Yesterday I listened to someone advocating for the creation of barriers that prevents a segment of the Caribbean population from being able to pursue a professional career through education at home. It was said and then supported by people in varying positions of power that this is just the way it’s done: “go away and get the education you need, then try to come back and do something with that education”. I did that very thing, because at the time I thought it was my only option.
There was an indirect message we were given growing up: staying home was a death sentence of stagnancy and limited opportunity. Go away, get your education, then maybe, just MAYBE you can come back and create change. In August of 2000 I left the only home I ever knew in the Virgin Islands to pursue an education in behavioral health. I left sunrises up East, sunsets down West, titi bread bakery runs, the familiar soundtrack of Quelbe, Calypso & Soca, greetings of “Mahnin, mahnin, mahnin” as someone entered any space of gathering … I left everything I knew to pursue an education that would allow me to return home, endgame = practicing as a counselor in the Virgin Islands and giving back to my community in a meaningful way.
There was an indirect message we were given growing up: staying home was a death sentence of stagnancy and limited opportunity.
But my arrival to the mainland was greeted with questions – so, so many questions – about my race, my home, my accent. People made assumptions that being from the Caribbean meant I didn’t have indoor plumbing or access to popular TV programming from the US. I presented as an anomaly, and I felt disconnected from most everyone. At the time I thought that if I wanted to get through this unscathed, I needed to fit in. It meant that I show up in American spaces in ways that were deemed acceptable, ways that made my existence easier to tolerate. I checked the right boxes, I code switched, I extended grace when someone refused to pronounce my name correctly. I did this because I had a goal, I needed the education and experience necessary to come back home - and I was always told the opportunity was in the mainland. Leaving home brought opportunity, but it also brought about hardships I did not anticipate.
Life happened, the way it does. The years started coming, and dem MS ain’t stop coming yet! I had children and faced barriers and challenges to returning home full-time. I found ways to engage with the system without making too many waves, because at the end of the day, I had a goal. But navigating a system built on a foundation of systemic oppression, working in spaces created by people that didn’t look or sound like me meant a lot of work to fit in, because my ability to thrive professionally depended on it. And this is the experience of so many other Caribbean people, emigrating to the mainland US, and other large countries to access opportunity in order to go back home and create meaningful, positive change.
If you do eventually find a way to return home, it’s a different, sometimes more difficult journey fraught with challenges. You go through all of that, only to risk returning to opposition to your very existence (in this space you call home) because you threaten the safety of familiarity, you challenge the idea of doing things one way “because this is how it’s always been done”. You find yourself having to fit in and present in ways that are palatable, all over again. Don’t be too loud, don’t openly challenge the powers that be, don’t make waves, don’t be too passionate because it will come across as aggression. And if you can, you push past all of this, and push through the self-doubt, the isolation, the burnout... you do it, not for selfish reasons, but to create options and opportunities for the people that are next in line. You do it because you don’t want to be a part of a system that doesn’t allow for the autonomy of its citizens to make decisions about their own lives. You do it so that they don’t have to feel like doing things the way they’ve always been done is their only option.
So beloved, this is me, telling you, that I’m here with you. I see you. I know it’s not easy, but WE ARE the change the Caribbean desperately needs, to create a healthier tomorrow. You are not alone.
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