An Immigrant in My Own Land

June is Caribbean American Heritage Month and we are celebrating by taking a peak into Dr. Brown’s ethnographic memoir, East of Flatbush, North of Love: An Ethnography of Home, a music-centered book that takes a look at growing up Caribbean American in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. This excerpt is from the fourth chapter of the book, “Of God, Ghosts, and Obeah.” (Footnotes not included). Don’t forget to listen to the musical selections (“cues”), which can be found on the East of Flatbush Playlist on Spotify and YouTube.

Chapter 6: An Immigrant in My Own Land

“My green seasoning is on point,” I said proudly.

“Is that that green thing that looks like baby doo-doo that Mom

scoops on meat when she is seasoning?” my younger sister asked.

“It doesn’t look like baby toots! But yes, that’s it.”

“Being first generation is hard.”

—Conversation between me and my sister, Dominique

I walked towards the bench situated just inside the front entrance of the Trader Joe’s on 72nd Street in Manhattan. As I got closer, an older woman already seated there turned and looked at me. Well, it actually seemed more like she snarled at me. She gave me the one-up and one-down before turning her head and continuing her conversation. I listened to the lilt in her voice as she spoke.

“Trini,” I thought to myself.

When she ended her phone conversation, I looked at her and said, “You from Trinidad?”

“Yes,” she said with an unexpected smile. “You too?”

“My parents,” I responded.

“Although you not born there, you still speak like a Trini. Just the way you asked the question—‘You from Trinidad?’—the phrasing is Trini. Someone from here would ask you, ‘Where are you from?’ They wouldn’t say, ‘You from Trinidad?’ That’s a Trini thing.”

It made me feel good to hear her say that, especially since I had left the city three years prior, living in Syracuse, NY, for two years before moving to New Orleans, LA. I’ve been harboring a fear that I’ll lose both my New York and Trini accents.

Though I had not told her about my own fear, my new friend confided in me that she too was concerned about losing her accent.

“How long have you been here?” I asked, thinking she was likely relatively new to the city with such a heavy accent.

“Thirty-three years,” she replied.

I laughed out loud. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about,” I said.

* * *

For many immigrants, the fear of losing one’s identity is real, and language is a crucial part of that identity. While my new friend may have had nothing to be concerned about, I worried that I perhaps did. My conversation with her occurred during one of a half dozen trips to New York that I would make during my first year living in New Orleans. Yet, despite my frequent visits home, I still had an acute fear of losing my ability to talk like a Trini, and with that the loss of some very real social and cultural capital.

My brother and I learned to talk Trini as children; it was like learning to breathe. We simply inhaled the sounds of our environments and then breathed them out. David couldn’t even say three until he was maybe five of six. Every time he tried, the word “tree” came tumbling out of his mouth.

“Three, David. Three!” I’d tell him.

Nothing like having your kid sister try to teach you English. But he was a child surrounded by Trinidadians and other Caribbean people who frequently silence the h in words beginning with a th (as in “tree” instead of “three” and “tief ” instead of “thief ”), or otherwise pronounce the th like a d (as in “dem” instead of “them”).

Between living in New York and growing up in a Trinidadian home, we learned to code switch. We’d go back and forth between “Trini” speech and “American” speech with an uncanny fluidity, and that ability would come in handy. During my travels to Trinidad as an adult, I would often talk like a Trini, mostly so that I didn’t stand out too much; I tried to blend in with everyone else. As my mom likes to say, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” However, during the year that Grandpa died, my brother accompanied me to Trinidad, and I often used my “American” voice to talk with him. One day, before leaving the house in Diego Martin to head into “town,” Ann asked me a question.

“Ah know you does talk Trini, but David does talk Trini, too?”

I nodded my head in the affirmative. Then she warned, “Don’t go talking no set ah Yankee in town.”

Being able to talk Trini was viewed as a cloak of protection from those who would seek to take advantage of tourists. However, there have been times when I have strategically used my ability to talk like an American to my advantage.

One day, I was left stranded by the side of the road after a friend of a friend failed to pick me up as planned. I didn’t yet have a cell phone and needed to call my family in Diego Martin to figure out my next move. There were a few people nearby with cell phones. It dawned on me that if I asked permission to use a phone with an American accent, someone might extend pity on the poor stranded American tourist. However, if I used a Trini accent, there was a greater potential for some to think that I was being a “Trickidadian.” I decided on using my American accent, and the distressed foreigner ploy worked.

But perhaps the most interesting incident that I’ve had in Trinidad with respect to language occurred one evening when I got in a taxi heading from Port of Spain back to Diego Martin. Upon getting into the taxi, the driver and I greeted each other and made some small talk before he asked me, “Where you been?”

“What do you mean where I been?” I asked, fully knowing the implication of his question.

“Where you been? Yuh sound like yuh been somewhere.”

The tone of his voice clearly indicated that he had a problem with what he perceived to be me feigning an American accent. Many Trinidadians take issue with those who emigrate to the States only to return talking like “Yankees” and presumably “forgetting where they came from.” Based on my accent, a mix of Trini and Yankee, he had assumed that I was one of “those” Trinis. I had a response for him.

“Well, I’m from New York.”

“Oh, oh. Okay,” he said, a bit surprised but relieved.

Having satisfied him with my response, we had a pleasant conversation for the duration of my ride. But his reaction to me reveals just how important language can be and how a simple change in accent has consequences for returning emigrants.

Want to learn more about my code-switching adventures in Trinidad? Visit our store to purchase a copy of East of Flatbush, North of Love: An Ethnography of Home and the East of Flatbush, North of Love: Teacher Guidebook. *My People Tell Stories is the only authorized online seller of print and digital copies of East of Flatbush, North of Love: An Ethnography of Home and East of Flatbush, North of Love: Teacher Guidebook.