An Immigrant Story: The Arts and Self Knowledge
Althea Mark-Romeo
Republished from The Antigua and Barbuda Review of Books, Vol. 9, Fall
2016
Through the vehicle of poetry and
prose, the art form which has chosen me, I share the journey of my people,
fortunate and unfortunate immigrants, and West African slaves. Through this medium I will share my personal
journey which has inspired my individual growth.
Vessel
I am a bearer of old souls.
Caribbean natives,
the slaughtered, the silenced,
slave trader and slave.
They skirt around each other,
betrayer and betrayed.
Their history is
an unforgotten stench.
But they lay claim to
collective wisdom
born out of
contrasting journeys.
The vessel, though fraught
with contradictions, sails
with the bloodline flowing still
down the river of time.
© Althea
Romeo-Mark, 2015
One of my
European ancestors, Robert Finch, would be a sailor in the British navy; another,
a Scottish overseer in Nevis, called Hendrikson, and the most powerful
ingredient in this genetic stew, are my West Africans forefathers.
New
World Bouillon
You need a curious man
called Columbus who carries
a large portion of courage in his bowels.
Add men of similar mind,
men who have nothing to lose.
They are the salt and pepper of adventure.
This is only the beginning
of the melting pot now known
across the Atlantic as the New World.
Add the smell of stories
of roads paved with gold
and battles with blood-thirsty
Tainos, Arawaks and Caribs
that catch the noses of restless
Spaniards, Portuguese and
scions of Vikings, Saxons and Celts,
tired of the tasteless broth of Old World life.
Ravenous for change, they throw themselves
into this stew and, still dissatisfied with the taste,
they add strange ingredients—black slaves,
indentured servants, Chinese and
Indians from the East.
This is not North American soup,
but a South and Central American boiling pot,
a spicy pot filled with temperament hot as chilies.
It has been simmering for centuries
and is the gourmet dish of the world.
© Althea Romeo-Mark , The Caribbean Writer, vol 29, 2015
My story, a story of immigrants, re-immigration and of
continuing immigration. It is a story
which expands to three continents, lasts over a hundred years and, in fact
never stops. It is the story of my
family, the lucky immigrants, the unlucky slaves, survivors.
My grandmother, Sarah Finch, immigrated from Antigua to the Dominican Republic in the early 1900s together with her brother, Robert Finch. Robert Finch started a family there and made the Dominican Republic his home, while my grandmother returned to Antigua with a son—my father, Gilbert Romeo. My grandmother and her brother were among many British West Indians who immigrated to the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Panama, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica to seek work at the beginning of the 1900s. Many settled in these countries.
Decades later, a rapidly developing tourist industry in the US Virgin Islands
(USVI) demanded an increased labor force. The islands (St. Croix, St. Thomas
and St. John) unable to supply the needed labor, therefore opened the
floodgates to immigrants.
Departure/Arrival
I
Departure
We are driven away from English
Harbour,
watch the village flee into
distance:
its sea-splashed coves,
its tiny island houses, some
thatched,
some wearing sun-glinted, galvanized
roofs,
its brown men on cane-stacked
donkeys,
pickers plucking cotton and the
smells of
callaloo, pepper-pot and dukanah
teasing the sweltering air.
It is the beginning of losing part
of ourselves.
II Arrival
Father makes a heroic figure
guiding the landed plane on the
runway.
We watch as its swirling fans settle
into standstill.
Valises in hands, we disembark to
new landscapes.
Our old island home is transformed
into an idyllic realm.
Its scenes become locked-away
treasure taken out
with flourish and shared at special
gatherings.
Our hands dance in the valleys and
hills of loud recalling.
© Althea Romeo-Mark, Persimmon Tree, International edition, 2015
Hilton Hotel, St. Thomas, Virgin Islands where my father worked for many years as a doorman.
My immediate family, the Romeos, was
part of this next big wave of immigration. We left English Harbour, Antigua in
the 1950s. My father departed ahead of
us for St. Thomas, USVI. My mother, my older brother, younger sister and I,
followed in 1956.
Early years in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. My sister, Arlene, age 5 and Althea, age 8.
My journey as an “alien,”
as being seen as “the other,” had
begun. It struck me one day that I had left
Antigua, when a schoolmate in St.
Thomas, Virgin Islands, ridiculed my pronunciation. “Is not kyat. Is cat.” I
realized then that I was different. Coming from Antigua, we were also called “Garrots.” I didn’t want to a “garrot” so I learned to say “cat” very quickly in order to fit in.
Another incident which consolidated my
“otherness” was being separated one day in elementary school by an authority
into lines of “aliens” and natives.
We, the next generation, were fed on
stories of intolerable working hours and hardship suffered while building roads
and homes, cleaning houses, working as cooks, waiters, maids, elevator
operators, doormen and fleeing as immigration officers raided construction
sites to arrest illegal workers.
Our various residences, in St.
Thomas, reflected our steady rise in social status within the working class and
these quarters would become transitional abodes for family and friends coming
from “down island.”
 |
| St. Johns, Antigua today |
After being settled over a period of decades, homes are no longer places of temporary refuge. Islands, from which family formerly fled, are prospering. We have become builders of nations.
The Nation Builders
Brown men crowd an island hilltop,
voice French-Creole and Spanish,
not the English patois of
generations
who assembled there before them.
Shrouded in life’s hardness,
they shrug off morning’s crispness,
ignore the later sun’s searing
sting.
Hungry eyes, straining downhill,
scout for trucks crawling up.
