge and whom they have to try and please, although in this newly tense environment, the children are confused by that because they already demonstrated their ability to survive on their own, and they aren't sure they really like their parents anymore, so why try to please them? This tension is lifelong, and Danticat writes this memoir incited by the news of her father's imminent death. The tension survived the whole length of their relationship, it seems.
Home and moving
The children feel a confusion about home. They want their parents to rescue them from their fallen home in its state of horror and panic, and they want to be swept off their feet by a savior who will drop them in paradise. That expectation is the defining feature of emotional innocence, but instead of getting what they want, the children are given real adult experience and pain, but at a young age. What is home for them now? Paradise is lost, and New York City is just where they live. There is no such thing as home for these children who have already seen too much.
