Professor of english at university of vermont. Her latest book stories from my grandmothers time, my mothers time and mine is an extraordinary exquisitely written memoir to look at race and a fearless and penetrating and honest way. These essays that explore up close the complexities and the haunting memories of growing up black in the south with the family name inherited from a white man, getting impeached for mail and marrying a white man from the north, adopting two babies from in the loan ethiopia Henry Louis Gates calls it a major contribution in the Washington Post says it is magnificent. Caroline is an american poet editor and translator and activist. Her books of poetry are blue hour, the country between us in 2013 she received the American Academy of poets fellowship given for distinguished poetic achievement in 2017 she became one of the first two poets to receive the campbell prize back a professor at georgetown university. Her newest book what you have heard is true is called based on an astonishing powerful and so important at this time a visionary memoir of a young woman who engages in horror to engage others. At dani shapir author of our glass still writing and devotion and slow motion. In inheritance she confronts a family secret uncovered by a genealogy test. She woke up one morning and her entire history had crumbled beneath her. Inheritances about the extraordinary time in which science and technology have outpaced not only medical ethics but the human heart to contend with the consequences of what we discover. The New York Times book review found it profound the true drama is not for discovery of a fathers identity but the meaning she makes of it. Shapiros account is beautifully written and moving and brought me to tears more than once. Please join me to welcome emil emily, caroline and teethree. [applause] hello everybody. I will read from a few essays in my book. My daughters became black when he was six years old watching Television One day in february a commercial came on it was more like a 32nd History Lesson like a poet or a politician of first black as a writer i know calls them being the racial pioneers the inaugural negroes those two breakthrough racial barriers by breakthrough i mean secure the regard of white people we are black julia said no we are brown she responded yes but they call it black he explained despite my efforts to shield them my daughters somehow had gotten wise to the illogical nature of american racial identity blackness she had figured out had nothing to do with actual skin color. She had come to understand blackness was the external identity to her anyway race is what other people identified in something they said but not necessarily what they saw it was a social category a color and a condition and is telling her sister to get with the program so my brown daughters were becoming black. My heart sink. It wasnt the blackness per se i enjoyed being black. But it took me a long time to get here to this place of racial pleasure my Early Experiences the blackness were defined by unpleasant and uncomfortable hypervigilance being black to be constantly aware you could never be at ease early i was wise to the fact being black meant it was a place not for you in my family race is not a construction or a theory or outdated consequence of history that the active Living Foundation of our reality it determines the contours of every choice we make every mundane public act when we moved into our house it was called integration when my older brother and i entered the Public School system is called desegregation the split between black and white on the white side of town the graham project of enormous proportions we lived in south nashville to be black in a way that was not possible in any other part of the city in north nashville we could relax and we were free north nashville is where my father practiced medicine in my parents oma matter north nashville is where we attended church in a small chapel establish from the students of the Medical College from which both parents received graduate degrees among the parishioners the men and women i called and an uncle even though we had no biological relationship we shared something bigger and more profound inside the church we celebrated our belief in god of how we broke through and a black community built because of racism because of not for White Supremacy it might never have existed they were broke by affinity but not by blood when they were 12 months old they assume dual citizenship in america in the africanamerican. Once when we were out of town i could see the story and settled them i try to explain my reasons for wanting to protect my daughters from the language of race but my explanation seem to make them more impatient dont you want them to know their history . Site knew what she meant she meant american slavery and segregation in the Civil Rights Movement martin and malcolm and other blacks that as an american story belong to her this White American woman more than they do my daughters. I am an african who lives in america she explained one day recounting a conversation she had with a thirdgrade classmate the african childrens choir had come to burlington and they had taken the field trip to see them perform. Later that day isabellas classmate in an attempt to identify the difference that she perceived referred to isabella as an africanamerican and she corrected her all the same an american i am an african. When i came to this country she continued my daughter had such us. Fine place in the world i had not known her assessment of my role in this part of her life journey we flipped her picture books of underground churches i showed websites of centuries old drawings and photographs yours is the only african country to fight off colonizers i remind them often every mother think their daughters a clay look like angels but mine really do that dominate orthodox christian. Why did white people make black people slave she asked one afternoon . I told her there is slavery all over the world even in ethiopia for my daughter to be born in a world where aristocrats look just like them so my husband and i adopted her children there is a little piece from the essay i wrote about the experience called motherland so this is part of the journey to pick them up and