Thursday, 11 October: Caribbean Immigrants: Minorities or Immigrants? Edwidge Danticat, “Children of the Sea” (IA 98-112)

·        Text-objective discussion leader: Rhonda Fisher

“Children of the Sea” by Edwidge Danticat

Objective 2 – To chart the dynamics, variations and stages of the immigrant narrative.

There are five basic stages of the immigrant narrative. “Children of the Sea” is unique in that it touches on only the first two:

Stage 1 – Leave the Old World

Stage 2 – Journey to the New World

With most of the immigrant narratives we have discussed so far stages 1 and 2 have occurred before the story takes place. Stages 1 and 2 have always at least progressed on to later stages (3-5) that describe the immigrant experience once the immigrant has actually arrived in America. In “Children of the Sea,” however, stage 2 is as far as we get. The immigrant narrative in this case takes place completely during the journey and ends there, as well.

“I don’t know how long we’ll be at sea. There are thirty-six other deserting souls on this little boat with me” (98). Obj. 2, Stage 2

“I feel like we are sailing to Africa” (104). Obj. 2, Stage 2

Objective 3 – To compare and contrast the immigrant narrative with the minority narrative – or, American Dream vs. American Nightmare.

• For Afro-Caribbeans, the immigrant experience may be compromised by genetic or color-based association with the African American minority.

• “The Color Code” – Literature represents the ultra-sensitive subject of skin color only occasionally, but with important associations or consequences for identity and destiny. Western civilization transfers traditional values associated with light and dark to people of light and dark color (good / evil, rational / irrational).

“Children of the Sea” fits the pattern of the immigrant narrative in that the narrator does attempt to immigrate to America. Yet, it is largely similar to the minority experience that African Americans and other minority groups face in America, or the “American Nightmare.” But the nightmare in this case is not in America; it began in Haiti and continues on during the voyage.

“I am afraid I am going to start having nightmares once we get deep at sea. I really hate having the sun in my face all day long. If you see me again, I’ll be so dark” (98). The fact that the narrator is afraid he will start having nightmares foreshadows the reality that this voyage for him will become the “American Nightmare.” Also, the fact that the narrator will be “so dark” implies a doomed destiny, according to “The Color Code.”

“Everyone was vomiting with each small rocking of the boat. The faces around me are showing their first charcoal layer of sunburn. ‘Now we will never be mistaken for Cubans’ one man said. Even though some of the Cubans are black too. The man said he was once on a boat with a group of Cubans. His boat had stopped to pick up the Cubans on an island off the Bahamas. When the Coast Guard came for them, they took the Cubans to Miami and sent him back to Haiti” (101). This ties in with how the Afro-Caribbean immigrant experience may be compromised by an association with the African American minority. The man seemed to have been discriminated against by the Coast Guard because he was black.

“When we sing, Beloved Haiti, there is no place like you. I had to leave you before I could understand you, some of the women start crying. At times, I just want to stop in the middle of the song and cry myself” (101). American Nightmare. Sounds like involuntary participation even though he left willingly.

“Do you want to know how people go to the bathroom on the boat? Probably the same way they did on those slave ships years ago” (104). American Nightmare. Circumstances similar to African American minority experience of slavery.

“I go to them now as though it was always meant to be […], [to] those who have escaped the chains of slavery to form a world beneath the heavens and the blood-drenched earth where you live” (111). American Nightmare. Circumstances similar to African American minority experience of slavery.

Question:

I talked a lot about how the narrator’s experience is similar to the African American  minority experience of slavery, or the “American Nightmare.” But can this narrative really be classified as an American minority narrative since he never made it to the U.S.  and America was not responsible for his situation?

Should this narrative be considered an American immigrant narrative though he never made it to America?