Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 184-222

Caribbean Migratory Experiences in Queen Macoomeh’s Tales from Icebox Land and Mutabaruka’s Poetry

Babacar Mbaye Kent State University

Dr. Babacar Mbaye, Department of English and Department of Pan-African Studies, Kent State University [email protected]

Abstract: This essay analyzes the various ways in which Queen Macoomeh’s Tales from Icebox Land (2007) and selected poems of Mutabaruka represent the condions of Caribbean immigrants in either Canada, England, and (or) the United States since the 1960s and 70s. The paper aempts to uncover the subversive, diasporic, and postcolonial qualies of pivotal West Indian literature that mainstream journals and scholars have neglected. In an aempt to reveal the intellectual and resisve nature of such literature, I place the two authors’ wrings in historical contexts which reveal the mulfaceted experiences of expatriate West Indian populaons who have fought hard for equality, cizenship, admissibility, and cultural space in Canada, England, and (or) the United States since the middle of the tweneth century.

Introducon colonized populaons and colonizers. The two narraves suggest the Queen Macoomeh’s Tales from Icebox hypocrisy of Western naons which use Land and Mutabaruka’s poems are Caribbean immigrants mainly as neglected wrings that serve as literary laborers, ignoring the humanity and tropes which signify the complex contribuon that these workers bring to ideological and economic challenges of the economic development of First Caribbean immigrants in their Western World countries that connue to benefit host countries where classism, racism, from neocolonialism. and xenophobia weaken the promises of equality and democracy that Like Mutabaruka’s poems, prompted them to move to these Macoomeh’s book is neglected in naons. Such injusces are apparent in mainstream Western intellectual circles the ways in which Macoomeh and because no mainstream academic Mutabaruka use Caribbean dialects as a journal has reviewed either one of the means for represenng the sardonic books, revealing the serious levels at and fluctuang relaonships between which the canonizaon of literature as West Indian immigrants and the white an exclusively Western art has alienated superstructure in their host countries, many black Third World authors from such as Canada and the United States, the current “ivory tower” literary as economically disparate forces whose establishments. Racism and its corollary conflicts mirror those between prejudices play a part in this exclusion of

184 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 184-222 major black literary voices such as [the postcolonial world] uses the Macoomeh and Mutabaruka in “ivory language of the former colonial power, tower” instuons which are mainly but it speaks in its own independent and reserved for the aesthecs and quite original voice, oen contesng the viewpoints of white men. As Joan way it has been represented by the Shelley Rubin points out in The Making earlier [European] writers. The wring of Middlebrow Culture (1992), “the that emerges in this process issues from process of canon formaon” has a remarkably complex combinaon of “funconed to exclude writers who cultures, as the postcolonial writers were not white males in the Western draw on indigenous tradions and tradion” and has excluded “women, languages of their own as well as on the black, or non-Western authors” (165). resources of the tradion of wring in Black writers such as Macoomeh and English” (4). Drawing on similar Mutabaruka, who use black dialects, are theories, this essay will examine the directly affected by this exclusion complex ways in which Macoomeh and because they provide counterpoints to Mutabaruka develop various linguisc the canon’s standardizaon of English, and ideological strategies in order to art, culture, and ideology according to signify the racism, exclusion, prejudice, white male aesthecs and concerns. and other oppressions that have confronted Caribbean immigrants in Moreover, like Macoomeh’s Canada, the United States, and England narrave, Mutabaruka’s poetry since the 1960s. incorporates Caribbean dialect in order to counter literary and arsc Unlike Macoomeh’s narrave, convenons which expect postcolonial which is set in Toronto, Ontario, authors to use the languages of their Mutabaruka’s does not focus on a former masters and colonizers. The two parcular city or state. Mutabaruka’s black authors’ wrings are part of the poems are generally set in the global postcolonial writers’ resistance against North even if they frequently allude to the canonizaon of English as an the United States and England. In an “internaonal language,” which is a aempt to delineate the geographic revoluon that Feroza F. Jussawalla and locaons and contexts of the wrings of Reed Way Dasenbrock describe as Macoomeh and Mutabaruka, this essay stemming from the Brish Empire’s uses the concept of “diaspora” as a establishment of English “as a language word that refers to the Caribbean of trade, government, and educaon, in immigrants in Canada and the United that sizable part of the world ruled by States only. This usage of the term the Brish” (4). The crics use Salmon “diaspora” allows us to localize a term Rushdie’s phrase, “The Empire writes which generally defines the movement back,” in order to signify how “minority” of black populaons from Africa into and “émigrés” writers from the United many parts of the world as a result of States, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, historical forces such as slavery, India, Trinidad, and South Africa ulize colonizaon, and voluntary migraons.1 language to challenge “the hegemony of My concept of “diaspora” is indebted to writers from the mainstream” (3). Kezia Page’s definion of the noon of Jussawalla and Dasenbrock state: “It “diaspora” as an ideology of “Caribbean

185 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 184-222 cultural selement outside of the Defining Tropes geographical space of the In Consuming the Caribbean: From Caribbean” (17). Page writes: “By Arawaks to Zombies, Mimi Sheller diaspora I mean the idea that naon defines the concept of trope as “a states exist beyond their geographical figurave or metaphorical use of a word boundaries as their naonals form or expression” (112). Sheller also writes: migrant communies on other shores/ “Developing this dual meaning, Srinivas within the geographical spaces of other Aravamudan suggests a process he calls naons . . . Obviously there is overlap as ‘tropological’, based on the early diasporic discourse or the idea of eighteenth- century definion of trope: diasporic consciousness does not ‘Trope, tropus, in rhetoric, a word or preclude experiences of anomie, expression used in a different sense dislocaon and loss, but ‘exile’ as from what it properly signifies. Or, a concept places more emphasis on word changed from its proper and these” (17). Yet, although it is not a natural significaon to another, with synonym of the noon of “exile,” the some advantage” (112). This concept of “diaspora” aptly describes eighteenth-century definion of the the history of New World black trope is further explained in Thomas populaons who have felt the effect of Gibbons’ 1767 book, Rhetoric, or a View forced displacement from homeland of its Principal Tropes and Figures, in since slavery me. Discussing the their Origin and Powers: With a Variety persistent manner in which Rastafarians of Rules to Escape Errors and Blemishes, of Jamaica evoke Africa as a place to and Aain Propriety and Elegance in which they should return from the Composion. According to Gibbons, atrocies of the West, Rex Neleford using a “Trope” consists of “changing a writes: “The Exile and the yearning for word or sentence with advantage, from the Return are both the cause and the its proper significaon to another occasion for that endemic state of crisis meaning” (1). Gibbons also writes: in which Africans in the West, and even “Thus for example, God is a Rock . . . those who imprison the Africans-in- Here the Trope lies in the word Rock, Exile, find themselves. Such a situaon which is changed from its original sense, calls for a Message and the Rastafarians as intending one of the strongest works have willingly provided it, drawing and surest shelters in nature, and is unashamedly on the Book of employed to signify that God by his Revelaons of the New Testament faithfulness and power is the same which have for centuries provided security to the soul that trusts in him, consolaon for and restored faith to which the Rock is to the man that builds sufferers in me of chaos” (xiii). Thus, upon it, or flies for safety to its religion also serves as a major tool impenetrable recesses” (2). In addion, which Caribbean people at home and in Gibbons writes: “6. They [tropes] may the diaspora have used to cope with the be wild and extravagant . . . 7. They may dilemma that exile creates in their lives. be mean and low . . . 8. They may be far- fetched and obscure . . . 9. They may be harsh and unsuitable . . . 10. They may be finical and fantasc . . . 11. They may be filthy and impure” (1). Though it was

186 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 184-222 developed in 1767, Gibbons’ definion 1977 to join her mother. Although it of trope remains important because it alludes to Macoomeh’s life in Port-of- stresses the value of significaon and Spain, Trinidad, where she was born, obscene language that also permeate the book primarily deals with her the wrings of Macoomeh and experiences in Toronto, providing us Mutabaruka. Drawing on addional with important insights about the tropes such as those of “Icebox Land,” strengths and limitaons of Caribbean and “Callaloo Land,” “Babylon,” and the immigrants in this part of Canada. “whiteman country,” which are pervasive in such wrings, this essay Canada was a major desnaon uncovers the significance of texts that for Caribbean immigrants during the signify the difficult condions of 1960s and 70s although, as Robin W. Caribbean immigrants in the West even Winks’ The Blacks in Canada: A History if they may appear “filthy and impure” (1971) suggests, West Indians’ voluntary to the elist or untrained eye. The four relocaon to Canada can be traced to terms allude to the various locaons in the early tweneth century (310). While the Americas where Caribbean it was minimal during the first half of populaons have migrated as a result of the tweneth century, Caribbean the history of slavery, colonizaon, and migraon to Canada became substanal globalizaon that fragments them in between the end of World War II and two diasporas: their old homeland and the mid-1960s. Winks states: “In the new country(s) to which they 1946-50 there had been 947 black emigrate. Such migrants are part of the arrivals, or 0.22 percent of the total blacks that Stuart Hall describes, in his number of immigrants; for 1961-65 1993 essay “Negoang Caribbean there were 11,835, or 2.37 percent of Idenes,” as “twice diasporized” (28). the total; and by 1966 blacks—largely Macoomeh and Mutabaruka reveal the West Indian—comprised over 3 percent consequences of this double rupture of all immigraon” (444). In a 2009 that Caribbean immigrants experience World Bank study, Emiko Todoroki, in separate locaons of their new Maeo Vaccani, and Wameek Noor diasporas. assert: “Since the late 1960s, Canada has been an aracve desnaon for migraon from the Caribbean region due to its relavely open immigraon Queen Macoomeh’s Tales from policy and geographic proximity. Icebox Land Immigrant inflows into Canada have Wrien by Nathalie Taghaboni, who helped sustain economic growth, with uses the pseudonym Queen Macoomeh the foreign-born populaon strongly in the book, Tales from Icebox Land contribung to the demands of the (2007) weaves storytelling and socio- Canadian labor market. In 2006, there polical sare in order to represent the were an esmated 580,000 individuals condions of recent Caribbean of Caribbean descent in Canada, with immigrants in Toronto, Canada. Set immigrants from the region accounng mainly in Toronto, the book also depicts for approximately 3 percent of the Macoomeh’s life in Trinidad where she overall foreign workers reaching lived before she moved to Canada in Canada” (xviii). Canada’s openness to

