...though Grenada has had such a violent political history, it does not even mention politics. It is as if Buffong has given up on politics; so much so that she does not even bother to critique it any more. Yet she does critique corrupt religious figures, from obeah practitioners to those of the higher echelons of the Roman Catholic Church. This suggests that Buffong sets her hopes on a return to an African-based spirituality in harmony with nature and community, illustrated by the novel’s nature symbolism and African-Caribbean religions and folklore. In Healing Narratives, Gay Wilentz develops the idea that “cultures themselves can be[come] ill” from a brutal history of colonial conquest and slavery (1). The colonists’ violent disruption and dislocation of African communities were compounded by the psychological violence caused by the repression of the root culture and the imposition of the dominant culture; conditions which laid the foundation for sick Caribbean communities. Members of these communities suffer from the identity crises caused by the conflict between Western materialism and African spirituality. Although the enslaved Africans clung to their culture to maintain an identity in opposition to that of the colonizer, their descendants were lured into assimilation by promises of material wellbeing and social mobility under the condition that they submerge their traditional African worldview. However in the context of the traditional African worldview, the spiritual...
Words: 2444 - Pages: 10
...ID-143 13-10096 Rafael Avila Essay Being black is bad, poor is embarrassing; am I black or white? Conflicts are being reflected on the Caribbean literature, in texts and plays from authors like Walcott and Waite Smith. What images of the Caribbean are depicted in the examples we have read of Caribbean literature? What problems do they face? The texts “Return to Paradise”, “The Two Grandmothers” and “A far Cry from Africa” present a series of issues reflected on the characters personalities, the main problems are, identity problem, social classes’ conflict and education. In the identity part the best example is the text “A far cry from Africa” by Derek Walcott that deals with the split of identity of the poet, the struggle he suffers from both sides “Again brutish necessity wipes its hands/ Upon the napkin of a dirty cause, again/ A waste of our compassion, as with Spain, /The gorilla wrestles with the superman. / I who am poisoned with the blood of both, / where shall I turn, divided to the vein? / I who have cursed/ The drunken officer of British rule, how choose/ Between this Africa and the English tongue I love? / Betray them both, or give back what they give?/ How can I face such slaughter and be cool?/ How can I turn from Africa and live?” In this fragment of the poem it is reflected the problem with an inner conflict that the author doesn’t fell confortable with any side, when he refers as “poisoned” he states the fact that the both types of blood on his veins are both...
Words: 739 - Pages: 3
...1969-71; JCC Journal, editor, 1969-71; Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of the West Indies, Jamaica, publications editor, 1972-77; Social and Economic Studies, editor, 1972-77; freelance writer and researcher, part-time teacher in communications, publishing consultant, and speech writer, Jamaica, 1977-82; Institute of Jamaica Publications, managing editor, 1982-89; Jamaica Journal, editor, 1982-89; freelance teacher, writer, lecturer, 1989-; University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados, visiting lecturer/writer-in-residence, 1990; Caribbean Writers Summer Institute, University of Miami, Florida, director of fiction workshop, 1994, 1995; St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY, Dana Visiting Professor of creative writing, 1994-95; University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, writer-in-residence, 1998-99. Life's Work Jamaican-born journalist, poet, and short story writer Olive Senior is one of Caribbean literature's leading feminist voices. Her works, though written in English, remain heavily influenced by the region's patois, and draw heavily upon its oral storytelling traditions. In both her verse and fiction, Senior critiques the political and cultural ties that continue to bind Jamaica to its British colonial past. Her protagonists often find themselves divided between the resulting two worlds of assimilation and preservation, and she gives their speech and inner dialogues a corresponding tone. "In Jamaica, much as in England, diction has traditionally signified...
Words: 2658 - Pages: 11
...colonizers. The lives of the colonizers are projected onto the colonized – their religion, their rites, their businesses. The actual lives of the people are forgotten . The lives of the ingenious people are forgotten. And in places where slavery and indentured servitude was a practice, the original and true histories of those people are forgotten. This is a phenomenon that West Indian author and poet Derek Walcott addresses in his insightful and touched the Nobel Prize Lecture delivered after receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1992. He begins his lecture describing a performance that takes place on the island of Trinidad, every year by the East Indian population of the town Felicity. The performance is a dramatization of the Hindu epic Ramayana, a major representation of their original history and presentation of their identities. Walcott talks about the simplifying of these identities and how that translates to the view of the Caribbean as a whole: These purists look upon such ceremonies as grammarians look at a dialect, as cities look on provinces and empires look upon their colonies. Memory that yearns to the join the centre, a limb remembering the body from which it has been severed . . . In other words, the...
