Jamaica Kincaid's "A Small Place"- Antiguans

In the second part of Jamaica Kincaid’s novel “A Small Place” she explains the political history of Antigua. She explains that Antigua was a colony of England during a lot period of time, but they finally were able to obtain their independence. The author explains how the English came to the little island and tried to impose their culture and their way of being. To do such thing they abused of the locals, mostly black people, because they thought their way was the only way, because they “thought” they were doing the right thing, that they were making a better environment for the locals. As JamaicaKincaid expresses herself, describing all the horrible things the colonizing we can really feel her anger towards them, because of the abuse and discrimination of the people that really belonged to Antigua, the men and women who suffered from the bad treatments of the English.

Jamaica Kincaid feels very attached to her people, the people of Antigua, because they have suffered and still suffer discrimination and disdain from the English un the colonization era and from the tourists that feel like they are superior, because of nationality, color, race, and many other factors that unfortunately are wrongly used to discriminate.  The author identifies with the Antiguans, because she has lived discrimination too.

If we compare Puerto Rico’s scenario is not that very different. Puerto Rico is a country that was colonized by Spain and was forced to adopt their language and religion. The Indians that inhabited the island when they “discovered” Puerto Rico, The Tainos, were also abused, mistreated, and were terminated. Puerto Rico and Antigua were both colonized and changed to what, in the heads of the colonizers, was the only correct way. The difference is that the Indians were terminated completely, so Puerto Ricans in the society of today don’t feel that attached to the Indians as Jamaica Kincaid feels about the Antiguans. Another difference in Puerto Rico is that we are still, in some way, a colony. We are part of the United States, we are the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. 

Jamaica Kincaid's "A Small Place"- Tourists

Jamaica Kincaid explains in her novel “A Small Place” how are the tourists that vacation at Antigua. Jamaica Kincaid expresses herself referring to the tourists in a very sarcastic and rude kind of way. It seems that Jamaica Kincaid have some resentment against tourist that visit the Island where she comes from, Antigua. In some aspects I agree with the author, because sometimes tourists believe things should be done the way they want, not having in mind the cultural differences and that different countries make things in a different way. Tourism should be a compromise in where tourists understand the culture of the place they are visiting and the locals should understand that tourists are in your country to enjoy it and have a good time. This is the part which the author, in my opinion, doesn’t understand. From the vocabulary she uses we can state that she doesn’t really like tourists. She believes that the tourists that visit Antigua don’t truly know the island or it habitants. This fact makes her mad because the tourists go to Antigua to forget the problems they leave home when they vacation, but the locals of Antigua don’t have that option to escape from their reality, because of poverty.

If we compare the attitude of the author towards the tourists that vacation in Antigua and the attitude of the Puerto Ricans towards the ones that visit our island it has many differences and many similarities. The main similarity is that the tourists that come to Puerto Rico and the ones that visit Antigua enjoy mostly the beaches and the many things we have that many tourists don’t have on their home lands. Me as a Puerto Rican that has been to the United States also agree with Jamaica Kincaid that the tourists don’t trust us, believe that we have a very bad driving, can’t imagine how we can buy expensive stuff. These examples bother the locals, both the residents of Antigua and the Puerto Ricans, because the vision they have of us is one mainly filled with ignorance. In the case of Puerto Ricans we don’t believe that it is a shortage of consideration that tourists visit Puerto Rico to forget their problems, because we can’t do the same, because a grand part of Puerto Ricans go on vacation, or do interior tourism if we can afford a trip.  

Reflection on "helping" by Jim Coopers

Jim Coopers in his essay “Helping” states a particular situation he encounters with the Puerto Rican students, he explains that cheating in a test for them was called helping. He believes that this happens because the Puerto Ricans were very united and cherished their groups and in the United States this didn’t happened because the students were very competitive. If we think about the culture of Puerto Rico we can understand this behavior, Puerto Ricans are very united and warm. Let’s move to the 21th century to see if this is still this way. Puerto Ricans are still very united and helpful, but in my opinion the students have enter unto competitiveness. Now the competitiveness do exist between students, every student want to get the better grade and wants to have the best job opportunities. I can’t deny that cheating does happen, but in a very different way than in the 1950’s, now a day students use technology as cell phones to cheat and help themselves. In another way students still have groups, but when it comes to group projects, no so many students like them. In Business Administration doing group projects is very common, but one of the reasons not so many students like them is because you are putting your grade in other people’s hand. This can tell us that much has changed since Jim Coopers was a professor at Mayagüez.

