Breath, Eyes, Memories

Place on List:

III. Period: 1960 - 2009

1. Primary Texts: Narrative Prose

Edwidge Danticat. *Breath, Eyes, Memories. (1994)

Key Terms (tags): narrative prose, contemporary, period, caribbean

Supporting References:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breath,_Eyes,_Memory

2. http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/breatheyes/

3. "Caribbean American Culture." The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Cultural and Intellectual History. : Oxford University Press, 2013. Oxford Reference. 2013. Date Accessed 30 Aug. 2013 .

“Caribbean American Culture. Since the founding of the United States, the cultural exchange between it and the islands and shorelines collectively known as the Caribbean has been constant and multitudinous. Indeed, before the end of the Civil War and the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1865, a plantation owner in South Carolina may have had more in common—in terms of culture and worldview—with a fellow slaveholding plantation owner in Barbados or Jamaica than with a blacksmith in New York or a merchant in New England. Given the range of what might be properly called Caribbean American culture, this entry focuses on several key intersections: trade, migration, and cultural forms such as dance, music, and literature.

“In the colonial period, when the policy of mercantilism regulated commerce within the British empire, the British North American and Caribbean (or “West Indian,” as they were then known) colonies were required to trade exclusively with one another and with the mother country. The northern colonies that would later become the United States were the chief supplier of cattle, horses, lumber, and foodstuffs to Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, British Guiana, and the Bahamas while purchasing from those Caribbean colonies sugar, molasses, and, until 1807, slaves. With the end of the War for Independence, international recognition of the United States as a sovereign nation dissolved the forced exclusivity of this trading partnership, but also raised the specter of British restrictions and tariffs on U.S. exports to its Caribbean colonies. British attempts to restrict trade between the United States and the British West Indies were a catastrophic failure because the “Sugar Colonies,” as they were known across the Atlantic, needed supplies from the United States. Over the nineteenth century, the United States expanded the scope and depth of its influence to parts of the Caribbean not administered by the British, especially Cuba and Puerto Rico, both ceded by Spain after its defeat in the Spanish–American War. Cuba became an independent nation after a short period of U.S. control, and the United States annexed Puerto Rico under the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1898).

“The earliest, most numerous migrants from the Caribbean to what is now the United States were enslaved Africans, transported involuntarily to the British North American colonies across the eighteenth century. Black and white Haitians began to migrate to the United States during the Haitian Revolution of the 1790s, many settling in Louisiana and in northern cities like New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. In the twentieth century, the United States offered citizenship to Puerto Ricans (1917), inaugurating a period of steady emigration that continues to this day, fueled by a high unemployment rate in Puerto Rico. In the early twenty-first century Puerto Ricans are the second largest Hispanic group in the United States, comprising 9 percent of the country's total Hispanic population. The most populous Puerto Rican immigrant communities are in the northeastern United States, particularly in New York City and Philadelphia. Notable members of this Puerto Rican diaspora—the only diaspora in the Western Hemisphere in which the population of those living abroad exceeds the population of those living at home—include Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, entertainer Jennifer Lopez, and Congressman José Serrano.

“In addition to the Puerto Rican population, several other Caribbean immigrant communities in the United States have played significant roles in shaping U.S. culture. These include large populations from Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic, Panama, Honduras, and Guatemala, as well as smaller numbers from Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Costa Rica, and Grenada. The variety of cultural forms brought by these communities include musical and dance styles that have been readily incorporated into mainstream U.S. popular culture in the second half of the twentieth century: notably Reggae, Reggaeton, Calypso, Salsa, Rumba, Merengue, and Bachata.

“Caribbean literature has also influenced the United States literary scene. The two best-known, most successful Caribbean American authors active today are Jamaica Kincaid (b. Antigua, 1949) and Edwidge Danticat (b. Port-au-Prince, 1969). However, reading publics in the United States have been drawing inspiration from Caribbean literature for well over a century, and successful Caribbean authors such as the Nobel laureate Derek Walcott (b. St. Lucia, 1930), Anthony Kellman (b. Barbados, 1955), and Lasana M. Sekou (b. St. Martin, 1959) have held prestigious teaching positions at U.S. Universities.

[See also African American Thought and Culture; Dance; Latino Culture; Literature; Music; New York City; Philadelphia; Popular Culture; and Slavery.]”