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Caribbean migraon can be traced back misunderstanding in Canada, since it to 1966 when, according to Winks, “the reveals the ambivalent lives of Canadian government issued a White Caribbean migrants who face alienaon, Paper on immigraon which stated that prejudice, and racism despite the socio- there would be ‘no discriminaon by economic success and cultural creavity reason of race, colour or they achieve in this naon. religion’” (444). This declaraon is part of the legislaons that Canada has enacted since the mid-1960s in an aempt to aract more immigrants to Theorizing “Icebox Land” its naon. In their essay, “Ethnicity and An anonymous reviewer describes Tales the Identy of African-Canadians: A from Icebox Land as a “combinaon” of Theorecal and Polical “column(s)/stories” which “uses sare Analysis” (2005), Korbla P. Puplampu and humour as its main ingredients with and Wisdom J. Teey describe the observaons on such topics as North Immigraon Act of 1967, the 1982 American polics, general societal ills Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the and world polics to name a few.”2 Such 1988 Mulcultural Act as “policies” that use of sare and humour to comment reflect “Canada’s efforts to build an on North American and global polics is inclusive and democrac society” and apparent in the passages in which her desire “to address some historically Macoomeh cricize “de big pappy embarrassing episodes in the treatment people in Enron [who] teef people of certain groups of people” (25-26). Yet money” (28), “de commess dey [Britain] Caribbean immigrants have experienced make in Calalloo land; all de sugar an oil mistreatment in Canada since the mid- an bauxite dey teef [from Calalloo tweneth century due to the incapacity islands]” (37), and the “badjohns [drug of policies to change racist and other and gun dealers]” who are “bringin in intolerant behaviors towards blacks deze ngs to Canada an sellin it to dem unless they are enforced and supported duncey heads” (111). The words “teef” by cultural change. In his 1985 study, that Macoomeh defines as a synonym of Racial Discriminaon in Canada and the “thief” (158) has been added to The Black Experience, James W. St.G. Walker Official Diconary of Unofficial English: observes: “The historical record reveals A Crank Omnibus for Trillionaires and that the basic issue in Canada has been Bampots for the Ecozoic Age in which racial stereotyping — the assignment of Macoomeh is quoted urging, “All yuh personal characteriscs, economic fowl teef who feel de internet is a free- opportunity, and social acceptance on co [to] have some respeck” (129). the basis of perceived aributes — and, Macoomeh’s characters live in an further, that those stereotypes were imagined country called “Icebox Land” founded on ignorance, hearsay, and that she idenfies as different and coincidence. The problem is embedded fluctuang geographical zones. In the in history, and historical understanding glossary of her book, Macoomeh is essenal to unlocking soluons with defines “Icebox Land” as a “ficonal any promise of success” (24). name to describe North America” (153). Macoomeh’s Icebox Land helps us Yet, early in the narrave, she “unlock” the lingering historical represents “Icebox Land” as the

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Americas, as is apparent in the passage have completed the triangular journey in which she says, “Ah livin up here in back to Britain,” Hall states: “This is Icebox Land since before Columbus boat more than just a diaspora and living in a capsides dong by we an he swim ashore place where the centre is always an start tellin people he discover we as somewhere else: we are the break with if we was stannin up in a corner those originang cultural sources as wain” (xi). Likewise, “Icebox Land” passed through the traumas of violent refers to a Pan-Naonal geographic rupture” (28). Such a ruptured black space that spans from Trinidad and identy is also visible in Macoomeh’s other parts of the Caribbean to the narrave where blacks from different United States and Canada. Macoomeh’s parts of the Caribbean use Caribana as a Icebox Land alludes to the theory that tool for preserving the folklore of their Columbus discovered the Americas, parcular homelands while creang a which is a common thread in colonialist communal identy that helps them discourses which represent inhabitants overcome the polical, social, Europeans found in the New World as economic, and cultural forces that savages at best and absent beings at oppress them in Icebox Land. worst in order to exploit them economically and culturally while The concept of Caribana is pretending to civilize them.3 Christopher associated with the word “Bacchanal” Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, Frances which has plural definions that all Drake, and other explorers assumed stress the idea of communal celebraon that Nave Americans they met in the among Caribbean people at home and New World had inferior cultures, abroad. The word “Bacchanal” has lifestyles, foodways, religions, and disnct meanings. In Jamaican patois, pracces. Yet the European explorers “Bacchanal” means a “big Party,” did not turn their back on the so-called “heavy quarreling,” “noise,” or ‘savage’ lands they supposedly “confusion.”4 Yet, according to Daniel ‘discovered.’ Nor did they provide a Miller, in Trinidad, “Bacchanal” means valid and plausible excuse for their either “scandal,” as in David Rudder’s brutal treatment of Indian people and 1989 calypso song, “Bacchanal cultures they viewed as barbaric. Woman,” where it also signifies “confusion” or “disorder” (507). In this Rooted in her cultural vein, Miller writes: “The two major experiences in Port-of-Spain, connotaons are linked by the other Macoomeh’s narrave is not an unfamiliar term in the calypso, that is essenalist text since it suggests the ‘commess’. In diconaries commess is complex ways in which Caribbean translated as extreme confusion which people in Toronto contribute to the results from scandal” (507). Yet, as development of hybrid and Miller argues, outside Trinidad the term cosmopolitan idenes built around the “Bacchanal” will “connote some kind of Caribana parade. These migrants use orgiasc or frenzied celebraon, and so Caribana as a means for resisng the it is not surprising that the term is also challenging effects of exile and frequently applied to the ideal alienaon in the diaspora. Discussing Carnival” (507). Finally, Jodi Fodor the identy of “[Caribbean] blacks who defines the word “Bacchanal” as “a

189 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 184-222 drunken fiesta,” “a party,” or “a loud Toronto’s Olympic Island. Charles Roach celebraon” which “was named aer remembers that there was great the Bacchus, the great god of community support for Caribana at that wine” (15). As Fodor points out, the me” (107-108). Therefore, Caribana term “Bacchanal” was “named also for allows the Caribbean community in intoxicaon” (15). Toronto to create space for Caribbean culture in a new naon state where they Another term which needs to be create a second diaspora within a defined is “Caribbana.” According to colonizing culture. Depicng similar Nkechinyelum A. Chioneso, communies that blacks have formed in “Caribbana” (another wrien-form of the Caribbean and the rest of the world the word “Caribana”) is “a musical and since slavery, Hall uses the term “the costumed street parade akin to popular other Caribbean” to signify these Caribbean fesvals/carnivals” (77).5 The sociees’ ambivalent status between history of Caribana is summarized in the their original and new homelands. He book, Trinidad Carnival: The Cultural writes: “they [these sociees] have Polics of a Transnaonal Fesval, in been always surrounded by the which Lyndon Phillip discusses the colonizing culture, but importantly – efforts that “Charles Roach and a group and to some extent today, imperavely of West Indian students, professionals, – retaining something of the and workers” such as “nurses, connecon. They have been oen domescs” and other laborers put unrecognized, oen evident only in together to organize the first Caribana pracce, or oen unreflected” (29). The fesval in Toronto in 1967 as “the West modern Caribbean community in Indian contribuon toward Canada’s Toronto is part of “the other Caribbean” centennial celebraons” (106-107). since it is able to create agency, social- Roach’s group is considered as the building, admissibility and acceptance originator of Caribana since it exposed for Caribbean culture in the city despite Canadians to aspects of Caribbean the stringent racism that has confronted culture they had never seen before it since the 1960s. Toronto’s Bacchanal. According to Lyndon Phillip, a 1968 issue of The West Indian News Observer reveals the main objecve that Roach and his fellows Dialect, Sare, and Humour in (such as Peter Marcelline, Elaine and Icebox Land Alban Liverpool, Sam Cole, and Romain The use of the Empire’s language to Pi) had when they founded Caribana retrieve unwrien experiences, which is (107-108). Phillip writes: “The Caribana the process that Jussawalla and founders spoke about how they were Dasenbrock idenfy as “that complexity going to transport a never before seen [which] has been and connues to be Carnival to Toronto. In addion to the tremendously enabling” (4), is apparent tradional parades of the bands, their in Macoomeh’s recovery of her Caribana (a name that joins Caribbean Trinidadian English dialect as a means and Bacchanal) was to include a fancy for resisng neo-colonialist bliss and Ball, catered boat cruises along Lake expressing her worldview through the Ontario and an island picnic on prism of her own language even if such

190 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 184-222 an idiom inevitably bears the indelible Yet a careful reader soon finds imprints of the colonizer’s vernacular. In out that Macoomeh’s book is this vein, an anonymous author states: intellectual, since it theorizes the “Explaining her choice to write her dilemma of immigraon and modernity highly popular column in Trinidad & in the contemporary West Indian Tobago's vernacular, Queen Macoomeh society in the black diaspora. Drawing says, ‘Just because I choose to write in on the culture of both her nave this style of grammar does not mean Trinidad and of Caribbean immigrants in that I cannot write in standard English. Toronto, Macoomeh represents these Like a muse wanng to inspire, I adapt blacks’ resistance against alienaon and to my audience. Communicaon is socio-economic problems they face in ineffecve otherwise.’”6 Thus, the city. Her use of culture is apparent Macoomeh is not ashamed at forcing near the end of her book where she and validang the English dialect of writes: “We is a abidin people, doh blacks of Trinidad as a proper and doubt dat. Inside we heart, deep dong independent linguisc form that where Icebox Land law, racial profilin, deserves as much respect as has been immigraon rules an all de dis an dat given to mainstream English. cah reach, we is Caribbean People. An is Ancipang the discomfort of readers dat what keepin we afloat” (147). This who may find her speech difficult to passage suggests Macoomeh’s allusion understand, Macoomeh writes: “Now to the challenges that await blacks in fuh all doze who goin to read de book Icebox Land. One of these challenges is but not accustom to we English, doh leh the set of trouble that white Canadians de words frighten yuh eh? Take yuh create for Caribbean people who want me an read troo, yuh go get de riddim. to immigrate to Canada even when they Yuh go hear de music in de words. Yuh like certain elements of West Indian might fine it easier to talk out de words culture. As Macoomeh suggests, even if so yuh go hear de tory. Dis is a tory the “Iceboxians” like to “drink de rum, telling book, not a essay” (x). smoke all kine-ah ng, interfere wid Macoomeh’s use of Trinidadian English Calallooian women” when they are in dialect reflects the disncve style of the Caribbean, they “run back up in her wring that an anonymous author Icebox Land to pass a nex immigraon calls, “Caribbean flavor.”7 Such a law to make it harder fuh Calallooians to “Caribbean flavor” can be tasted in travel” (36). Such exclusion of blacks Macoomeh’s language which transcends from Canada can be traced to 1910 the disncon between convenonal when, as Winks suggests, a new and unconvenonal English. Challenging “restricve, exclusive, and selecve” this difference, Macoomeh makes a Canadian immigraon law was passed humble gesture that allows the (307). According to Winks, when T.B. untrained reader (who may easily Macaulay, the founder of the Canadian- misconstrue her book as non- West Indian League, made a resoluon intellectual) to appreciate her idiom and about a possible federaon between narrave that mainstream scholars may Canada and “one or more of the Brish view as unsophiscated and improper. West Indian colonies,” the Governor of the Bahamas, Sir William Grey-Wilson made racist remarks about blacks from

191 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 184-222 these islands (307-308). In an aempt to “Caribbean Africans residing in the appease Canadians who were chocked Toronto metropolitan area were” by this proposion, the Governor said perceived as “‘differenally that “the ignorant blacks would be shut incorporated’ (i.e., marginalized) due in out” and the security of “the white part to their cultural aributes” (71). woman in the midst of negroes” would According to Chioneso, “Demographic be protected if “the Bahamas joined the data indicate that almost half of confederaon” (308). Connental African (47%) and two thirds of Caribbean African (66%) Likewise, other Caribbean blacks immigrants prefer to sele in Ontario, had been marginalized in Canada during parcularly within the Toronto the tweneth century. For instance, as metropolitan area” (72). Paradoxically, Winks points out, in 1911 the Winnipeg Caribbean heritage allows West Indians Board of Trade called for a “head tax” in Icebox Land to maintain a sense of on “those Negroes who had taken land sanity and community despite the in Canada” and had “not proved fragmentaon that modern life creates themselves sasfactory as farmers, in their society, corroborang James W. thriy as selers, or desirable [as] St.G. Walker’s argument, in The West neighbors” (309). According to Winks, Indians in Canada (1984) that these racist charges were made “despite “Circumstances in Canada encourage the obvious fact that most of them [the West Indians not only to retain their ‘Negroes’] had been in the Dominion Caribbean cultural traits but to maintain less than eighteen months and had yet loyalty and identy links to their lands to harvest their first crop” (309). The of origin” (20). condions of these early Caribbean immigrants in Canada resemble those of expatriates who have lived in the naon since the mid-1960s. According Caribana, Bacchanal, and to Heron, since 1965, “relave to nave Subversive Language in Icebox and immigrant whites, many Land [Caribbean, Lano, and Asian The importance of culture in the immigrants] have not aained the level resistance of Toronto’s Caribbean of economic success commensurate populaon against oppression is further with their skills or educaonal apparent in Icebox Land where qualificaons. The credenals of some Macoomeh suggests that carnivals allow groups of immigrants are perceived to the West Indians to counter their be inferior by employers in receiving alienaon in Canada. Discussing the sociees and are not as highly rewarded history of a carnival called “Bacchanal as degrees earned in Europe and North Bobol Brigade or BBB for short,” America” (18). Such condions show Macoomeh shows how Toronto’s that white Canadians are hypocrical in Caribbean immigrants founded this their relaons with Caribbean migrants organizaon as a means to resist since they isolate them from socio- Canada’s freezing weather. She writes: economic opportunies while “Once upon a me, over forty years ago, perceiving them as culturally different. in a lan so cole yuh could freeze awf yuh In this vein, Chioneso argues that