“When a student cheats is because the education system values more the grades than the knowledge” This phrase that I read once caught my attention, because after reading “Helping” I can conclude that this is what has added competitiveness in the student world. I believe that this is a bad kind of competitiveness, because is sadly true. The competitiveness that should be present on a student mind is the one that’s motivates the student to be better and to learn in a free way so that the he or she can enlarge their horizon. 

Reflection on "Teaching" by Jim Coopers

Jim Coopers talks about English as a second language in Puerto Rico on his essay “Teaching”. This topic is still prevailing of our society. Jim Coopers narrates his experience of coming to Puerto Rico from the United States to teach English at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez Campus. His experience here in the 1950’s was kind of a bad one because he has some expectation, but the reality was different, the university students didn’t knew English. I can imagine that this was a frustration for him, but in my opinion he had to be more understanding, because on that time even some people didn’t know how to write or read in Spanish. Of course this wasn’t the case of university students at the University of Puerto Rico, but it was the reality of many Puerto Ricans. What does that tell us? That the Puerto Ricans where struggling with the establishment of a second language.  In another aspect I’m in complete agreement with Coopers with his suggestion to change the syllabus, because they were pretending that students that didn’t know a language started to analyze literature in that language, English in this case.

If we transport ourselves from the 1950’s to now, the 21th century, we can see that much has changed. The majority of students, not only university students know English. Since elementary students are taking English classes, in the elementary students take mostly grammar and English as basics, in middle school starts the combination of grammar and literature, and in high school the approach is to literature. This style reminds me of what Jim Coopers explains in his essay, that a student have to learn the language and then immerse in what literature and analysis is. Maybe that has been the reason more people and students know better English.

As I mentioned before in other of my blog entries, I consider that we Puerto Ricans are very privileged of having two official languages, Spanish as our native language and English as our second language. As a business student I really know the benefits that this situation brings to us. It opens many doors for us.

Social Classes in "A Room with a View"

A Room with a View is a movie based on E. M. Forster book that presents many class issues under the British stereotype. For me something that stood out for me was that the more intellectual you are, the higher you are on that class. In the beginnings of the 20^th century, arranged marriages are very normal. Some arranged marriages are because of family, aristocracy or money. In the case of the British class system and in the case of this movie, the center of the engagement Cecil and Lucy’s marriage was the intellect. What stood out about Cecil was his passion for books and the only thing about Lucy that called Cecil’s attention was that she played classical music on the piano. But, that’s enough to be happy in a marriage? Well, if we answer that question from a 21 century perspective the answer will be that that’s not enough, but if we transport ourselves to the beginnings of the 20^th century that will be completely normal, it would be the right thing to do. Lucy an open minded young woman was in the middle of what seems right for the society, marry Cecil, a very intellectual man, and following her heart and marry George, a free-spirited man, that doesn’t belong to an aristocrat family. In that period of time classes are more important than in this era. Know marrying the man you love is the common thing the right thing to do, but in Lucy’s time that’s not the reality. Lucy broke the parameters of what’s right or wrong, she destroyed the class ladder from the British society, being the intellect a very important high step in that ladder. If we think of today’s class stereotype is not very different, status prevails our society is one that sometimes has arranged, not by family but for status for yourself, “friendships” and “relationships”. 

Concepts of Identity Studied by Peter Roberts

Identity is a group of singular characteristics of a person or group that distinguishes them from others. Identity has different aspects like cultural and national identity. Cultural identity is typical aspects o the culture of a group that difference them from others and national identity is the sense of belonging to a nation. Peter Roberts in The Roots of Caribbean Identity: Language,Race and Ecology talks about that cultural and national identity of the Caribbean.

