Back to blog

Cultural Legacy: Caribbean Identity + History Episode Transcript

00:08 - Nachi (Host)

Welcome to another episode of I'm Not Yellen, I'm Dominican podcast hosted by Nachi and Damaris.

00:15 - Damaris (Host)

So prepare yourselves because this introduction is going to be extra as fuck, because this guest is that dope. I'm like a proud parent. When it comes to her, I love to pick her up Prepárate is all I'm saying so hyped to introduce my best friend of over 30 years. She's not just a friend, she's also a sister. This woman is a genius, brilliant author, down to earth, chill human being, loving wife, a durian mother of two sons, hilarious and equally loud Caribbeanite. She is an associate professor of history at the esteemed Columbia University. She teaches Caribbean, atlantic world and African diaspora history. She received her BA from Yale University and her MA and PhD in history from NYU and is the author of troubling freedom and Tiga and the aftermath of British emancipation. Allow me to introduce the incomparable Natasha Lightfoot Dr Lightfoot, if you're nasty.

01:15 - Nachi (Host)

Okay, stand up. Tiga, stand up. Uh-uh, not the sound effects.

01:23 - Damaris (Host)

Welcome, natasha. Oh my goodness.

01:25 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

Thank you for having me. I can't even move up to it.

01:29 - Nachi (Host)

Yes, no, you are living it, you are a living legend. Hello.

01:33 - Damaris (Host)

Hello.

01:35

Well, we're really excited to have you here, I mean, obviously outside of my introduction, this is like so dope, that we've known each other for this long and what you've dedicated your life to I've always found it admirable that this was something that you had a calling for early in life and you knew that and it's now your life's work.

02:01

And so for me, we're both from the Caribbean the Dominican Republic over here not you and me and you from Antigua and so we share that commonality of coming from being first gen kids, also that Caribbean upbringing, that is a lot of things that are shared across Caribbean nations.

02:21

And so I really thought that, and I've always thought it was important to know one's history, and for us I'll speak for myself, nachi, but feel free to interject A lot of that came from my father and my mom, what I knew of Dominican Republic and what they experienced growing up, especially under Trujillo the dictator at that time of their upbringing. So I'm no expert and no historian, so for me it's great to have you on this episode to talk us through in general what's happening in that region, what are some of those major impacts to that area, and kind of just talk through that and, of course, shedding a little bit of more light on the history from Dominican Republic, and especially Haiti, since it's on a shared island. So before we dive into that, is there anything else you want to add to introduce yourself to our listeners and before we dive in, Well, I feel like I don't want to go too much more into my own bio.

03:31 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

If you guys want to find out more, Google me.

03:34 - Nachi (Host)

Okay, there's a lot out there. Natasha Lightfoot Okay, if you're not a.

03:39 - Damaris (Host)

See, if you're not a see.

03:41 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

But no, I'm really happy to be here, happy to share a lot of what I know, what I've learned along the way and sort of how, also the, like you said, the commonalities of our upbringing and sort of the cultural legacies that we have come into, who we are as adult New Yorkers, raising children on, you know, through this same kind of cultural legacy, et cetera. So very happy to share what I know.

04:12 - Damaris (Host)

Awesome. And so, as a historian, what do you feel? What is the importance of understanding one's history?

04:20 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

in this so a good part of you know the discussion right now, even if we think about what's going on in the United States right now about sort of there are two separate conversations one that's trying to get to know better how people of African descent were crucial to the making of this country, were crucial to the making of the Americas not just America, north America, but also the entire Western hemisphere and the importance of talking about slavery, colonialism and all the different isms that come from that capitalism, racism et cetera, sexism, all of those things that sort of in many ways originate with those you know kind of first sins of Western expansion.

05:14

Right, and you have like a whole movement trying to get to understand that better. And then there's literally the opposite happening where politicians, school boards et cetera are pushing to literally block the telling of that truth, of those facts about how you know all of the countries that we know we have some connection to come to be. So all of this is what I think is the exact intersection where the importance of history, of knowing history, of telling the truth, becomes very much clear and ultimately, so much of history, it's true, it's interpretation, yes, that you know this is what I've learned to do. When I went to graduate school, I was taught about how to look at sources, how to actually extract information that sometimes might not be even obvious on the page. Even still, though, there are certain incontrovertible facts slavery happened.

06:20

We black people came here on boats against their will. Do you know what I mean? So being able to say that emphatically and to talk about everything that happened, both intentional and unintentional, from that, because there were so many consequences for the economy, for our society, for cultural aspects like language and religion and food ways, you know that we could just go on and on. There's so much about who we are that you just don't really get to know if you don't have a firm understanding of what history is. So all of that, I think, is wrapped up in why it's important to really know history.