192 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 184-222 nen-nen an hear it fall PING! On de in Toronto. By walking through Toronto pavement, dere lived a group of people in such a manner, the carnival call de Calallooians. Deze people miss parcipants bring joy to people of where dey come from, so dey form de different backgrounds. In this sense, Bacchanal Bobol Brigade or BBB for Bacchanal creates a space in which short” (74). Therefore, Toronto’s Caribbean migrants establish points of Caribbean immigrants use carnival as a contact with other communies, such as means for connecng with their original Indians and Chinese expatriates, who homeland and creang an idenfiable share their status as selers in Canada. community. Tina K. Ramnarine’s Creang Their Own Space: The Development of an Indian- Yet the promoon of Caribbean Caribbean Musical Tradion (2001) tradions and cross-cultural describes how immigrants from India understanding are central in organize in Toronto “Chutney [music Macoomeh’s narrave since it shows],” that are “gaining increased empowers her struggle for human rights popularity” in the city where they are and full cizenship in Canada. Depicng seled (10). Bacchanal allows Toronto’s the wide recepon of the BBB among Caribbean migrants to create a similar Toronto’s cross-racial audience, she space where they can share their writes: tradions with other members of the metropolis. Watch how people movin like dey in a different worl; a Macoomeh’s resistance tools are worl dat doh have no crime, also craed out of the “Jumbie” no murder, no hatred, no tradions of her homeland of Trinidad war. People laughin an she uses as means for creang space makin skylark while dey and success in Toronto. The term wain fuh dere ban to pull “Jumbie,” or “spirits of the dead,” is a out. Walk troo de area an pan-Caribbean term which, according to watch Black people, White David H. Brown, derives from the word people, Indian an Chinee “Moko Jumbie” and “descends from people an what ever else it Bantu-wide lexicon related to spirits of have. Dey chippin, ole talkin the dead, such as kiyumba, which an singin. Even de chirren, means a spirit-embodying skull relic, dey red out already but dey and nfumbi, which means dead spirit, in sll game. Feel de energy the Afro-Cuban Palo-Monte surgin in dat Stadium an tell tradion” (80). Yet , as Geoffrey Holder me Papa Gawd not dere. argues, in Trinidad, the term “Moko (69) Jumbie” also means “a mysterious dancer on slts, face covered” and Macoomeh’s reference to the ways in “dressed as death,” who crosses the which the carnival’s main parcipants streets, threatening people for “money” “Walk troo de area an watch Black or their “life,” and scaring the children people, White people, Indian an Chinee who “take refuge behind their mothers’ people an what ever else it have” (69) skirts or hold on ght to their fathers’ celebrates the diversity the BBB creates strong arms” (10-11). “Jumbie” allows

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Macoomeh to remember her homeland, is evident in these blacks’ ongoing quest as is evident in the chapter in which she of identy that Hall theorizes as their writes: “It’s strange how memories can aempt to “decolonize,” “regenerate transport you to a me and place far and ground the polical and social life of from your present. I was a long way and the society [in which they live] not in an a long me away from my birthplace absent picture or image that could but yet there I was, in my mind, back in never be fulfilled or in the nostalgia for the house in Port-of-Spain” (52). Among something outside the society but in the things such as “sorrel,” “assorted nuts,” complicated realies and negoaons “sponge cake, pone, sugar cake and of that society itself” (31). Macoomeh sweetbread,” that her mother used to successfully negoates “complicated cook for her in Trinidad, Macoomeh also realies” of Canadian society since she remember her “Jumbie.” She recalls, firmly believes in the capacity of her “Up in the back of the house was my “Jumbie” to provide her son with jumbieland” (52). In Toronto, tradion without shielding him from the Macoomeh vividly remembers “Jumbie” inevitable forces of modernity, as she observes her son play from her hybridity, and progress. She asserts: window: “The past served to bring the present into sharp focus. I could not shield him As I stood at the window from the impact of civilizaon” (53). and watched him I felt a Thus, Macoomeh perceives herself as a certain pang of sadness that person whose memory of “Jumbie” in I couldn’t offer him the same Toronto allows her to plant deep roots simple ngs. I once received in Canada, helping her navigate the dolls that could walk with wide seas between her original me; he received electronic homeland and the new naon in which play staons. I had had she has permanently seled with her cakes and sugared goodies, family. Her capacity to establish strong he lived in an age where connecons with both Trinidad and nothing was good for you to Toronto through culture and memory eat. My jumbie was in the suggests the Caribbean immigrant’s dark in the back of the ability to overcome the difficult house buzzing close to my separaon between homeland and new face. (53) naon-states that exile brings about. Similar success is apparent in Ransford Therefore, “Jumbie” has a strong W. Palmer’s argument, in “Caribbean influence on Macoomeh’s memory and Development and the Migraon life since it is like a totem in which her Imperave” (1990), that while “most ancestral spirits live, helping her Caribbean immigrants entertain negoate her ambiguous situaon thoughts of returning home later in life, between tradion and modernity. As perhaps to build a house, establish a Hall points out, the use of “symbolic business, or just rere,” the truth is that return” to a homeland is important in “few immigrants ever return to live out the aempts of New World black their old age in a country where their populaons to find “a place in modern children and immediate relaves do not history” (31). This search for modernity live” (10). Customs such as Bacchanal

194 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 184-222 and “Jumbie” help these immigrants [named] Look Abu Bu Dey Montano was mediate the persistent pull between caught on tape training other youths in their old and new homelands. the art of ‘Jumbie’ . . . Montano has taken his training techniques to Toronto Moreover, Macoomeh and New York where terrorist cells are represents Caribbean culture as hybrid said to exist. It is reported a large tradions that strongly influence meeng will be held in Toronto under Western culture, causing North the code name Caribanana” (47). This American reporters to perceive it as an story uses the language of North infecous terror. This prejudice is American internaonal campaign apparent in the ficve story of CIA against Al Qaeida as a rhetorical tool infiltraon of Trinidad in search of that signifies the aempts of Canadian “terrorists” that Macoomeh tells in her society to resist the infiltraon of a narrave. In the story, a ficve “contagious” Caribbean culture into journalist describes “Several women itself. By poking fun at the North [who] were [allegedly] seen to remove American aempt to fight Al Qaeida in their masks and other clothing” to be the Caribbean, Macoomeh subtly photographed by “See Nen Nen” berates the conservave forces that reporters (46). As the narrator suggests, resist the linguisc and cultural these women had “banners” which influences of Caribbean immigrants in were “part of the terrorist underground Canada. In so doing, Macoomeh laughs language in Trinidad” (46). Later, the at the ways in which white Canadians narrator says: aempt to control the infiltraon of infecous Caribbean culture into US troops were unable to Canada. In his web arcle, “How They subdue this elite group of Kept Canada almost Lily White: The highly trained milia. The previously Untold story of the Canadian troops were sprayed with a immigraon Officials who Stopped toxic liquid locally made American Blacks from Coming to called “babash”. It caused Canada,” Trevor W. Sissing dismisses disorientaon and almost an liberal Canadians who quickly apply the enre regiment was word “racist” to the United States.8 infected. Another unfamiliar According to Sissing, this tendency weapon was called “wine” ignores how, during the first years of but not the alcohol kind. (46) the tweneth century, “the Canadian government consciously and carefully The infecous language and “wine” that applied a policy of nearly total exclusion the narrator describes are metaphors of American blacks. This is why Canada for the unstoppable, defiant, and today has comparavely few blacks, malleable force that the music, dance, why it is sll possible for us to think of costumes, songs, Bacchanal and other race problems as things that happen to elements of Caribbean culture bring to other people.” Such hidden history of Toronto. “Jumbie” is an important part racial exclusion has had drasc effects of this resisve culture since, as on the black populaons in Canada. Macoomeh suggests, a US secret agent Sissing writes: reported that a “fundamentalist leader

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It is not a pleasant chapter in culture. The appearance of members of our history. It involves no the white, dominant culture in the boldly stated policy of the parade, or newspaper accounts which kind that goes into the perpetuate stereotypical associaons of school textbooks. There was Caribbean culture with tourisc nothing public about it, as ‘exoca,’ and the close aenon paid to with the "Keep Australia crime and violence are all clear White" policy. Rather it was examples of this type of a back-room effort, almost projecon” (405). Toppling this racism enrely successful, to in Canada requires not only the "discourage" the many unlearning of primivizing of blackness thousands of American and but also the implementaon and West Indian blacks who enforcement of structural policies that might otherwise have treat blacks as full cizens. moved to Canada. Language has a major role in There was -- as government Macoomeh’s resistance since she correspondence in Oawa theorizes it as one of the “Weapons of records now makes clear--a Mas[s] Destrucon” that “is a highly long, long series of leers developed form of warfare taught at exchanged among terrorist training camps all over immigraon authories Trinidad. It was deduced ‘ng’ is similar worried about how to be to ‘ent’ and are both noun and verb and funconally an-black possibly diphthong” (47). This statement without seeming an-black. suggests the strong influence of Caribbean vernacular in Macoomeh’s In this sense, even if it brings Caribbean liberave strategy. Macoomeh surely cultural diversity to the forefront of draws on this rhetorical weapon since Canadian society, Caribana alone cannot she uses Trinidadian linguisc code- dismantle structural racism, provide full switching as a means for rewring cizenship to West Indians, or win the history from her own vantage point as a admiraon of white Canadians who modern Caribbean woman immigrant in perceive blacks and their ancestral Toronto who is not afraid to speak tradions as foreign, primive, and against injusce. Linguisc usage is vital dangerous. Annemarie Gallaugher in her survival since it allows her to registers the triple condescension of overcome her sense of alienaon and white Canadians towards Toronto’s loneliness in Icebox Land. Such use of West Indian community when she language is apparent in the passage argues, in her essay, “Construcng where Macoomeh describes the Caribbean Culture in Toronto: the estrangement she feels from people Representaon of Caribana” (1995), who seem to frown at her Caribbean that during Caribana, “mulcultural accent or keep pretending that they value is oen evidenced” not “as cannot understand what she says to coming from within the Caribbean them. She writes: “I have to spen de day community itself, but as a projecon of talkin to people who refuse to try to white, dominant culture onto Caribbean understan meh accent so I have to put

