Writing Back to Self
In Trinidad and Tobago, our indigenous history and story of survival has not been documented consistently or comprehensively. For decades school textbooks referred to “war-like Caribs” and “farming Arawaks” and when I went to school I was taught the same thing. But there I was taking part in the Carib Santa Rosa Festival every year. I had grown up believing I was Carib. When people asked: did your ancestors eat people? I would proudly show off my pointy incisors. Annually, a special dress was made and a tiny, woven basket was prepared for flowers. Even now, the day reminds me of the smell of roses and the softness of the pink and red petals between my fingers. This set a whole thing in motion inside of me. We were still alive and I felt I had to tell that story.
I was about seven years old, when I decided I wanted to be a writer or reporter. Once I set foot in a newsroom, I set about writing this indigenous survival story everywhere I could. I didn’t go to university. I went to work at a newspaper straight after studying Economics and Accounting for A levels. I wrote about the Amerindians at the TnT Mirror. I wrote about it in the Express. I wrote about it in the Guardian. Then, I wrote about it for radio.
I took the story with me wherever I went. I wrote about it in the Croydon Advertiser, when I lived in London. There, someone once asked me: how come you speak English so well? And, what do you use in your afro hair to make it look so good?
One of my Advertiser colleagues, Helen Cook, hosted me for two months on her sofa in Scotland before I returned to Trinidad and I made a start on my autobiography then. So much of my childhood was wrapped up in the Santa Rosa community. One night, I had a vivid dream which was set during the Santa Rosa procession. At an unspoken signal, a crowd of indigenous descendants surged forward and toppled the statue of Saint Rose, smashing it on the roadway. I woke up feeling like I had to smash the statue and dismantle what it stood for. I didn’t know how. I didn’t know when or whether I was on my way to a defacing property charge.
I returned to Trinidad and wrote segments for television. I wrote about my family history in Caribbean Beat Magazine and in the Caribbean Review of Books. I never forgot the dream and it was at the front of my mind while I wrote the film, The Amerindians. Less than two years after the release of the film, I wrote an entry in the Encyclopedia of Caribbean Archaeology on the subject. Most recently, Unaccounted for, a non-fiction essay I wrote about my indigenous ancestry was published internationally in the So Many Islands anthology by Commonwealth Writers and the Commonwealth Foundation. I have been busy in my work, writing us back into history. I focused on non-fiction because I felt I had to fight against so much fiction already masquerading as history: lies, half-truths and innuendos. People used to say adaptation is the key to survival but you know what? In the Information Age documentation may well be the key.
The film I wrote, produced, directed and eventually had to appear in, premiered at the 2010 Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival. It has since had official screenings in Toronto and in London and it has been used as reference material at several North American Colleges and Universities engaged in the study of indigenous people from this region.
I started work on the film in 2008, after leaving a job I loved at Media and Editorial Projects. In the two years between then and when I completed it in 2010, I focused on interviews and events like the annual festival and a consultation on indigenous people at the Arima Town Hall. It wasn’t my intention to be on film. It was only when I shared a draft with my friend, producer Natalie Hill, that she insisted that the only way to tell the story was for me to tell it. You need to walk the audience through the story, she shared. It was then that I realized that I had to share more of myself for the story to be understood. I was sharing something personal with the audience.
It was a very emotional journey. In the film I looked at the way indigenous history had been documented, I looked at the role the Church and the State played in the systemic erasure of our history, I looked at our politics and current structure: the office of the President of the First Peoples’ Community and the Queen and I examined where the power lay. I was also looking for the vision of the community. How did we intend to preserve what we have? But also, how were we using our resources to ensure our survival? How do we reclaim what is lost?
Ten years later, I confess, I am no closer to having an answer but I am doing my work.