In the 1970s, Topper and Sanya flee to Miami as political violence consumes their native Kingston. But America, as the couple and their two children learn, is far from the promised land. Excluded from society as Black immigrants, the family pushes on through Hurricane Andrew and later the 2008 recession, living in a house so cursed that the pet fish launches itself out of its own tank rather than stay. But even as things fall apart, the family remains motivated, often to its own detriment, by what their younger son, Trelawny, calls "the exquisite, racking compulsion to survive.
Dieudonné Sabrina, a gardener, aged twenty-two and black, is accused of murdering his employer--and lover--Loraine, a wealthy white woman descended from plantation owners. His only refuge is a sailboat, La Belle Créole, a relic of times gone by. Condé follows Dieudonné's desperate wanderings through the city of Port-Mahault the night of his acquittal, the narrative unfolding through a series of multivoiced flashbacks set against a forbidding backdrop of social disintegration and tumultuous labor strikes in turn-of-the-twenty-first-century Guadeloupe. Twenty-four hours later, Dieudonné's fate becomes suggestively intertwined with that of the French island itself, though the future of both remains uncertain in the end.
Lilith was born into slavery on a Jamaican sugar plantation at the end of the eighteenth century. Even at her birth, the slave women around her recognize a dark power that they--and she--will come to both revere and fear. The Night Women, as they call themselves, have long been plotting a slave revolt, and as Lilith comes of age and reveals the extent of her power, they see her as the key to their plans. But when she begins to understand her own feelings and desires and identity, Lilith starts to push at the edges of what is imaginable for the life of a slave woman in Jamaica, and risks becoming the conspiracy's weak link.
On a beach in the Dominican Republic, a doomed relationship flounders. In a New Jersey laundry room, a woman does her lover's washing and thinks about his wife. In Boston, a man buys his love child, his only son, a first baseball bat and glove. At the heart of these stories is the irrepressible, irresistible Yunior, a young hardhead whose longing for love is equaled only by his recklessness--and by the extraordinary women he loves and loses. In prose that is endlessly energetic, inventive, tender, and funny, these stories lay bare the infinite longing and inevitable weakness of the human heart. They remind us that passion always triumphs over experience, and that "the half-life of love is forever."
The Farming of Bones begins in 1937 in a village on the Dominican side of the river that separates the country from Haiti. Amabelle Desir, Haitian-born and a faithful maidservant to the Dominican family that took her in when she was orphaned, and her lover Sebastien, an itinerant sugarcane cutter, decide they will marry and return to Haiti at the end of the cane season. However, hostilities toward Haitian laborers find a vitriolic spokesman in the ultra-nationalist Generalissimo Trujillo who calls for an ethnic cleansing of his Spanish-speaking country. As rumors of Haitian persecution become fact, as anxiety turns to terror, Amabelle and Sebastien's dreams are leveled to the most basic human desire: to endure. Based on a little-known historical event, this extraordinarily moving novel memorializes the forgotten victims of nationalist madness and the deeply felt passion and grief of its survivors.
Ranelise is a cook in the small village of La Pointe in Guadeloupe, where she rescues a teenage girl from suicide by drowning. The girl, Reynalda Titane, lives at the local jeweler's grand house, where her mother, Nina, is a maid. Reynalda is pregnant and in a state of despair. Ranelise cares for her and the child, christened Marie-Noelle, but Reynalda soon flees to France, intent upon getting the education that will allow her to rise above her mother's fate. Desirada is the story of Marie-Noelle and her quest to understand the mother who abandoned her and to discover the identity of her father. It is also the story of generations of island women and the pursuit of a meaningful life despite a tainted personal history. Desirada was awarded the prestigious Prix Carbet de la Caraibe in 1998, given for the best book by a Caribbean author. It is Maryse Conde's twelfth novel.
From the beloved and award-winning author Junot Díaz, a spellbinding saga of a family's journey through the New World. A coming-of-age story of unparalleled power, Drown introduced the world to Junot Díaz's exhilarating talents. It also introduced an unforgettable narrator-- Yunior, the haunted, brilliant young man who tracks his family's precarious journey from the barrios of Santo Domingo to the tenements of industrial New Jersey, and their epic passage from hope to loss to something like love. Here is the soulful, unsparing book that made Díaz a literary sensation.
The García sisters--Carla, Sandra, Yolanda, and Sofía--and their family must flee their home in the Dominican Republic after their father's role in an attempt to overthrow brutal dictator Rafael Trujillo is discovered. They arrive in New York City in 1960 to a life far removed from their existence in the Caribbean. In the wondrous but not always welcoming U.S.A., their parents try to hold on to their old ways as the girls try find new lives: by straightening their hair and wearing American fashions, and by forgetting their Spanish. For them, it is at once liberating and excruciating to be caught between the old world and the new. Here they tell their stories about being at home--and not at home--in America.
It is November 25, 1960, and three beautiful sisters have been found dead near their wrecked Jeep at the bottom of a 150-foot cliff on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. The official state newspaper reports their death as accidental. It does not mention that a fourth sister lives. Nor does it explain that the sisters were among the leading opponents of Gen. Rafael Leonidas Trujillo's dictatorship. It doesn't have to. Everybody knows of Las Mariposas--the Butterflies. In this extraordinary novel, the voices of all four sisters--Minerva, Patria, María Teresa, and the survivor, Dedé--speak across the decades to tell their own stories, from hair ribbons and secret crushes to gunrunning and prison torture, and to describe the everyday horrors of life under Trujillo's rule. Through the art and magic of Julia Alvarez's imagination, the martyred Butterflies live again in this novel of courage, love, and the human cost of political oppression.
When Mary-Mathilda, one of the most respected women on the colonized island of Bimshire (also known as Barbados), calls the police to confess to a crime, the result is a shattering all-night vigil. She claims the crime is against Mr. Belfeels, the powerful manager of the sugar plantation that dominates the villagers' lives and for whom she has worked for more than thirty years as a field laborer, kitchen help, and maid. She was also Mr. Belfeels's mistress, kept in good financial status in the Great House of the plantation, and the mother of his only son, Wilberforce, a successful doctor, who after living abroad returns to the island. Set in the period following World War II, The Polished Hoe unravels over the course of twenty-four hours but spans the lifetime of one woman and the collective experience of a society characterized by slavery.
Exposing the political and cultural failure to address the challenges of postcolonial Trinidad, this insightful novel portrays a world where the working man must face the crime and violence that is destroying the social body. Walter Castle is dissatisfied with his regular job in the Laventille slum in Port of Spain. As the prospect of promotion is bleak and crime and lawless youth become insupportable, he dreams of going back to the village community he grew up in. Unfortunately, the force of nostalgia is not supported by actual memories and as Walter abandons his dreams he is forced to choose between turning into a drone who passes through life without leaving a mark, or standing up for himself. Originally published in 1965, this story remains surprisingly contemporary with its astringent critique of the top-down authoritarianism of nationalist politics.
The essential coming-of-age novel by Jamaica Kincaid, Annie John is a haunting and provocative story of a young girl growing up on the island of Antigua. Kincaid's novel focuses on a universal, tragic, and often comic theme: the loss of childhood.
