My parents were very protective of me and my brother, so they never talked to us about the situation in our country.

I was born in Canada for a reason. It was because my parents wanted me to have the freedoms that this country offers.

I came to this country when I was 12 years old because my parents wanted to give me new opportunities to succeed. President Obama wants everyone to have the chances I had.

So much of me is because of what my parents experienced in this country. So much of me is because of the things my parents overcame so that I could have the luxury of having a dream.

In this country, it doesn't make any difference where you were born. It doesn't make any difference who your parents were. It doesn't make any difference if, like me, you couldn't even speak English until you were in your twenties.

When I was a child, my parents took my brothers and me to Port-au-Prince during the summer so we could get to know the country of our ancestors. Because Haiti is an island, the beach is everywhere. Haitians are particular, even snobby, about beaches.

'Dear Mr. Henshaw' came about because two different boys from different parts of the country asked me to write a book about a boy whose parents were divorced, and so I wrote 'Dear Mr. Henshaw,' and it won the Newbery, and I was - it's been very popular.

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