Words: 3950 - Pages: 16
...Liberties Lost: Caribbean Indigenous Societies and Slave Systems Hilary McD. Beckles and Verene A. Shepherd Excerpt More information Chapter 1 The indigenous Caribbean people Fighting on arrival, fighting for survival .... Bob Marley Three thousand years before the Christian era a distinct Caribbean civilisation was established. These civilisations had a strong influence on the peoples of the ancient world. They, together with other communities, helped shape the way society was organised, how work, money and the economy were planned, and how human culture was created and developed. Together with their continental cousins in Mexico, Guatemala, Peru and elsewhere, the ancient Caribbean communities engaged with and used their environment in dynamic and creative ways. The Caribbean, then, was home to an old and ancient cultural civilisation that continues to shape and inform our present-day understanding and identity. In this chapter we will learn about: 1. The culture of indigenous Caribbean people 2. The Ciboney 3. The Taino 4. The Kalinago 5. Continental cousins: Maya, Aztec, and Inca 1 © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-43544-4 - Liberties Lost: Caribbean Indigenous Societies and Slave Systems Hilary McD. Beckles and Verene A. Shepherd Excerpt More information 1 The culture of indigenous Caribbean people It has taken over 7,000 years for a Caribbean civilisation ...
Words: 3305 - Pages: 14
...MEMORY OF THE WORLD REGISTER The Federal Archives Fonds (Barbados) Ref N° 2008-01 PART A – ESSENTIAL INFORMATION 1 SUMMARY The West Indies Federation (1958-1962) was a political federation of ten territories in the Anglophone West Indies. Its formation signaled the beginning of a new era of decolonization for the region of the West Indies in the post-World War II period. The history of the West Indies is inextricably linked with the histories of other former British colonies, which include portions of Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States of America. The Federal Archives reflect the interconnectivity of these histories and document one of the decisive periods of twentieth century history when territories, under the colonial rule of the British Empire, first flexed their ‘political muscles’ and sought to become sovereign nation-states. Undoubtedly, the West Indies Federation shared some commonalities with other contemporary federations particularly with regard to issues such as constitutional reform and overcoming nationalist interests. However, the West Indian experience was unique and distinct from all others mainly as a result of the geographical separateness of the territories by sea and the insularity of the territories, which historically related bi-laterally with England. Additionally, there was the impact of extra- and intra-regional migrations on account of the colonial plantation economies that were...
Words: 5190 - Pages: 21
...Prejudice, Trinidad, and 'Jamaican exceptionalism'UWI «Tracking no» Foun1101 CARIBBEAN CIVILISATION Student Name: ID Number: Faculty: SOCIAL SCIENCES Degree Prog.: BSc. MANAGEMENT Date: 24/02/12 Title of Article Prejudice, Trinidad, and 'Jamaican exceptionalism' ________________________________________________________________________________________________ I certify that this is my own work and by attaching this cover sheet certify further that there are no instances of plagiarism contained herein. I submit to any penalty that the Faculty deems appropriate for any instance of plagiarism discovered in this work howsoever caused… Signed: Shawn Ramsaran THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES 1. I hereby certify that I am the author of the attached item of coursework and that all materials from reference sources have been properly acknowledged. 2. I understand what plagiarism is and what penalties may be imposed on students found guilty of plagiarism. 3. I certify that this paper contains no plagiarised material. 4. I certify that this is my own work and that I did not receive any unfair assistance from others (including unauthorized collaboration) in its preparation. 5. I certify that this paper has not previously been submitted either in its entirety or in part within the UWI system or to any other educational institution. 6. In the case of group work: a. I certify that the individual work of each member of the group has been...
Words: 1374 - Pages: 6
...TOPIC 1: THE AMERINDIANS Week 1: THE ARAWAKS (Theme One) PAPER: CORE CONTENT----BAHAMIAN-WEST INDIAN HISTORY References: Bahamian History Bk.I by Bain, G. Macmillan,1983 2.Caribbean story Bk. I and II By Claypole, W Longman (new edition) 1987 3. Development to Decolonization by Greenwood R, Macmillan, 1987 4.Caribbean people Bk.I by Lennox Honeychurch. Nelson, 1979 The Migration of the Indians to the New World. It is believed that the people who Columbus saw when he came to the New World were nomadic hunters from central and East Asia who followed the buffalo and deer. When the herds moved, people moved after them because they were dependent on the animals for food. It is therefore suspected that the herds led the people out of Asia by the north-east, across the Bering Strait and into North America. They crossed the sea by an ice –bridge when it was frozen over during the last Ice-Age. They did not know that they were crossing water from one continent to another. Map 1 Amerindians migration from central Asia into North America. The Amerindians settled throughout North America and were the ancestors of the many Red Indian tribes we know today, as well as the Eskimos in the far north. In general, they were nomadic but some followed settled agricultural pursuits and developed civilizations of their own like the Mayas in South America (check internet reference for profile on this group, focus on...