Helene comes upon an old diary. It belongs to a Caribbean girl who turned to writing as an escape from her traumatic marriage to a polygamous husband. Juletane met her husband in France and moved to Senegal where she found herself sharing her life with two other wives.
When his fiancée abruptly departs for Trinidad after hearing disturbing news, Mycroft Holmes and his best friend Cyrus Douglas follow and find themselves drawn in to a treacherous investigation.
It's 1949. It's the era of the mambo, and two young Cuban musicians make their way up from Havana to the grand stage of New York. The Castillo brothers, workers by day, become by night stars of the dance halls, where their orchestra plays the lush, sensuous, pulsing music that earns them the title of the Mambo Kings. This is their moment of youth--a golden time that thirty years later will be remembered with nostalgia and deep afection. In The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love,Oscar Hijuelos has created a rich and enthralling novel about passion and loss, memory and desire.
"Playful, kinetic, and devastating in turn, You Were Watching from the Sand is a collection in which Haitian men, women, and children who find their lives cleaved by the interminably strange bite back at the bizarre with their own oddities.
Mireille Duval Jameson is a rich and self-assured Haitian woman who is kidnapped by a gang of heavily armed men. Held captive by a man who calls himself the Commander, Mireille must endure his torment until her unwilling father pays up.
The interconnected secrets of a coastal Haitian town are revealed when one little girl, the daughter of a fisherman, goes missing.
Cristina García’s acclaimed book is the haunting, bittersweet story of a family experiencing a country’s revolution and the revelations that follow. The lives of Celia del Pino and her husband, daughters, and grandchildren mirror the magical realism of Cuba itself, a landscape of beauty and poverty, idealism and corruption. Dreaming in Cuban is “a work that possesses both the intimacy of a Chekov story and the hallucinatory magic of a novel by Gabriel García Márquez” (The New York Times).
Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide has been toppled in a violent coup d'état, bringing to power a brutal military dictatorship. With turmoil in the streets and an international embargo threatening to destroy even the country's most powerful players, some are looking to gain an advantage in chaos--and others are just looking to make it through another day. American expat Matt Amaker, forced out of his beachfront scuba shop by a drug-smuggling operation, turns to hunting colonial Spanish treasure off a remote section of Haiti's southern coast. Misha Variel, a Haitian-American scholar, returns to Haiti to care for her aging parents, and soon stumbles onto an arms-trafficking ring masquerading as a U.S.-government humanitarian aid office. Rookie CIA case officer Audrey O'Donnell finds herself managing a grabbag of intelligence assets in an assignment more difficult and more dubious than she could have imagined. All are embroiled in a game of deceit that culminates in a vicious, zero-sum scramble for survival.
Selection of poetry, stories, drama, and essays by 40 Puerto Rican writers, late-19th - late-20th centuries. Organized into thematic categories such as 'History and Politics' and 'Anxiety and Assimilation.' Introduction by Santiago makes clear his goal, that the book 'will provide us with answers to our innermost questions of identity.'
The child of a field slave on the Amity sugar plantation in Jamaica, July lives with her mother until a recently transplanted English widow decides to move her into the great house and rename her. She remains bound to the plantation despite her "freedom." The arrival of a young English overseer dramatically changes life in the great house.
After a meteor hits the moon and sets off a series of horrific climate changes, seventeen-year-old Alex Morales must take care of his sisters alone in the chaos of New York City.
A young reporter's life in the 1950s. Paul Kemp breaks into the profession on a newspaper in Puerto Rico and through his eyes are portrayed colorful characters in the days when newspapers flourished.
A revealing novel of childhood about Tee who is being made socially acceptable by her Aunt Beatrice so that she can cope with the caste system of Trinidad.
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Dovekeepers and The Museum of Extraordinary Things: a forbidden love story set on the tropical island of St. Thomas about the extraordinary woman who gave birth to painter Camille Pissarro the Father of Impressionism.
Lola was just a baby when her family left the Island, so when she has to draw it for a school assignment, she asks her family, friends, and neighbors about their memories of her homeland ... and in the process, comes up with a new way of understanding her own heritage.
A combined history of the Puerto Rican parrot and the island of Puerto Rico, highlighting current efforts to save the Puerto Rican parrot by protecting and managing this endangered species.
The love between brothers is key to Matt Tavares's tale of Dominican pitcher Pedro Martínez, from his days of throwing rocks at mangoes to his years as a major-league star. Before Pedro Martínez pitched the Red Sox to a World Series championship, before he was named to the All-Star team eight times, before he won the Cy Young three times, he was a kid from a place called Manoguayabo in the Dominican Republic. Pedro loved baseball more than anything, and his older brother Ramon was the best pitcher he'd ever seen. He'd dream of the day he and his brother could play together in the major leagues--and here, Matt Tavares tells the story of how that dream came true. In a fitting homage to a modern day baseball star, the acclaimed author-illustrator examines both Pedro Martínez's improbable rise to the top of his game and the power that comes from the deep bond between brothers.
When Saya's mother is sent to jail as an illegal immigrant, she sends her daughter a cassette tape with a song and a bedtime story, which inspires Saya to write a story of her own--one that just might bring her mother home.
Follows a girl in the 1920s as she strives to become a drummer, despite being continually reminded that only boys play the drums, and that there has never been a female drummer in Cuba. Includes note about Millo Castro Zaldarriaga, who inspired the story, and Anacaona, the all-girl dance band she formed with her sisters.
A boy helps his father keep their very old car running as they make a trip to Havana for his newborn cousin's zero-year birthday. Includes author's note about cars in Cuba.
In Jamaica, Sareen is concerned about participating in her first sit-up, a celebration of the life of her recently deceased grandmother, but discovers that sharing her stories of Nana's passion for mangoes helps lift the sadness.
The award-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling novel from Alan Gratz tells the timely--and timeless--story of three different kids seeking refuge. A New York Times bestseller! JOSEF is a Jewish boy living in 1930s Nazi Germany. With the threat of concentration camps looming, he and his family board a ship bound for the other side of the world... ISABEL is a Cuban girl in 1994. With riots and unrest plaguing her country, she and her family set out on a raft, hoping to find safety in America... MAHMOUD is a Syrian boy in 2015. With his homeland torn apart by violence and destruction, he and his family begin a long trek toward Europe... All three kids go on harrowing journeys in search of refuge. All will face unimaginable dangers -- from drownings to bombings to betrayals. But there is always the hope of tomorrow. And although Josef, Isabel, and Mahmoud are separated by continents and decades, shocking connections will tie their stories together in the end. As powerful and poignant as it is action-packed and page-turning, this highly acclaimed novel has been on the New York Times bestseller list for more than four years and continues to change readers' lives with its meaningful takes on survival, courage, and the quest for home.