07:00 - Damaris (Host)

No, I think that's great. That explains so much, and I just you know it's also understanding one's own history. It's also part of your identity. It's understanding yourself too, understanding why you may do things that you do because it's part of your culture. But why is it part of your culture? And that's what's due to the history of what gets passed down, et cetera. From your perspective, obviously, what? And I have my own thinking of, my own answer on this. So in historical events you feel massively shaped that region of the. Caribbean.

07:39 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

Well, I mean, I can go through. It's funny enough. I could have like a million different answers for this, but I'll just hit on the major points in the courses that I teach. You know that I really would not be able to, you know, say that I felt like I had sufficiently introduced students to what the Caribbean is without touching on.

08:01

And so obviously it would start with, you know, the arrival of Europeans and the decimation of natives, the few who are left being subject to forms of enslavement and the dispossession of their land and wanton removal to different places.

08:22

Then, of course, the arrival of Europeans also brings, like I mentioned, the arrival, against their will, of Africans into the region and the making of what has been termed by scholars as a Creole culture, this mixture of different people and different, you know, traditions, sort of coming together and creating all of these hybrid ways of being.

08:49

Then I would I talk about the making of the plantation society and all the different aspects, socially, economically and politically, of what it means to be a part of a society where enslaved people are the majority but don't have a majority voice, and you know, sort of white, western, christian, you know ways of being are imposed, and so what do? What do people of you know African, sometimes makes indigenous descent, sometimes makes with European descent what do that, that set of people that results what? How do they both receive all of that in position? How do they also resist it? So I talk about slave uprisings and slave plots. I think it's just important to be able to say there's only one successful slave uprising in the whole history of the Caribbean, and that is the emergence of the nation of Haiti, and Haiti paid in many ways for all of us to be free. We would teach the history of slavery very differently if Haitians hadn't risen up and burnt everything down and threw all the white people out.

09:58

Basically, so that is like I mean you know, we just have to be clear, right? So there's just no class.

10:07 - Nachi (Host)

Sometimes you gotta burn it down Literally, come on.

10:11 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

So you know, I don't teach a class without talking about the Haitian Revolution, but I also talk about all the people who tried and failed, because even the attempt shows that ethos of freedom. I talk about what happens when Europe sort of decides okay, we don't want to do slavery anymore, let's try to do a different set of, you know, labor formation where we just pay all you know like terrible wages.

10:33 - Damaris (Host)

Slave, yeah, slave wages.

10:35 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

Slavery. Outside you know everything, but in name you know, and I also talk about the moments where you then have a whole bunch of fighting back happening in the 20th century. Different responses again, of trying to create other ways of doing life in the Caribbean. So talking about like a bunch of labor uprisings that happened in the English, you know, held Caribbean over the 30s, the 1959 Cuban Revolution, talking about the 1979 Grenada Revolution. So different moments where different islands, different sets of people just decide enough is enough, and how all of those don't actually work out either.

11:20

But, again, I still believe there's something I tell my students all the time. There's something really instructive, something really, you know, sort of nuggets of important information to be found in failure, right. So, and then I talk at the end about all the more recent developments that in many ways reinforce the longer colonial cycle that you know. I begin, I begin with, when I talk about Columbus at the start of these classes. So stuff around tourism as a service economy, you know that singular that a lot of these islands depend on, that puts people in positions of subservience, similar to the way that slavery did with all these singular economies built around certain crops, you know, puts you in subservience again. As long as you look a certain color, you're going to be assumed to be a slave. Now, in the tourist economy, if you look a certain color, you're assumed to be folding towels or picking up golf balls or serving drinks. You know I talk about climate change, which you know which impacts the.

12:21

Caribbean. The heart is hugely and the Caribbean has such a low footprint in terms of, you know, creating the conditions for all of these climate catastrophes and they're constantly impacted by it. You know we're having, once in a generation, storms like every two to three years now. We had storms that classified as basically category six out of five categories.

12:47 - Damaris (Host)

I mean the fact that a hurricane shut down the York City in 2012 is just ridiculous yeah like the city has never been, at least while we were growing up had never shut down, to put one when I say shut down, lights are out. Yeah, yeah, times Square is not on.

13:05 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

Literally lines for gas. That's what I remember.

13:07 - Damaris (Host)

Trains not working? Yes, Trains.

13:10 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

Transportation is 24 hours, exactly, that's yeah. So climate change is real and being able to look at, you know, again, caribbean history, they've always been dealing with climate change Because they've always blown through there, and you know a lot of people who theorize about it, to talk about the fact that it's maybe not coincidence so that hurricanes form off the coast of Africa, you know, and that there might be something the ancestors are brewing Exactly.

13:38 - Damaris (Host)

You know, pick up what I put it down Exactly. They're like oh, let me, let me find out. Right, let me send some smoke your way, right?

13:46 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

You had all these smoke hundreds of years ago and still have smoke now. And here we are, you know, so it's, it's, it's. I don't know that that's a coincidence either. Yeah. I like that observation.

13:59 - Damaris (Host)

No, I don't think that is a coincidence. You know, it's the fighting spirit. There's something about the human spirit I feel like people don't like when you talk about. There were still attempts, even if they were not successful. Yeah, Exactly. Because there's just a part of the human spirit that is meant to be free.

14:15

Right, like I just don't believe we're not born to be enslaved in any capacity. Yes, like even consumers. Like you just think you're not meant to be beholden to an ideology or anything. I just feel like you're meant to follow your instinct your intuition. And that's why it's given to us.

14:33 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

It's funny because I have students sometimes, you know, meaning well, um, we'll ask. Well, you know, were there good slave owners?

14:41 - Nachi (Host)

Okay, that question, they were slave owners?

14:44 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

I don't know if they were good, that's it.

14:46 - Nachi (Host)

You know it's like. The participation in that system means you know you're not going to be able to do anything.

14:48 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

The participation in that system means that you know by default there's no goodness anywhere entering into the conversation, but you know some students definitely want to hear about that, obviously for certain reasons.

15:03 - Damaris (Host)

Yeah, they're like oh, so my great great granddaddy was an underplantation.

15:10 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

I will neither confirm nor deny, I'm just going to say that it's a Scott.

15:15 - Damaris (Host)

Guys, just look at her resume.

15:17 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

You'll understand. All I could say is that I've had to explain to them. It's it's a particular kind of conceit to believe you can own someone outright. A person, a human being.

15:29 - Nachi (Host)

So right, that's, right.

15:32 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

You, you may. You could put them up as collateral for loans and get will them as gifts to your survivor.

15:39 - Nachi (Host)

Yes, I think I read somewhere that they were mortgaging. Oh, absolutely, they were working in slave people and I.

15:44 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

I was. That's a lot of the credit system that you know, governs. You know, basically, the Western Hemisphere comes out of slavery.

15:55 - Damaris (Host)

Yeah, well, the stock market. When you understand why Wall Street is called Wall Street, that's because they had a wall and they were selling slaves on that wall. Yeah, that, and Wall Street is the center of the financial universe. I mean that in itself should tell you symbolically the capitalism and it's, and it's where it came from.

16:21 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

Yeah, it's directly tied up with slavery.

16:23 - Damaris (Host)

Yeah, I mean, it was the trading of cotton and those goods that were and people you know like. It's just so, let's not pretend, and we can't, and multiple spin-off industries.

16:35 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

shipping doesn't happen without it, insurance doesn't happen without it.

16:38 - Damaris (Host)

You know so like there's that credit right, there's a whole you know series of things.

16:44 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

I'm not really an economic historian, but there's no way to sort of avoid the you know, overwhelming evidence for how the modern economy that we have today sort of rests on, you know a function of, like the way that slavery structured a lot of Western societies, you know.

17:04 - Damaris (Host)

Yeah, I think you talked to. You started to talk about Haiti and without Haiti's liberation wouldn't, be where we are today as black people in the diaspora. So praise God, big up to Haiti, Exactly Thank you, you know, and it's funny, whatever I mean for me, yes, born here, but I always felt like, well, we share the land. You know, just for me, I've always been like, oh yeah, well, I'm sure we're cousins and sisters and brothers like this. That's kind of impossible to not think that.

17:40 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

but there is a lot of history that kind of disconnects and has, like this, resent from those two nations and I'd love for you to talk a little bit about that, because it's saddens me when I see anti-blackness, especially towards Haitians, and but this is again not to say that this is how all of Dominican Republic is, but there is some history that goes with that, and I know there was about 20 years of occupation and I wouldn't actually I wouldn't even call it occupation, but when Haiti attempted to unite the land, that was like but not too long after Haiti emerged as a nation, that like roughly around 1820, in the 1820s, underneath the sort of the governance of one of the generals from the revolution, jean-pierre Poillet, there's a move to unite the island on both sides and that lasts until 1844. And over that time period the Haitians are who end slavery in the DR. So it's something that obviously Haiti being committed to a project of black liberation, that was one of their kind of early achievements. But it's also said that there was a lot of infighting between the two nations. I know that when the Dominican Republic declares its independence, they declare it from the Haitians and then there's a war that so they declare their independence in 1844. But then there's a war for restoration in the 1860s where there's a faction of people who actually want to bring back Spanish colonialism into the, into the Dominican Republic.

19:41

But I will say that what's interesting is the histories of both sides of the island are kind of fraught with the histories of like there's dictatorship, there's economic depression, there's a lot of intrusion from Europe and the United States trying to control how their governance works and then at a certain point, in the sort of early 1900s actually between 1915 and 16, the United States will occupy both sides of the island and then, you know, there's going to be a period of American interference that's going to heighten what was already a kind of dramatic set of tensions between the two sides, and I think what you end up seeing is a push to sort of strengthen the border between Haiti and the DR. This will culminate in what's known as the Parsley Massacre in 1937, where there's, you know, an unknown number of Haitians who are massacred at the border between the the DR and Haiti, and it's under the direction of General Trujillo, and you know there was such a move to try and sort of suppress it. There was a lot of work to try and claim that it was just skirmishes between, you know, farmers and cattle ranchers. There was, you know there's been a lot of work to try and recover the memory of it Certain scholars and writers thinking here of novelists like Edwige Danticott, or, you know, historians like you know, richard Turitz, lauren Derby, eddie Paulino, people like that who have written really interesting books about the stories of what has come to be.

21:40

I also think of I want to name, you know, two Afro-Dominican women scholars who are amazing Dixiel Ramirez and Lohia Garcia-Pena, who have really tried to like kind of reorient us to understanding that some of the anti-Hatianism that was happening was essentially also an effect trying to silence. Browner-skinned Dominicans too, like black Dominicans, also found themselves being victimized. There was no way really fully to distinguish who was who.

22:13

Yeah, because we're all right, like many of us, have the same complexion across the border, Exactly when you're on an island for 500 years to gather your cousins.

22:20 - Nachi (Host)

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I'm like I have reasons.

22:23 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

So yeah, all these people who and I'll certainly provide you with a book list to throw up- on, you know absolutely.

22:31

But I, you know, I feel like there's a lot of work being done to sort of say, not every Dominican person was for this kind of expelling of Haitians, but that there was a real sort of impulse to create a national identity around, saying what we are in the DR is not Haitian, and that it became very violent, it became very angry, it became very, you know, extremely racist. You know, and it's such an interesting thing when you look at how people who can barely be distinguished by the naked eye from Haitians are saying I can tell so and so is a Haitian, because of how they pronounce something or how they look or how they interact, and it's all very, you know, sort of like it's all intentional and created, it is not innate. And unfortunately, those types of tension still exist today and it affects policy in the DR. There's been moves to denationalize people who have Haitian ancestry even if they've been 2013.

23:42

And it was, like you know, and there's been moves ever since to still sort of, even though internationally that got such bad attention right, it's still something that's being, you know, kind of clandestinely done. And again, there are all these. There are activists who are working on the island. You know folks who hear who are working on behalf. You know both Dominican and Haitians who are working on behalf of. You know people of Haitian descent living in the DR, and you know there's still this like kind of governmental resistance, the sort of powers that be, I think, still benefit from, you know, advancing this language of anti-Haitianism.

24:20 - Damaris (Host)

Absolutely. I think there's. There's a lot to benefit from from an imperialistic country standpoint to have this kind of division on that island. There's more control you can have on these two nations that are much smaller. If you have them divided, then if they were united in, you know economic policy and the like right, because then that means you have more control over rice, sugarcane and stuff like that Right, given that the majority of people on both sides are you know poor working class people who are visibly of African descent.

24:54

That would be a problem, for that would be way more power in unity, and that's a problem for imperial countries, exactly and unfortunately, such as the US and in Europe.

25:04 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

And that's the thing too. Like you know, it's hard to sort of tell the story of these places in the Caribbean as independent when there are all these forms of, you know, neocolonialism that still exists even after formal colonialism is done. You know a lot of it through economic means, through, you know, super national organizations like the UN, but also you know the World Bank and the IMF, and you know what I mean.

25:32 - Damaris (Host)

So there's like yeah, the very idea that Africa, as a continent filled with so many African nations, obviously Don't even have their own central bank and all the central banks outside of that continent. They ensure that that does not happen because that would be a problem for the rest of the world. Yeah, yeah. And you already understand why it would be a problem, because the majority of the world's natural resources come from that continent. Exactly, yeah, if they actually control the money, right, listen? Yeah, absolutely. You got a problem, houston, right, that's not before.

26:15 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

So you know, these are the kinds of things I'm constantly telling my students about. You know, sort of where colonialism's legacies linger and the fact that, you know I literally was just on a radio program in Antigua, like two days ago, saying you don't, after a while, need the presence of a majority of white people to still have white supremacy, because colonialism is a training ground for it that allows it to, you know, persist in the ways of. You know, elites who come to power that are, you know, of local extraction. They might be, you know, skin folk. They are not kin folk. At this point, you know, say it again, these things are. You know, they have to be undone. There's so much work to do to really achieve what is true Caribbean independence, but also interdependence, where the region really finds ways to unite with each other and not be so dependent on the US and Europe, and now increasingly China, to float them economically and therefore have a say in their political affairs as a result?

27:27 - Damaris (Host)

No, absolutely, and I think when you you mentioned the fact that, while the presence of colonialism isn't there physically any longer, but it's still there, the influence of it still persists, and I think it persists. One of the ways I see that persistence through colorism and classism which.

27:48

I feel like to me always kind of goes hand in hand. And I don't know if you remember this, nachi, when Baba used to tell us how he's like look, you could be the darkest Dominican out there, but the minute you're rich he's like oh, you put on your paper that you're not white. Like that's, you know that's. You're questioning how you're white.

28:04 - Nachi (Host)

White money right yes.

28:07 - Damaris (Host)

And that is, that's speaking to the classism, part of colorism, right, and you know you're dark, you're poor, you're not. You just are not going to have the potential of someone who's lighter, who's white skin.

28:20 - Nachi (Host)

But even when they have money, they they hate themselves enough that they want to bleach their own skin. That was ridiculous. Like you, look at what's that baseball player.

28:33 - Damaris (Host)

Sam Zambiazzo and Barrissy. Oh, my goodness, he looks like any monster.

28:39 - Nachi (Host)

He looks worse now.

28:40 - Damaris (Host)

Dominican legends. Why do?

28:42 - Nachi (Host)

you think that you're the light, that you being lighter is going to make you more attractive, and that you know that just goes to how deep rooted the hatred towards black skin is in the Dominican Republic and I would say in a lot of Caribbean countries, and how that colorism plays. So I, yeah, I would be interested to hear what we have to say about that.

29:12 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

So it's funny too, like one of the things I've found is that obviously there has been a sort of different system of understanding how you know race and skin color works in the Caribbean versus, say, the United States where basically you know, there was a one drop rule and as minute you had one drop of black that could be traced, you were black, that's it and the story. You are 100% and you will be right. So the boundary was put up, really, like you know, sort of intentionally, around what is whiteness. Different gradations exist and have meaning, you know, and I would say it's not that they don't have meaning in the United States. They do, right, because colorism is a thing too and there's a certain kind of romance around lighter skin here as well.

30:06

I don't want to absolve the United States, you know, black community of that either. Right, because that exists. But I do think the Caribbean was very clearly intent on creating categories of brownness, different shades of in the middle that carried weight and what gradation of brown you were had meaning and sometimes would actually be a part of, you know, like one's identity, how one, you know, fell in society where you could, you know, where you could find opportunity, etc. However, the, even with the so-called difference. The point is is that in every system again up and down the Americas, the blacker you were, the worse it got, the one thing you don't want to be the commonality all

31:00

across. Don't be the darkest, good luck. Good luck if you are. You know what I mean, because the whole entire approach to society is, you know and again, I don't divorce this from slavery this is all rooted in slavery, you know. It's this idea that you know the value that you had in society was worn in your skin and if you were visibly black, you were property. That was your value. You see what I mean. So we're still just trying to move beyond. You know every, every skin color having a price right now, and I do think that in the Caribbean we have a long way to go. Like Caribbean diaspora too, right, like wherever Caribbean people go, they take these ideas about colorism with them. They take these ideas about, you know, colorism and then get hit with when they come to the States Right.

31:59 - Damaris (Host)

Oh, there's no gradation.

32:01 - Nachi (Host)

No, no, the cops don't really distinguish. They're like the minute, they're African-American. Who gives a fuck you? Are black Stop resisting, we clump you. Stop resisting Period, period. So you know, I mean, yeah, we just, you know, we just have to be clear that you know the, the.

32:23 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

There's a certain kind of racial education that really can, you know, reorient you the minute you head to somewhere that is a white dominated nation, whether you know, because people in the Caribbean can end up in lots of different places the US, canada, the UK, france, you know Holland, whatever, you know they can go, they go all over right, we'll go anywhere for work and we'll especially find ourselves in the nations of our former colonizers, right, trying to find a way of footing, and in some ways the United States colonized us all. So a lot of us are in the United States and figuring this out pretty much immediately upon arrival that you know the rules are not the same here and I think in many ways they're like Smith Martinez who cares Right, who cares.

33:20

And I also would say that what happens here then has an effect back on the islands we have left behind too, like I do think that, as you know, significant populations of Caribbean diasporic people are collected in different parts of the United States and have these interactions with, you know, with the state, with the welfare system and the, you know, the criminal justice system and whatever, like you get to a place where you get a different understanding of how race is basically underlining every single facet of, you know, of everyday life, and then you realize it was also like that too at home. Even though you know it was a majority black or African descended nation, there was still certain similarities and now the conversation can be, you know, kind of opened up a bit more, you know. So I think there's something important about the sort of the migration and the lessons learned from it for pretty much the whole of the Caribbean, for sure.

34:34 - Damaris (Host)

Yeah, I think too, when you're also also here, when you become a citizen or you have, you live most of your life here and you go back to your country, your native land there is that there creeps in some of that classism too that may come up right, especially of like okay, well, now I'm making dollars, right, right, no longer best those. And you know, I Sometimes maybe I feel like I, I think I am better because I have access to more resources, but, but when you're here in the States, it's like, oh no, you work in class.

35:09 - Nachi (Host)

Calm down.

35:12 - Damaris (Host)

Interesting to see how some people navigate. That I'd say. For our experience growing up, it was great. I mean, my father was happy. He's like look, if we're gonna go to DR, he's like I love my family, I don't need to stay at your house because people will always invite us to stay here. He's like no, I'm making money, I'm gonna stay at a resort.

35:33 - Nachi (Host)

Enjoy life, boozy.

35:39 - Damaris (Host)

He was better. If you know my father and I'm seeing this how she grew up with him. He never thought he was better, but he's like, I made money so I can enjoy life. Not to be in a home where, in this country, the light goes out, because, if, because it's a Monday night, right.

35:54 - Nachi (Host)

You know, I want a backup generator.

35:58 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

They're gonna have that at the resort.

36:02 - Damaris (Host)

So that's how we moved, and oh and so not. You know, we had a very nice rude awakening when they sent us to DR One summer without them and we stayed at a house because I, just like you know, I enjoyed towels being brought to me in pool.

36:48 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

You were tourists. Well, I was not that Decidedly, was not. That definitely shaped my understanding of the Caribbean deeply being. You know, Having that down home experience for weeks on end, the minute school clothes, it was like it goes your bag, bag the pack, nobody paying for summer camp, joy and joy. See, see you the week before Labor Day. It's so and it was. It was rough living because it was like, you know, my grandparents house, my cousins still live there. You know, one of my aunts still lived at home and plus my grandparents than us. It was just, it was tight, it was hot, a lot of family togetherness togetherness.

37:31 - Damaris (Host)

No, but I and I, but I have fond memories of that one summer and and the other times that we went, when we were at a hotel.

37:45 - Nachi (Host)

I like the pool in the beach, but you know I'll say this.

37:52 - Damaris (Host)

I am because of my parents, and my mom grew up in a working-class family.

37:59

My father was an orphan, so I he had a great appreciation of living life to the fullest and Also sharing being generous and because of him and my mom they would actually Do a lot of charitable, like giving's and Christmas gift charity events, because my father knew what it was like to have without and me Observing that firsthand I was. It made me even more grateful for what I did have here in the States because I knew that I was like, oh no, this is, this is tough. Something like while that summer that I spent in DR, I enjoyed playing, you know, baseball with the kids, but I noticed that they didn't have shoes, you know, but they were still very happy and it was just like, okay, cool. So I'm like, no, I got a good life, like I'm not even gonna be a school bra about that.

38:47 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

This was a regular thing like my. You know, in my family my mom was always sending stuff back. There was no understanding of herself as just here in the United States to support the, the family that she had created in the United States. My dad as well like that. They were always sending money back and things back and there was no way that you could leave here when we were, when we got our bags packed to go for our summer With our grandparents, there were things in the bag that were decidedly not ours. The bags were full to the brim of things that were not ours. Because we were mulling, we're bringing a whole bunch of necessities for.

39:27

Okay, let's say Like no, seriously case for everything a separate suitcase for for everything your people needed the end, and in some ways that still exists. You know, now it's it's high-tech. It's like family members have ordered things on Amazon or whatever and they'll send it to your house.

39:45 - Nachi (Host)

So you're gonna have to pack that with your stuff. Good technology.

39:55 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

You know it's always, there's always been that, that sense, and I think that's true. You know, no matter where you're from, that if you, if you have people at home that are depending on you, you know you have to come through. There's no choice in the matter. You know your salary is going to be whatever you make is gonna be divided, not just amongst the people here. It's gonna have to. Some of it has to go to the people who you know in some ways you never really left behind, you know I know you got to put your hand back.

