Uncovering Family Secrets and Historical Narratives

In 1957, a labor leader named Daniel Fignolé was the president of Haiti for 19 days. Just two weeks after his inauguration, he was forced to sign a resignation letter as part of a U.S.-backed coup. But growing up, Rich Benjamin – Fignolé's grandson – didn't know anything about his grandfather's political career. The cultural anthropologist says his family, especially his mother, erected a "wall of silence" around him. A new memoir, Talk to Me, is Benjamin's attempt to fill in these gaps in his family history. In today's episode, the author speaks with NPR's A Martínez about Fignolé's work with labor unions, state-sanctioned silence, and the State Department documents that helped Benjamin piece together his grandfather's story.

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