"A Small Place" by Jamaica Kincaid

For this posts reflection, I've been assigned to read part of the book A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid (you can read a summary here). In this book, she tells us about her childhood in Antigua, where she was born and raised before she moved to the US. Her book is divided in two parts, where the first states how she sees tourists and what she believes the tourists see and think when they visit Antigua. Her second reading centralizes in the way England imposed their ways of living in the island.

In the first section, Kincaid brings to us the idea of what a tourist is to her. In her eyes, a tourist isn't a particularly good person. She literally states:

"A tourist is an ugly human being."

Some may think that she is looking at it in a rough manner. Some may even think that she's attacking tourists and that she has a violent and bad perception of them. While she describes what a tourist is to her, she tells us that a person isn't normally an "ugly human being", it's just that when you become a tourist, you have a different point of view towards the places you're visiting, and that's what makes you that type of person. If you live your ordinary life, you are a nice person from day to day, one that lives a monotonous life looking to break out of the cycle.  Her feelings towards this idea of tourists can't be any clearer in her text, especially to me when she says:

"You make a leap from being that nice blob just sitting like a boob in your amniotic sac of the modern experience to being a person visiting heaps of death and ruin and feeling alive and inspired at the sight of it."

So it's very clear how she points to tourists as people that come to a place to look for something more because in their ordinary lives they didn't find it. It is a very strong and shocking way to stereotype tourists, because in my opinion this is just a very general way of looking at it, and I do believe that not everyone that puts themselves in that position will be thinking the way that Kincaid says the do.

She finishes off this first part by stating that every native is a potential tourist. Every native lives in that monotonous day to day life that they have and want to somehow break the cycle by visiting other places and playing the role of a tourist, but not everyone can do this so easily. Not everyone has the resources or the freedom to be able to just decide when they want to become someone else in society and see the world through different eyes, in this I completely agree with Kincaid and understand that many people in the world are suffering and feeling devastated while others take a trip of relaxation and freedom in this countries that natives can't escape.

In the second part of her book, Kincaid centralizes on how England imposed their ways in the Antiguan culture. She gives us the impression that the Antigua in which she grew up in almost completely revolved around England, and as well said by herself, it is true, and that is how she knew the world to be. She tells us how the streets were named after English maritime criminals. She tells us that there was slavery, and corruption, and a lot of people trying to just make money out of them.

There is also the factor that the doctors or health treatments they had weren't actually any good. By good I mean in the way they treated the patients, how kids where checked all over by assistance before they were actually passed to be seen by the doctor. People just thought they were very meticulous in their procedures and cares, but truly the doctors didn't really like the people from Antigua, because they thought they were dirty and that in some way with their presence they offended the doctor himself.

Also, there was the fact that this people that came and imposed themselves in the island were racist towards the natives, but they were like this in a way that no one really noticed it was racism. They treated them with a type of bad behavior and bad temper that the locals just thought they were ill-mannered. Kincaid herself says:

"We thought these people were so illmannered and we were so surprised by this, for they were far away from their home, and we believed that the farther away you were from your home the better you should behave. (...) We felt superior, for we were so much better behaved and we were full of grace, and these people were so badly behaved and they were so completely empty of grace." 

We can see how the people that came to impose their believes were doing it in a very negative way, but Antiguans didn't see it as them being racist, or rude, or angry at them, they just thought they were very particular and different compared to the locals. We can also see how people from the island visualize tourists that visit the island in a negative way. They describe them in a way that indirectly tells them that they should be ashamed of themselves for doing the things they do and thinking the things they think when visiting Antigua. As everything in the world is, it is just a matter of point of view and perspective, I may not see it the same way as Jamaica Kincaid does, but it is also a matter of identity, how she is an Antiguan that has been living under this hard circumstances and sees things one way, and how I am just a normal person that one day could become the tourist that she so much describes.

Reflection on "Helping" by Jim Cooper

In his book Down on the island, Jim Cooper points to different issues regarding the education in Puerto Rico, specifically English education. In one of his essays titled "Helping", Cooper addresses a matter that has been, and still is, present in todays learning process of the students, he addresses cheating, or what he calls helping.