40:28 - Damaris (Host)

You got to give them the helping hand to like share that wealth and share it in the way that is Meaningful to them too and that's gonna help them and also help you. I mean I I don't see why you wouldn't like it. Yeah, whenever I watch that 90-day fiance stuff and people Americans get upset that.

40:48

Foreign fiance is sending money back. I'm like y'all are crazy. Like what did you think this was Okay, whatever Before? Like this, is the clash that not? You and I have an. Obviously you to Natasha, with the different cultures Are. You're American upbringing, yes, and then also your Caribbean upbringing. You're like you're supposed to send back.

41:14 - Nachi (Host)

Like that's a good one.

41:15 - Damaris (Host)

You make money here and you stay here and live your best life. No, you, you help your family out. But, that being said, I think we've had a great conversation so far, but I really want to for our listeners. I love to hear your recommendations on kind of like the resources you recommend for people To educate themselves on their history. Obviously, you know like books, online resources, organizations that you think are good places to to start to look into that.

41:44 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

Oh Wow, I feel like I can't quite think of you. Know anyone particularly like you?

41:50

know this time of my head and well, in New York there's the Caribbean cultural centers African diaspora Institute, you know, which, I believe is now a 125th street, one point. It used to be in midtown, but I believe it's in Harlem now. You know there's a lot of Caribbean archives at the Schomburg Center on 1 35th. You know some that I've worked with. I feel like the. There's also, though, like a lot of books. I feel like there's a lot of books that you could read if you're interested in just knowing more about the Caribbean there's, and I guess the problem you can.

42:35 - Damaris (Host)

If there's a list you have in mind, you can give that to me and I'll put this in the description.

42:39 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

Yeah, that's what I was thinking because there's so many good books and I some of them. Obviously I'm an academic, so I get you know I read sort of those really smarty pants books yet.

42:51

But I will say too that there are novelists who write such beautiful Like historical representations of actually teaching a course now on how literature in from the Caribbean is so very Tied up with talking about history and addressing historical events. It's like, again, we're always trying to negotiate and think about the history, that the legacies of slavery and colonialism and everything else that comes from that that you know, so many writers are just constantly, you know, writing through that in their current day stories they're always looking back at history. So so many novels that I could recommend. I also meant to say too, we talked a lot about Caribbean independence and I still want to not erase the fact that there are so many Caribbean nations, so many Caribbean territories, that are not nations. They are still colonies. Yes, and that's another part of the problem.

43:49 - Damaris (Host)

We should have a part two. Well, no, no, I'm serious.

43:51 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

No, I'm just saying like in general. I just want to sort of you know be clear that not everywhere in the Caribbean, has even free. Depends on how you define freedom. Maybe, you know, nowhere is fully free, you know, but I will say that there are places that are still, you know, possessed technically by law under the, you know, sort of like the ownership of another nation. So you know Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, the British Virgin Islands, you know Martinique, and Lord Lou, you know well.

44:28 - Nachi (Host)

Well, yeah, right, it's not part of the Caribbean. But the idea of right, like the fact that the United States has had an empire right.

44:36 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

And that, so much of what you know, what has made you know America, quote, unquote great has been these, these sins. Oh, shut up. I'm just saying we have to be very clear about you know sort of you know sort of the truth and the revisionist history. Right, Okay?

44:58 - Damaris (Host)

Girl, I heard that loud and clear. The reason why I asked you about resources is because, you know, I just feel like, even though it seems like an obvious question, you could just probably Google it, but I just feel like there's a lot of skepticism in general. I know I'm a skeptic and so I don't just trust any source just because it exists.

45:14 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

You know what I mean, and so that's why there's so much out there that is questionable, you're right, so that's why but you know, offline we'll get a list from you and I'll put that in the description.

45:25 - Damaris (Host)

And then, lastly you talked about this a little bit early in the conversation about there just seems to be a constant threat of the erasure of black history. Right, there's like, yes, there's people's history in the diaspora and you, as a historian, what do you recommend? Like, how do we protect our history? How do we protect that?

45:46 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

So a couple of things. I mean, first of all, we got to get in schools. I think this is true of you know, everywhere that I think the Caribbean could be doing more to educate itself on its past. So much of Caribbean education systems Interest is in giving a sort of, you know, sanitized history of colonialism and slavery. I get very worried about what's not being you know, what's not being shared, what's not being told straight in a sort of like straightforward and you know kind of robust way, and so I think the same is true as well with, I mean, the fight here around history is at the K through 12 level. Again, we're dealing with the issue. But I, but I also say it's very possible that you could leave the education system in the United States and you will have a warped understanding of your history, of the history of this country, right, you?

46:56 - Damaris (Host)

will not tell, I don't even remember. In Graham's score I felt like there was literally one paragraph for his for slavery.

