Other Americas Blog- Ian Miller

 Moko Jumbie is a film that focuses on the attraction between Roger and Asha. They live on different sides of the road in Trinidad. Asha and Roger come from totally different walks of life and Refer is not in her social class, as he is only a fisherman. This movie reminded me a lot about Romeo and Juliet. It seemed almost as if it was just a modern and Caribbean adaptation to the classic play by William Shakespeare. There is culture clashes between the families, and their relationship is forbidden by their parents. What I found to be the most important aspect of the plot was how the relationship between races on the island.     The idea that Roger and Asha can not be together is due to the fact that she is Indian and he is African. Ever since the slave trade natives and Africans have had to share the same land and now this story focuses on how the main characters overcome this historical difference for love. In addition to the historical significance, the story also ...

 "To Da-Duh, in Memoriam" is an interesting story that is almost autobiographical from the narrator. He is older at the time that he is speaking, and the story focuses on him looking back at a childhood memory. There is a bit of a clash between the grandma and granddaughter in the story which is where the main plot develops its content. The story starts as a family gets off a ship and arrives in Barbados. The family is going to meet their grandmother. She does not immediately get along with the narrator and she initially calls her, "Fierce". They go out and explore the country and all that it has to offer. As the trip goes on though, things take a turn for the worse.      Just like most Caribbean stories that we have read, there is no real happy ending to this story. The granddaughter keeps trying to impress Da-duh about everything in New York, but she pushes it too far. She makes it seem like there is nothing really impressive abou...

 The Caribbean Crucible  was a documentary that focused on the relationship between the British and the people of the West Indies. This documentary goes back to the roots of this class. It focuses on the colonialism in the West Indies and how the British exchanged goods for slaves. Slavery was always present in the West Indies, and the people eventually were sold in Europe or in the United States. However, the documentary showed an insight into how the natives resisted the the British colonial influence and how they coped with the treatment and reality of living in a country occupied by a ruling group.     The natives fought back fiercely as described in the documentary. The "Maroons" were a group that was talked about heavily. They would surprise the British and make them beg for mercy. " Maroons" is derived from a Spanish word that means, "runaway slave". I found it interesting that this group used the term to name their group. They are not really ru...

 This story focuses on the adventure and life of a young boy. It follows him as he grows from a young boy into old age. I found this story to be one of the most interesting stories that we have read this year. From the start there is a very ominous tone and it just seems destined for chaos and peril. The young boy goes back to his mother after he sees the strange ship, but when he tells her what he saw she does not believe him. from this point on the story becomes very dark. as the boy is on the way home his mother sits in the new chair she bough; she then suddenly has a heart attack before he can say anything and apparently four others in the village had died in the exact same chair.     I found it very intriguing how persistent the main character was. After the villagers and even his own mom did not believe him, he did not give up. He still wanted to prove to them that the ship was real and he was not lying nor was he crazy. He says on his way back, " Now they’re going ...

 John Wickham's "The Light on the Sea" is filled with imagery and other literary techniques that makes this story a very interesting read. For our main character, his life had no 'Light' and he went to go find where that light would be. It was not in his work at home and it did not come to the artist through his work. He sets out for sea and this ominous Caribbean tone of loneliness sets out throughout the story. The waves represent peace and solitude. He then is asked how he is spending his time and what he is looking at, and he replies, " ‘I look at the sea,’ he said, so solemnly I thought he was making fun of the question.  But he wasn’t”. He just looks at the sea and it is his sense of peace and many others do not understand this idea.  In addition, the sea also plays a key role in the timeframe of his life. He is later on in his life, and now the sea is almost an escape for Mr. Farley. He is able to escape his life previously by leaving his previous poss...

 "The Walk" by Merle Collins was an interesting text, and I sound that the author really took a more personal approach to writing this piece. I feel like Collins used her sense of faith and her culture to write this story, and she used the Caribbean view of Christianity to help with the plot. I found that Christianity is introduced right away when  she says her mom's name means,    “Faith reaches up”. It shows the reader the positive side of Christianity and how faith can be uplifting and saving. Many used faith in the Caribbean as an almost saving grace to help get them out of pressed colonial conditions and impoverish ways of life.     In addition it expressed the way of life from the viewpoint of two female characters, and also it focused on their relationship. It showed that there can be a different view on life in the Caribbean for female characters, but it shows their reliance on Christianity to have a good life...

 This documentary that we watched centered on the female prostitution chain in the Dominican Republic, and helped us gain insights into the life of Caribbean women as a whole. When women need work, the last resort is normally selling their bodies for economic gain. Most of the women in the documentary do not enjoy having to take part in the prostitution, but at this point they feel that this is almost what they have to do because it is all that they really have to do to make any money at all. The perceived beauty of the Dominican Republic that is talked about throughout the documentary is merely a cover up for the immense problems that run deep for women throughout the Dominican, and Caribbean as a whole.     I find it to be incredibly problematic, that the way of life is accepted. They are already impoverished, and now they are breaking the law merely to earn just above the poverty level in the country. The money that they do earn is tainted, as it is from an illega...

     This short story focuses on the British game of cricket. It is a display of post-colonialism at its finest and the plot shows the deep divide that European nations had with the nations that they have colonized. The story centers around a game of cricket between the West Indies and England. The tone of the story is very competitive. The narrator says, "' That was a wonderful shot,' Charles tell Algernon grudgingly. Charles still had a feeling that the boys was only talkers, but so much controversy raging that he don’t know what to say." The grudges are driven by their differences culturally, and the sense of superiority by the white male has a stark presence in this short story, much like many stories we have read that have dealt with the relationships between colonizer and native.     In addition, the story is told from the view of a narrator who is presumably also from the West Indies. His diction is very informal, and his language is not sh...

"The Folk Roots of Jamaican Identity", was a research article that we accessed through JStor. I found this article to be quite intriguing. When I think of the Jamaican culture and identity, I find them to be very proud and embrasure of their culture. They are proud and I agree with the idea that their identity is formed out of their strong sense of culture.

 "Dream Haiti", is a short story that tries to tell the story of a dream of a refugee. He dreams of his journey to the U.S.A.. he dreams of being imprisoned, even though he is imprisoned basically to himself, and the trip is only a one way journey with no opportunity to turn back. I found that the story shows the same Caribbean idea of hopelessness that we have read about multiple times before. While he was floating along, he escapes his land of culture, but leaves behind his sense of being stuck in post-colonial Haiti. However, he, himself is stuck and dreams give a false senes of reality. He is stuck floating along in the sea, and the waves also show a sense of being cast and stuck, flowing along with what the world throws his way. In addition, I find it interesting how the font and vocabulary was used to tell the story of an insane dream. The typeface is used to show an edginess and madness that the narrator is feeling in his dream. Being chained up as a refugee can not be...