Craig Spell - Other Americas GBS-3299

    This story tells an interesting Haitian tale that intertwines religious beliefs with relationships and romanticism. The main character and narrator in the story, Alain, is caught between two people and two ways of lives. On one side he has the desire to become a Priest and Father Mulligan guiding him down the path of 'righteousness.' On the other, he has Rosena, a woman who is continually sexualized and objectified in the story and serves as a temptation of sorts for him. Right away, she says to him, "Has Father Mulligan stuffed your head with that nonsense? Huh? That's his affair if he wants to keep his prick in the Holy Spirit's cooler all his life! I think that our Iwa  are right to limber up their limbs when they feel like it." From the start, Rosena is a voice for the opposing life to Father Mulligan and priesthood. She shows Alain how he could be and he eventually does go for this, getting romantic with Rosena. Obviously, this was not the lik...

    In this documentary, we are given a historical background and context and shown how Haiti got to the place it is today, through many struggles and set backs. Much of Haiti's downfall has seemed to come from the lack of an effective governing system. Time and time again with different regimes, the country has failed to see positive, centralized leadership. The country has faced division throughout its history, one person in the documentary saying, "We're faced with a situation where it is proved impossible to apply these constitutional texts to political practices, to make these texts a reality, to such a degree that we have a two tier regime. There's the regime embodied in the constitution, and there's the regime as it is in practice." This power struggle and political corruption makes it hard for positive governing to take place. With no good leadership, the people of Haiti are often forced to fend for themselves, while they receive backlash ...

     In this story, we see some similarities in terms of plot, thematics, and characters to some of the previous stories we have read in Caribbean literature. It is a story similar to "Red Dirt Don't Wash" in the sense there are two people from different situations or walks off like that are being kept apart. Here, the narrator, Silvestre, is mostly unenthused with life besides this one girl - she - Virginia. Like how the man who worked in the red dirt in "Red Dirt Don't Wash" did not belong with the servant, Silvestre, who was 'studying medicine' could not be with a daughter of a gravedigger, though he wanted to. This reiterates how the interactions between societal classes works in these times and places. Interestingly enough, it was once again the woman here who did not think the relationship would work, but this time it was the man who would be seen in a 'higher' class, studying to be a doctor. Virginia lies to get away from Silvestre wit...

      In this story, we see people from two different societal classes interacting with one another and see one of these people try to make a 'jump' up into the next spot in the  hierarchy where he may not necessarily fit naturally. Seeing the interactions between these two people shows how difficult it was to change preconceived notions of social class and how people in upper classes treated those in a lower, working class. The woman in the story, Miranda was from a 'higher society' style, being "city-bred, house-broke, and all the things that he wasn't. She had training. She had refinement, culture." While she may have not been economically rich, she is still looked up to and seen in an aspirational situation by Adrian. Adrian comes from a lower, working class place, looked as 'dirty' by the rest of society. When he looks at someone like Miranda, he recognizes his place in the world, as the story says, "Made him aware of his own grossness, h...

      In this part of the documentary, Simon continues his journey along the Caribbean and sees how government plays (or does not play) a role in the lives of the people. Starting in Nicaragua where people will be divided with the plan to  build a new canal in the country. One man in the small village of Monkey Point pointed out that, "normal people have been left out of the decision making process." The people who these decisions will most greatly effect are getting no say in whether or not they want these things introduced to their land. Of course, the Nicaraguan President claims that building this canal will bring many, many jobs to the people and boost the overall economy. Of course, one citizen makes the claim the building of the canal is, "a good idea just for the President and leading group, but for the poor, the rest of the country, that's not fair." It is also important to point out, like the documentary did, that people who get put to work on...

    In this part of the documentary, Simon visited some different parts of the Caribbean including St. Vincent and Venezuela and got a look at some of the markets and businesses that drive these regions and how the countries handle these businesses. Starting in St. Vincent, a less thought about island, the documentary looked at large, hidden marijuana fields and farms where people grow and sell the drug that is still  illegal in the country, though it has been decriminalized and legalized in many countries and states. Simon made the interesting point that if they were to approach a marijuana field in somewhere like Central America, they would likely be met by men with assault rifles, but here that was not the case because, "this is not marijuana being grown by organized crime." These people were just trying to use their resources to make enough money to provide for their families. It was interesting to me that these people were not profiting more than they ...

