Recently, moving to New York from Miami, after living there for over two decades, with each box I packed I wrestled with what to let go and what to keep. There was no hesitation about the family photo-albums, many of which I’d inherited from my mother after she died eight years ago. Each plastic-sheathed photograph is unique, some taken in photography studios in Port-au-Prince, others with my father’s oversize camera in 1970s New York, and some Polaroids that had long faded, leaving behind only silhouettes. Those albums were a large part of my family’s history——