On the corner of American Street and Joy Road, Fabiola Toussaint thought she would finally find une belle vie -- a good life. But after they leave Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Fabiola's mother is detained by U.S. immigration, leaving Fabiola to navigate her loud American cousins, Chantal, Donna, and Princess; the grittiness of Detroit's west side; a new school; and a surprising romance, all on her own. Just as she finds her footing in this strange new world, a dangerous proposition presents itself, and Fabiola soon realizes that freedom comes at a cost. Trapped at the crossroads of an impossible choice, will she pay the price for the American dream?
Natasha: I'm a girl who believes in science and facts. Not fate. Not destiny. Or dreams that will never come true. I'm definitely not the kind of girl who meets a cute boy on a crowded New York City street and falls in love with him. Not when my family is twelve hours away from being deported to Jamaica. Falling in love with him won't be my story.
Daniel: I've always been the good son, the good student, living up to my parents' high expectations. Never the poet. Or the dreamer. But when I see her, I forget about all that. Something about Natasha makes me think that fate has something much more extraordinary in store--for both of us.
The Universe: Every moment in our lives has brought us to this single moment. A million futures lie before us. Which one will come true?
It is the winter of 1929, and cousins Hildamar and Santiago have just moved to enormous, chilly New York from their native Puerto Rico. As Three Kings' Day approaches, Hildamar and Santiago mourn the loss of their sunny home and wonder about their future in their adopted city. But when a storyteller and librarian named Pura Belpre arrives in their classroom, the children begin to understand just what a library can mean to a community. In this fitting tribute to a remarkable woman, Lucia Gonzalez and Lulu Delacre have captured the truly astounding effect that Belpre had on the city of New York."
This prequel to Eric Velasquez's biographical picture book Grandma's Records is the story of a Christmas holiday that young Eric spends with his grandmother. After they prepare their traditional Puerto Rican Christmas celebration, Eric and Grandma visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a school project, where he sees a painting by Diego Velasquez and realizes for the first time that he could be an artist when he grows up. Grandma witnesses his fascination, and presents Eric with the perfect Christmas gift-a set of paints-to use in his first steps toward becoming an artist. A heart-warming story of self-discovery, Grandma's Gift is a celebration of the special bond between a grandparent and grandchild.
Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, Xiomara Batista has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking. She pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers--especially after she catches feelings for a boy in her bio class named Aman, who her family can never know about. Mami is determined to force her daughter to obey the laws of the church, and Xiomara understands that her thoughts are best kept to herself. When she is invited to join her school's slam poetry club, she can't stop thinking about performing her poems.
Accessible to students and general readers, this book is a concise but thorough introduction to Caribbean folklore. Included are chapters on the many different types of folklore, a selection of examples and texts, a survey of scholarship and criticism, and a look at Caribbean folklore in literature and contemporary culture. The volume closes with a glossary and a bibliography of print and electronic resources suitable for student research. The Caribbean is a world of great historical and cultural importance. It has produced numerous literary, artistic, and musical works and has significantly influenced life in the United States. Folklore is central to Caribbean culture. It draws upon the oral traditions and experiences of the Caribbean people and colors their daily life and creative endeavors. At a time when the Caribbean is gaining increasing importance to the curriculum, this book provides a concise but thorough overview of the folklore of that region. Written for students and general readers, this volume offers a broad survey of Caribbean folklore. It begins by classifying and defining the area's many types of folklore. It then provides numerous examples and texts and looks at related scholarship and criticism. In addition, it comments on the role of folklore in literature and contemporary Caribbean culture. The book closes with a glossary and a bibliography of print and electronic resources suitable for student research.
From the evolution of Indian dance in Trinidad to the barely known rituals of los misterios in the Domincan Republic, this volume looks closely at the vibrant & varied movement vocabulary of the islands.
In After the Dance, one of Haiti’s most renowned daughters returns to her homeland, taking readers on a stunning, exquisitely rendered journey beyond the hedonistic surface of Carnival and into its deep heart. Edwidge Danticat had long been scared off from Carnival by a loved one, who spun tales of people dislocating hips from gyrating with too much abandon, losing their voices from singing too loudly, going deaf from the clamor of immense speakers, and being punched, stabbed, pummeled, or fondled by other lustful revelers. Now an adult, she resolves to return and exorcise her Carnival demons. She spends the week before Carnival in the area around Jacmel, exploring the rolling hills and lush forests and meeting the people who live and die in them. During her journeys she traces the heroic and tragic history of the island, from French colonists and Haitian revolutionaries to American invaders and home-grown dictators. Danticat also introduces us to many of the performers, artists, and organizers who re-create the myths and legends that bring the Carnival festivities to life. When Carnival arrives, we watch as she goes from observer to participant and finally loses herself in the overwhelming embrace of the crowd. Part travelogue, part memoir, this is a lyrical narrative of a writer rediscovering her country along with a part of herself. It’s also a wonderful introduction to Haiti’s southern coast and to the true beauty of Carnival.
More than two and a half centuries after it was first outlawed in Jamaica in 1760, obeah remains illegal in most territories of the former British West Indies. Opinions on the meaning and essential nature of this controversial Afro-Caribbean spiritual phenomenon vary widely. While many contemporary West Indians hold negative views of obeah, viewing it as evil witchcraft or sorcery, others point to its widespread use in healing, protection from harm, and solving a wide range of everyday problems--positive views that were also commonly held by enslaved West Indians in earlier generations. Despite the scholarly attention obeah has received, relatively little has been written about the many laws enacted against it in different territories at different periods. Offering a perspective on obeah that challenges conventional conceptions of this widely misunderstood aspect of West Indian society and culture, the core of this book is a detailed examination of anti-obeah laws, and their socio-political implications, in seventeen jurisdictions of the English-speaking Caribbean from the period of slavery to the present.
This ground-breaking study of the Caribbean's iconography traces the history of visual representations of the region,as perceived by outsider and insider alike, over the last five hundred years. It circles the Caribbean while focusing on Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad, and Barbados, tracing the parameters drawn on each society by the colonial encounter and drawing from the methodologies and material of history, literature, art, gender, and cultural studies.
From the moment Columbus gazed out from the Santa Maria's deck in 1492 at what he mistook for an island off Asia, the Caribbean has been subjected to fantasies projected from without by the West, and viewed as a place to be consumed. It stood at the center of the transatlantic slave trade for more than 300 years. Its societies were shaped by mass migrations and forced labor from the 16th century onwards, imposed by European or latterly-American imperial masters. Scattered across a vast arc of islands and in some instances separated by the languages and cultures of their colonizers, the more than 40,000,000 Caribbean people today are countering their imperial history by shaping cultural conversation the world over: through literature, music, art, and religion in an era when cultures everywhere are contending with "rootlessness.
The complex and colorful world of Caribbean art reflects the region's African, European, Asian, and native heritage. Despite the ethnic, linguistic, and political diversity of Caribbean artists, there is a cultural unity in their work that distinguishes it in the larger context of North American and Latin American art. Following a discussion of the pre-Columbian and colonial eras, the author describes how pioneering national art movements in the first half of the twentieth century helped to define an indigenous aesthetic, and how revolution, anti-imperialism, and race-consciousness in the turbulent sixties and seventies affected the face of art. There is a strong relationship between Caribbean popular culture and art, and the book explores the importance of African-Caribbean religions such as Voodoo, Santaria, and Rastfarianism, as well as the influence of Trinidad carnival, the Junkanoo masquerade of the Bahamas, and similar traditions. This wonderfully illustrated survey covers a wide range of artists who have lived and worked in the Caribbean, as well as those who have left the islands but whose background plays a significant role in their work, providing a compelling look at a great body of original and imaginative art.