196 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 184-222 on an song like dem. Mine you, when ah cizens of Calalloo,” but “was refuse pass in Chinatown to make market, dem base on strict Immigraon Law of De Chiney people doh change de way dey Calallooians, especially if dey doh have talk to help people understan. You ever Calalloo Experience” (34). The Cric’ noce dat? Home now if you doh Crack clause comes from the folklore of understan we, we just talk louder. If you Trinidad and Tobago in which it refers to cah understan a West Indian, you must a variety of folktales with animal be deaf. But ah not home. I live in trickster characters who struggle for Icebox Land. Nobody sen an call survival in precarious social and me” (120-121). Yet estrangement is a economic condions in a mythological double-edge sword since it is somemes world.10 Yet, as Philip M. Sherlock and facilitated or self-inflected by Toronto’s Hilary Sherlock argue, the term “Crick- Caribbean people themselves, especially Crack” also derives from “Crick Crack those who are ashamed to stories” of many Caribbean islands such wholeheartedly embrace their original as Tobago, Trinidad, Jamaica, and homeland’s culture in their new Marnique which “tell of a number of country. Some of these people would different animals” (xvi). As the two include those Macoomeh describe as crics argue, even if such tales are “some fresh water Caribbean people called “Anancy stories,” they are part of who forget how we does talk back home opening formula of tales in which “One an tellin me how ah making dem sweat calls out, ‘Time for a Crick Crack story, to remember everyng” (131). In this Tante Lucie, me for a Crick Crack sense, there are Caribbean people in story,’ and while silence falls and the Toronto who develop elism amongst night shadows creep over the land, one another by categorizing recent Tante Lucie begins” to say “ ‘Crick immigrants against those who are Crack’ / And the children say, ‘Break my perceived as more established, cultured, back’” (xii).11 and sophiscated, replicang the dichotomies that Europeans themselves The noon of Crick-Crack serves used to make between early and late as a means for sarizing the challenges enslaved Africans in the New World. that Caribbean migrants face in their Such opposions are apparent in the western host countries, thus allowing us expression, “fresh water Caribbean to do a materialisc or sociological people,” which probably derived from interpretaon of Caribbean migrant the expression “fresh water ‘Negroes’” literature. In this context, Cric’ Crack that Europeans used during slavery to describes Macoomeh’s retrieval from differenate “seasoned” from her Trinidadian folklore of a saric and “unseasoned” slaves.9 subversive language that serves as an effecve weapon of resistance against Macoomeh’s subversive use of precarious social and economic language is also apparent in the part of condions in a diaspora. Such her narrave in which she uses the subversive use of language is apparent short phrase “Cric’ Crack Monkey break early in Macoomeh’s narrave where he back wid a piece of Pomerac” (35) in she says, “De book come from all de ole order to poke fun at “de [many] people talk ah uses to hear as a Iceboxians [who] akse to become chile” (ix), suggesng that her

197 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 184-222 vernacular comes from the tradional business classes . . . Fourty percent of slave folklore out of which modern the immigrants arriving in Canada had Caribbean literature derives. This first degrees. Yet a good number of influence of slavery on West Indian highly qualified and educated literature is apparent in Paula Burne’s immigrants recount stories of argument, in her introducon to The disappointment in terms of the inability Penguin Book of Caribbean Verse in to secure jobs commensurate with their English (1986), that “with the oral educaonal qualificaons” (101). tradion of the (Caribbean) slaves it is possible to build up a picture of a Moreover, Macoomeh uses a complex cultural phenomenon of great trope (which she calls ‘Nancy Story’) as vigour and originality: a tradion of a means to refer to the complicated vocal self-expression in which all interacons and relaons between members of the community were white Canadians and Caribbean involved and which played a part in all immigrants in Toronto. Her “Nancy aspects of community life” (xxx). Story” is a trope that appropriates the Macoomeh uses Caribbean vernacular deceit of Pan-African trickster figures folklore by verbally signifying the such as Nancy and Monkey whose structural racism that white Canadians duplicity mirrors those of the perpetrate against Caribbean hegemonic figures in Macoomeh’s story. immigrants in Toronto. Macoomeh uses Using the trope of the “Nancy Story,” the term “Iceboxians” to idenfy these Macoomeh suggests the manipulave white Canadians who try to control the ways in which the “City Faddas” of the flow of “the Calallooians” in Toronto “Iceboxians” give money to Caribbean (34-35). The whites who police the people who want to organize a parade movement of Caribbean migrants in called the “Bacchanal Bobol Brigade” in Toronto remind us of the racism blacks Toronto while expecng them to have faced in Canada since the early mismanage the funds (34-35). According tweneth century. In The West Indians to Macoomeh, the prejudice of the “City in Canada, Walker describes the housing Faddas” somewhat came true when, as and employment discriminaons West soon as the blacks got some funding, Indians experienced in Toronto during some members of their commiee who the 1970s and 80s in addion to the were supposed to handle the funds “racist abuse” they faced from police began to embezzle them to buy cars, agents that subjugated them based on travel home, open businesses, and the stereotyping of all blacks in Canada “Next ng you know, de BBB doh have a “as criminals” (18). This racism is red cent in de bank an de City Faddas worsened by the increasing only laughin ‘kick kik kik’” (34). This unemployment that immigrants have laughter shows that the white faced in Canada since the late 1980s. In Canadians did not believe that his essay, “Racism in Canadian Contexts: Caribbean people could organize a Exploring Public & Private Issues in the parade in Toronto. Through this Educaonal System” (2005), George S. laughter, the Iceboxians use the colonial Dei writes: “In 1999, a total of 196,871 strategy of divide-and-conquer (34) immigrants arrived in Canada, of which which allows them to weaken the 133,201 were classified as skilled and Callalooians from “within” by fostering

198 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 184-222 paron, compeon, and greed way to win de bale an control de among them, thus distracng them parade an dey desny was to work from their main goals. The above togedda an stop lining dey own anecdote suggests Macoomeh’s ability pocket” (34). This solidarity and self- to use the Nancy trope as a way of consciousness allow the Caribbean showing the irony of racialized migrants to prove the white Canadians oppression that one noces in the wrong by keeping the wealth generated Callalooians’ imitaon of the same from the Bacchanal parade among capitalisc and individualisc strategy themselves. As Macoomeh suggests, the that the Bacchanal is intended to resist, next me they organize a parade, the suggesng the absurdity of ethnic and Callalooians make beer use of this social othering. By deriding Callalooians, money by hiring solicitors, accountants, Macoomeh infuses into her “Nancy and convicts to clean the roads before Story” the trope of the “Cric’ Crack telling the “City Faddas” that “none of Monkey [who] break he back wid a dey patrons would buy even a pin from piece of Pomerac” by parodying, a Iceboxian vendor unless de vendor through the reckless managers’ waste of buy a permit from de Callalooian the Bacchanal’s funds, the paradox of community. No patron go take a room strengthening Toronto’s black in a Iceboxian hotel unless de hotel give community when its leaders would de Callalooian community a rather profit from their members’ trust percentage” (35). By making these firm just as they are manipulated by the demands, the Caribbean immigrants in larger white Canadian elite of Toronto. Toronto use the master’s tool against By showing the foibles of these black him by turning around the table of leaders, Macoomeh employs the oppression and flipping his own discursive strategy that Keith Sandiford language and ridicule against him. From describes as “counterorder,” or the this resistance, Toronto’ West Indians foregrounding of “factors [which] use carnival tradions in order to lay the counterorder the structure not in the terrain that Lyndon Phillip calls sense of disrupng its coherence, but of “representaonal space,” that is, “an interpenetrang and inflecng it with uncontested space in terms of noons other consciousnesses” (105). of blackness” (134). This blackness is materially, rather than biologically Macoomeh’s use of based, since its goal is to prevent black “counterorder” is noceable when she wealth from being lost by the praises the leaders of the Callalooians recklessness of the “Cric’ Crack Monkey who gain a new consciousness and [who] break he back wid a piece of sense of solidarity and put their Pomerac.” Macoomeh’s trope suggests irresponsible behaviors and divisions the ability of the Caribbean migrants in aside in order to resist the oppression of Toronto to shi power-relaons by the Iceboxians. As Macoomeh suggests, placing the white “City Faddas” in the Callalooians later understood the difficult posion in which Monkey found Iceboxians’ “divide and conquer” himself on the ground by falling from a strategy and began to create unity and tree due to lack of care and aenon self-financial control (34). Macoomeh for other people. writes: “De Calallooians en realize de

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In addion, Macoomeh reveals which they are alienated from one the harshness of life in Icebox Land, another and lose the comfort and especially in the introducon of her security that they oen received from book where she says, “Den ah come up family members at home. Moreover, in here in Icebox Land an meet plenty Canada, Caribbeans and other black more people – some who ah doh want populaons are subjected to the to come across again nuh, some ah miss pressure of discriminaon and punive too bad. Ah learn hard lesson, easy capitalism. In his essay, “Racism in ones, and all went in dis book” (ix). The Canadian Contexts,” Dei describes “the hard lessons Macoomeh talks about exclusionary pracces that Blacks, include the precarious, fragile, and parcularly Caribbean immigrants, had volale nature of the lives of Caribbean to endure as they sought entry to immigrants in Toronto. These Canadian society” (99). According to populaons face serious social, polical, Dei, “Today, the primary manifestaon and economic predicaments in Toronto of racism is the pervasiveness of even if they greatly contribute to the instuonal racism in the educaonal cosmopolitanism in the city. Leaving system, employment, media, and Trinidad where the socio-economic immigraon. There are connuing condions were and are quite similar to instances of overt individual and those of developing African naons, instuonal acts of racism and physical immigrants such as Macoomeh find in violence directed parcularly at non- Toronto a replicaon of the same White populaons” (99). Such tragic neocolonial barriers that confront their condions of Caribbean immigrants in original homelands. In their new Canada are alluded in Macoomeh’s locaons, the migrants have difficulty representaon of Toronto as a city adjusng to environments in which the where Caribbean expatriates have support of families is replaced by a cold limited job opportunies and are social atmosphere in which the angst of perceived as aliens in their host modernity are all the more present. countries which they can difficultly call Walker menons the “vague feelings of home due to its intolerance of misteps. alienaon from white Canadians” that As Macoomeh suggests, “Icebox Land” West Indians in Toronto felt in the 1970s and 80s as they frequently faced Is not like back home “rejecon” and other difficules such as where de root of dis ng “insults, name-calling, [and] even is an yuh could afford to physical aacks” (The West Indians 18). play de backside wid it Macoomeh is familiar with these harsh because is yours in your condions since, as an anonymous lan. In Icebox Land you reviewer suggests, “she [Macoomeh] sll have to pay rent an migrated to Canada in 1977. While when de landlord decide pursuing further educaon, she became he doh like yuh head, is increasingly frustrated with imbalances out he pun you out. in her new chosen society in Canada, You an all yuh culture I and its close cousin, USA.”12 Many export right back whey Caribbean immigrants in Canada face yuh come from. Up here similar challenges in the Icebox Land in

