Happy New Year! If you’re new to Raising Myles, Welcome!
I write letters to my newborn son, Myles, every Monday, sharing my journey as a first-time dad and spreading the love I didn't experience myself. You can read all the letters I've ever written to him here on this website!
There are now over 1,000 of you receiving these letters! I want to take the time to say thank you for being here—I appreciate all of you for receiving these intimate moments between me and my family with love, warmth, and respect. My dream is to present these letters to Myles when he's older. In the meantime, I want to share with the world what it's like to be a first-time dad in love with his son.
While I do not depend on people paying, I hope to use paid subscriptions to fund my son's college fund. Consider upgrading your subscription because college ain’t cheap.
Ok, let’s get into our letter for Myles this week.
The video above was made in 2022 in the second apartment where your mother and I lived in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. It’s funny how everything I’ve ever done now feels purposeful, now that you’re here.
29 Weeks Old
This is not a history lesson, but when they try to reduce your history or wash it in bleach—just know your father, the non-historian, the proud second-generation Haitian in me, will gladly fill you in.
Dear Myles1,
Your father is not a historian; just a proud Haitian. Exactly 218 years ago on this day, people who looked like you and me, who spoke a language that's an amalgamation of French, Fongbe, Igbo, Spanish, and several others, decided that reasoning with their oppressors would not be enough—decapitation and burning their houses would be the only resort to freedom.2 On January 1, 1804, people who resembled us, with the same language that I'm desperately holding on to so I can teach you, achieved what no country at the time could or would ever be able to - gain their independence through a slave revolt.
For as long as I can remember, every January 1st, we ate Soup Joumou. When I was younger, I never asked why; it is something every Haitian household just did. I remember the pot that it was cooked in often took up two burners on the stove. The soup was a medley of all my favorite things—I never had to sift through any one thing to get to what my spoon wanted. I loved everything in it: the beef, sometimes goat, potato, carrots, and the rest, all swimming in the liquid of blended down pumpkin and squash.
The soup tasted good, but it tasted even better when I learned what it stood for. In Haiti, then called Saint-Domingue, enslaved Africans—people who looked like you and me—were forbidden to eat this soup, even though they were the ones who prepared it for their enslavers and colonizers. It was a status symbol, only reserved for the bourgeoisie, and never to be seen in the hands of the enslaved. As Kelly Paulemon, author of "Soup Joumou - The Taste of Freedom," puts it, “it was not intended for them, as it was considered too rich, too wholesome, too good.”
But when the Haitians, people like you and me, overthrew their captors and broke free from French rule, the soup was made available to all—appropriated to now symbolize freedom.
This is how we commemorate our ancestors, by partaking in eating this meal to remember the fight for a freedom that was systematically denied to us. In every Haitian household, especially ours growing up, Soup Joumou would be eaten for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and frankly, all week. After a couple of days, and forgive me, ancestors, I craved for something else – I had my fill of the freedom soup and was ready to see it on the first of next year.
When I lived at home with your grandmother, the soup was readily available—I only had to walk to the kitchen to get some. When I was older, and her kitchen was too far, I could walk to a Haitian restaurant in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, and buy it. But now, living in Birmingham, AL, where your grandmother’s kitchen is too far, and there are no Haitian restaurants nearby, the closest I can get to soup is writing to you about it.
But I don’t worry too much. Your father is a much better cook now that you’ve been born. I don’t know how, I don’t know when, but one day I’ll learn to commemorate our history and honor our ancestors with my own hands—I’ll learn to make Soup Joumou, with your mother’s help, hopefully.
L’union fait la Force.
Happy First Haitian Independence Day, Son
Love,
Daddy
Let me know your thoughts:
How does your family celebrate the New Year? Any unique traditions to usher in the new year?
What’s a food that has cultural significance for you? Teach me and make me salivate.
How do you feel about resolutions? Any intentions you are setting for the new year?
Do you feel a sense of responsibility in passing on cultural traditions to your kids? How do you navigate this?
Shoutout Time!
A special shoutout to
who writes and at , for being our newest paid subscribers! Here are a few kind words from Natasha: “… I don't doubt that if you were to pitch this as a book to a publisher or editor (or agent!) you would get a deal,” and Isabel who said “I love the way you are growing and reflecting and observing! Natasha and Isabel, thank you for seeing the worth in these letters!Your words to God’s ears!
These letters between me and Myles are currently free to read.
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Want more of Myles’ Letters?
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A video about beautiful backgrounds: Tell Them Where You're From.
Read about My Wife’s Love Affair - It’s exactly what you don’t think
Have you ever been Cooking in the Bathroom kind of tired?
Read about Our first Father’s Day.
The title of this letter is a play on Fredrick Douglass’ What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?
This line was inspired by this tweet from @Bigpikliz
What, to the Haitian, is the first of the Year?