The Caribbean islands have a vibrant oral folklore. In Jamaica, the clever spider Anansi, who outsmarts stronger animals, is a symbol of triumph by the weak over the powerful. The fables of the foolish Juan Bobo, who tries to bring milk home in a burlap bag, illustrate facets of traditional Puerto Rican life. Conflict over status, identity and power is a recurring theme--in a story from Trinidad, a young bull, raised by his mother in secret, challenges his tyrannical father who has killed all the other males in the herd. One in a series of folklore reference guides by the author, this volume shares summaries of 438 tales--some in danger of disappearing--retold in English and Creole from West African, European, and slave indigenous cultures in 24 countries and territories. Tales are grouped in themed sections with a detailed subject index and extensive links to online sources.
Bringing together the most exciting recent archival work in anglophone, francophone, and hispanophone Caribbean studies, Raphael Dalleo constructs a new literary history of the region that is both comprehensive and innovative. He examines how changes in political, economic, and social structures have produced different sets of possibilities for writers to imagine their relationship to the institutions of the public sphere. In the process, he provides a new context for rereading such major writers as Mary Seacole, José Martí, Jacques Roumain, Claude McKay, Marie Chauvet, and George Lamming, while also drawing lesser-known figures into the story. Dalleo?s comparative approach will be important to Caribbeanists from all of the region?s linguistic traditions, and his book contributes even more broadly to debates in Latin American and postcolonial studies about postmodernity and globalization.
Caribbean Literary Discourse is a study of the multicultural, multilingual, and Creolized languages that characterize Caribbean discourse, especially as reflected in the language choices that preoccupy creative writers.Caribbean Literary Discourse opens the challenging world of language choices and literary experiments characteristic of the multicultural and multilingual Caribbean. In these societies, the language of the master- English in Jamaica and Barbados-overlies the Creole languages of the majority.
A linguistic analysis supporting a new model of the colonization of the Antilles before 1492 This work formulates a testable hypothesis of the origins and migration patterns of the aboriginal peoples of the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico), the Lucayan Islands (the Commonwealth of the Bahamas and the Crown Colony of the Turks and Caicos), the Virgin Islands, and the northernmost of the Leeward Islands, prior to European contact. Using archaeological data as corroboration, the authors synthesize evidence that has been available in scattered locales for more than 500 years but which has never before been correlated and critically examined. Within any well-defined geographical area (such as these islands), the linguistic expectation and norm is that people speaking the same or closely related language will intermarry, and, by participating in a common gene pool, will show similar socioeconomic and cultural traits, as well as common artifact preferences. From an archaeological perspective, the converse is deducible: artifact inventories of a well-defined sociogeographical area are likely to have been created by speakers of the same or closely related language or languages. Languages of the Pre-Columbian Antilles presents information based on these assumptions. The data is scant--scattered words and phrases in Spanish explorers' journals, local place names written on maps or in missionary records--but the collaboration of the authors, one a linguist and the other an archaeologist, has tied the linguistics to the ground wherever possible and allowed the construction of a framework with which to understand the relationships, movements, and settlement patterns of Caribbean peoples before Columbus arrived.
Working Juju examines how fantastical and unreal modes are deployed in portrayals of the Caribbean in popular and literary culture as well as in the visual arts. The Caribbean has historically been constructed as a region mantled by the fantastic. Andrea Shaw Nevins analyzes such imaginings of the Caribbean and interrogates the freighting of Caribbean-infused spaces with characteristics that register as fantastical. These fantastical traits may be described as magical, supernatural, uncanny, paranormal, mystical, and speculative. The book asks throughout, What are the discursive threads that run through texts featuring the Caribbean fantastic? In Working Juju, Nevins teases out the multilayered and often obscured connections among texts such as the Pirates of the Caribbean film series, planter and historian Edward Long's History of Jamaica, and Grenadian sci-fi writer Tobias Buckell's Xenowealth series set in the future Caribbean.
The Whistling Bird celebrates what were until recently the little-heard voices of women writers from the Caribbean. The anthology includes short stories, poetry, drama, and excerpts from novels - all rich, melodic works written with clarity and conviction.
This is not your usual music handbook. The book's curious sub-title refers to the presence of eleven Antilleans at the service held in the Warsaw church to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Fryderyk Chopin's death in October 1999 where the composer's heart is kept in an urn, whilst the rest of his mortal remains lie in Paris. The item which Brokken had read in a German newspaper triggered him to start writing the book based on notes he had been taking while living on Curacao from 1993 to 2002.
Pedro Martínez. Sammy Sosa. Manny Ramírez. By 2000, Dominican baseball players were in every Major League clubhouse, and regularly winning every baseball award. In 2002, Omar Minaya became the first Dominican general manager of a Major League team. But how did this codependent relationship between MLB and Dominican talent arise and thrive? In his incisive and engaging book, Dominican Baseball, Alan Klein examines the history of MLB's presence and influence in the Dominican Republic, the development of the booming industry and academies, and the dependence on Dominican player developers, known as buscones. He also addresses issues of identity fraud and the use of performance-enhancing drugs as hopefuls seek to play professionally. Dominican Baseball charts the trajectory of the economic flows of this transnational exchange, and the pride Dominicans feel in their growing influence in the sport. Klein also uncovers the prejudice that prompts MLB to diminish Dominican claims on legitimacy. This sharp, smartly argued book deftly chronicles the uneasy and often contested relations of the contemporary Dominican game and industry.
As a first-hand account of the weird mysteries and horrors of voodoo, Tell My Horse is an invaluable resource and fascinating guide. Based on Zora Neale Hurston's personal experiences in Haiti and Jamaica, where she participated as an initiate rather than just an observer of voodoo practices during her visits in the 1930s, this travelogue into a dark world paints a vividly authentic picture of ceremonies and customs and superstitions of great cultural interest.
This abundantly illustrated anthology brings together sixteen essays by artists, scholars and ritual experts who examine the sacred arts of Haitian Vodou from multiple perspectives. Among the many topics covered are the ten major Vodou divinities: Vodou's roots in the Fon and Kongo kingdoms of Africa and its transformation in the experiences of slavery, and the encounter with European spiritual systems; Vodou praxis, including its bodily and communal disciplines, the cult of St. James Major (Ogou), and the cult of twins.In the final section, essays by Elizabeth McAlister, Patrick Polk, Tina Girouard, and Randall Morris look at Vodou arts and artists, Oleyant, and the legacy of ironworker Georges Liautaud.The Envoi, by Donald J.Cosentino, is devoted to the Gedes, spirits of death and regeneration.
