Sublime

My home on an island—I was leaving it forever. What to make of everything? I felt a familiar hollow space inside. I felt I was being held down against my will. I felt I was burning up from head to toe. I felt that someone was tearing me up into little pieces and soon I would be able to see all the little pieces as they floated out into nothing in

Jamaican mothers raise their daughters to be obedient, and some of us don’t know how to be any other way even when we are women. Some of us Jamaican daughters too easily forget the days our mothers were most tender.

Over the course of the twentieth century, Haitians, escaping poverty and unrest, sought refuge in the Bahamas as well. It was and remains a deeply stratified place, sitting at a crossroads, with the global elites and their tax havens at the top and poor Haitians living in shanties at the bottom. It is one of the tragic ironies of global history

Edwidge Danticat story: “Shame is heavier than a hundred bags of salt.”

what about the shame of being madly in love and waiting for a man behind a door he did not open, being called totally deranged and a whore around the edges? Has The Second Sex cleansed me of all that, or on the other hand, completely submerged me?

mbeles

Outside of the settler population, though, enforcing English as a national language proved to be a more violent undertaking. Slave owners made a point of separating African slaves who spoke the same language. Those caught speaking their home languages could face serious punishment; there are reports of some having their tongues cut out. The result