Haitians marked the 219th anniversary of independence on January 1, 2023 with the traditional consumption of soup joumou — the pumpkin soup whose UNESCO-recognized cultural significance connects the meal to the revolutionary memory of freedom from colonial slavery. In communities across the country and among diaspora groups worldwide, the soup was prepared and shared as it has been on this date every year since 1804, regardless of the circumstances surrounding its preparation.
The 2023 independence celebration was shadowed by the depth of the crises the country was experiencing, with the security emergency, food insecurity, political paralysis, and the absence of any elected government providing a stark contrast to the founding ideals of liberty and dignity that the day was supposed to celebrate. For many Haitians, the contrast between the revolutionary achievement the day commemorated and the current reality of a country paralyzed by gang violence and governance failure was deeply painful.
Yet the persistence of the tradition was itself an assertion of Haitian identity and historical memory that refused to be extinguished by crisis. Communities that made and shared soup joumou in 2023 were doing something that Haitians had done in far more difficult circumstances — under the Duvalier dictatorship, after the 2010 earthquake, through cholera and hurricane — and would continue to do regardless of what political or security conditions prevailed.
Cultural commentators noted that the UNESCO recognition of soup joumou the previous year had given the tradition new international visibility, creating an opportunity to tell the story of Haitian independence to global audiences who knew little of the world’s first Black republic and even less of the extraordinary history that the simple act of sharing a bowl of pumpkin soup was meant to commemorate.