This expanded and updated new edition of The Rough Guide to Reggae covers the entire span of recorded music in Jamaica, from 1950s mento and R&B through to dancehall and ragga, giving you the full story of ska, rock-steady, roots, dub, toasting and lovers' rock, as well as reggae's offshoots in Britain, the US and Africa.
Women are performing an ever-growing role in Caribbean Carnival. Through a feminist perspective, this volume examines the presence of women in contemporary Carnival by demonstrating not only their strength in numbers, but also the ways in which women participate in the event. While decried by traditionalists, the bikinis, beads, and feathers of "pretty mas" convey both a newly found empowerment as a gendered resistance to oppression from men. Although research on Carnivals is substantial, especially in the Americas, the subject of women in Carnival as a topic of inquiry remains fairly new. These essays address anthropological and historical facets of women and their practices in the Trinidad Carnival, including an analysis of how women's costuming and performance have changed over time.
Jaquira Díaz writes an unflinching account of growing up as a queer biracial girl searching for home as her family splits apart and her mother struggles with mental illness and addiction. From her own struggles with depression and drug abuse to her experiences of violence to Puerto Rico's history of colonialism, every page vibrates with music and lyricism.
In this deeply personal book, the celebrated Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat reflects on art and exile, examining what it means to be an immigrant artist from a country in crisis. Inspired by Albert Camus' lecture, "Create Dangerously," and combining memoir and essay, Danticat tells the stories of artists, including herself, who create despite, or because of, the horrors that drove them from their homelands and that continue to haunt them. Danticat eulogizes an aunt who guarded her family's homestead in the Haitian countryside, a cousin who died of AIDS while living in Miami as an undocumented alien, and a renowned Haitian radio journalist whose political assassination shocked the world. Danticat writes about the Haitian novelists she first read as a girl at the Brooklyn Public Library, a woman mutilated in a machete attack who became a public witness against torture, and the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat and other artists of Haitian descent. Danticat also suggests that the aftermaths of natural disasters in Haiti and the United States reveal that the countries are not as different as many Americans might like to believe. Create Dangerously is an eloquent and moving expression of Danticat's belief that immigrant artists are obliged to bear witness when their countries of origin are suffering from violence, oppression, poverty, and tragedy.
From the internationally acclaimed author of the bestselling novels In the Time of the Butterflies and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents comes a rich and revealing work of nonfiction capturing the life and mind of an artist as she knits together the dual themes of coming to America and becoming a writer.
An eyewitness account of the terrifying earthquake in Haiti in 2010, and its tragic aftermath. Laferrière reveals the shock, rage, and grief experienced by those around him, the acts of heroism he witnesses, and his own sense of survivor guilt.
After following her mother to the US at a young age to pursue economic opportunities, one woman must come to terms with the ways in which systematic racism and resultant trauma keep the American Dream inaccessible to Black people.
An ethnographic study of migration based on the experiences of three dispersed Caribbean families as they maintain networks across their diverse locations.
In the mid-nineteenth century, Cuba's infamous "coolie" trade brought well over 100,000 Chinese indentured laborers to its shores. Though subjected to abominable conditions, they were followed during subsequent decades by smaller numbers of merchants, craftsmen, and free migrants searching for better lives far from home. In a comprehensive, vibrant history that draws deeply on Chinese- and Spanish-language sources in both China and Cuba, Kathleen Lopez explores the transition of the Chinese from indentured to free migrants, the formation of transnational communities, and the eventual incorporation of the Chinese into the Cuban citizenry during the first half of the twentieth century.
Tammy L. Brown uses the life stories of West Indian intellectuals to investigate the dynamic history of immigration to New York and the long battle for racial equality in modern America. The majority of the 40,000 black immigrants who arrived at Ellis Island during the first wave of Caribbean immigration to New York hailed from the English-speaking Caribbean--mainly Jamaica, Barbados, and Trinidad. Arriving at the height of the Industrial Revolution and a new era in black culture and progress, these black immigrants dreamed of a more prosperous future. However, northern-style Jim Crow hindered their upward social mobility. In response, Caribbean intellectuals delivered speeches and sermons, wrote poetry and novels, and created performance art pieces challenging the racism that impeded their success. Brown traces the influences of religion as revealed at Unitarian minister Ethelred Brown's Harlem Community Church and in Richard B. Moore's fiery speeches on Harlem street corners during the age of the 'New Negro.' She investigates the role of performance art and Pearl Primus's declaration that 'dance is a weapon for social change' during the long civil rights movement.
This book tells a distinct story of Indians in the Caribbean - one concentrated not only on archival records and institutions, but also on the voices of the people and the ways in which they define themselves and the world around them. Through oral history and ethnography, Lomarsh Roopnarine explores previously marginalized Indians in the Caribbean and their distinct social dynamics and histories, including the French Caribbean and other islands with smaller South Asian populations. He pursues a comparative approach with inclusive themes that cut across the Caribbean.
The "thick black woman": racialized body politics and the marginalization of black women -- Constructing diasporic identity: black Caribbean women's self-representation and cultural citizenship -- Unrequited romance: black Caribbean beauty ideals and discontent in the United States -- Transgressive discourses: negotiating the thin hegemony and negative physical capital -- Embodying diaspora: centering thick bodies in black women's diasporic experiences.
In Erotic Islands, Lyndon K. Gill maps a long queer presence at a crossroads of the Caribbean. This transdisciplinary book foregrounds the queer histories of Carnival, calypso, and HIV/AIDS in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. At its heart is an extension of Audre Lorde's use of the erotic as theory and methodology. Gill turns to lesbian/gay artistry and activism to insist on eros as an intertwined political-sensual-spiritual lens through which to see self and society more clearly. This analysis juxtaposes revered musician Calypso Rose, renowned mas man Peter Minshall, and resilient HIV/AIDS organization Friends For Life. Erotic Islands traverses black studies, queer studies, and anthropology toward an emergent black queer diaspora studies.
Island Bodies analyzes cultural production from Caribbean and Caribbean diaspora writers that flouts sexual norms. The chapters focus on how homosexuality, interracial relationships, transgendered people, and women's sexual agency are portrayed in film, music, and literature.
Andil Gosine revises understandings of queer desire in the Caribbean, showing how the very concept of homosexuality in the Caribbean (and in the Americas more broadly) has been overdetermined by a colonially-influenced human/animal divide.
Streetwalking: LGBTQ Lives and Protest in the Dominican Republic is an exploration of the ways that lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer persons exercise power in a Catholic Hispanic heteropatriarchal nation-state, namely the Dominican Republic. Lara presents the specific strategies employed by LGBTQ community leaders in the Dominican Republic in their struggle for subjectivity, recognition, and rights. Drawing on ethnographic encounters, film and video, and interviews, LGBTQ community leaders teach readers about streetwalking, confrontación, flipping the script, cuentos, and the use of strategic universalisms in the exercise of power and agency. Rooted in Maria Lugones's theorization of streetwalker strategies and Audre Lorde's theorization of silence and action, this text re-imagines the exercise and locus of power in examples provided by the living, thriving LGBTQ community of the Dominican Republic.
