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 condiNons 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 qualiNes of pivotal West Indian literature that mainstream journals and scholars have neglected. In an aempt to reveal the intellectual and resisNve nature of such literature, I place the two authors’ wriNngs in historical conteXts which reveal the mulNfaceted eXperiences of eXpatriate West Indian populaons who have fought hard for equality, ciNzenship, admissibility, and cultural space in Canada, England, and (or) the United States since the middle of the twenNeth century. Introduc?on 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 wriNngs that serve as literary laborers, ignoring the humanity and tropes which signify the complex contribuNon that these workers bring to ideological and economic challenges of the economic development of First Caribbean immigrants in their Western World countries that conNnue 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.