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y o u i s a l w a y s a of Icebox Land? But yet sll, immigrant. (84) while dey busy harassin me, guns passin troo wholesale. This statement suggests that white (110) Canadians further alienate black immigrants by constantly reminding Another encounter Macoomeh had with them of their status of “immigrants.” As racism in the West was the me when is apparent in the landlord’s power to she was harassed in a bus within the evict the West Indian immigrant who United States. She writes: “Is not like does not pay rent, the capitalisc home when you do catch a bus, even structure of Canadian society keeps doh back home bus does run one every Caribbeans at the end of the social 2 weeks. But here one me ah get meh ladder by developing zero-tolerance- half-slip sck in de door. Ah just had policy towards them, thus shiing the chance haul it out before Mr. Driver blame of their hardship on blacks drive awf. He din even see me pullin themselves rather than on the pullin” (120). This statement suggests economic system which favors the racial Macoomeh’s awareness of the rough elite. and condescending behaviors of Americans towards Caribbean migrants, Another racism that black which reveal subtle and incipient racism immigrants face in Icebox Land occurs at at best, and navism at worst. Without Canada’s border entries. This racism is qualm, Macoomeh denounces this noceable in Macoomeh’s descripon racism when she writes, “If you only of the terrible ways in which she was cough too hard aer 9pm, neighbours treated by Canadian custom officers callin police. An here police shoon during one of her return trips to black is white” (142). The above Canada. Macoomeh writes: examples help Macoomeh suggest the stark differences in the life of the One me when I was comin Caribbean immigrant in Trinidad and in back up troo Niagara Falls the West. In Trinidad, people seem to wid two bole-ah brandy an be paent and deferenal, unlike a bag wid some nice Basma people in the West where they do not rice. Dem people stop me an show kindness to neither one another tell me I only allow one nor to immigrants. bole an no rice. Dey take way meh brandy an rice an Another issue in Macoomeh’s gone wid it in de back – narrave is the post-migraon dilemma probably to drink it out an West Indians in Canada face in their make a pelau by deyself. relaonships with people from their original homelands who want to live abroad, yet are unable to do so due to poverty. It is this poverty that had led Now akse me dis queson. Macoomeh to leave Trinidad in 1977 How it is my extra bole-ah with her mother and sister to live in brandy an my bag-ah rice Canada (138). She writes: “But I in goin to upset de economic, Icebox Land. Ah come up here to live cultural or polical balance

201 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 184-222 because everybody say ngs beer in comin up eh? Is jes I fine too many of here” (119). The representaon of we rush up here nkin life sweet an Icebox Land as a land of riches is a belief easy. An I suppose you have to really that Macoomeh examines live here a good few years before you evenhandedly by suggesng both its realize is not so. Yes I realize ngs not strong and weak foundaons. Certainly, rosy dere nidda but is home” (143). This Canada provides many Caribbean asseron suggests the complicated ways immigrants with jobs, material things, in which the black migrant in the and a beer economic standing. Yet, diaspora is confronted by the impossible such gains are made at a heavy price, task of helping his or her compatriots at such as the severe winter, high cost of home to understand the truth and daily funerals, and life and death insurances realies of life in the West: that the that Macoomeh describes as some of streets of Icebox Land are not, and have the necessies that the immigrant must never been, paved with or full of gold buy in Canada, as opposed to Trinidad and fancy cars independently of what where the family would be exempted the media and uninformed travelers tell from these purchases either by poverty them about the romancized or by the availability of a community Eldorado[s] of the Western world. As that serves as a network of social, the beginning of Macoomeh’s above psychological, emoonal, and economic quotaon suggests, it is not easy to support (138-139). Recognizing the dissuade Third World people from importance of this Caribbean coming to Icebox Land because they are community in Trinidad, Macoomeh repeatedly indoctrinated by the suggests how people living in Icebox romancized image of Canada as a land Land must find “a babysier” before where they can fulfill the Canadian social workers take their children away dream. Strangely enough, the Canadian from them (140). As Macoomeh shows, dream is best expressed in the novel even if people’ roof may not “have leak” Family Maers of Indian-born Canadian in Icebox Land (119), they have to work writer Rohinton Mistry in which the hard to have such luxury (119). In the character Yezad says: “The generosity of same vein, Macoomeh writes: “Livin up the Canadian dream makes room for here is not jes nice warm powdery snow everyone, for a multude of languages an en-less paycheques. Speakin of and cultures and peoples. In Canada’s paycheques…well…look let me leave dat willingness to define and redefine itself fuh anudda leer” (141). connually, on the basis of inclusion, lies its greatness, its promise, its Furthermore, Macoomeh hope.”13 Yet such a Canadian dream is theorizes the black immigrant in Icebox not aainable to thousands of Land as an individual whose Caribbean immigrants in Toronto who predicament in the West is unknown to are not never considered full cizens. his or her relaves in his or her original One of these immigrants is Macoomeh homeland. Macooomeh aempts to herself who says, “You doh have no idea dismantle the ways in which people in how nice it is to be home. When you her Caribbean homeland perceive the can live here rty, forty years an dey sll life of an immigrant in Canada as easy. look at you like a immigrant” (143). As She writes: “Now I not tryin to stop you this statement suggests, the Caribbean

202 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 184-222 immigrant in Canada has yet to gain the “economical plan” as a hoax policy that admissibility and acceptance that come benefits the Western farmers and with full cizenship and true weakens Third World naons and mulculturalism. peasants.17 Mutabaruka says:

Is life and debt All a wi a fret The Trope of Babylon in Life and debt Mutabaruka’s Poetry Freedom not yet As a 1975 arcle from The Gleaner notes, Mutabaruka was born as Allan Farmers get a blow Hope, on December 26, 1952, in Rae Foreign food suh an suh Town, Kingston.14 In a September 30, Amerikan farmers get a 2010 interview with The Naons, upper hand Mutabaruka describes his early While our farmers goin 18 biography as follows: “I grew up in one by one. (58) Jamaica with my mother and father and have two sisters. My father died when I This poem suggests the exploitave was eight. I went to primary school and condions in Jamaica that led many of high school and used to do electronics the naon’s cizens to seek a beer life before I started poetry. I le that and elsewhere, especially to the United became a Rasta and that was the end of States and Canada which have become ‘my career.’”15 Mutabaruka’s early life major desnaons for Caribbean was not easy since he was born and immigrants since the late 1960s and raised in a gheo that reflected the early 1970s. In To Be Immigrant (2006), drasc impact of neocolonialism in the Kay Deaux writes: “Since the passage of Third World. As The Gleaner suggests, the 1965 Immigraon Reform Act, Mutabaruka grew in Rae Town “where immigraon to the United States from shanty dwellings peeped out from the Caribbean has connued to grow, behind secreve zinc fences at the most oen to New York City, home in maximum security prison nearby, an the late 1990s to approximately half a ominous reminder of the tenuous million West Indian immigrants. . . distance between detenon and Other areas in the United States have poverty . . . As a child he oen also experienced a rise in Caribbean witnessed gang warfare in his immigraon” (171). Contrasng the neighborhood and the sinful acvies of United States with Britain, Deaux notes sailors and prostutes in their nocturnal the decline of Caribbean immigrants in pursuits of the Hanover Street bars and the laer country in the past decade. brothels.”16 These images of economic Deaux states: “By comparison, in 2001 and social deprivaons that mainly only 10 percent of London’s populaon benefit the sexually and hedoniscally- was black, approximately half of whom driven Western tourists are reminders were Caribbean immigrants—a of a neocolonialism that led substanal number, but also a decrease Mutabaruka to demise globalizaon in from a decade previously” (171). The his 2002 song, “Life and Debt,” in which decline of Caribbean migrants in he disparages the World Bank’s England probably stemmed from the

203 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 184-222 increased racism and prejudice against problems” (33). James and Harris also immigraon that have prevailed in differ from Gilroy because they blame Britain since the late 1950s. Addressing the predicament of Brish blacks and this issue, Leo Lucassen argues that other people of color in Western whereas the first wave of Caribbean metropolises on the residue of immigrants in England (of the early imperialism and racism rather than on 1930s) “were looked upon with a the idea that such populaons are mixture of curiosity and benign interest, unwilling to integrate into mainstream as soon as it was clear that they were or pluralist sociees. Mutabaruka would the forerunners of immigraon on a far certainly disagree with this facile larger scale, atudes changed” (124). mulculturalist viewpoint because he According to Lucassen, “The size of the oen alludes to the racism against group of immigrants was also seen as a blacks in England, especially in two threat because West Indians were not poems in which he sarizes Britain’s the only colored immigrants in the physical abuse of these populaons. In 1950s that profited from the free “Old Cut Bruk,” Mutabaruka writes: movement of persons within the commonwealth: West Africans, Indians, great Britain great Britain and Pakistani found their way to Great yu can si Britain, too” (124). dat yu dominaon is history The challenges of Caribbean yu greatness cease immigrants in England are also apparent yu colonies decrease in Mutabaruka’s poems in which they de seed yu sow get roen are theorized as the consequences of now yu affi start use dem racism on postcolonial naons. baton Discussing such predicaments that inna landan Caribbean people have historically faced inna birminam in England, Winston James and Clive inna brixton Harris argue, in Inside Babylon: the yu subjects nah tek nuh Caribbean Diaspora in Britain, that it is more racism which determines how blacks are dis yah cut nu have nuh posioned and policed in Britain (2). cure fi sure James and Harris write: “It is racism dem a guh bruk dung yu which assaults their humanity in door. (6)19 psychiatric hospitals; and it is the effects of racism, too, that have been This poem suggests the tensions that internalized. In short, it is racism against Britain faced in the 1970s and 80s as which the struggle has to be fought. Not hundreds of young blacks rose up difference” (3). In this regard, James and against discriminatory pracces such as Harris differ from Paul Gilroy who police raids, abuse, and violaons of argues, in The Black Atlanc: Modernity their civil rights. In Black Atlanc and Double Consciousness (1993), that Polics: Dilemmas of Polical in Britain, “cultural difference rather Empowerment in Boston and Liverpool than biological hierarchy” is “the core (2000), William E. Nelson Jr. argues that substance of the naon’s postcolonial a 1987 study of the Instute of Race

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Relaons in London, entled Policing tensions are apparent in Mutabaruka’s Against Black People, “compiled case poem, entled “Whiteman Country,” studies of hundreds of instances where which develops a chaoc vision of the individual Black cizens have accused Western world by represenng the life the police of forced entry into their of the person of African descent in homes without search warrants, Babylon as precarious, difficult, and obtaining confessions through force, shaped by alienaon. While, in this strip searches and sexual humiliaon in essay, Babylon idenfies the places in police custody, and the fabricaon and the Western world in which Caribbean planng of evidence” (201). In 1980 and immigrants live in uncertain and 1981, similar tensions erupted between desperate situaons, the term comes the police and black youths in Liverpool, from Rastafarian language in which it Bristol, and Brixton (located in Lambeth, describes “the power of imperial South London), resulng in hundreds of Europe” against which “the voice for casuales and huge property damage. black Africa” must fight.20 Babylon’s Caribbean immigrants in Britain were dilemma are apparent in the line “It no directly affected by this tense racial good fi stay inna whiteman country too climate in Britain due to the fact that long” that Mutabaruka repeats sixteen many of them were descendants of first mes in his 1983 poem, “Whiteman or second generaon expatriates. In an Country,” suggesng the challenges and aempt to curb what it perceived as a transformaon that blacks experience in black de in the country, Britain the West when they dwell in it for too enacted tough an-immigraon laws long.21 “Whiteman Country” registers such as the 1971 immigraon statute Mutabaruka’s status as a revoluonary that Nelson describes as follows: “In a poet who clearly understands the sweeping move, this legislaon dilemma that racism, colonialism, and eliminated the right of nonpatrials estrangement create in the life of (cizens with passports not issued in blacks. This predicament is apparent in Britain) to sele in Britain without work the ways in which Mutabaruka’s poem permits. The effecve result of this describes the acculturaon that the change in the immigraon laws was to narrator’s mother experiences aer she reduce the status of Black and Asian went to live in America. Mutabaruka Commonwealth immigrants to that of writes: aliens” (200). According to Nelson, “This redefinion of the status of Black and In the fiies, mi mudder Asian immigrants affected the quality of sister ran go England their existence in Britain in a mulplicity of ways. Blacks and Asians found Now Mi mudda gone themselves subjected to increased america, she turn 22 verbal and physical assault. Growing American. racial tensions were reinforced by the emergence of the Naonal Front in This passage is somewhat Brish electoral polics” (200). autobiographic because it relates to Mutabaruka’s own life. Through this The abuse that blacks in Britain statement, Mutabaruka probably refers faced as a result of increased racial to his mother’s journey abroad which