The acclaimed memoir of queer Cuban author Reinaldo Arenas chronicling his tumultuous yet luminary life, from his impoverished upbringing in Cuba to his imprisonment at the hands of a Communist regime.
David A.B. Murray's dynamic study features interviews with government and health agency officials, HIV/AIDS activists, and residents of the country's capital, Bridgetown. Using these and records from local libraries and archives, Murray unravels the complex historical, social, political, and economic forces through which same-sex desire, identity, and prejudice are produced and valued in this Caribbean nation-state. Illustrating the influence of both Euro-American and regional gender and sexual politics on sexual diversity in Barbados, Flaming Souls makes an important contribution to queer studies and the anthropology of sexualities.
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography A National Book Award Finalist A New York Times Notable Book From the age of four, award-winning writer Edwidge Danticat came to think of her uncle Joseph as her "second father," when she was placed in his care after her parents left Haiti for America. And so she was both elated and saddened when, at twelve, she joined her parents and youngest brothers in New York City. As Edwidge made a life in a new country, adjusting to being far away from so many who she loved, she and her family continued to fear for the safety of those still in Haiti as the political situation deteriorated. In 2004, they entered into a terrifying tale of good people caught up in events beyond their control. Brother I'm Dying is an astonishing true-life epic, told on an intimate scale by one of our finest writers.
75 Poems by the Author of How the García Girls Lost Their Accents and In the Time of the Butterflies. The works of this award-winning poet and novelist are rich with the language and influences of two cultures: those of the Dominican Republic of her childhood and the America of her youth and adulthood. They have shaped her writing just as they have shaped her life. In these seventy-five autobiographical poems, Alvarez's clear voice sings out in every line. Here, in the middle of her life, she looks back as a way of understanding and celebrating the woman she has become.
In the popular imagination, the Caribbean islands represent tropical paradise. This image, which draws millions of tourists to the region annually, underlies the efforts of many environmentalists to protect Caribbean coral reefs, mangroves, and rainforests. However, a dark side to Caribbean environmentalism lies beyond the tourist's view in urban areas where the islands' poorer citizens suffer from exposure to garbage, untreated sewage, and air pollution.Concrete Jungles explores the reasons why these issues tend to be ignored, demonstrating how mainstream environmentalism reflects and reproduces class and race inequalities. Based on over a decade of research in Kingston, Jamaica and Willemstad, Curaçao, Rivke Jaffe contrasts the environmentalism of largely middle-class professionals with the environmentalism of inner-city residents.
Combining more than one hundred classic and lesser-known texts, The Jamaica Reader presents a panoramic history of the country--from its pre-contact Indigenous origins to the present--to provide an unparalleled look at Jamaica's history, culture, and politics.
Details the unsuccessful Puerto Rican insurrection of 1950 through the life of Pedro Albizu Campos, the president of the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico.
Examines the history, and possible futures, of radical politics in the postcolonial Caribbean.
By tracing the largely forgotten eighteenth-century migration of elite mixed-race individuals from Jamaica to Great Britain, "Children of Uncertain Fortune" reinterprets the evolution of British racial ideologies as a matter of negotiating family membership. Using wills, legal petitions, family correspondences, and inheritance lawsuits, Daniel Livesay ... follow[s] the hundreds of children born to white planters and Caribbean women of color who crossed the ocean for educational opportunities, professional apprenticeships, marriage prospects, or refuge from colonial prejudices.
These essays by Brian Meeks, a noted public intellectual in the Caribbean, reflect on Caribbean politics, particularly radical politics and ideologies in the postcolonial era. But his essays also explain the peculiarities of the contemporary neo-liberal period while searching for pathways beyond the current plight.
Policing the Caribbean explores the emergence of law enforcement and security practices that extend beyond the boundaries of the nation state. Perceptions of public safety and national sovereignty are shifting in the face of domestic, regional and global insecurity, and with the emergence of transnational policing practices responding to drug trafficking and organised crime. This book examines how security threats are prioritised and the strategies that are put in place to respond to them, based on a detailed empirical case study of police and security sector organizations in the Caribbean. Transnational policing, one of the most significant recent developments in the security field, has brought about a number of changes in the organisation of criminal law enforcement in the Caribbean and other parts of the world.
Leftist political movements, organizations, and trends in the English-speaking Caribbean.
In a time of persistent uncertainty, fragile eco-structures, the politics of "populism," and limits in institutional leadership, The Caribbean on the Edge acts as an analytical roadmap into a challenging era of globalization for the countries on the edge of history in the Caribbean, those often on a policy standstill pondering which way and how to turn. Winston Dookeran traces ideas evolved in development and diplomacy over the last decade to identify the path for new analytical leadership. The Caribbean on the Edge discusses the ideas central to leadership, including the political issues involved in development, governance, and diplomacy. Tracing the evolution of various schools of thought that influence policy choices, The Caribbean on the Edge introduces new approaches and risk factors that are aligned with the current realities in the region. Above all, this book is about the development of new practices that will usher in a radical shift in thinking, policy, and practice in order to unlock the paralysis of a Caribbean on the edge.
Caribbean Crossing documents the rise and fall of the campaign for Black emigration to Haiti, drawing on a variety of archival sources to share the rich voices of the emigrants themselves. Using letters, diary accounts, travelers' reports, newspaper articles, and American, British, and French consulate records, Sara Fanning profiles the emigrants and analyzes the diverse motivations that fueled this unique early moment in both American and Haitian history.
In the generations after emancipation, hundreds of thousands of African-descended working-class men and women left their homes in the British Caribbean to seek opportunity abroad: in the goldfields of Venezuela and the cane fields of Cuba, the canal construction in Panama, and the bustling city streets of Brooklyn. But in the 1920s and 1930s, racist nativism and a brutal cascade of antiblack immigration laws swept the hemisphere. Facing borders and barriers as never before, Afro-Caribbean migrants rethought allegiances of race, class, and empire. In Radical Moves, Lara Putnam takes readers from tin-roof tropical dancehalls to the elegant black-owned ballrooms of Jazz Age Harlem to trace the roots of the black-internationalist and anticolonial movements that would remake the twentieth century. From Trinidad to 136th Street, these were years of great dreams and righteous demands. Praying or "jazzing," writing letters to the editor or letters home, Caribbean men and women tried on new ideas about the collective. The popular culture of black internationalism they created--from Marcus Garvey's UNIA to "regge" dances, Rastafarianism, and Joe Louis's worldwide fandom--still echoes in the present.
Anti-immigrant sentiment reached a fever pitch after 9/11, but its origins go back much further. Public rhetoric aimed at exposing a so-called invasion of Latino immigrants has been gaining ground for more than three decades — and fueling increasingly restrictive federal immigration policy. Accompanied by a flagging U.S. economy — record-level joblessness, bankruptcy, and income inequality — as well as waning consumer confidence, these conditions signaled one of the most hostile environments for immigrants in recent memory. In Brokered Boundaries, Douglas Massey and Magaly Sánchez untangle the complex political, social, and economic conditions underlying the rise of xenophobia in U.S. society. Brokered Boundaries analyzes how first- and second-generation immigrants from Central and South America and the Caribbean navigate these categories and their associated meanings as they make their way through U.S. society.