Words: 69958 - Pages: 280
...particular way? Title of text for analysis: Derek Walcott's "Prelude" Part of the course to which task refers: Part IV: Literature: Critical Study My critical response will: * Expose the oppression of the West Indie natives caused by England. * Emphasize the misrepresentation of the natives' conditions and emotions in literature as a major cause of West Indie oppression. * Explore how Walcott uses literary features such as symbolism, allusion, and diction to correctly communicate the West Indie voice found in literature * Uncover the hidden misery and loss of culture and identity suppressed by the natives Written Task 2 Word count: 818 Many readers are surprised when they discover the nature of David Walcott's literature. David Walcott was born in St. Lucia, a small island located in the Caribbean. It is rare in the United States to find literature from a Caribbean author that describes his native Caribbean people. In his poetry, Walcott explores the sources of conflict surrounding the West Indie identity during the time of imperialism and colonialism by Great Britain. The poem "Prelude" depicts various systems the West Indie people attempt to ignore and suppress the effects westerners have on their culture and identity. There is a sharp contrast between the natives' perceptions of the Caribbean and the westerners' perceptions of the Caribbean. Infrequently are the voices of Western Indie people heard, and through poetry, Walcott attempts to give his people...
Words: 964 - Pages: 4
...African immigrant in New York started in 1992, which has resulted in involving topics like the cultural dynamics of informal market economies and politics of immigration. His work has resulted in 11 publications which are widely read and recognized. ("Anthropology & Sociology) In this article Paul Stoller investigates the effects that evolution has on African Art. He starts with a scene set at The Ney York International Tribal Antiques Show at the Seventh Regent Armory on Park Avenue. As he highlights that African Art has been altered in the way the Western World perceived the art to be, he continues to provide evidence that indeed economic and social forces of globalization has changed the world of art. “There is a vast and varied literature on the social and economic impact of the globalization. Several analysts argue that globalization has fundamentally altered the nature of cultural processes, political dynamics and social interaction.” (Stoller 209) After reflecting on this statement, I believe that the Western World interpretation of the art may have predicted the way in which people interacted with African Art. Because African Artists, in most cases, did not have the chance share their story, the true sense of the arts was lost. The purpose of African art was not to satisfy the people themselves but it was meant to be spiritually engaging. “In West Africa religious crossroads are place stepped in religious significance… The crossroads is a metaphor that...
Words: 1006 - Pages: 5
...Strength Beaches Resort has been awarded World’s leading family all inclusive 13 years running. In addition, Beaches Turks & Caicos Resorts Villages and Spa was also named World’s leading family resort for the third year in a row. American Academy & Hospitality Science Six Star Diamond award was awarded to Beaches Turks & Caicos Resort. Beaches Resorts was also awarded the green star Diamond award for environmental practices. TravelAge West Wave awards 2009 Beaches Turks & Caicos was named Best Resort for families in the Caribbean for the second consecutive year. Travel + Leisure magazine named Beaches Turks & Caicos as World’s Best family Resort in the Caribbean. Travel + Leisure magazine march 2007 Beaches Turks & Caicos was voted the #2 Caribbean Resort, While Beaches Negril was voted #9. Trip advisor 2008 Travellers Choice award Beaches Boscobel named in the top 10 hotels for families in the Caribbean and Latin America. Sandals Corporate University has partner with many institutions/universities aboard such as the American Hotel and Lodging Association to offer team member a chance to continue their education by obtaining certification, and degrees. Weakness Better themselves against the competition such as Breeze all inclusive resort and other family resorts that are popping up all over the place They need to promote more from within instead of always bringing persons in especial for management roles. Most times they bring person in, someone...