205 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 184-222 has been suggested in his 2005 idenes of his or her original interview with Desmond Allen. As the homeland and his or her new interview shows, when Mutabaruka was selement without being fully a young adult, “his mother went integrated into either one of them. overseas to work and he and Peters Saddling two diasporic spaces without rented a house in Washington Gardens being fully-integrated in neither one of in Kingston. Mutabaruka was now of them is an existenal anxiety that Hall age.”23 This asseron is one of the rare theorizes as a quandary “that Caribbean occasions in which Mutabaruka talks people of all kinds, of all classes and about his parents’ life and the posions,” face as they “experience the connecons between his mother and queson of posioning themselves in a the United States. Such biographic cultural identy as an enigma, as a informaon is important because it problem, as an open queson” (30). This suggests that the migraon of dilemma is similar to the quandary that Mutabaruka’s mother impacted the the Jamaican male immigrant oen poet’s life and music, as is apparent in experienced during the middle of the the narrator’s representaon of his tweneth century when he was mother as a Jamaican who has turned disillusioned at both ends of his double into an “American,” registering diasporas. According to James, this Mutabaruka’s percepon of the immigrant was compelled to either Caribbean person as an individual return to Britain or move to the United whose emigraon into the United States States since he was perceived as “a or Britain alters her or his sense of foreigner” in his own country (Jamaica) cultural identy. Warning this where he was “dubbed, albeit jovially” immigrant, the narrator lampoons the as “the Englishman” (246).25 As James ways in which s/he may end up argues, this Jamaican was part of many forgeng the language of her or his “others who had returned home and birth and begin to speak like a realized that they had stayed ‘too long’ European. Mutabaruka lampoons the in Britain and could not re-adapt to a Europeanized language of the relavely parochial Caribbean life- assimilated Caribbean in England when style” (246).26 Dualisc alienaon of the he writes: Caribbean in both the old and new diasporas is the crisis that Mutabaruka When you dere you represents in his poem “Weh mi belang” say ‘hey sir,’ by suggesng the further alienaon that racial discriminaon and disconnecon When you go dere you from one’s original homeland create in say ‘hey mate it’s the life of the Caribbean migrant. In 24 geng late.’ “Whiteman Country,” Mutabaruka clearly warns this migrant against the Through its sardonic surface, hopelessness that racial discriminaon Mutabaruka’s statement alludes to the created for the Caribbean migrant in inevitable change of cultural identy both the United States and England in that the Caribbean immigrant in the the 1950s. He writes: diaspora experiences by becoming a person who saddles the two conjoined

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And I listen the news and I of Haian immigrant Abner Louima in a get confused bathroom with a plunger by four New A black man dying, the klu York City’s police officers (on August 9, Klux clan 1997) and the deadly shoong of …………………………. Guinean immigrant Amadou Diallo by If you are white it allright four police officers in front of his If you brown sck around apartment (on February 4, 1999).28 Such If you black get back cause vicious incidents corroborate you bea aack Mutabaruka’s depicon of the West as a ………………………………………… land where “It no good fi” blacks to Now the fire ago burn and “stay” for “too long.” The reason for this the blood a run premonion can be deduced from Time big ben really rumble Mutabaruka’s representaon of England down and America as “whiteman” countries, Anta say Him never gonna since these naons mostly represent try this themselves as such in both structural But me say him shoulda condions and normal affairs. Lost in burned down the palace this quandary, Mutabaruka asks, “Weh …………………………………. Mi Belang?” conveying the landlessness, When you dere you say ‘hey dispossession, and agony that sir,’ when you go dere you geographical and cultural dislocaons say ‘hey mate its geng from a homeland create in the life of late’ the Caribbean migrants in the diaspora. ……………………………………. Mutabaruka also asks: So them shoot real gun, them shoot the poor nigro? Them shoot aer the queen nigga? and you a taken fi a joke.27 west indian? den a which country i Even if they were also meant to depict belang? the tragic impact of racial discriminaon chinese - china and violence against blacks in the indian - india United States during the Civil Rights european - europe Movement, Mutabaruka’s verses are negro? relevant to contemporary America in nigga? which police brutality and the other west indian? remnants of racism connue to reduce den a which country i the life chances of black immigrants in belang. 29 the country. The last four lines of the excerpt apply to the contemporary This passage reflects the kind of United States in which unarmed black dilemma of the Caribbean migrant in immigrants have been shot or beaten by the West that Bonham C. Richardson police officers who saw them as describes in his essay “Caribbean criminals. Examples of this brutal Migraons, 1838-1985” where he treatment of black expatriates in the depicts the life of Puerto Rican United States include the sodomizaon immigrants in the United States as

207 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 184-222 characterized by dualism. Richardson involve the silencing of something in writes: “The ambivalent character of the order to allow something else to Puerto Rican situaon . . . helps explain speak” (26). If identy is invented, its the relavely disappoinng and use in Caribbean construcon of African impoverished condions that many of identy is not useless. Such a them experience in the United States. constructed African Caribbean identy With one foot on the mainland and was apparent during the 1920s when, as another at ‘home,’ Puerto Ricans Henry Louis Gates and Kwame Anthony coming north have somemes not Appiah argue, “Marcus Garvey was the carried with them the commitment Moses of tweneth-century black folk. found among would-be permanent His was a bold revoluonary vision of a immigrants” (220). Such a limbo and ‘United States of Africa,’ a homeland for lack of patriosm towards the “north” is all the children of the diaspora” (95). not parcular to Puerto Rican migrants Mutabaruka revives Garvey’s Pan- since Jamaican sojourners experience naonalist dream by searching for and them also, as is apparent in the using his African roots as a means for quandary in Mutabaruka’s following resisng homelessness and dislocaon passage: in the diaspora. He writes

negro - black i affe guh trace but negroland no my original place nigga - stupid try fe fine out but stupidland no wa mi is all about west yes a come ya fram de east bui i nu indian dat i know den a which country i but in de east belang?30 there is no negro nigga? The passage suggests the kind of dat i caa figga powerlessness and limbo of black west indian? populaons in the kind of colonial and a which country i belang? neocolonial states that had prompted wait Marcus Garvey to develop a naonalism a rememba a land that aimed at giving scaered and weh man ack like man disenfranchised blacks the dream of a dem use fe call wi country they could call their home. As NIGERIAN Hall suggests, the point is not whether GHANIAN such a home is found or not, but that ETHIOPIAN.31 this return to origins shows that “quesons of identy are always By represenng Africa as “a land / weh quesons about representaon” (27). man ack like man,” Mutabaruka uses Hall connues: “They are always the African idea of man’s responsibility quesons about the invenon, not towards society’s well-being as a tool simply the discovery, of tradion. They for opposing the alienaon and are always exercises in selecve homelessness of the Caribbean migrant memory, and they almost always in the diaspora. Mutabaruka

208 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 184-222 romancizes Africa as “my original her to the status of a visitor whose place,” conveying an ideology of African purpose is to work for the survival of repatriaon that is at the core of the First World naon-states at the Rastafarianism. In his introducon to detriment of his or her own Joseph Owen’s Dread: the Rastafarians impoverished homeland. Such is the of Jamaica (1976), Rex Neleford chaos that Mutabaruka blames on a represents this ideology as the Babylon of which end he forecasts in Rastafarian’s “most challenging bid for apocalypc metaphors when he says, legimacy and authority in Jamaican “Now the fire ago burn and the blood a society” (xii). Neleford also writes: “In run.” 32 Mutabaruka’s asseron is a fact, the noon of repatriaon and the poec significaon of doom and commitment to ancestral Africa, as well destrucon as the inevitable causes and as the denunciaon of the Jamaican results of capitalist greed and colonial and neo-colonial society as exploitaon, thus using lyrics as a ‘Babylon’ the oppressor, would suggest subaltern means of subverng the that there is no bid for such legimacy inequalies that neocolonialism has and authority within Jamaica itself” (xii). created in Jamaica. By prefiguring Although he considers Rastafarians’ Babylon’s downfall in such bleak terms, realizaon of their dream of an equal Mutabaruka joins his voice to the world as depending on their Rastafarians whom Neleford describes dismantlement of the legacy of as being “in a sound tradion. For as colonialism and neo-colonialism, persons who see themselves to be Neleford recognizes the potency and persecuted, to have been wronged and originality of the movement when he deprived, to be all but trapped in a states: “Rastafarians are Jamaicans. situaon of persistent material poverty What is more, they are among the most and cultural degradaon, and under the creave of their compatriots since they yoke of ‘alien’ oppression, the only way have used all the elements at their out short of violent aggression is command to forge imaginavely a set of through an apocalypse. For the signs of beliefs and a percepon of the world the end must surely be at hand and the that would lead them out of the inveiling of such last things is at once capvity of suffering, degradaon, and the catharc scourge of the offending ignominy” (xii). By stressing the society as well as a cleansing purge of Jamaican identy of Rastafarians — the oppressed” (xvii). Neleford’s what Hall would describe as Jamaica’s linking of aggression with apocalypse ability to “ground” itself “where it reminds us of Fanon’s connecon of existed” (35)—, Neleford complicates violence with catharsis. In The Wretched the dilemma of a Rastafarian such as of the Earth, Fanon writes: “Violence is a Mutabaruka who uses Africa as a cleansing force. It frees the nave from connent for both ephemeral and his inferiority complex and from his permanent refuge from the quandary of despair and inacon; it makes him Babylon. Focusing on a generic concept fearless and restores his self- of the West, Mutabaruka represents its respect” (94). Thus, like Neleford, cies (Babylon) as sites where the Fanon sees violence as way out of Caribbean immigrant comes only to be chaos. given a temporary visa that limits him or

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In a similar vein, Mutabaruka Department of Homeland Security theorizes the plight of modern (2007) (193). Discussing the reasons Caribbean immigrants as evolving from why these workers were employed, a form of colonial oppression in Taylor and Finley state: “Jamaican Babylon. Mutabaruka’s poem “H2 workers have been in high demand by Worka,” which was also the tle of his US resorts because they are considered 1989 album Any Which Way Freedom, hard workers, the populaon speaks captures the complexity of this English, and tourism jobs are quandary of the Caribbean migrant in valued” (193). the West.33 A segment of the poem reads: Such a labor model resembles the farm workers program which has I am a H2 worka allowed Canada to bring thousands of coming from the island of Caribbean migrants to work in Jamaica condions that are usually deplorable. I am a H2 worka According to Philip L. Marn, Manolo I. cung cane inna florida Abella, Chrisane Kuptsch, this workin suh hard in de “Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program burnin sun has allowed Canadian farmers to import wonderin if slavery really foreign workers for up to eight months dun a year from the Caribbean since 1966, i’m workin…workin and from Mexico since 1974. About 80 workin on yu cane field percent of the migrants admied are sll employed on fruit, vegetable, and workin workin tobacco farms in Ontario, where the workin for yu meager average stay is four months and dolla bill. (18) migrants fill about 20 percent of seasonal farm jobs” (110). These Mutabaruka’s concept of “H2 Worka” migrants are oen marginalized and refers to the term “H-2 Workers” which treated as cheap laborers just like their describes temporary internaonal counterparts in the United States. Using laborers in the United States. In their neo-Marxist theory, Melonie P. Heron arcle, “Three Views of ‘Guest Workers’ describes the condions of these farm in the United States,” Marcia Taylor and workers as “colonizaon Dori Finley explain: “The guest worker migraon” (11). Heron explains: (H-2B visa) program permits employers to hire unskilled foreign workers to These migrants fill labor come to the US and perform temporary needs at the very boom of nonagricultural work that is one-me the occupaonal hierarchy, seasonal, peak load, or intermient. The working in jobs undesirable H-2B program is used to recruit workers to naves . . . The work of for entry-level posions in hotels and ‘colonized migrants’ is restaurants with seasonal typically restricted to business” (193). Taylor and Finley argue agricultural or other (non- that 11,488 Jamaicans were issued H-2B urban) extracve visas in 2006, according to the industries . . . Harsh

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condions of labor are giving them equality. In his poem “Bun jusfied by ideologies of Dung Babylon,” Mutabaruka writes: cultural or racial inferiority or else by the economic yu nk a suh it a guh guh benefits which accrue to all de while both employers and the yu use wi every day members of the receiving and tell wi fi pray society as a whole (11). and ngs wi get well but wi sll ina hell Mutabaruka’s “H2 worka” alludes to this wi a guh bun dung “colonizaon migraon” since it babylon. (8)34 represents the labor of modern Caribbean migrants in the West as a Mutabaruka’s statement is a direct form of modern slavery. By saying, “i’m indictment of the role of empire, workin…workin / workin workin / exploiter, and subjugator of blacks that workin for yu meager dolla bill,” the Babylon has historically had. It is a narrator alludes to an exploitave labor radical proclamaon which stems from system that confines him or her to a the reasoned convicon of many black form of modern slavery and intellectuals that Western claims of imperialism, corroborang Heron’s civilizing and modernizing formerly argument that some West Indian enslaved and colonized blacks have laborers in the United States and oen been used as strategies for re- Canada are “colonized migrants” since enslaving and re-colonizing blacks. In “they are usually signed into short-term Discourse on Colonialism (1955), Aimé contracts for agricultural employees in Césaire unmasks the decepve and the U.S. and Canada, and perform exploitave Western taccs by which grueling labor under harsh condions, the decisive actors in colonizaon are especially in the sugar cane fields of “neither evangelizaon, nor a South Florida” (11). philanthropic enterprise, nor a desire to push back the froners of ignorance, Like those in Canada, the disease, and tyranny, nor a project Caribbean migrants who work in the undertaken for the greater glory of God, cane fields of Florida are kept in the nor an aempt to extend the rule of status of modern slaves because they law” but “the adventurer and the pirate, are compelled to labor hard for money the wholesale grocer and the ship they cannot even survive with in the owner, the gold digger and the West. The term “modern day slavery” merchant, appete and force, and aptly describes Mutabaruka’s behind them, the baleful projected theorizaon of the plight of the shadow of a form of civilizaon which, Caribbean immigrant in Babylon. at a certain point in its history, finds Mutabaruka draws on the Rastafarian itself obliged, for internal reasons, to imagery of apocalypse in order to extend to a world scale the compeon demonize Babylon as a site of modern- of its antagonisc economies” (32-33). day slavery that must be eradicated due Césaire’s raonale shows that to the inhumane ways in which it colonialism is a form of capitalism connues to exploit blacks without because it strives on conquest of new

211 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 184-222 territories and on expropriaon of believe in the power of individual self- foreign goods. worth, human decency, and the importance of providing for oneself as The relaonships between well as for others. Mutabaruka stresses imperialism and capitalism are also this cosmopolitan democracy by leng apparent in Mutabaruka’s 1989 poem, the character of the migrant Jamaican “H2 Worka,” which reveals the worker in “H2 Worka” demand the connuity of colonialism in the lives of equal treatment to which his humanity New World black expatriates. “H2 entles him. The worker says: Worka” reflects the impact of exploitave labor condions equang bea yu did sen mi to war modern-day slavery that Jamaican den a woulda sit what a immigrants faced in Florida during the fighn for late 1980s, contradicng Western jus de needy claims of freedom and equality. talkin to de greedy Resisng this oppression, the narrator in jus de goodness “H2 Worka” says to Babylon, of de restless wanng to make a bea don’t treat me like I’m life a slave here for mi children and wife suh a come to yu lan to jus gimme a wage dat help yu 35 is fair. (18) to help mi to help wi The passage suggests the postcolonial dis is not slavery subject’s ability to reclaim the humanity just poverty that slavery, colonialism, and wanng democracy. neocolonialism have aempted to take (18-19) from him or her. By leng the “H2 Worka” demand “fair” wage from his or The narrator’s asserons, “dis is not her employer, Mutabaruka empowers slavery / just poverty / wanng the Caribbean immigrant in the United democracy,” (18-19) suggest that the States to demand to be treated fairly as main factor that leads Caribbean people a person who contributes to the social, to emigrate is not lack of self-esteem, polical, economic and cultural humanity, or self-worth, but the simple development of the West. By need to overcome the atrocity of demanding a “fair” wage and refusing to economic limitaons. Poverty is the be treated like a slave, Mutabaruka major cause of displacement since, as begins a decolonizaon process that Chioneso suggests, internaonal theorizes democracy as the end of migraon is the “boom-line survival modern-day slavery, the sharing of strategy for the poorer households freedom and privilege across the globe, throughout most of the Caribbean and and the representaon of people in the has been for years; the region as a world as equal. In this logic, the whole sends out a greater percentage of postcolonial subject can expect the its populaon than does any other former colonizer’s descendants to firmly world region” (72). Mutabaruka

212 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 184-222 recognizes the importance of this curtailed by foreign control and a Caribbean migraon abroad by society choking in the stranglehold of represenng the Jamaican migrant in debt. To regain sovereignty over the United States as a free laborer who Jamaica’s economic and polical affairs, is brought to North America by the the government would have to confront search for economic opportunity and the world’s most powerful economic not the quest of serfdom. Through this instuons, the IMF and the World argument, Mutabaruka stresses the Bank. It would have had to risk a need for the global North to beer treat showdown with the economic power, its immigrants and perceive them as and very possibly the military might, of people who want the same desire for the United States” (69). New freedom, equality, cizenship, and partnership with the United States did peace for self and community that the not always benefit Jamaica, as is evident nave-born inhabitants have. These in the 2001 documentary Life and Debt aspiraons are encapsulated in which shows how the Caribbean island Mutabaruka’s asseron that the H2 was compelled to borrow money from migrant workers’ search for a beer life the IMF in 1977, one year aer Manley in the United States is mere “wanng” was elected President, beginning a of “democracy,” not a desire to be deadly cycle of indebtedness masked as enslaved. structural adjustment policies that have not yet produced their promised Furthermore, Mutabaruka’s benefits for Jamaicans. In 2001, Jamaica poems reflect the consequences of ill- owed over $4.5 billion to the IMF, the planned World Bank and Internaonal World Bank, and the Inter-American Monetary Fund’s policies on Jamaica Development Bank (IADB).36 Similar whose relaons with these instuons charges of indebtedness to Western started in the late 1980s when, financial instuons have been made following a decade of social unrest, the against other naons with predominant country’s elected polical leaders black populaons, sfling development opened up to Western capitalism. in these countries and forcing talented According to Kathy McAfee, capitalism’s and educated people to seek to migrate stronghold on Jamaica started in 1989 to Europe, the United States, and other when, following the elecon of the parts of the world in search of work. In government of the “new Michael his song “Life and Debt,” Mutabaruka Manley,” the U.S. ambassador to parodies the World Bank’s and IMF’s Jamaica, William Holden, announced its impoverishment of Jamaica and the rest mission “to silence the trumpets of of the Third World with debt. He sings: socialism” in the country and the rest of the Caribbean, (69). As McAfee argues, Dem an dem economical the World Bank and the IMF took plan Holden’s pledge as an opportunity to Sll cyaa find a soluon implant in Jamaica capitalist policies Borrowin money fi lend that would later thwart the country’s World Bank a nuh wi development. McAfee writes:“Manley friend and the PNP returned to power over a Sll cyaa find a soluon state with its independence greatly Borrowin money fi lend

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World Bank a nuh wi Mutabaruka signifies these condions in friend his song “H2 Worka” in which he describes the precarious lives of migrant Is life and debt workers in the United States as follows: All a wi a fret Life and debt i ama H2 worka Freedom not yet.37 comin from de island of jamaica Because of limited protecons from i am a H2 worka foreign compeon and lack of cung cane inna florida subsidies, large quanes of major workin suh hard in de Jamaican products such as chicken, milk, burnin sun and banana were purged during the late wonderin if slavery really 1990s, leading to the loss of thousands dun of jobs and the closing of factories i’m workin. . . workin ghtly dependent on foreign funds. As workin on yu cane field the documentary Life and Debt sll suggests, “In 1993, one year aer workin workin liberalizaon, millions of dollars of workin for yu meager unpasteurized local milk had to be dolla bill.41 dumped, 700 cows were slaughtered pre-maturely and several dairy farmers Indeed, Jamaican migrant H2 workers in closed down operaons.”38 Within the the United States are not always fairly same decade, Jamaica witnessed the treated, as is apparent in South Florida massive dumping of low-grade chicken where, according to Deaux, from the United States.39 Mutabaruka’s “Approximately 25 percent of Jamaican poem, “Junk Food,” alludes to this irony immigrants live[d]” in 2006 (171). In a of Western replacement of Jamaican Miami Herald issue of March 19, 2007, sustainable nourishment with cheap Mark Poer laments the drasc and unsustainable ones as the condions of Jamaican “blue-collar” substuon of “granny’s” sweet rice, laborers in South Florida’s largest hotel corn dumpling, and stew peas with and tourist businesses, who were “junk food.” Mutabaruka sings: recruited from their homes to staff posions that “local employees” (U.S. Junk food fullin up de naonals) le due to skyrockeng home place prices and the fear of “Labor advocates dis is annada disgrace [who] worry [that] some could be junk food fullin up de exploited.” Even if the Jamaican H2 place workers showed immense sense of a now good food a guh determinaon by being “grateful and guh eager to work here” (in the United to waste.40 States), their situaon depended on The drasc World Bank and IMF policies their employers. As Poer suggests, led many Jamaicans to emigrate to the these workers' employers had West where they somemes find “tremendous power over them, because condions similar to those of slavery. the minute they complained they could