A study of how migrants adapt to their new country while still maintaining ties to the old with an emphasis on Haitian migrants to the US.
Caribbean immigrants have now become part of the social landscape of many American cities. Few studies, however, have treated in detail the process of their integration in American society. American Odyssey assesses the development and adaptation in...
Illuminating the entangled histories of the people and commodities that circulated across the Atlantic, Sharika Crawford assesses the Caribbean as a waterscape where imperial and national governments vied to control the profitability of the sea.
The Caribbean: A History of the Region and Its Peoples offers an authoritative one-volume survey of this complex and fascinating region. This groundbreaking work traces the Caribbean from its pre-Columbian state through European contact and colonialism to the rise of U.S. hegemony and the economic turbulence of the twenty-first century. The volume begins with a discussion of the region's diverse geography and challenging ecology and features an in-depth look at the transatlantic slave trade, including slave culture, resistance, and ultimately emancipation. Later sections treat Caribbean nationalist movements for independence and struggles with dictatorship and socialism, along with intractable problems of poverty, economic stagnation, and migrancy. Written by a distinguished group of contributors, The Caribbean is an accessible yet thorough introduction to the region's tumultuous heritage which offers enough nuance to interest scholars across disciplines. In its breadth of coverage and depth of detail, it will be the definitive guide to the region for years to come.
A survey of the current state of study of indigenous Caribbean people by archaeologists, historians, and anthropologists.
This anthology places itself at the intersection of Atlantic, environmental, and southern history, pushing for a new "confluence" of scholarship. There is clear overlap in interests and influences for these fields but they have proceeded, largely, on parallel tracks to-date. In their lucid introduction and throughout the collection, an emerging group of historians explore crucial insights that a self-consciously Atlantic environmental history of the American South can offer. By centering this project on a region, the American South-defined as the southeastern reaches of North America and the Caribbean-the authors interrogate ways in which European colonizers, Native Americans, and Africans interacted in and with the (sub)tropics, a place foreign to Europeans.
In October 1492, an Italian-born, Spanish-funded navigator discovered a new world, thousands of miles across the Atlantic Ocean. In Empire's Crossroads, Carrie Gibson, unfolds the story of the Caribbean, from Columbus's first landing on the island he named San Salvador to today's islands-- largely independent, but often still in thrall to Europe and America's insatiable desire for tropical luxuries. From the early years of settlement to the age of sugar and slavery, during which vast riches were generated for Europeans through the enforced labour of millions of enslaved Africans, to the great slave rebellions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the long, slow progress towards independence in the modern era, Gibson offers a vivid, panoramic view of this complex and contradictory region.
The first collection to explore the Black Power movement in its various manifestations across the Caribbean.
Offering a rare pan-Caribbean perspective on a region that has moved from the very center of the western world to its periphery, The Caribbean: The Genesis of a Fragmented Nationalism journeys through five centuries of economic and social development, emphasizing such topics as the slave-run plantation economy, the changes in political control over the centuries, the impact of the United States, and the effects of Castro's Cuban revolution on the area. The book integrates social analysis with political narrative, providing a unique perspective on the problems of nation-building in an area of dense populations, scarce resources, and an explosive political climate.
The Caribbean before Columbus' is a synthesis of the region's insular history based on the authors' 55 years of research in the Bahamas, Lesser and Greater Antilles. The presentation operates on multiple scales, and individual sites highlight specific issues.
Explores how perceptions and depictions of the physical landscape both reflected and influenced the history of the British colonial Caribbean.
Originally published in 1985, and available for the first time in paperback, Bondmen & Rebels provides a pioneering study of slave resistance in the Americas. Using the large-scale Antigua slave conspiracy of 1736 as a window into that society, David Barry Gaspar explores the deeper interactive character of the relation between slave resistance and white control.
An entrancing tale of piracy colored with gold, treachery and double-dealing (Portland Press Herald), Pulitzer Prize-finalist Colin Woodward's The Republic of Pirates is the historical biography of the exploits of infamous Caribbean buccaneers. In the early eighteenth century, the Pirate Republic was home to some of the great pirate captains, including Edward "Blackbeard" Teach, "Black Sam" Bellamy, and Charles Vane. Along with their fellow pirates -- former sailors, indentured servants, and runaway slaves -- this "Flying Gang" established a crude but distinctive democracy in the Bahamas, carving out their own zone of freedom in which servants were free, blacks could be equal citizens, and leaders were chosen or deposed by a vote. They cut off trade routes, sacked slave ships, and severed Europe from its New World empires. For a brief, glorious period the Republic was a success as the pirates became heroes in the eyes of the people
A Concise History of the Caribbean presents a general history of the Caribbean islands from the beginning of human settlement about seven thousand years ago to the present. It narrates processes of early human migration, the disastrous consequences of European colonization, the development of slavery and the slave trade, the extraordinary profits earned by the plantation economy, the great revolution in Haiti, movements toward political independence, the Cuban Revolution, and the diaspora of Caribbean people. Written in a lively and accessible style yet current with the most recent research, the book provides a compelling narrative of Caribbean history essential for students and visitors.
The definitive 2,500-year history of sugar and its human costs, from its little-known origins as a luxury good in Asia to worldwide environmental devastation and the obesity pandemic. For most of history, humans did without refined sugar. After all, it serves no necessary purpose in our diets, and extracting it from plants takes hard work and ingenuity. Granulated sugar was first produced in India around the sixth century BC, yet for almost 2,500 years afterward sugar remained marginal in the diets of most people. Then, suddenly, it was everywhere. How did sugar find its way into almost all the food we eat, fostering illness and ecological crisis along the way?
In this concise and up-to-date book, British journalist Richard Gott casts a fresh eye on the history of the Caribbean island from its pre-Columbian origins to the present day. He provides a European perspective on a country that is perhaps too frequently seen solely from the American point of view. The author emphasizes such little-known aspects of Cuba's history as its tradition of racism and violence, its black rebellions, the survival of its Indian peoples, and the lasting influence of Spain. The book also offers an original look at aspects of the Revolution, including Castro's relationship with the Soviet Union, military exploits in Africa, and his attempts to promote revolution in Latin America and among American blacks. In a concluding section, Gott tells the extraordinary story of the Revolution's survival in the post-Soviet years.
Grenada experienced much turmoil in the 1970s and 1980s, culminating in an armed Marxist revolution, a bloody military coup, and finally in 1983 Operation Urgent Fury, a United States-led invasion. Wendy C. Grenade combines various perspectives to tell a Caribbean story about this revolution, weaving together historical accounts of slain Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, the New Jewel Leftist Movement, and contemporary analysis. There is much controversy. Though the Organization of American States formally requested intervention from President Ronald Reagan, world media coverage was largely negative and skeptical, if not baffled, by the action, which resulted in a rapid defeat and the deposition of the Revolutionary Military Council. By examining the possibilities and contradictions of the Grenada Revolution, the contributors draw upon thirty years' of hindsight to illuminate a crucial period of the Cold War.
