Tag Archives: new york

Rights & Freedoms

Corporate dreadlocs and other stories

2 Comments

Back in 2008, I wrote a piece that argued thus, on the subject of my preferred “hairstyle”:

I am my hair. I am challenging, I am defiant, I do not apologize.

And the next time some Wall Street multimillionaire or Oxbridge-educated middle-aged perpetually entitled white British editor encounters a twenty-something <insertracehere> woman from the Caribbean, or someone with locs, he will pause.

He will pause because he will remember someone else who was more than the stereotype.
Continue reading Corporate dreadlocs and other stories →


Previous entry in the "Young and black" series | Next entry in the "Young and black" series
Words

On nomadism

Leave a comment

I wrote this, elsewhere, three months ago:

I am a stranger. I am estranged. I am a person without a country, without people, without kin.

I rely more often on the kindness of strangers than the loyalty of friends. I watch those I love and loved and lost create lives in which I play no part. I am apart.

This, I think, describes the primary challenge of a Caribbean expat (exile?), genus young, gifted and alone.

It is the very definition of an existential crisis.

The last time I went to Tobago, and upon checking in to Toucan Inn & Bonkers, I proffered a Trinidadian drivers’ license [accepted nowhere in Manhattan as a form of ID], a UK credit card and a US address.

My tax lawyers disagree as to my country of residence, a question I dither over every time I am confronted with the question on immigration forms.

Trying to renew my passport, I am stymied because I don’t know anyone here who fits the criteria for a “recommender” [sic]: has known me for three years, is not a close relative, is an “accomplished professional.”

Need to renew my US visa – easier to do that in the UK than in Trinidad, where I will be asked to demonstrate my “strong ties” to the country [the better to prove I am not a potential illegal immigrant]. Which I can’t prove I have – no Trinidadian bank account, no property in my name, job based overseas.

So it go.


Previous entry in the "Outside Eyes" series | Next entry in the "Outside Eyes" series
Trinidad & Tobago

On knee-high boots on a tropical island, and other absurdities

Leave a comment

“Seriously?”

That word, that exclamation, that question-almost-rhetorical, defines my reaction to the Trinidad I have witnessed over the past two weeks.

Women wearing knee-high leather boots on a sweltering hot day? Seriously? A Maserati roaring past on the highway? Seriously? Seven dollars for a loaf of bread? Eight dollars for chewing gum? Seriously?

And so on, and so forth.

We are trying so hard to be Miami, London, New York – any where but here, and everyone but ourselves.

But these are trappings only, because those leather boots must trod garbage-strewn streets and that Maserati must contend with potholes aplenty.

And I – don’t quite know how I feel about this. Incredulity prevails.


Previous entry in the "Outside Eyes" series | Next entry in the "Outside Eyes" series