      In this part of the documentary, Simon Reeve travels around the Caribbean discovering how some historic events and a drug  war has turned Caribbean lands like the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Puerto Rico have become what they are today. In each of these places, certain issues are keeping the people and society from reaching their full potential. It started in the Dominican Republic when the documentary saw just how real the drug presence in the country was. An interesting point was made in the documentary that called the Dominican Republic "victims" for "being in the middle of the supply of South America and the demand of the United States and Britain." They cannot help where the islands are located and with as big of a business as the drug industry is, it almost seems inevitable. This would make the situation just another unfortunate, hard to prevent scenario that these islands have to deal with.     Other unpreventable scenarios are natu...

      This story that focuses in on three women on Trinidad and takes a look at gender roles and societal  hierarchy on the island. We see three women who seem to compete with one another and bicker, but they live in a place on the island called the barrack-yards that are described as, "a narrow gateway leading into a fairly big yard, on either side of which run long, low buildings, consisting of anything from four to eighteen rooms, each about twelve feet square. In these lived the porters, the prostitutes, cartermen, washerwomen, and domestic servants of the city." This is the narrator and writer talking in the first paragraph of the story, setting the stage immediately that these people are 'lesser' and of a lower class than her. It seems obvious that they are looked down upon by the rest of society, continuing the theme in these short stories of the idea of 'others' or 'outcasts' that do not fit the status quo.     Another thing the author uses to ...

      In both of these short stories, we see main subjects who are sharing some similar experiences. This experience is the loneliness and isolation that is paralleled in both stories. In Collymore's story Uncle Arthur shares a story that ends up being his own where he says, "He decided marriage wasn't meant for him. No, sir. He could do just as he pleased. No wife to nag him, no people dropping in to talk and talk when he wanted to be left alone, nobody to remind him of what he had to do, what he ought to do, what he must do. It was delightful." Uncle Arthur is the one who delivers the message that is in the title that, 'Some People are Meant to Live Alone' and he proves that to be true when an old friend moves in and aggravates him to the boiling point of him strangling and killing him.       In the other story, we see a man, Pablo, who is isolated from society in a different way and does not necessarily want to be in the same way that Uncle Art...

      In this documentary, there is more of a presentation of what the current day Caribbean islands are like in terms of landscape, culture, and people. This is in comparison to the literature we have read up to this point that is set in postcolonial times when the islands were just being settled on by European voyagers, coming into the places where the indigenous people were and bringing about slaves from places such as Africa. Getting to see the juxtapositions between these two time periods was eye opening in recognizing what a more postmodernist Caribbean looks like. It was obvious from the onset that the islands and places the documentary visited, including St. Lucia, were diverse in nature in terms of ethnicity, but true to their 'local' culture that has been created. We saw this local consumerism as the documentary walked through the market on the streets and saw local vendors selling their products. At the local re...

    In this reading, there is a situation unlike the ones we have previously studied, but one that was certainly not one of a kind on the Caribbean islands. We have the white community coming at Ramage for being married to a Black woman. I think in Rhys' writing, we see our most significant case of double consciousness yet with Ramage and he ultimately cannot handle it anymore. While he is living in the Spanish Castle, wanting a happy life with his wife, he is being tormented and treated poorly by the surrounding community. It is like having to live two lives and losing a sense of self. It comes to a boiling point when Ramage kills himself. Then one person says, "His death was really a blessing in disguise...He was evidently mad, poor man." This further shows the inner struggle he was having, that supposedly people in the town knew about. Ramage was truly caught between two cultures, living in his home with a wife he loved...

     This first hand narrative account gave us a better idea of what life as a slave was like according to an actual slave who was going through it. It was not a retelling by someone who watched it or a story of voyagers who were enslaving people, but actually a journal of sorts from someone who was enslaved. With this, more so than other literature, documentaries, or podcasts we have looked at, those who were slaves got some representation and a chance to tell their story. This account allows us to see the harshness of what was going on and exposed the way slave owners were treating their people. In one of the first line, she mentions, " My master, however, was a very harsh, selfish man; and we always dreaded his return from sea." Before she says anything else about him, what he had her doing, or anything else, she mentions the harshness and awfulness of this man. This, of course, was her first master, as she bounced around from place to place being sold, and each time b...