Words: 563 - Pages: 3
...Analysis After researching, collecting, and analyzing information on African immigration to the United States, it is evident that our society needs more help in adjusting immigrants to American life and making them feel accepted. The research that I did and the piece of information that I have found has helped build my knowledge in becoming socially aware of society around me. It has opened my eyes to the lack of knowledge most of the world has on immigration and it shows me that something needs to change. The items that I have collected have helped me understand more about African immigration specifically compared to other ethnicities that are coming to America. The first week I looked at the difference between Africans and African-Americans. The article I found was very interesting because it talks about the stereotypes African people are forced onto because of their skin color, and how they are treated by Americans in a very unfair and unequal way. African immigrants feel as though they are looked down upon and automatically thought to be of a lower class because of their skin color. This article helped me understand the difference between the two types of immigrants, because often times they are looked at as being the same. The second week I looked at the reasons why African immigrants are coming to the United States, because I think the history behind the transition is important to this topic. I looked at sources from the Library of Congress, and African...
Words: 582 - Pages: 3
...1423 Richmond Avenue Saturday morning around 11 a.m. Since we were so early we were lucky enough to be seated in one of the many white linen cabanas. This restaurant is known in Houston as a cultural, Latin American-Caribbean fusion. As we glanced over the menu, several delicious items popped up, such as redfish, salmon, trout and chicken often paired with a fruit relish, yellow rice and vegetables. The waiter brought us free appetizers, two bowls, one red salsa and the other a yellowish color salsa with some green specks. My sister took a bite out of the yellow salsa, I bit into the corn chips and red salsa. We were both surprised to find out that we enjoyed the tastes of the salsas which were uniquely different. However, we could not figure out what special ingredients were in the salsa but as soon as our waiter arrived we immediately determined the secret as to what the yellow in the salsa was and that was pineapple and a jalapeño blend which was the green specks in the salsa. Both were delicious and exotic. Being on a student budget, we decided the free appetizers were more than adequate for flavor and our budget. Next up was the entrées, we came across many options including both Tex-Mex and Caribbean dishes but ended up with two great choices; the Caribbean snapper which is a fresh bay snapper which is infused with El Pueblito Patio house sauce which came with beans, rice, fried plantains and sour cream. We also had the chipotle chicken which is a grilled chicken with...
Words: 623 - Pages: 3
...on the convicts, bondservants and prisoners of war to exploit resources and spread agricultural systems. This proved to be futile as the men that were taken were from cities and towns back in Europe. Originally, slavery had taken place among the different tribes in Africa, but in 1518, a shipload of slaves was brought from the African Coast to the Caribbean. After Portugal had succeeded in establishing sugar plantations in northern Brazil in 1545, Portuguese merchants on the West Coast of Africa began to supply enslaved Africans to the sugar planters. There are said to be many reasons African slaves were brought to work on thee plantations. There are two theories that aim to either support or disregard these reasons; racism and economical factors. Firstly, the plantation owners were said to have been guaranteed a steady supply of African slaves as opposed to the uncertain flow of bondservants, convicts and prisoners of war from Europe. This was undoubtedly true. Only so many people were convicted or taken a prisoner. It was indeed a lot but not when compared to the amount of Africans that were carried to the Caribbean through the slave trade. The Europeans came to the realization that slavery was already present. From excerpts that were taken from European traveller’s journals, it is said that the Africans were truly inhumane to each other. It did not matter that they were of the same orientation. They would hunt and capture members from other tribes to sell to...
Words: 887 - Pages: 4
...Valentin Gutierrez AMDG Mrs. Hochman Period 5 5/23/13 When the Spanish were building their empires in the newly discovered world of the Americas, they were using the native people that they came across as slaves. The Spanish forced the indigenous population to work in the mines and the plantations that they were developing. The Spanish caused the indigenous population of the Americas to decrease for many reasons. Many died of diseases such as measles and the flu. The body of the natives was completely vulnerable to these diseases because they never came across it and didn’t have a clue on how to combat it. By 1500s, it is estimated that there were about 50 million natives in the Americas. By 1600, after 100 years of European warfare, disease and forced labor, the indigenous population dropped to an estimated 8 million people. New laws made by the Spanish in 1542 put an end to them being taken as slaves. The natives could no longer work in mines and on the land. Instead, a new system was introduced called the encomienda system. Under this system, the natives would only do a reasonable amount of work for the Spanish landowner on whose land they lived on. This presented a big problem because the Spanish had to get the mining work up and running again, but they could no longer count on Mayan and Aztec slaves to do it. The Spanish decided to enslave some African people because they figured, well theirs no law on exploiting Africans so let’s bring them in large quantities...
Words: 531 - Pages: 3
