The packed bus, heading to the island’s capital, St. Falmouth, lumbered past working women in parched front yards and front porches. They were pre-occupied with picking out bugs and dried leaves from cotton in huge wicker baskets and stuffing the cleaned, white fluff into sacks. They did not look up at the passing bus.
Alfred Greaux, his brothers, Ruben
Peters and Jasper George and other bus passengers from Belmont village dreamed
of relegating such sights to their past. They fantasized about a future off the
Caribbean island of Bethesda. Life in coastal Belmont was one of fishing, raising
cattle, goats, growing cotton to be shipped to the United Kingdom and smuggling
rum occasionally from ships offshore.
There were other crowded buses leaving
other villages on the greener side of Bethesda and heading to “town” too. Their passengers, not from the coast, were
tired of the drudgery of working in cane fields.
Bethesda Island had suffered years of
drought and agricultural jobs were drying up. Many islanders had already left
for England, Canada and America. Sporadic rain in the rainforest was not enough
to keep them from leaving.
American recruiters had flown down to Bethesda
Island for their yearly visit in search of seasonal workers. If you were selected, you could be sent to
Florida to harvest oranges, cabbage, potatoes or to the north-central USA to pick strawberries
and raspberries, and as far as eastern New York to pick apples.
Bethesda Islanders had been doing seasonal
work for generations. Many had gone to
the Dominican Republic, between 1850-1900, because of its booming sugar-cane industry;
others had gone to Cuba, Venezuela in South America and Panama in Central
America to work on the construction of the Panama Canal.
Alfred’s mother and uncle were among the
generation who had left earlier. They had gone to “Santo Domingo.”* where the
sugar and rum industry had been robust and labor was in great demand. Alfred was born there. He was eight when his
mother returned to Bethesda with him and his older brother, Ruben. Their uncle, Joseph, had abandoned the island
for good. Now Alfred and his brothers,
still single and child-free, hoped to follow in their mother’s and uncle’s footsteps.
Upon arrival at the main bus station in
St. Falmouth, the bus emptied quickly and the swarm of passengers found their
way to the marketplace where the recruiters had set up stands. The American hirers
were looking for strong, healthy, hard-working young men. Fliers had promised
special visas, livable wages, and housing on farm labor camps in the USA.
The lines of brown men in their prime
zig-zagged past the market and up Factory Road. They laughed and chatted about
their future in America. Alfred talked about the Cadillac that would take
several seasons of work to save up for, buy and ship home. Others spoke of
sending money back to build homes and start small businesses when they returned
home for good.
Alfred’s brothers, Ruben and Jasper
stood in line in front of him and were edging closer to the recruiters. Jasper and other siblings were born after his
mother returned to Bethesda and married industrious Mr. George. Rueben and Jasper shared their mother’s
features and did not resemble Alfred. In fact, he had stood out in the crowd to
those not from his village and had attracted some stares and a stream of
questions about why he was there. Some took offense at his presence.
And after some hours, and witnessing
the unchallenged dismissal of the less robust, Alfred and his brothers stood
face to face with one of the American agents. A gangly, tanned white man scrutinized Ruben. He
answered the questions thrown at him in his best English and was promised a job
in Wisconsin. Jasper, too, suffered his inspection and was assured a job in Florida. Ruben and Jasper were then ushered to another
table where they were assisted with filling out forms.
The recruiter stared questioningly
at Alfred when he approached.
“I’m afraid you’re in the wrong
place, sir. What can I do for you? We’re signing up farm laborers.”
“Ah here fa wuk sah, just like de udders,”
said Alfred.
“Picking fruit and vegetables?” The
agent’s eyes opened wide.
“Yes, sah.” Alfred hadn’t heard his
brothers being challenged like this. “Wa’s de problem, sah?”
“I’m afraid you won’t do,” the
recruiter stated.
Alfred’s face reddened. He took a
while to find his voice. “But, ah strong like de udders, sah.”
“ You’re strong like the others but
you’ll die in the field.”
“Ah go die in de field? How you mean?”
“You’re white. This ain’t your kinda
work. You won’t last a day. Sunstroke
will kill ya.”
Alfred bent over as if he had been hit
in the stomach. He didn’t wait to hear anymore. He stormed away red-faced, eyes
wet, his body slumped, shaking. Wrapped
in defeat, he forgot to bid his brothers goodbye.
A
loud voice occupied his head.
Me white? Everybody in Belmont know me. “Santo Domingo
boy!” They never call me names. I never
think ‘bout me fadder though ah carry he name: never ask momma ‘bout him. Mr.
George is all de fadder ah know. We all farm, fish, pick cotton together. Me brudders and sistahs never treat me
different.
Then Alfred realized his village had been
a cocoon. There were a few like him. Some foreign-born or the offspring of
British sailors stationed at the English naval base in Belmont. Like him, their
identity had not been challenged by the outside world. And now, he had been
left behind, unwanted, his difference seen as a weakness in the eyes of those
looking for strong, black men.
“Is time ah go ‘way.” Then, Alfred,
determined to strike out on his own, began plotting a different future.
(c) Althea
Romeo-Mark, 2000
*Santo
Domingo-The Caribbean colloquial
name for the Dominican Republic.
Born in Antigua, West Indies, Althea Romeo-Mark is an educator and internationally published writer who grew up in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. She has lived and taught in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, USA, Liberia, England, and in Switzerland since 1991. She has published six collections of poems.
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