47:01 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

And it was a pink box or something.

47:03 - Damaris (Host)

Yeah, it wasn't even like it was a side note.

47:05 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

It was a side note.

47:06

It was definitely not enough Like it was a margin special interests you know, not that important, right, like oh, by the way, this old sort of right, this also influenced the civil war that this, this little two sentence, right, but you know it's, I think, interesting enough. You will pass through the United States education system and learn some history of the United States. It's very possible, for instance, to pass through, you know, the education systems of many Caribbean countries and not learn the full history of your, of the country you're in. So there's something going on there with regard to the suppression of history in different ways that I think we have to, you know, talk about, or just even certain aspects of it. Like you know, I don't know how many Dominican schoolchildren know about 1937, you know what I mean. What are they being taught about? That? Is that being, you know, sort of erased from school books, et cetera? Right, so these are the kinds of things that you have to have you know, more conversations about. But also, I think it's the onus is on everyone to do more, to read more, to find out more.

48:19

But I also think the question of preserving in some ways is about what she, what lessons you learn from the earliest. What do you, what do you get when you're in the mode of compulsory learning. Right when you're in school, what are you learning? What is actually being, you know, told to you as this is the thing you need. You can't leave school without knowing about the past, and it shouldn't. It just shouldn't be like kings and queens and you know Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan and nah, like you know what I mean. You're going to be a US president, that's not it.

49:00 - Nachi (Host)

That's not it. Let's dig in.

49:02 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

Let's dig in, let's also realize that people, ordinary people, made history, that you know. History is that history is just so full of people who tried, you know, who wanted to be free, that you can't tell the history of again, of this whole part of the world without talking about black people. We're at the center of it. Sorry, that's just what it is. Not sorry, Not sorry, Right, not sorry Period. So you know.

49:35

So, yeah, all of that I feel like is part of the work, you know, of kind of reorienting what we all know and what our children learn. You know, cause everyone's not gonna do a PhD in history, sure, but you know it might be a podcast like this that makes somebody wanna find out a little bit more, do a little more research I also think, some of the frontiers being one with genealogical research too A lot of people who are doing research into their own family history and realizing how that history interacts with the bigger systems that I've already been talking about this whole time. You know, because there are reasons why certain people appear in a bloodline or disappear from it. You know why certain people end up leaving a certain part of the world and ending up in another. You know, and that is not, you know, divorced from this bigger story of how certain nations come to be, you know, subjugated, like the Caribbean.

50:44 - Damaris (Host)

Yeah, and I think that's why my first question was around what resources can people you know access to learn more about the history? Only because, while, yes, it should be taught in the schools, where you know, it's not taught in a consistent way or in any kind of deep way. So until that happens, then it's like you need to be educating yourself so that you can educate your kids, so I can educate my niece and nephew, because otherwise relying simply on a third party is just a half. It's not enough in my opinion, but it's a start right, so it's like we gotta start somewhere as people and we have to keep it alive.

51:23

And if it means by word of mouth, and so be it, because that's how history was kept alive amongst our ancestors before generations. So this has been a great talk so far.

51:36 - Nachi (Host)

I love it.

51:38 - Damaris (Host)

I feel like there needs to be a part two.

51:40 - Nachi (Host)

I don't know, I mean obviously, because you're like my best friend ever. I'm like since we were 10. I know.

51:52 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

What were you gonna say, Nachi?

51:54 - Nachi (Host)

No, no, I said a very long time. Doesn't feel that long?

51:57 - Damaris (Host)

No, I mean cause we're like 25 right now, right.

52:00 - Nachi (Host)

That's the beauty. Yeah, that is so true, that's only like 15 years.

52:03 - Dr. Natasha (Guest)

I don't know how we had 20, 30 years of friendship at 25.

52:07 - Nachi (Host)

15 times too, but whatever that math, that math is rough math the math is math. He's all delusional.

52:13 - Damaris (Host)

Math is math and someone's hating on the other end. Someone's hating on the other end.

52:18 - Nachi (Host)

But whatever. But now this, this was a great conversation. I mean, I truly enjoyed it. So thank you, natasha, for hanging out, and Thank you for having me Just schooling us on our history, and I hope you all yes.

52:35

I hope you all are encouraged to learn more about your unique Caribbean history, to get a better understanding of your roots and gain insights into the struggles and triumphs of our ancestors, as well as present day issues facing the Caribbean community, and I also hope that it inspires us all to work towards a better future. So let's keep that torch lit and don't stop learning. Thank you for listening and please follow us on your favorite podcast platform and sign up for our emails on our website at imnotyellingco to get the latest updates. Bye.