Craig Spell - Other Americas GBS-3299

      This film follows the story of a girl, Asha, who returns home to Trinidad, where she lived as a child. Similar to some of the literature we have read, there is a sense of contrasting duality to Asha's story. While she is beginning to have a bit of a love story with her aunt's neighbor, Roger, she also seems to be haunted by past experiences from this place she is returned, her family even accusing her of talking to spirits at one point. As we have read, I believe this might stem and draw some roots from African Voodoo that reached parts of the Caribbean. During one of these experiences, Asha is  told, "That was no man, that was the spirit of Moko." This struggle between two feelings helps guide the film and goes along with Asha's journey to what seems to be self-actualization. She has these contradicting feelings about being back in the Caribbean.     While she is enjoying the interactions and relationship with Roger, the flashbacks of sort ...

      This story was personally one of my favorites of the recent ones we have read, with an emphasis on familial relationships and both parallels and dualities of life in two different places. Our protagonist, a young girl, is the narrator of the story which evolves around her relationship with 'Da-duh,' her grandmother who she visits in the Caribbean. She tells the story of this visit and discussions between her and Da-duh about their homes, which contrast each other as if they are from two different planets. While Da-duh lives in Barbados, her granddaughter comes from New York City to visit her. While Da-duh is surrounded by fields and sugar canes, our narrator is accustomed to being surrounded by traffic and skyscrapers. Da-duh defends her home while criticizing the industrialization of the city saying, "I din' think so. I bet you don't even know that these canes here and the sugar you eat is one and the same thing. That they does th...

    Like many places, music has become been a dominating and crucial aspect to life and  culture in the Caribbean. I was surprised that our literature has not had more music than it has, but after seeing this documentary, I am sure more stories with music are coming up. Music is a unifier in many ways and looked at very positively by people in places like Jamaica, where their Junkanoo festival drew comparisons to Christmas. Not only is music used for celebration, it is used for important life events and sacred, spiritual moments. Music is blissful and appreciated by the people. Knowing that music and religion can go hand in hand, one person in the documentary said, "Suppose we are having a celebration. See, it is joy. It is merriment. And we sing those songs, and we are happy and we try to make others happy too. And then, to think of the spirits and to get it into touch with them, the music had to be used." Not only is music enjoyed, it is a necessity, people would not kn...

      Another complex, at times hard to understand story, this tale shows us how our narrator tells the story of a boy who moves throughout his life, growing and maturing. Similar to some other stories we have read, it is a coming of age story, as the boy's life and attitudes change from the beginning to ending pages of the reading. At the beginning of the book, this boy has seen this great ship in the night and tries to convince his mother of it. His mother, remembering her late husband has a heart attack and the boy finds her "half rotted away." This pushes the boy to do something else.      Feeling unbelieved, ignored, and now hurt, the boy makes a stubborn act to prove himself, the story saying, "he said to himself, drooling with rage, now they're going to see who I am, but he took care not to share his determination with anyone, but spent the whole year with the fixed idea, now they're going to see who I am, waiting for it to b...

      Similar to "Blackness," I saw this story as one that arrives at self-actualization and realization. Mr. Farley was an artist who was never satisfied with his work. He could never complete it because he would lose his vision. Our narrator introduced Mr. Farley as someone who might be seen as dealing with 'otherness,' generally seen as an outcast from the rest of the society. The story says, "It did not surprise me that Mr. Farley never succeeded in his career, never became talked about but always remained a kind of butt, outside the swim of things, a harmless figure of fun." Mr. Farley had to deal with this bit of social isolation like we have seen so many characters have to do in this Caribbean literature. He has to feel this way most of his adult life, dealing with the idea of  unhomeliness, uncomfortable with his work and not feeling satisfied. That is, until he finds somewhere he foes like to call home.     This p...

      This story was told with an interesting narrative voice, a story of self-discovery through what seems to be one's inner struggles with the 'blackness' that is described in the story. While it can be difficult to understand, this story gives an interesting look into what a person experiencing unhomeliness may feel like. Our mysterious narrator gives insight to how they are feeling, and it seems to be hard for this person to feel comfortable. The story says, "The blackness cannot bring me joy but often I am made glad in it. The blackness cannot be separated from me but often I can stand outside it. The blackness is not the air, though I breathe it." This conflicting idea of 'blackness' is what the majority of the story is about. It seems that the narrator feels isolated and has the postcolonial idea of otherness hanging over her head, often times wondering where to look and what to do.     We also see the the idea of d...

    Like many Caribbean islands, when someone outside of the the island hears Dominican Republic, they  likely think of it as a tropical vacation destination. Like the other Caribbean nations, though, there is much more to the island than tourism and life for the people, especially women, on the island is not all sunshine and rainbows. While I knew sex trafficking, prostitution, and sex crimes were prevalent issues globally, this documentary gave insight and raw truth to just how prevalent it is in some places. What was astounding to me is how people in powerful positions like law enforcement were apart of this. One woman in the documentary said, "For me, to avoid having sex with them I give them 20 or 25 pesos. Because they're going to take someone to jail anyway. They may not take one today, but the next day they'll take someone. And I would rather not have sex with them, I would rather pay them, or I let them take me to jail." It is mind boggling to think that some...

    In these two stories, we get a look at how sport and competition can be an equalizer in a postcolonial world. The stories also touch on how much sports can tie into a culture's identity. In "The Cricket Match" we see a more traditional idea of what we might think of cricket, a British game, but with some people from the West Indies playing. In "Sunday Cricket," we see a full-on West Indies story, from diction to how the characters acted. The common ground, though, was the game of cricket. It did not matter where they came from, on the field, each person had an equal opportunity to perform and compete. While it's thought of as a traditionally British game, the men from the West Indies were impressive in "The Cricket Match," the narrator saying, "Them Englishers never see a stroke like that in their lives. All heads turn up to the sky watching the ball going." In this game, preconceived superiority and social class did not matter. This ...

      A change from our typical reading, this scholarly article took a more scientific, fact based approach in looking at the culture of Jamaica and its people. While we certainly learn and understand these cultures through the more fictionalized literature we have been reading, this article was a good, straightforward way of learning about one of these Caribbean islands. To me, I almost recognized this article as taking a psychological approach to studying the culture, looking at how nature vs. nurture and the environments these people are raised in affect their lives and experiences. My preconceived notions of Jamaica were a laid back, 'chill'  lifestyle, and the article did get into that, but what was interesting to me were the family dynamics that Seaga also touched on. The article says, "72% of Jamaican parents use methods to discipline their children which are characterized by some form of violence." This p...

      Like we have seen several times in other stories, this passage is written from a first person point of view giving a perspective of what it was like to be on the ground (or ship, in this situation) in Haiti during these times. Similar to the Mary Prince story, we are getting a journal of sorts from the narrator, detailing their thoughts and feelings about what is going on in their lives. This character in particular seems to have fear, worry, and anxiety he is dealing with and we are seeing it dealt with as this story progresses. He says, "so that i fe/fe/feared i felt (it felt something like that) that I wd fall and tumble down into the valley." At times, it feels like we are reading the writer's thoughts as they come to him, as sometimes there is a lack of coherent, linear thought progression. The story reads more like what is thought is immediately written down. As seen in the quote, the verbiage and spe...