Other Americas 3299

      In the second part of the documentary Simon explored the island of Barbados. Once again this island is known for its exotic vacation spots but as Simon does with this series he interacts with the natives to get their point of view. The island is becoming a popular vacation home spot as property values are soaring and the mansions are going up all over the beach front. Simon talks with a man who has some land that is highly valued as people have offered him around 8 million dollars for his little piece of property near the water. As a native the man did not want to sell his land as he values the land he owns more than any monetary value. This shows how Natives are not wanting people coming to Barbados and running the Natives out of town and making it a majority Westernized island. I believe it is important for the Natives to preserve their land and not sell it to outsiders in order to preserve their culture and practices. As we saw in one of our first docum...

    In part one of the documentary series Simon explores many islands in the Caribbean and shows off what they have to offer, both the good and the bad. He also speaks about the history of the islands and the rich culture that has been preserved for years. Simon dives into how islands stay afloat by selling and trading things such as sugar, cocoa and various other goods. I feel as it is important that he takes this approach of showing us what the islands are truly like and what they used to be like, as most people just take them for granted as vacation destination spots. In the documentary Simon explores voodoo, something I thought was only in movies and no one actually practiced. Before European settlers came over and forced Christianity down the throats of natives, they used to practice voodoo, some still do. Voodoo is something they still look back on as a safety net, something that has always held true to their culture when the Europeans came over and tried to force t...

     In the short story,  "Triumph" by CLR James I feel that it falls under a similar short story as "Some People are Meant to Live Alone" by Collymore as by the end of the story Irene is poor and isolated and labeled as the town liar. She follows the theme that a lot of these stories tell, the tale of isolation and being like the ugly duckling. The story originally makes you want to feel bad for Mamitza as the story progresses though I personally grew a dislike toward her and feel like she got what she deserved.      James pays close attention to people's race and ethnicity throughout the story making some races look better than others. As typical fashion for this time he makes African American's look like a bad part of society. If we look at Nicholas he was looked down upon throughout the story he's referred to as, "low island people." The socioeconomic description James puts on characters in the story is something we've throughout the pi...

In this text you can see a theme that a lot of the post colonialism text showcase, the theme of loneliness and being isolated. The story by Frank Collymore really showcases the effects of being lonely and how it can affect a person's well being even if it isn't easily noticeable at first glance. The text starts off by making Uncle Arthur seem like a normal quiet man who minds his own business and prefers to stay alone and away from others. The story talks about another man who was driven insane by loneliness and required some form of interaction, it seems that Arthur might be describing himself but it was never implicitly stated. The story seems to also show people have a dark side as the dark side for Uncle Arthur is a person named Jones. Jones is said to have killed someone and the reason Arthur might be saying it is a different person is that he is unable to cope with the fact he has murdered a man. 

      As you watch the film your breath is taken away from all the beauty the Caribbean Islands hold and the vast amount of culture throughout the islands as many European countries had settlers visit these islands and begin a life there. As you continue to watch the documentary it brings up a dark time of the Caribbean Islands as it used to be part of the slave trade triangle. The slave trade triangle consisted of the United States, Europe and Africa as the United States would send sugar, tobacco, and cotton to Europe. Europe would send goods and rum to Africa and then Africa would "send" slaves to America. This cycle incorporated the Caribbean Islands, which the documentary shows how both the beauty of the islands while at the same time the hidden past of the islands. The islands natives still live in poverty and the slavery past still haunts them leaving them unable to progress as people only see it as a tropical tourist location and don't see the pain t...

      This story comes from an interesting perspective, the perspective being from the last decedent of a royal line from the small African country called Coramantien. The story starts out with the back story of how Oroonoko grew up away from his royal family training to be a military leader by Imoinda's father who was later fatally shot in the eye with an arrow, which forces him to return home and become a general of the army. Oroonoko is portrayed almost as a Greek God built very strong and wealthy, powerful overall. This story also highlights the old kingcentric governing style where the king is able to just pick Imoinda to become one of his women and then also sell her into slavery. This is a twist on a classic love story with the addition of slavery as the king knowing Oroonoko and Imoinda are going to be together imminently sells her off to make sure Oroonoko cannot have her.     Another theme seen throughout the piece which typica...

      The short story by Jean Rhys highlights what it's like to be a social outcast like Mr. Ramage. One line from the story that really sticks out to me is, "His death was really a blessing in disguise, said one lady." This line shows how Mr. Ramage began isolating himself from society causing him to become a social outcast. This story is an example of how natives and non-natives were not to intermingle during these times, as Mr. Ramage was originally accepted and part of the high class white society. Once he began mingling with the natives he was quickly out cased by his white society. This really shows throughout history how colonization of other countries needs to take a more accepting approach rather than just deciding that the society you are taking over and colonizing is lesser than you. Another important part that the story shows is how people from European nations were buying land that wasn't even theirs to buy and sell, they were just going to go to the land...

     "The History of Mary Prince" really highlights the mistreatment of slaves during the older times as she was a first hand witness. One of the quotes that stood out to me is how owners could speak for their slaves and say that they are in the best possible situation and how if they were freed they'd be worse off. This is truly shocking as slaves weren't able to speak for themselves and under the mercy of their owners who almost all the time would mistreat and over work them. It appealing to me how the owners of the slaves  were able to rationalize the mistreatment of them even though the slaves were any less of a person than their owners. In addition, once slaves were brought here they were very rarely given a chance to go back to Africa, shockingly a vast majority of the time they didn't want to go back due to the fact they had been away for so long the chances of them finding their family and fitting back into their society would be extremely hard. The story ...

      The Gold, Silver and Slaves Documentary really highlights the ignorance today's modern textbooks have about the slave trade. The documentary shows and explains what really happened during these times and the beginnings of the slave trade. History has shown overtime that we try to forget about the awful things we've done in the past even though racism is still deeply rooted in the American way of life. The history books of today still lack to show the affects it had on the countries the slaves were being taken from, they tend to focus only on what America did, not the side effects it had on the countries losing their people. The documentary also highlights how the Americans basically went to Africa with overpowering weapons which made it nearly impossible for any of the native people to fight back or even get anything out of the kidnapping of their people. Having the Americans in Africa kidnapping natives also caused war between tribes leaving it a nation in distress...

    In the podcast you can clearly see the mistreatment of certain races has always been deeply ingrained in the history of America. Even as we look at today's society we can see how racism overtime has become a part of our system and we accept it, turning a blind eye. Luckily we are going through a time realizing our society is inherently racist and looking to reform and fix this. For some reason we have an inherent sense that we are the superior race and have the ok to enslave other races who we deem "below" us. In the podcast they spoke about the original deal with the Natives how both sides of the deal would provide things for the other one but that quickly turned into the Spanish forcing the natives into doing things for them for free which started the slavery in the Americas. The Spanish settling the Americas thought they had a religious reason for colonizing the Americas and keeping and enslaving all the people who had currently inhabited that land. ...