214 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 184-222 be deported."42 Such a likeliness of limitaon that only the locals catch expatriaon of Jamaican H2 workers every resonance” (xxv-xxvi). The from the United States suggests the mulple connotaons of Caribbean precarious condions of Caribbean English are apparent in Mutabaruka’s migrants in the country. representaon of three Monkeys who would rather deny any relaonship with Another major element of mankind on account of the laer’s lack Mutabaruka’s poetry is its usage of of care for morality, family, and fairness. Jamaican dialect, especially in his 1985 In the middle of the song, Mutabaruka song, “The Monkey,” which was also says, part of his 2002 CD Life Squared.43 This long poem suggests Mutabaruka’s A monkey build a fence ability to draw from the wisdom of the around a coconut tree Monkey figure in Pan-African folklore as And let all the coconuts a means to sarize the greed and lack of go to waste cooperaon that Capitalism creates in Forbidding all other modern human society. He writes: monkeys to come and taste Three monkey sat on a Now if I build a fence coconut tree around this tree Discussing things as they Starvaon will cause you are said to be to steal from me.45 Said one to the other now listen you two This poem signifies the sad ways in There’s a certain rumour which Western countries, who benefit that can’t be true from globalizaon the most, somemes That man descended dump their surplus products as “waste” from our noble race into sea or use them for gasoline or oil, The very idea is a big rather than share them with less disgrace fortunate naons whose agricultural No monkey ever deserted product are not as subsidized as those his wife of First World naons. By using the Nor her baby and ruin her Monkey figure to depict globalizaon in life such a derisive manner, Mutabaruka Yeah the monkey speaks employs Jamaican vernacular as an his mind.44 idiomac tool of polical resistance, imitang many Caribbean authors who Mutabaruka’s poem is an example of create their own art out of the vast significaon, which is a term that repertoire of the English language. As describes the mulple innuendos in Burne argues, the Caribbean writer verbal communicaon. Paula Burne “can draw on any point of the language alludes to this linguisc diversity when range between market dialect and she describes the various “English of the courtroom English. The complexity of Caribbean” as “hybrid tongues” which the heritage results in a great verbal “have an enormous range of nuance flair and ready wit. The art of the pun is and vigour of expression, with the employed here as a delicate poec tool,

215 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 184-222 while the Trinidadian tradion of diaspora. Yet Caribbean immigrants in ‘picong’ – from French piquant, saric the West are not devoid of power since sparring with words – is typified by the they use tradions including oral superficially light verse which fledges a narraves, cultural remnants, and well-aimed dart” (xxv). Yet, Caribbean communal pracces of their homeland people do not speak the same way as means for affirming agency and because they have different languages freedom that resist the precarious and dialects. Speaking about the condions of both Babylon and Icebox different forms of Caribbean English, Land. Burne writes: “The isolaon of island communies, their varied histories, and the huge extent of the region (over a thousand miles of sea separate Jamaica References and Trinidad, for example), have “Abner Louima.” hp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ resulted in marked linguisc differences, Abner_Louima. although these are probably no greater than regional differences within the “About Life and Debt,” hp:// Brish Isles” (Burne xxvi). Thus one www.lifeanddebt.org/about.html. must perceive the Caribbean as a hybrid set of geographic, linguisc, and cultural “Amadou Diallo Shoong.” hp:// enes rather than a monolithic unit. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Amadou_Diallo_shoong.

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Sheller, Mimi. 2003. Consuming the Caribbean: Endnotes From Arawaks to Zombies. London and New York: Routledge. 1 See Ronald Segal. The Black Diaspora: Five Centuries of the Black Experience Outside Africa Sherlock, Philip M. and Hilary Sherlock. 1974. (New York: Noonday P, 1995) xiii. Ears and Tails and Common Sense: More Stories from the Caribbean. New York: Macmillan. 2 “Queen Macoomeh’s book Tales from Icebox Land.” hp://www.tropicalfete.com/ Singh, Amritjit and Peter Schmidt. 2000. fusion_news/fullnews.php?id=1141. Accessed Postcolonial Theory and the United States: December 1, 2010. Race, Ethnicity, and Literature. Jackson: UP of Mississippi. 3 See Samuel Eliot Morrison. The European Discovery of America: the Southern Voyages. AD Sissing, Trevor W. 1970.“How They Kept Canada 1499-1616 (New York: Oxford UP, 1974) 26-27. almost Lily White: The previously Untold story 4 of the Canadian immigraon Officials who See “BACCHANAL.” Jamaican Patois Diconary. Stopped American Blacks from Coming to Compiled by Mike Pawka / Kingsley. hp:// Canada.” hp://www.learnquebec.ca/en/ www.eng.u.edu.tw/worldlit/caribbean/ content/curriculum/social_sciences/features/ diconary.htm. Accessed February 12, 2011. missingpages/unit4/u4p88.htm. 5 Nkechinyelum A. Chioneso. “(Re)Expressions of African/Caribbean Cultural Roots in Canada.” Taylor, Marcia and Finley, Dori. 2009. “Three Journal of Black Studies 39.1 (September 2008): Views of ‘Guest Workers’ in the United States.” 77. Internaonal Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management. 21(2): 191-200. 6 “Chancellor Queen Macoomeh publishes her 1st book- Tales from Icebox Land.” hp:// The Official Diconary of Unofficial English: A www.trinijunglejuice.com/press_releases/ Crank Omnibus for Trillionaires and Bampots for pr2007-tales-from-icebox-land.html. Accessed the Ecozoic Age. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, December 1, 2010. 2006. 7 “Queen Macoomeh’s book Tales from Icebox Todoroki, Emiko, Maeo Vaccani, and Wameek Land.” Noor. 2009. The Canada-Caribbean Remiance 8 Corridor: Fostering Formal Remiances to Hai Trevor W. Sissing. “How They Kept Canada and Jamaica through Effecve Regulaon. almost Lily White: The previously Untold story of Washington, D.C. : World Bank. the Canadian immigraon Officials who Stopped American Blacks from Coming to Canada.” Walker, James W. St.G. 1995. Racial hp://www.learnquebec.ca/en/content/ Discriminaon in Canada and the Black curriculum/social_sciences/features/ Experience. The Canadian Historical Associaon missingpages/unit4/u4p88.htm. Accessed Historical Booklet No. 41. October 16, 2011.

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9 For a study of the historical usage of the terms 19 Mutabaruka. “Old Cut Bruk.” Mutabaruka: “seasoning” as pertaining to slavery, see Vincent The Next Poems (Kingston, Jamaica: Paul Issa Brown. The Reaper’s Garden: Death and Power Publicaons, 2005), 6-7. in the World of Atlanc Slavery (Cambridge: 20 Harvard UP, 2008) 49, 50-51, 176, 188. See Bob Marley and the Wailers: The Bob Marley Story (New York: Island Records, 1986. 10 See Gérard A. Besson. Folklore and legends of Video) Trinidad & Tobago (Newtown, Port-of-Spain, 21 Trinidad, WI: Paria, 1989) 43. See Mutabaruka. “Whiteman Country.” Check It. Ras Records. Washington D.C. 1983. 11 For more interpretaon of “Crick-Crack [Transcribed by author]. stories,” See Rhonda Cobham. “Revisioning Our 22 Kumblas: Transforming Feminist and Naonalist See Mutabaruka. “Whiteman Country.” Agendas in Three Caribbean Women's Texts.” 23 Mutabaruka. “Mutabaruka: And a Poet Shall Callaloo 16.1 (Winter 1993): 47; 44-64; Amritjit Rise Up From Among the People.” Interview Singh and Peter Schmidt. Postcolonial Theory with Desmond Allen. Sunday, February 27, 2005. and the United States: Race, Ethnicity, and hp://www.jah-rastafari.com/forum/message- Literature (Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 2000) view.asp?message_group=733&start_row=1. 301-302. Accessed October 17, 2011. 12 “Chancellor Queen Macoomeh.” 24 See Mutabaruka. “Whiteman Country.” 13 Rohinton Mistry. Family Maers. Ontario, CA: 25 See James, Winston. “Migraon, Racism, and Vintage Internaonal, 2003. Unnumbered page. Identy Formaon: The Caribbean Experience in Ebook. Britain.” Inside Babylon: the Caribbean Diaspora 14 “Interesng Muta Story.” hp:// in Britain. Ed., Winston James and Clive Harris www.consciousparty.com/cgi-bin/bbs60x/ (London and New York: Verso, 1993) 246. webbbs_config.pl?md=read;id=41032. Accessed 26 Winston James also writes: February 19, 2011.

15 “Upclose with Mutabaruka” [Interview with Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Kondwani Kamiyala and James Chavula.” The himself an Afro-Caribbean poet Naons. September 30, 2010. hp:// and historian of disncon, www.naonmw.net/index.php? has not inaccurately opon=com_content&view=arcle&id=6701:up summarized the posion of the close-with- Caribbean writer as being that mutabaruka&cad=50:culture&Itemid=41. of an “eccentric at home and an exile abroad’. But this sense 16 “Interesng Muta Story.” hp:// of homelessness and alienaon www.consciousparty.com/cgi-bin/bbs60x/ is by no means exclusive to the webbbs_config.pl?md=read;id=41032. Accessed intellectuals of the Caribbean. February 19, 2011. It can be found in equal measure among working-class 17 Mutabaruka. “Life and Debt.” Life Squared Caribbean people returning (Cambridge, Mass: Heartbeat, 2002. CD) ‘home’. (284) 18 Mutabaruka. “Life and Debt.” Mutabaruka: See James. “Migraon.” 284. The Next Poems (Kingston, Jamaica: Paul Issa Publicaons, 2005), 58. 27 Mutabaruka. “Whiteman Country.”

221 Southern Journal of Canadian Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1-2 (December 2012), 184-222

28 See ‘Fatal LAPD shoong involved ex-college 40 Mutabaruka, “Junk Food,” Blakk Wi Blak..K..K football player/model.” hp:// (Newton, NJ: Shanachie Entertainment Corp. lamesblogs.lames.com/lanow/2011/01/fatal- 1991). Also in Mutabaruka, Mutabaruka: The lapd-shoong-involved-ex-college-football-play- Next Poems (Kingston, Jamaica: Paul Issa model.html. Accessed January 15, 2011; “Abner Publicaons, 2005) 40. Louima.” hp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 41 Abner_Louima. Accessed January 21, 2011; Mutabaruka, “H2 Worka.” Any Which “Amadou Diallo Shoong.” hp:// Way...Freedom (Newton, NJ: Shanachie en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amadou_Diallo_shoong. Entertainment Corp, 1989). Also in Mutabaruka: Accessed January 21, 2011. The Next Poems, 18.

42 29 Mutabaruka. “Weh Mi Belang.” hp:// Poer, Mark. (2007), “Staff shortage leads to www.getalyric.com/mp3/lyrics/songs/ imported labor in Florida” Miami Herald, March mutabaruka-24360/check_it-50518/ 19. Reprinted in msnbc.com. hp:// weh_mi_belang-231455/. Accessed January 21, www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17691144/ns/ 2011. nightly_news-whose_america%3F/. Accessed January 16, 2011. 30 Mutabaruka. “Weh Mi Belang.” 43 Mutabaruka. “The Monkey.” Mutabaruka 31 Mutabaruka. “Weh Mi Belang.” (New York. EMI. 1985). Mutabaruka.,“The Monkey.” Life Squared (Cambridge, Mass: 32 Mutabaruka. “Whiteman Country.” Heartbeat, 2002. CD).

33 See Mutabaruka, “H2 Worka,” Any Which 44 Mutabaruka. “The Monkey.” Way Freedom (Newton, NJ: Sanachie, 1989. CD). 45 Mutabaruka. “The Monkey.” 34 Mutabaruka. “Bun Dung Babylon.” Mutabaruka: The Next Poems (Kingston, Jamaica: Paul Issa Publicaons, 2005) 8-9.

35 Mutabaruka. “H2 Worka.” Mutabaruka: The Next Poems (Kingston, Jamaica: Paul Issa Publicaons, 2005) 18-19; Mutabaruka, “H2 Worka,” Any Which Way Freedom (Newton, NJ: Sanachie, 1989. CD).

36 Life and Debt, Black, Stephanie, dir. New Yorker Films, 2001.

37 Mutabaruka. “Life and Debt” (Cambridge, Mass: Heartbeat, 2002. CD). Also in Mutabaruka, Mutabaruka: The Next Poems (Kingston, Jamaica: Paul Issa Publicaons, 2005) 58.

38 “About Life and Debt,” hp:// www.lifeanddebt.org/about.html. Accessed November 1, 2009.

39 “About Life and Debt.”

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