Here in Puerto Rico I dare say that people are very hospitable and group oriented. I'm speaking here in general when I say that it is very normal to see a Puerto Rican helping someone else because they need it. Jim Cooper himself says "Puerto Ricans are the most hospitable people in the world." Though, many tourists that come to our island say the opposite, and I think that's because they experience only a very minimal part of what Puerto Rico is, but I'm moving away from the topic which is cheating. Now, because we are so group oriented, when it comes to classes and exams and we see that someone else needs help, we give it to them even though we've been taught not to.

In his essay, Cooper narrates how when he was a teacher at the Colegio he had a huge problem with cheating. Not only did students cheat, but when he tried to confront them and tell hem it was wrong they would say they were just helping, and shouldn't they help their classmates when they need it? Cooper says: "The basic disagreement or perhaps misunderstanding was about what was considered cheating and what was just "helping"." When he tried to explain to the students that it was wrong to "help" students in their tests they couldn't comprehend why it was so bad. I believe it was all a matter of perspective. From the point of view of the professor, the students were doing something wrong by helping others pass the class, because truly they weren't learning anything of the subject, but, if we see it from the point of view of the students, they were just helping. Since our childhood, we are taught to be cooperative, and that can also be compared to an American student. We are taught to be cooperative, they are taught to be competitive. In his book, Cooper states

"A Puerto Rican student will let his neighbor look at his test paper because he wants to help him get a good grade. An American student will hide his paper from his neighbor because he is only interested in getting a good grade himself and certainly is not out to help what he thinks of as a competitor, a rival."

I'm not going to say that I agree with cheating looking at it from a perspective that I want to become a professor, because I do believe that students should do their own work. That is the only way to actually now if they are learning something, though I will say I don't agree with exams. Exams now a days are just a memory test, to see who remembers the most out of all of the things that were taught in that class. I myself have been one of those students that if an exam is coming and I don't know the material very well I just memorize every little detail, and after the exam I forget absolutely everything I knew. It's not a good thing to say, but it is true, and I think many of us have done it too once in a while. Now, because there is no other form of knowing if a student may know something or not, exams will continue to be a tedious part of our academic learning process.

In conclusion, Cooper's concern towards students cheating in Puerto Rico is completely understandable and it is still a matter that hasn't been completely addressed today. Puerto Ricans just want to help their classmates, and Americans just want to be better than their class mates. It is a matter of how they were raised, and they way that specific person is. Puerto Ricans will continue to be as helping as possible just because it is a tendency in all of us, we've grown up with that idea and it'll be very hard to try and change who we are.

Reflection on "Teaching English" by Jim Cooper

Just yesterday I was able to read one of the essays written by Jim Cooper from his book Down on the Island. In this, he recalls all the struggles and difficulties English teachers and students had in the 1950's regarding to learning this language. Cooper takes a trip down memory lane and, with the help from his old diaries, narrates the situations that he himself lived in which he had to deal with students that didn't know any English, and with professors that didn't know how to teach English. He also makes a distinction between public and private school students and how distant they were on actually knowing any English. It was a truly upsetting situation for many and he had to find a way to try and make it better.

One of his first experiences in the island was becoming a professor in the University of Puerto Rico in Mayagüez, most commonly known here as Colegio. Here is where Cooper noticed how bad the situation with English actually was. First of all, he knew English, of course, but he didn't know how to teach English, so in his first year as a professor he says he just went along with the syllabus he was given and just hoped for the best with his students. Now, he didn't count with the fact that almost all of his students couldn't even understand English, and the only ones that could were a few that came from private schools in which everything was taught in this language. In his essay he sates: "I joined the other teachers in laughing at the students' terrible English, as when I assigned the poem 'Jabberwocky', and, besides, what could I do?" He found himself in a difficult position where there wasn't much he could do, and when he tried to discuss his concerns with Dr. Beckwith the only thing he would say was "the only way to learn a language is to love its literature". Now, how could one person love its literature when they can't even understand a single word in that language?

In his second year of teaching, to his surprise, in one of his English faculty meeting Dr. Beckwith announced that he would become the "chairman of a Committee to Discuss the Syllabus". With this opportunity, Cooper decided that he would take matters on his own hands and create a syllabus where the students actually learned English. He, joined by his comrade Gene and Edgardo, discarded the old syllabus and created one with new books, topics and completely focused on helping the students understand the language, and much to his surprise, Beckwith approved all of the changes they made with no second thoughts.

Once all of this was updated and ready to go, Cooper noticed that most of the students where coming from public schools where they didn't get a proper education in English, so he became interested in what was happening inside the public schools regarding to English, so he turned his attention to the Department of Education that was putting in a new English language program in public schools. Once he was working for this department, he went on a visit to a school to supervise that the teachers where implementing the program that came from the University of Michigan correctly. "The program", says Cooper, "emphasized on learning to speak the language by imitating the native speaker model", and it consists on the teacher speaking and the students repeating what the teacher said. Now, the thing that threw Cooper off was that not even the teachers could speak the language correctly, saying things like "He is taking the breakfast" or "He is taking the meal". They got the system of the program down, but they couldn't even speak English themselves, so how did they expect students to learn good English with teachers like that? And once he tried to confront the problem with the teachers they just cared that they got "the system" correctly, in their heads they were doing their jobs and that's all that mattered.

In the end, we can see how difficult was the situation with Puerto Ricans and them trying to learn English in the 1950's. We need to remember that by this time there were going threw a situation where there was a changeover with the language of instruction from English to Spanish in 1949, and just like Cooper stated: "The policy on English language teaching in Puerto Rico has always, unfortunately, been involved with Puerto Rican politics". It is all influenced by what was happening at the moment, and it truly impacted the students. With time, things got better and English has become like a second language for us in the island, and more Puerto Ricans know English. There is always a struggle with the difference between public and private school students and how some get a better education then others, when it should all be equally distributed. It's a matter that should be solved so that we can keep progressing as we have threw all this years. Cooper is a great example to follow, he truly cared about the education of the students and he wanted to give them the best chance they got. More teachers and professors should think like him and maybe that way the students and their teachers will have a better performance.

A Room With a View: The Concept of Tourists

In our lives, we live secluded in some part of the world where we perform our everyday tasks. It becomes a routine, what we do every day, and sometimes we want to break that grind. Be able to go someplace where we can forget about the daily life and see new and exciting things that could give us a different feeling then what we always feel. This could be done by going on a trip to a place outside of what you call home, it can be done becoming a tourist.

Defined by thefreedictionary.com, a tourist is one who travels for pleasure. Tourists are seen as people that just go to a place for sightseeing, and truly, they just notice the attractions and the superficial things in that place. In the book and movie A Room With a View written by E.M. Forster, portrays this type of tourist in a very gentle and humorous way. 

In the movie, Lucy Honeychurch along side her cousin Charlotte Bartlett went on a trip threw Italy where Lucy met Mr. Emerson and his son George. While they where in Italy, they went sightseeing threw the city and into museums. In one of the scenes, the Reverend asks Lucy if she's in town on a school trip for her studies. She wasn't, and she answered him that she was there as a tourist. He gives a light chuckle and continues on with the conversation. It may seem very minimal, but just in this scene we can see how he perceives people from the outside, as well, we see how he reacted to knowing that she was a tourist. The Reverend found it almost amusing that she was there as a tourist. 

In other scenes, we could see how it is demonstrated that tourists go to places and just notice the things they want to notice. They try to look for things out of the ordinary, get to experience new things in life by seeing what they've never seen before. Some locals would criticize this, because this people wouldn't even notice their own surroundings in the city, they'd just go for the "tourist attractions", they wouldn't get to see things as a local would. 