i think it will be clear. We drive slowly as the road bends and disappears to the natural landscape around us. They told us the road would and we would have to walk for an hour or two to go get her family. But this information was dismissed as a fantastic story. Bringing the car to a gentle stop to be decorated with bristles like stubble on a mans face theres only 3 yards between us but underneath my feet the earth is as packed as brown sugar within small reach green formed by a layer of rock standing with a tree with a thin trunk like a tall skinny kid. In the distance more trees stand in a line on contractors i nearly trip on titanic pieces of shale and then quickly discovering the skin beneath my hair and my clothing i feel a piercing impact in my joints and lungs if we were anywhere else i would be preoccupied with shade but this is where i belong. Nothing is behind me. No shelter and nowhere to hide the sun is relentless but the word ahead the heat is not something to shun but only to carry. As we approach a group of perfect cylinders of long grass my heart beat so rapidly a smooth my shirt i hope i look like what they thought we agreed to whom the girls belong i imagined being presented to the groom as an arranged marriage but we were treated like royalty. Indeed they slaughtered a sheep in our owner. The loaf of bread we brought is placed on the side everyone gathered to eat but after a few token bites to set back on the bench molded from the same clay as the room i tried to arrange my features that shows appreciation for the food and my desire to enjoy it but my ability to do so and its clear i did not do so she doesnt like it and smiles. I can tell he is trying to translate its terrible to know im failing to show the gratitude i feel for everyone in this room im torn with emotion and my palms sweat i am rigid with anticipation for the wonderful and terrible moment where the girls are placed in our arms beside me drinking sheep milk from a cup i cannot say no when it is offered to me. I feel eyes on me bring the cup to my mouth. The twins grandmother bring out the baby we know as isabella wrapped in the same outfit that she wears in the picture that was sent months ago the grandmother stands in the space that separates the home shining a movie star light down on the two of them she regards me passionately as she takes in the scene. Julia emerges mid whale she is afraid because she has never seen white skin and gently touches johns arm. She continues to cry as we stand outside the she continues to cry as we stand outside the john gathered the photographs before we get in the truck back. The truck feels more arduous and trying not to show my exhaustion the grandmother had isabella swaddled to her back her steps were efficient but i walk next to one of the babies cousins a girl who was 11 or 12 her eyes are large and kind she wears juliet who seems to be dozing on her back we take turns looking at each other and looking away before the other catches us. There is so much i want to ask you tell her but the language travels with us like a partition even though it feels silly the next time i see her looking i meet her gaze and for the second time today i put my hand on my heart impressed down hard as she looks away she is still smiling. You are part of our family now. We are hustled into the car i hold julia who screams interests has tears coming from her eyes ill isabella rests quietly. Suddenly she sits up before the second round take my hat but upside out under her chin we are almost used to the smell of our daughters vomit we are sticky with sweat and bodily fluids he leaves the girls with me while he goes over to the bathroom to clean up the babies held in the crook of each arm i sink into a plastic chair my dizziness must be a result of the heat and older woman sits down next to me holds her arms open i hand her julia she pulls a small blanket and hands it to me i still feel rickety but i have a firm grip on isabella who emerges from the cloud she puts her head slowly with a stern look on her face like a general assessing a battlefield and smiles like we share our first private joke julia has decided it is my job so we trade babies once we are seated a few minutes later a wave of pain toward the bathroom along the way i put julie into the arms of a pretty Flight Attendant i am on my hands and knees of seizing abdominal pain when the attendant knocks on the door i looked up i am perpendicular and presents me with julia who looks down with alarm on her face the thing about unpasteurized milk is that it does not agree with anyone everyone for the next two days my stomach in a losing war with bacteria gradually i can climb onto the bed at night while i lie on my back breathing deeply with the mouth open john takes the girls to the lobby when they become restless he calls isabella and tell he was able to put her to sleep. Thank you. [applause] it is a pleasure to read with you. Im going to read what you have heard is true and most of it takes place in el salvador before the war in the two years leading up to the war. My guide there was a man who was quite mysterious he was the cousin of the poet whom i translated the previous summer. I will just read some scenes from the book. It is near the end now. We are walking in the rippling heat of a sorghum field cicadas whirring to an empty sky. A man uncork say water board and against a spade there is a woman here wearing an apron skirt over her trousers. The sorghum seed heads overhead with a spray of seeds. One of the men takes them aside to tell him something, a secret like everything else. We get into the jeep and without explanation drive to another place not far from this field the peasants would have walked measuring distance not in kilometers for an hours or days. What are we looking for i ask quicksand always he doesnt answer swearing under his breath through the haze of smoke that hangs in the air where the corn was growing. We stopped there shacks made of mud one of them has collapsed and smoke rises from the. Wait here he tells me. But i dont wait. I had stopped waiting for him months before this but he cannot seem to break the habit of telling me to wait. Smoke is rolling like a cloud along the field just above the blackened stubble and when we walk he stops i stop and when he