Like mongoose out to kill,
they charge the first that slows
down.
The man, his engine still running,
shouts, “Two days wuk for four.”
Men scramble, shove,
become acrobats, settle into place
speed to hard work and low pay.
The disappointed
remain on the look-out,
wait their turn.
They are builder of island nations.
They are fathers of leaders who see
with the eyes of the
disenfranchised.
The Antigua and Barbuda Review of
Books, 2012
What began as a move from Antigua to
the Dominican Republic in search of work has spread far beyond the shores of
this island. We are now separated by oceans and continents. My older brother
and sister still reside in the US, Virgin Islands while I, having lived in
Liberia and England, now live in Switzerland. My younger sister has settled in
Sacramento, California. Few relatives remain in Antigua.
Many immigrants have died in their
attempt to provide a better life for their families. Their tragic stories are
headlines in daily newspapers around the world. We are the lucky ones. The
story of immigrants is one of pain, survival and assimilation. We have passed the baton of hardship on to
new groups and can laugh at the tribulations shared by our family.
Yet not so far away, in the
Dominican Republic, Haitian people who migrated there, when my grandmother and her brother did
in the early twentieth century, are victims of xenophobia and racisms.
Dispossessed, Stateless
The call went out, decades ago.
“We will be your promised land,
if you lend us a hand with our sugarcane.”
Heard by islanders hunting for
dreams,
searching for their Eden,
they went in droves to “Santo
Domingo.”
Some never looked back, as though
fearing
they would be turned into pillars of
salt.
Decades of slaving in cane fields
have neither
spun stalks into gold nor paved
streets of gold.
Some returned dressed in Spanish
fashion,
pockets filled with little, heads
filled
with stories about sheep that listened
to wolves.
For many, unable to return to island
homes,
Eden is a shanty town or a shack in
the rum-run Province of San Pedro de
Macoris.
Our brethren of Haitian descent,
defined by menial labor
they could not refuse, have been
betrayed.
Draconian laws constrain and
imprison them.
Roofs given decades ago, removed,
they are homeless
in the only country they know.
© Althea Romeo-Mark, 2015
My journey has taken me far. A victim of the Liberian Civil War in West
Africa, and seeking refuge in England, and Switzerland, I am fascinated by the
mitigating causes of the journey immigrants make, whether, driven by war, natural
catastrophes or economics. We have one thing in common. We are the foreigner on
whom suspicion is cast upon.
The
Nakedness of New
In this place there are
no monuments to my history,
no familiar signs
that give me bearings,
no corner shops
where food can take me
on a journey home.
Fresh-faced
in an old country,
the new lingo
is a gurgle in throats.
Strange words assault my ears,
throw me off balance.
I seek refuge in mother-tongue
wherever I find or hear it.
Hunger for my people’s voices
has forged odd friendships.
But they have begun to fray
and I cling to shreds.
Cold stares gouge an open wound.
Winter’s icy fangs bite deep down.
A “foreigner” is dust in the eye
and many believe I have come
to plunder their treasures.
Come, hug the cold away,
rock me in your arms,
clothe me in your warmth,
tell me everything will be okay
Pull me back from the cliff’s edge.
The
Antigua and Barbuda Review of Books, 2012
I lived with fear during the Liberian Civil War and I
understand fear. Liberia was home for fourteen years. It connected my West African
ancestors to my present. It connected a Virgin Islands past (in Wilmot Blyden)
to a Liberian past. These pasts have created a fascinating history which I
share.
Liberia began to change with its first
military coup—a culmination of a century of resentment by indigenous Liberians,
second class citizens in their land. Soon tribalism raised its ugly head and
tribal clashes led to a series of attempted coups.
REVOLUTION AND REGGAE
(LIBERIAN COUP 1985)
Daylight is changing guard with night
and the radio blares “Get up, stand up
Stand up for your rights”
No national anthem.
Suspicion is soon confirmed
a monotone voice interrupts
the laid back reggae tract
“The people’s Revolutionary Party
has taken over the government
stay calm, stay indoors.”
“Get up, stand up
stand up for your rights.”
Bob Marley doesn’t know
his song has been hijacked
and drummed into heads
knees weak from fear
do not allow us to stand up.
We gather round a kitchen table
uneasy because of the rat-tat-tat of gun fire
and the singing of drunk “patriots”
prematurely celebrating the coup d'état
celebrating the climb of tribesmen to power
counting on nepotism to rise in stature
to climb the social ladder.
We pray to ride out the storm
‘cause a revolution like a hurricane can
change directions, leave death and destruction
in its path as it fights to stay alive.
We switch the radio off
some standing up for their rights
are taking men away
to unknown destinations
despite the pleas of wives and children.
The change brings death for some
slaughtered by men putting them in their places
showing who is the boss, exercising their rights
in the name of destiny and “Get up,
stand up,
Stand up for your rights,” newfound
anthem
hostage of a nebulous cause.
Calabash: A Journal of Arts and Letters. NYU,
vol. 4, no.2, 2007
 |
| House in London where people, who are waiting to be re-settled, are placed. |
And
in 1989 when the Liberian Civil War broke out, we fled to England. It was the beginning of our stay in Europe
which we began by declaring ourselves refugees.
I carry with me the determination of my ancestors. It
has allowed me to take many voyages. It has enabled me to grow and interpret my
life experience in the medium my forefathers have chosen.
 |
| Family in Basel, Switzerland in the 1990s |
What life experiences have inspired you to write, paint, be creative?
©
Althea Romeo-Mark, .2017
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