But don't get me wrong! I'm talking about tourists and all that, but I have to admit that I've also been one of those tourists that goes to different cities or places just to break with my everyday routine and get to see new things in life. I guess it's just the way some people think, because some may go for the entertainment and others to actually learn to live in those places, this would be denominated travelers instead of tourists. It all depends on your purposes and ideas when visiting other places. 

Now, going back to a quick review of the movie, it was very enjoyable. At first it was a little slow, and nothing very interesting happened, but once the romance gets involved and the story gets to develop a bit more, it becomes more interesting and worth watching. Plus, if you want to see some beautiful sceneries of Italy this is the movie for you. 

All in all, we can see how tourists are mainly people that go on journeys threw different places. They want to break with the habit and get to experience new things. I don't say this to try and insult anyone, I myself am included in this! It's just the way that I can view this not only by my perspective but by the movie mentioned before. 

Caribbean Identity

Since the moment we enter the world the day of our birth, we are categorized under certain characteristics that will define who we are: gender, race, any illnesses, and so on. One of those characteristics depends on where you were born, and in my case I was identified as a Puerto Rican. Being Puerto Rican impacts greatly in my identity and in my perspective of life. If we concentrate more on how that affects my identity, there are many aspects that accentuate my caribbean identity.

            One of the aspects that contributes to what that Caribbean identity will be composed of depends on where you grew up. In the book The Roots of Caribbean Identity: Language, Race and Ecology, writer and author Peter Roberts talks about the idea of home and all the ways that can be interpreted: "Because the human being does not necessarily remain in one place through a lifetime, home is variable." That idea of what "home" is depends on the notion that person gives it. As Roberts said himself, home could be the place where you grew up, or where you where born, or the most interesting thing he says, it could also be what we would categorize as "where the heart is". In my case, home is all three of those things. I was born and raised here in Puerto Rico and my whole family is from the same place, which leads me to say that Puerto Rico is where my heart is. So, I guess I could say that idea of home influences in my identity greatly because it is the base of who I am, and it will be the root for all other aspects that could affect me.


            Because I am from Puerto Rico and I've lived my entire life here, my first language is Spanish. Speaking this language also gives me another aspect for others to be able to categorize me under a certain stereotype that they believe to be true. Language is much more powerful than what we would normally imagine, because it is one of the easiest ways to identify people, other then their looks, of course, but it can be so powerful that someone from Puerto Rico could speak such a fluent English that if that person went to the US, everyone there would think they are from that place. As Roberts states: "Language therefore establishes bonds between all communities of human beings, but at the same time sets up barriers between communities." It depends solely on the person that perceives all of this and, obviously, on the person transmitting it. 


            Now, we've noticed that through all this, identity is also given by others when they perceive certain characteristics portrayed by me. Here, we can also add what Roberts marks as sameness, in which if we conceive sameness, we also conceive differences. "The perception of sameness logically implies the perception of difference, which in turn implies that those who are perceived as different are treated differently." As I stated before, it all has to do with how people see us and how they categorize us into their personal stereotypes. Being from the Caribbean it may bring a lot of categorizations by the way we look, the way we act, how we speak, and where we are from. When we meet someone that has also lived in the Caribbean, or has a family member from where I live, it instantly creates a connection with that person. Others may see it as a factor used to distance that type of people from their social groups. It's just a game of perception, and how others see you and how you show yourself to them. 


            In conclusion, there are many factors that impact my Caribbean identity: what I call home, my language, how others see me, how I portray myself and many others. It all plays a huge part with who I am in the present, so I can continue with that identity through my life, or commit to some changes that could help me become a better version of myself, or a more acceptable one to others. It's all a matter of your perspective, and the perspective of others, and if I know who I am, and who I intend to be, I'll continue with my prosperous life knowing that each day will be better than the last even though we may have some rough patches in between. 

Tourist for a Day

This week for my literature class, my professor assigned a different type of project in which we had to become tourists for a day. For this, we had to visit some place in Puerto Rico so we could be able to look at things as if we ware a tourist visiting the island for the first time.

For this trip I actually asked my boyfriend to come with me to Old San Juan so we could get the typical tourist experience in Puerto Rico. Though, due to last minute changes, as any tourist would confront, we weren't able to go to San Juan, so we ended up going to the largest mall in our island: Plaza las Américas. I guess I could say that since that moment my tourist experience started because if I'd normally been on a trip somewhere and our plans got cancelled, we'd just end up at the mall and get some shopping done. We arrived at the mall and since I stepped foot inside I knew that I had to think like a tourist, so automatically I said to my boyfriend that wherever we go we had to find the best deals we could find. I guess that's the first thing that I could notice differently from a tourist and a local that are shopping: they always look for the lowest prices. And I guess us locals do that too normally, but the difference is that a tourist looks for the things they normally wouldn't find in the places where they live.

So back to the story, we started going to a few places just looking around to see what we could find and all of a sudden my boyfriend's phone started ringing. He answered the call to find out that it was his mom telling him that she was going to take us to a restaurant in Dorado and on the way there we'd get to go sight seeing through some places. As I saw it, his mom was our little guardian angel that came to the rescue of two poor tourists that had their original plans cancelled! She just made our trip much more interesting than what it was going to be!

We got in her car and we just started cruising through the streets watching all the landscapes, and I guess I noticed how beautiful everything really is. I'm not one to take a lot of pictures of things or myself, but since today I was thinking as a tourist, pictures was a must! We passed by the Bacardi Rum Factory, we passed by Isla de Cabras, took a ride by the beach, and finally made our way through the town of Dorado.

While we passed through the town, I tried to pay attention to the minor details that I'd normally just pass by with no importance. I looked everywhere, and I truly noticed a lot of things: I got to see the beautiful church over at the town, I saw the colorful little houses that people live in, places where people go to eat, and obviously we passed by the beach-side. I got to see everything that I'd already seen with new eyes! It was so different to actually pay attention to what was in my surroundings and I found that in our little island there is truly a lot to see.

One of the the things that I noticed, while I was pretending to be a tourist, is that the locals would look at me in a very peculiar way. When I stood in front of the beach, or by the church and I was taking pictures, people seemed to stare. I'm not sure if it was because I don't look like a tourist, or was it because they thought I was, but they seemed to catalog me as something different from them, and they just looked and then kept on walking like everything was normal, and I guess here in Puerto Rico it is, because of how many tourist come to visit us through the year. I can also say that in that same route that we took in our little journey, because I was trying to notice everything, I saw that indeed there where a lot of tourists. Most of them seemed to be from the US, but I also saw a couple with a more asian look, and a family from Dominican Republic.

After we cruised through the town, we were starving, so my boyfriend's mom took us to a Japanese restaurant. Normally, if a tourist comes to Puerto Rico they'd go to Guavate, or Raíces, or some place that serves typical Puerto Rican food like rice with beans and pork, or alcapurrias and all that, but in today's journey, faith and hunger led us to eat sushi and we enjoyed that sushi like that would be our last meal.

After we finished eating, we took a little break at the restaurant where we talked and commented on an episode of Chopped that was playing on the tv. After we paid, we got into the car and just cruised back to Plaza las Américas where I'd left my car earlier. Now, this whole day was unforgettable, I had a blast and I got to spend it with people that I really care about. The thing about this types of days is that there is always one moment that tops all the others, and that moment was by this time. We where driving and we started blasting music through the speakers, and my favorite song that we played was "Don't stop believing" by Journey. So just imagine the three of us, driving through the freeway, singing this song like this day would never stop.

After everything that happened, we arrived at where my car was parked and my boyfriend and his mom left and I drove to my house. While I was driving, I thought of all the things that happened today, and I was amazed of how we actually miss so many things just because we are accostumed to it all. Though, it didn't seize to amaze me all the things that I noticed today, and not only that, but how if I just pay a little more attention to my surroundings I'll get to see a whole different world. I am very grateful that I got to do this trip with my boyfriend and his mom, we had a lot of fun and it made us a little bit closer than what we already are.