continues i continue. Its as if to say slowdown would be quiet. I slow down and am quiet. When we reach them know what is in them and no one is home a large plastic bowl is overturned on the ground there is a childs tshirt. Behind one of them it appears several hens were held by their feet and whacked against a stone they are lying on the ground one of it still opening and closing its beak. 100 meters more we hear the whine of flies the hissing and belching of turkey vultures a flapping of wings like applause as the fat and birds try to lift themselves. A flatbed truck follows at a distance behind us with three standing in the back calling out to us or to the driver of the truck but i dont understand what they say. I dont know what i had expected to see, but not the slow torso of a man with one arm attached to him. A black pool of tar over his crotch i did not expect his head would be by itself some distance away without eyes or lips. Distention the air is familiar rotting, sweet and sickening smell. Human death i been down when i see the head but he says dont touch it let the others do it. At first i thought they were going to find the rest of the man and places remains in the truck bed instead they gather the arms and hands and legs with her feet attached and bring it to the torso where it lies on the ground they set the head on the neck where once had been than the three men take off their straw hats and stand in a circle around the man they have reassembled and they stand one crosses himself lightly the parts are not touching there is soil between them especially the head and the rest birds nearby hoping we will go away and leave them to this meal. The air hums and we walk. Why doesnt anyone do something i think i ask . On this day i will learn the human head weighs about two and a half kilos. I went into a prison to visit someone i pretended to have known in the past but the purpose of the visit was to look around to be shown something then i was to talk about on the outside. So i will begin in the middle of the walk. We turned a corner where a group of Prison Guards had gathered in a circle playing a game with nice fully occupied with the game tight tossing and laughing and groaning nobody had looked at us we made almost a full circle of this courtyard on all four wings miguel looked around cautiously he whispered are you ready . He locked eyes with me then asked if i saw the dark open doorway nearby and i did it was not quite 10 feet away. A room with an entrance like the barracks like the workrooms but it was on the other side of the courtyard. The far side. No one is paying attention to you now. Just walk into that room and try to see what you can. Dont stay long and control your face when you come out. I will be right here. If anyone sees you and asks what you are doing just make an absentminded north american lady face and he imitated such a face by looking at me blankly with his mouth slightly open i had never seen anyone do that before and did not realize that this is what we looked like to others and just so you got lost for a moment i froze and then he nodded yes to me tossing his head in the direction of the doorway. Go now. Quickly. I was inside the room. It was darker than any other room in the prison and it stank more. I tried to adjust my eyes to the darkness. I tried to see. It is what he was always asking me to do. Try to see. Look at the world and not at the mirror. What i saw were wooden boxes about the size of washing machines. Maybe even a little smaller. I counted. There were six. They had small openings cut into the front with chicken wire mesh and padlocked as i stood there some of the boxes started to wobble a little. And i realized there were men inside them. Fingers came through one of the mesh openings. Blood rush to my ears and they stood trying to orient myself so i could no not only where the room was but which while the boxes were against and then i walked slowly to the light of the open doorway where he was standing against his crotch as i came toward him he whispered tie your sweater sleeves around your neck you have hives. I get hives not as often as i once did but frequently in childhood whenever i was afraid or nervous or sad they would balloon on my face and neck so i did as he ask. The darkness. Solitary. Sometimes men are held in there for a year and cant move when they come out because of the atrophy of their muscles. Some of them never recover their minds and then says its been nice to see him again give my love to anna and carlos. He was walking and whispering. Is time for you to go. Go he said motioning with his head toward the gate. But will you be all right . He said go. At the entrance lionel was waiting as promised but beyond him soldiers had surrounded him and were looking through the windows he rested his hand on my shoulder and we began walking sidebyside. Why are they . I dont know i guess were going to find out. I met a friend their name marguerite she worked at the Jesuit Catholic University was the place where the jesuit priests were later assassinated in 1989. And we were there for a day and this is what happened when we left. That evening we plan to meet with some of her friends and a few european journalist who had arrived several weeks earlier listening to reports of what they had seen and we would tell them what we knew. There would be cocacola and potato chips. We were still in the close we had chosen so we did look bourgeois but i never would have been able to run in though shoe shoes. I can barely walk in them pulling out of the parking lot onto a slip road narrow that wound around. She was laughing and teasing me when suddenly she said my name and the car was flooded with light she pressed the accelerator to the floor the vehicle behind us was following so closely that a person could have leaped from one roof to the other she sped into a tunnel of darkness ahead and the vehicle behind us sped to. It is the death squad they are going to capture us. I turned around to watch the other car but i could not see it for the light i remember calling out can you drive faster she said no i cannot this is as fast as i can go and i think i am lost. The city is ahead of us drive toward the lights. We sped the other car sped to i said this will be it now when it wasnt expected after talk