This is how I left everything behind reflects the themes of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s insecurity, displacement, migration, and the lived experiences of Haitian youth and migrants. In fact, it is a book about the push and pull factors explaining the current global migration Caribbean people, Latin Americans, and people from other parts of the world are being part of. Port-au-Prince, poetically referred to as The City of Graces, witnessed her young professional and Roman language professor, Jonathan Pascal, fleeing from the gangs’ warfare and climate collapse. After the loss of his house burned by two gang groups, Jonathan had enough reasons to be afraid. He became determined to travel through Central and South Americas only to return to Mexico via the Darien jungle in the search of his half-brother, Balthazar Okono. This book explores the emotional and cultural cost of leaving one's homeland. It is not only this narrator's story, but it is also the story of the Haitian communities in all the diaspora.
