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Thursday 2nd November,2017

If we are only exposed to one person's views, then, we'll have no choice but to believe that one person's view. In the video, Chimamanda Adichie

heard one person's perspective on Fide, their house boy's family. All that her mother told her about them was that they were poor. As a result, Chimamanda couldn't think of him in any other way than being poor. The same happened to her when she attended university in America. Her roommate was interested in hearing her tribal music and was impressed with how well she spoke English. The American roommate was unaware that English was the official language of Chimamanda's country.
Based on the stories by Christopher Columbus about the formerly known Caribs and Arawaks where he described them as being savages and cannibals, that one person's view on people justified Columbus' genocide of them. This is because he purposefully portrayed them as inhumane and animalistic and hence, that would lessen the empathy for the natives.
The speaker then explains how the single story works. She says that it works if the person that is telling the story has power, then, people are more inclined to believe them than someone with less influence and a smaller audience. According to the French theorist, Paul-Foucault, it is not because one idea is right or wrong, but, because of the power of the people who have the particular idea. He also understood the danger of a single story and how one person's point of view changes people's perception of others.

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Racial Divide in Trinidad and Tobago- (My Topic)

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Racial Divide in Trinidad and Tobago- (My Topic)

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Wednesday 25th October, 2017

History tells us that enslaved Africans were brought to Trinidad and Tobago in order to work on plantations and serve their white planters under horrid conditions. However, Indians voluntarily left India in order to work for wages for a fixed period of time as 'Indentured Labourers'. They were promised land and higher wages in Trinidad than what they were getting in India.   "Planters saw the indentured Indian laborer as competition for the ex-slave laborers and so helped to keep wages down. Ex-slaves (Afrikans) were paid less than indentured laborers were. If the ex-slaves demanded the same equal pay as the indentured laborers (Indians), they would not be entertained." (Zacharias and McAfee, 1999, pp. 61-66).
Today, the Indo-Trinidadian population surpasses that of the Afro-Trinidadian.

The Indo-Trinidadian population in Trinidad do not view themselves as descendants of slaves, they refer to their voluntary experience which "came with tremendous advantages which, allowed them their own family life and their own togetherness, to be protected by the conditions under which they were hired."(Nantambu 2002).

This deep-rooted tension between the two major groups of our population in Trinidad has disguised itself in subtle racism and prejudice. However, around certain times, for example general elections, racism in Trinidad is prevalent. There are two major political parties on the island. One consists of mainly Indo- Trinidadians, United Nations Congress (UNC) and the other predominantly of Afro- Trinidadians, the People's National Movement (PNM). This racial divide in political parties encourages and cements to racial divide in the country.

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Immigration Situation Between Haiti and the Dominican Republic

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Immigration Situation Between Haiti and the Dominican Republic

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Thursday 16th November,2017

In 1492,Christopher Columbus settled on the island of Hispaniola where he conquered it which was inhabited by native Indians. However,by 1665,the French was recognized as colonizers of the western part of the island and named it Saint Domingue. leaving the Spanish to flee to the eastern side of the island where they renamed it Dominican Republic.
Haiti was under French colonial rule where they brought African slaves to work on plantations. The Dominican Republic, however, was centered around cattle ranching.
Haiti was once the richest colony of France as theyproduced sugar for Europe and the Americas. However, by 1791,the Haitians, led by Toussaint L'Ouverture revolted against their colonizers. They destroyed everything that was a symbol of colonial power. They burnt the plantation fields causing deforestation and infertile soil. Because of the revolution, Haiti was forced to pay France an indemnity of$150 million in gold and hence, Haiti was left bankrupt.
Haiti's president, Jean Pierre Boyer, ruled the entire island. In1844,the Dominican Republic gained its independence from Haiti.
In the early twentieth century,Haitians returned to the Dominican Republic as migrant workers.

Under General Rafael Trujillo,the dictator of the Dominican Republic,15,000 Haitians were killed in 1937at the Massacre River.

In 2010,the Dominican Republic rewrote their 1929constitution to give citizenship to those born in the Dominican Republic and have legal parents, however, they rewrote it again in 2013when the High Court ruled that the new definition would be implemented retroactively to 1929,thereby leaving some citizens stateless as anycitizen born to undocumented parents would have their citizenship revoked.

Today,thousands of people of Haitian descent are being deported from the Dominican Republic as the 'regularization plan' for people to become citizens and obtain their required documents was expired in 2015.As a result,the Dominican Republic has carried out a series of mass deportations against Haitians.

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Monday 20th November, 2017

At the beginning of this course, I thought that it would have been another History class. However, it was much more than that. As the course continued, my appreciation for the past grew. It provided insight into the Caribbean.
The highlight of this course for me was the online plenary sessions. This is because I had a chance to hear different perspectives on various topics from people throughout the Caribbean.

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Impact of Slavery in the Caribbean: A Case Study of TrinidadÂ  Zacharias, L. and Me Afee, R. (1999). Let's Save The Children. Trinidad: E.O.C. Press.

L'Ouverture, Toussaint (1742-1803). The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed, 18 Nov. 2005, www.blackpast.org/gah/loverture-toussaint-1742-1803

Makak, Haitianbeatz. Black In Latin America (Episode 1) Haiti and The Dominican Republic- The Roots of Division. 24 June 2011, www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RlG4b3LV9o

Nantambu, Dr. Kwame. Impact of Slavery in the Caribbean: A Case Study of Trinidad. TriniCenter, www.trinicenter.com/kwame/2002/Nov/252002.htm.

Planas, Roque, and Julia Craven. Thousands Woke Up At Risk Of Deportation In The Dominican Republic. Almost All Of Them Are Black. The Huffington Post, TImpact of Slavery in the Caribbean: A Case Study of Trinidad  Zacharias, L. and Me Afee, R. (1999). Let's Save The Children. Trinidad: E.O.C. Press.heHuffingtonPost.com, 18 June 2015, www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/18/dominican-republic-deportations_n_7608886.html.

Thornell, Christina, and Joe Posner. Divided Island: How Haiti and the DR Became Two Worlds. Performance by Johnny Harris, Lululemon, 2017.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WvKeYuwifc