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. Such injusNces 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 represenNng 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” insNtuNons which are mainly but it speaks in its own independent and reserved for the aesthecs and quite original voice, olen contesNng 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 wriNng 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 tradiNon” and has eXcluded “women, languages of their own as well as on the black, or non-Western authors” (165). resources of the tradiNon of wriNng 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 linguisNc 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 aestheNcs 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, convenNons 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 parNcular city or state. Mutabaruka’s black authors’ wriNngs 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 “internaNonal language,” which is a aempt to delineate the geographic revoluNon that Feroza F. Jussawalla and locaons and conteXts of the wriNngs 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 BriNsh” (4). The criNcs 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 uNlize 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 definiNon of the noNon 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 communiNes 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 definiNon 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 noNon of “eXile,” the some advantage” (112). This concept of “diaspora” aptly describes eighteenth-century definiNon 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 AIain Propriety and Elegance in which they should return from the Composion. According to Gibbons, atrociNes of the West, ReX NeSleford 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 RevelaNons 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 Nme of chaos” (Xiii). Thus, upon it, or flies for safety to its religion also serves as a major tool impenetrable recesses” (2). In addiNon, 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 fantasNc . 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 wriNngs, this essay Canada was a major desNnaon uncovers the significance of teXts that for Caribbean immigrants during the signify the difficult condions of 1960s and 70s although, as Robin W.