We are ugly, but we are here.

"Every once in a while, we must scream this as far as the wind can carry our voices: We are ugly, but we are here! And here to stay."
-Edwidge Danticat

This is the last sentence from Edwidge Danticat's We Are Ugly, But we are here. It is a recollection of her time in Haiti, during its dictatorial Duvalier regime. She moved to the United States around age thirteen, and what she remembers from Haiti is heart-breaking. When I was reading this article, I was filled with sadness, but also inspiration. It is amazing that even though they were looked down upon and had to deal with so much that these women still found the will and determination to stay strong and supportive of each other. It is a lesson to everyone, not just women, that we have the power to pull ourselves up like they were able to.

Danticat mentions many sacrifices made by women all the way back to the time Arawak Indians, who lived on the land hundreds of years before. Sacrifices were still made by women when Danticat lived in Haiti. Sacrifices were made for the rest of the people, so they could continue to be there; that aspect invokes huge amount of respect to the women of Haiti.

"She [Danticat's grandmother] believed that no one really dies as long as someone remembers, someone who will acknowledge that this person had in spite of everything been here."

The women who gave their lives, the women who stayed strong, the women who picked themselves up again, the women who inspired others - they will live on in the minds and memories of their friends and those who knew them. They will live on in the spirits of the women of the world.