Home, language, and behavior are three concepts of identity that Peter Roberts presents in the introduction of his study. For Roberts “…home embodies a psychological factor of attachment, which probably issues from the basic animal instinct of territoriality, but is more an emotional bond created through experience of a place”. The author also expresses that “Language is in part a universal human factor and in part a factor of place: human language manifests itself primarily in speech as distinct languages, each of which is geographically determined”. He also explains that “Behavior is the biggest category in judgments of identity, one that covers a wide array including supernatural practices, entertainment, sports and games, and educational practices”.

As a Caribbean I consider myself very different from people of other continents or even from people in other parts of America. I am from Puerto Rico, a Caribbean Island, and that comes with Spanish as my first language and with so many cultural behaviors that differentiate me as a Puerto Rican from other countries and as a Caribbean from different sectors. In agreement with Roberts I feel much attached with Puerto Rico, my home. I feel part of it and I believe that I contribute to my country. I also believe that part of way of being is because of being a Puerto Rican. We Puerto Ricans and Caribbean are cheerful, loud, homely, and worm.

My native language is Spanish and my second language is English. Peter Roberts states that language establishes a barrier between sectors “Language therefore establishes bonds between all communities of human beings but at the same time set up barriers between communities”. I completely agree with Roberts that language establishes bonds, because you feel more comfortable and you identify with someone that speaks the same language as you. I also think that a barrier is set up between communities when you have different languages, because you believe they are different.

In complete agreement with the author I believe that “While behavior may in some objective way be the best criterion for judging sameness, it is the senses of sight (color/race) and sound (language) that provided the initial and usually most deep-seated conclusions about sameness and difference in identity”. Studying someone’s behavior you can like or dislike them, because if you see similarities you on the first judgment believe that they are the same as you, but in the other hand you can exclude someone from your circle because they have different characteristics in their behavior. 

Tourist for a Day

Last Tuesday, February 24, I went on the adventure with my friend Ana of being a tourist for a day at Old San Juan, a place that I have visited countless times. But this time was definitely different I prepared myself to be a visitor for the first time. I put on my tennis shoes, my shots, my t-shits, my cap, and my backpack and transformed myself into a tourist. Firstly I went to a shop and got a map, because I was getting into character, and what a better way to be a tourist than with a map. The store owner started to speak to me in English, because I think that he imagined that no Puerto Rican will need a map at Old San Juan, I responded to him in English and even asked for a good place to eat traditional food. Finally I went to La Mallorca with the directions given to me by the store owner and the map and ate chicken breast, rice, and beans.

After lunch, we went to El Morro and admire the view, took pictures, and ran and jumped on the green field.

After that exhausting walk under the sun we decided to go to a coffee shop and drink some good Puerto Rican Coffee. On the borders of map that I had were many sponsors, and one of them was ‘Café Don Ruiz’, so we went to that amazing and exquisite coffee shop. I drank a well deserved cup of coffee and Ana drank a frozen coffee with caramel.

After that we went for a walk and saw ‘El Totem’, the Princess Passage, the entrance of San Juan; admired the cobbles, the colonial architecture, and the balconies. We also entered this time really for the first time, souvenirs shops and saw everything you can imagine about Puerto Rico from key chains to towels. I also went to the Tourism Company of Puerto Rico and they gave me flyers, magazines, maps, and information about the different adventures you can do in Puerto Rico.

This unique experience of being a tourist for a day in a place that I have visited before many times, made me pay attention to things that I usually, in a normal visit, don’t pay as much attention. For example, in a normal visit I probably wouldn’t go to a traditional place to eat, definitely don’t enter souvenirs stores, probably don’t walk and admire all San Juan like I did last Tuesday. Another thing is that I was treated like a tourist because I spoke in another language and they treated me differently in the way that asked me about my trip and exhorted me to go to some places. If I talk in Spanish they assume that I know all about Old San Juan, and that is not always true.