As this is being written, Europe is facing an unprecedented
upsurge in migration of refugees. It is a crisis, as we see from our news
reports. Of course, migrations have always occurred, even if not as dramatic as
that occurring in Europe now. In addition, most of us in the so called new world are the descendants
of migrants. The Caribbean is made up of the descendants originating from the
movements of people, forced or otherwise.
In the Caribbean we have created an
entirely new people, even if consisting of different ethnicities. We are a new
people because the various ethnicities are unlikely to return to the land of
their forefathers; they are now Caribbean.
This applies to North America also. The United Kingdom and parts of
Europe contributed to this migration into the Americas, and in turn, have
received migrants from the Americas, migrants who would never have gone to
Europe had the Europeans not come here first.
This sounds like an introduction
to some political discussion. It's not. It's an introduction to the concept of the
constancy of migrations, the circular aspect of migrations, even if there are
specific periods resulting from war,
famine, the search for economic improvement. And indeed, we now have to add to
that, climate change. There are already islands where sea levels are rising and people are preparing
to move to other counties.
To answer the question posed in the beginning. Yes, children
do need to know about migrations. Anything that relates to the human condition
can be the subject of material for fiction. Yes, fiction. This is not to
minimise the importance of non-fiction; the importance of facts and figures. However,
fiction is the vehicle which humanizes us all, and in this case, puts a face to
the migrant, lets us understand how much we have in common with the migrant, that
he/she wants the same things that we do ( love, security for family, respect,
and so on). In a world bombarded by catastrophes and the resultant movements of
people, migrants can become statistics, as we sometimes try to protect ourselves
from the enormity of the facts. Yet if
we hope to improve the world for future generations, at some point these facts
have to be humanised. Many of our
children will come in contact with migrants, whether this be in large
cosmopolitan countries or in small island territories. We constantly say
children are the future of the world,
often in a very impassioned way, but too often this is not backed up by
specific activities. Perhaps we need to clarify this statement. For me, it
means that our children are the leaders of the world. Every one of them can
lead in some way in a world which is undergoing unbelievable and speedy change,
and in which many moral and ethical decisions will have to be made to safeguard
the future of our physical environment
and mankind itself.
For the people in the Caribbean, migration is part of the
fabric of our lives. These small islands/developing territories cannot provide
the economic opportunities for all. They never have, and as much as we hope they
will in the future, perhaps they never will. The countries of destination for
our people have been mainly the USA, Canada and the UK. Various emotions/perspectives tend to
surround the concept of migrations: for example, skilled professionals (the brain
drain) sometimes perceived by the home
country as abandoning ship; less qualified struggling economic migrants, known for the fact that the money they send home as remittances
is a very important part of support for those left behind. Among the latter are
parents, often single mothers, who leave
their children to forge a better life, until they can send for these children
to join them. These parents often send their children barrels of clothes, food,
etc. hence the children are called barrel children, a pejorative term if there
ever was one.
When children are caught up in these migrations, whether
going with family to a new country or being left behind for a time, they must
experience a variety of emotions. These various emotions can be better understood
by children, when they are presented in a story. Story allows us to understand
others, our feelings towards others, and when we are directly involved, the conflicting
emotions associated with migration, excitement, confusion, sadness. Stories allow us to establish that these various feelings are acceptable,
and this allows us to make sense of our
reality and so perhaps move forward whole, rather than broken.
The first Caribbean children's book I read which included
this concept of migration from a child's/young person's point of view, was
Harriet's Daughter by Marlene Nourbese Philip. What a delightful discovery! What
a delightful, spunky heroine! The heroine's family is already settled in Canada,
but I could still relate to the story as that of one of migrants. Most of my
father's family had migrated to New York in the USA before I was born. I had visited
them a number of times. I knew about the
concerns of the migrant. The longing for home, the visits home, but still for
most, being destined to remain in the host nation, with most of the next generations
feeling little or no affinity to the homeland of their parents. I did not know
it then, but most of my mother's family
would also migrate, not for economic
reasons, but for safety and security, from a country, which at the time was
flirting with an ideology which created great uneasiness in many. This would be
an example of a migration which spawned very conflicting emotions, where
families felt they had been torn apart, and judgement was brought to all by
all. I confess that I cannot write the story of that time, although it should
be my generation which should write one
of the many true accounts. It is still too close in its happening, and perhaps
its hidden pain, for it to be examined.
Instead I chose to
write Island Princess in Brooklyn, the story of a so called barrel child. My heroine, Princess, leaves her beloved
granny who has raised her, to join a mother whom she barely knows. She does not
want to be with her mother really. I did not know until I had written this book
that many barrel children, now grown to
adulthood, had had a hard time adjusting in the country of destination. My
story was inspired by the known and imagined lives of my father's family, and
my experiences while visiting my older daughter and her family when her husband
was doing a fellowship. They lived in a migrant area near to the hospital where
he was studying. We were surrounded by migrants and I was fascinated by their
lives that I could see played out before me, beside me, parts of which we too lived day in and day out. There was the
potential clash of cultures, not only between
the different generations but between the different cultural and ethnic groups. However,
I also saw the cooperative aspect of the lives of the
migrants united in the pursuit of a
better life. Perhaps this is one of the things that could be highlighted in a
story about migrations.
Why should a book like Island Princess in Brooklyn be read
by children?
1. It helps the reader to see both sides of the migrant
equation, the stresses, the misunderstandings, the love. Adults from other
cultures have told me that they could identify with the situations and
recognised the relationships and bonds between the female characters in this book.
2. It shows the conflicting emotions that a teenager feels
when she finds herself in this position, knowing that she must join her mother
and not wanting to do so, how she
handles these emotions. It must be noted, not always wisely, which makes her
human.
3. It reveals the distress and anger Princess feels when she
discovers the various things that she did not know about her mother; that her mother had married and
no one knew; that they did not know everything about her mother's employment,
and in fact, there was much about her father
that she did not know. This latter
situation, is a very sensitive issue, but Princess gives the young person the
right to think about it, even if not the ability to speak about it, given our
cultural norms/beliefs, as Princess does.
4. Princess' inability to make friends because of the
strangeness of her situation, how she overcomes this, will resonate with all
students who find themselves in a new country, in a new school. And those who meet
a migrant student will better understand
him/her. It is interesting to see how her very different friends can come
together, as Princess, through her
stubbornness, faces the biggest challenge of her young life. As Princess tells
us:
"Now I would be known as possibly the first migrant
girl in America to be sent back home by her mother."
Why all this talk about Island Princess in Brooklyn? Well first of all, the migrant/refugee
situation in the world struck a chord, even though it is of a far more critical nature. Then
Island Princess in Brooklyn was at the Read Jamaica booth at the
Brooklyn Book Festival. I'm pleased
that the book could be seen and made available for sale in the place where the idea
had its genesis.
I would love to hear
about other books in which children deal with migrating or interacting with
migrant children. Should you like to do
a guest blog on this topic or about a book which focuses on this, please send
in your blog post to me at: mdianebrowne@yahoo.com
photos taken at Brooklyn Book Festival: second photo shows, from left, Tanya Batson-Savage, publisher and writer, publisher of book that won the first Burt Caribbean Award for YA literature; and Kellie Magnus, writer and publisher
