“Sitting at home / trying to figure out what to do with all of these emotions / cause I’m alone going through the motions,” are the opening bars to Self Care a nine-song, 34-minute hip-hop / rap album Josué “JQ” Quiñones recently released. From when I met JQ at my LB’s birthday bash and up…
When Miss Harriet Pierce asked me, “Would you like to do a presentation on your genealogy research in March?” I had no idea how my research would develop. I had only been a week or two settled in Barbados and eager to make use of three things: my great-grandma Irene Trumpet nee DePeiza’s marriage and…
“Why you never bought a house?” I said to Granddad one day on a college school break. He didn’t get offended. Nor did he shift his posture, remote in hand, sitting up watching jeopardy to turn to me on the other end of his full-size bed. Instead, he chuckled. Charles E. Hunnicutt, my maternal granddad…
Mary C. Galley, my 2nd Great-grandma was born one day in January 1865 in Wilmington, North Carolina. She was only months old when the 13th amendment abolished slavery. She wouldn’t have known if she was a black girl born enslaved unless her namesake mother Mary Pearce told her point blank, “You were born free.” Like…
A few weeks after working with Zazeannah Walker for the US Fulbright Scholar seeks Barbadian family Loop article–it was in the pipeline and hadn’t created a buzz yet–I hit a genealogy milestone. I decided to ZR to Mount Standfast and essentially walk around and take pictures of the area where I was aware my Great-Grandma Irene lived.…
Reading Drown has completed my trifecta of all of Junot Diaz’s published books. His Dominican perspective, flawed characters and descriptive images written in short strokes of the pen are as prevalent in Drown, his 1st published book as his other two. But in Drown, I found myself consistently asking, how much of these stories…
Sallie Mae. 70,000 dollars? Please let this student loan be some kind of cruel joke. Like turning my studio apartment upside down looking for my keys just for them to be in my pocket. My left pocket. The same pocket as my IPhone without leaving a scratch. But then my IPhone drops and the screen…
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun is a compelling and heartbreaking story of Biafra’s struggle for independence from Nigeria in the mid-1960s. On one hand, it is the story of discontent between Igbo and Yoruba people forced to co-exist born out of Europe’s carving up of Africa. On the other hand, the reader…
No matter where you are bathroom time is the best moment to question the existence of God. You think God must have felt like shitting on you, since you hate your co-workers: Kiss Ass Dave, Never Do Shit Derek and Big Booty Felicia – who runs game on you but probably does more than flirt…
Delicate women among palm trees. Overt locking eyes in Susho. Movin’ motorbikes to get across town. Irregular prices for tourists Nuisances selling anything palmed in hands. Instant gratification from a blazing sun. Corrupt government. Is this America too? Ain’t nobody focused on a brown foreigner. Never get used to cold showers. Radiant pride; flags waves…
Rashaunjallen 