Reading Down Babylon
Caribbean culture brims with nuance. A rural Jamaican patois sounds flatter than a Kingston accent, which doesn't sound as British as a Trinidadian one. Bajan rice and peas typically boast coconut milk, which you'll never find in the same staple prepared in St. Croix. These details never quite translate to the broad, mostly off key caricatures that fill American media. There's a whole lot more to the region than smiling faces, jerk chicken and ganja. Trust me. If you can't travel to the Caribbean and experience the complexities, the next best thing is to read Caribbean literature that captures the richness of a specific island. Geoffrey Philp's Who's Your Daddy and Other Stories not only conjures up the sounds and images of rural Jamaica, it also reflects the Jamaican community in Miami, which is an element that I've never seen portrayed quite so vividly. I found myself enmeshed in the layers of Cuban and Jamaican politics with the riveting story, Joseph...