I am pleased that I had my first ten years in the Caribbean because I knew I was somebody.

All you have to do is make sure you can read, you can write, you can learn and, you know, you can be something education-wise. So the barrier of having to prove yourself is not quite the same. It’s a great burden on their children so they’re having to work extra hard to prove they’re somebody whereas in the Caribbean you just know you’re somebody and so you work hard to get an education. Because a lot of children growing up in Europe or America or Canada they don’t feel, kind of, as worthy as they should because there is a perception of who they are and the feeling of not believing in themselves, not believing I can do this. We should try and find a year for our children to actually go to a school in the Caribbean and then they will see they are worthy. And so the Trinidadian and Jamaican and Barbadian education system, I think it’s really great to people of Caribbean descent. In that book it shows you the differences in education and the important thing is that when you understand that going back to the Caribbean you are a person but when you come to England or to America or to Canada you are perceived as a colour, you’re always described as the “black person” whereas in the Caribbean you are a person.Īnd I think that when you’re going to school and you’re having that kind of experience, it’s a better experience for you as a person, learning and seeing yourself as equal to everyone around you whereas when you’re in, when you go to Europe or you go to America or Canada, you’re suddenly not as equal because you’re always looked upon as a colour. So I wrote a book called Coming to England talking about what it’s like to leave the Caribbean and come to England. Because when you come back to the Caribbean, because I spent ten years of my life living in the Caribbean and when I came to Britain we were so far ahead compared to what ten-year-olds were doing in schools in England, in London and so I know in the Caribbean there is a very high standard of education, high standard of discipline, high standard of actually, of you proving yourself and pushing yourself. What do you think is the value of this narrative?įloella Benjamin: Well I think it just goes to show that, you know, in the Caribbean, there is a lot to be celebrated. Your book falls into the latter category. Summer Edward: Within the canon of Caribbean juvenile literature, you find a lot of narratives about a Caribbean child who migrates to a foreign land, but there aren’t that many stories about children living elsewhere who migrate to the Caribbean, about children of Caribbean descent who return.

Sea of tears floella benjamin