This is a compelling behind-the-scenes account of the extraordinary Castro brothers and the impending dynastic succession of Fidel's younger brother Raul. Brian Latell, the CIA analyst who has followed Castro since the sixties, gives an unprecedented view into Fidel and Raul's remarkable relationship, revealing how they have collaborated in policy making, divided responsibilities, and resolved disagreements for more than forty years--a challenge to the notion that Fidel always acts alone. Latell has had more access to the brothers than anyone else in this country, and his briefs to the CIA informed much of U.S. policy. Based on his knowledge of Raul Castro, Latell makes projections on what kind of leader Raul would be and how the shift in power might influence U.S.-Cuban relations.
The first and only successful slave revolution in the Americas began in 1791 when thousands of brutally exploited slaves rose up against their masters on Saint-Domingue, the most profitable colony in the eighteenth-century Atlantic world. Within a few years, the slave insurgents forced the French administrators of the colony to emancipate them, a decision ratified by revolutionary Paris in 1794. This victory was a stunning challenge to the order of master/slave relations throughout the Americas, including the southern United States, reinforcing the most fervent hopes of slaves and the worst fears of masters.
A major history of the impact of Caribbean migration to the United States. Marcus Garvey, Claude McKay, Claudia Jones, C.L.R. James, Stokely Carmichael, Louis Farakhan; the roster of immigrants from the Caribbean who have made a profound impact on the development of radical politics in the United States is extensive.
In 1961, at the height of the Cold War, the United States severed diplomatic relations with Cuba, where a momentous revolution had taken power three years earlier. For more than half a century, the stand-off continued--through the tenure of ten American presidents and the fifty-year rule of Fidel Castro. His death in 2016, and the retirement of his brother and successor Raúl Castro in 2021, have spurred questions about the country's future. Meanwhile, politics in Washington--Barack Obama's opening to the island, Donald Trump's reversal of that policy, and the election of Joe Biden--have made the relationship between the two nations a subject of debate once more.
Now available in PDF format. DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Top 10 Dominican Republic will lead you straight to the very best this nation has to offer. The guide is divided by area with restaurant reviews for each, as well as recommendations for hotels, bars, and places to shop. Rely on dozens of Top 10 lists, from the Top 10 museums to the Top 10 events and festivals. There's even a list of the Top 10 things to avoid. Whether you're looking for the things not to miss at the Top 10 sights or want to find the best nightspots, this guide is the perfect pocket-sized companion. DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Top 10 Dominican Republic contains a pull-out map and guide that includes fold-out maps, useful phone numbers, and 60 great ideas on how to spend a day in the Dominican Republic.
An adventure guide to the Virgin Islands. It offers sightseeing information, and looks at different types of accommodation, where to go to eat and what to do to make sure you make the most of your holiday.
The only English-speaking country in Central America, Belize is home to 500 species of birds, innumerable Maya ruins, as well as the world's second largest barrier reef. Over 80% of the land remains covered with primeval forest and 30% has been set aside as national parks/preserves. Completely rewritten, the 5th edition has a new layout for easy navigation and abundant new information. All manner of tips and recommendations for the first-time or veteran Belize traveler.
Here is the best guide to these sparsely populated islands. Largely untouched by tourism, they have few high-rise hotels, no time-share condos and no casinos. What they do have is unparalleled beauty, with small picturesque hotels set on beachfronts, in a
One of over 400 titles in the Insight series, Compact Guide Bahamas. This 96-page book includes a chapter detailing the Bahamas' history and culture, 10 tours and excursions taking in sights ranging from cosmopolitan Nassau to unspoilt Crooked Island, leisure-time suggestions, and a comprehensive information section packed with essential contact addresses and numbers. Plus 161 complementary photographs and 9 maps.
One of over 400 titles in the Insight series,
Insight Guide Barbados. This 358-page book includes a section detailing Barbados' history, 14 features covering the island's life and culture, ranging from its colourful Crop Over festival to its famous flying fish, a region by region visitor's guide to the sights, and a comprehensive Travel Tips section packed with essential contact addresses and numbers. Plus 361 incredible photographs and 12 maps.
A travel series unlike any other, Insight Guides go beyond the sights and into reality. Their incomparable photojournalistic approach captures the uniqueness of each culture they cover: their traditions, their arts, their history, their lives. The stunning photography is married to compelling text, written by local writers; the people most qualified to convey their culture's "secrets". Yes, Insight Guides will tell you which attractions to visit, but they'll also tell you a whole lot more. From the most popular resort cities to the world's most remote and exotic villages, Insight Guides will give you the insider's perspective you need to truly experience any destination you visit. Insight Guides serve many purposes. They are ideal for planning a trip. And, they're wonderful souvenirs to treasure for years after. Even the armchair traveler can be swept away by their magnificent content and experience the world from the comfort of home. Many international and domestic and domestic destinations also offer companion FlexiMaps, an innovative laminated folding map specially designed for the discriminating traveler.
These are the Leeward Islands. History, culture, the beaches, activities, food, shopping, hotels. Every detail of each island. Maps.
The most detailed guide to the ABC Islands. Great diving, sailing, hiking, golf, fine cuisine, charming inns & five-star resorts, duty-free shopping and unique creafts. Here is a guide to it all.
A guide to the Bahamas for active travellers, covering Grand Bahama, Freeport, Eleuthera, Bimini, Andros, Nassau, the Exumas, San Salvador, and more. It offers practical information on where to stay and eat, as well as on the activities available, such as diving, fishing, riding and canoeing.
To the outsider, the Cayman Islands, Cayman Brac, Grand Cayman and Little Cayman, are almost always equated with water sports and glorious beaches, plus offshore banking opportunities. This is hardly surprising, since the Cayman Islands do offer world-class scuba diving in crystal-clear waters, as well as a tax-free haven. But these three islands have so much more to offer the traveler who's willing to wander off the traditional tourist paths, walk away from the beachside resorts and explore by themselves. Diverse woodlands and pristine wetlands occupy much of the islands' interiors. Rugged hiking trails meander across the peaks and valleys, and mangrove swamps cushion the shoreline, offering a unique breeding ground for many birds and fish. These protected wilderness areas are often left unexplored by lay-in-the-sun-all-day tourists, who miss some of the biggest attractions the islands offer.
This travel guide walks with the adventurous traveler to the heart of Jamaica, to the miles of sand beaches, to the rugged Blue Mountains, to the country villages that provide a peek at the real Jamaica. The authors focus on the adventures this popular Ca
Travel guide to hotels, restaurants, shopping sights and activities.
Learn how to use the library's main search tool, RaptorSearch, to find books at MC Library.
Can't find a resource? MC Library offers multiple ways to request items you want.
Current Montgomery College students, faculty, and staff can borrow materials from any MC Library location with their MC ID card. In addition, these users can access electronic resources, such as e-books, from anywhere by entering their M number when prompted.
Community users (those not currently affiliated with MC) can apply for a community user card, which allows them to borrow materials and use other library resources. Community users are not eligible to use electronic resources from off-campus but can use electronic resources on campus.
Want to learn more? View our other events and special topics guides: