Guyana Diaries : Women's Lives Across Difference 9781598747270, 9781598741940

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Guyana Diaries

WRITING LIVES Ethnographic Narratives Series Editors: Arthur P. Bochner & Carolyn Ellis University of South Florida Writing Lives: Ethnographic Narratives publishes narrative representations of qualitative research projects. The series editors seek manuscripts that blur the boundaries between humanities and social sciences. We encourage novel and evocative forms of expressing concrete lived experience, including autoethnographic, literary, poetic, artistic, visual, performative, critical, multivoiced, conversational, and co-constructed representations. We are interested in ethnographic narratives that depict local stories; employ literary modes of scene setting, dialogue, character development, and unfolding action; and include the author’s critical reflections on the research and writing process, such as research ethics, alternative modes of inquiry and representation, reflexivity, and evocative storytelling. Proposals and manuscripts should be directed to [email protected] Volumes in this series: Erotic Mentoring: Women’s Transformations in the University, Janice Hocker Rushing Intimate Colonialism: Head, Heart, and Body in West African Development Work, Laurie L. Charlés Last Writes: A Daybook for a Dying Friend, Laurel Richardson A Trickster in Tweed: The Quest for Quality in a Faculty Life, Thomas F. Frentz Guyana Diaries: Women’s Lives Across Difference, Kimberly D. Nettles Writing Qualitative Inquiry: Selves, Stories and the New Politics of Academic Success, H. L. Goodall, Jr.

Guyana Diaries Women’s Lives Across Difference

Kimberly D. Nettles

First published 2008 by Left Coast press, Inc. Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © 2008 Taylor & Francis All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Nettles, Kimberly D. Guyana diaries : women’s lives across difference/Kimberly D. Nettles. p. cm. -- (Writing lives) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-59874-194-0 (hardback : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-59874-195-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Women--Guyana--Biography. 2. Women--Guyana--Social conditions. I. Title. HQ1565.3.Z75A364 2008 305.48’80092’2881--dc22 2008003537 The royalties for this book are being donated to the Red Thread Women’s Development Organisation. ISBN 978-1-59874-194-0 hardcover ISBN 978-1-59874-195-7 paperback

Contents

Preface Part I: Introductions

9 15

1 Histories

17

2 Critical Incidents: Representing Others, Representing Self

37

Part II: The Guyana Diaries

69

3 Shifting Ground

71

4 Women’s Work

99

5 Woman Out of Place

129

6 Meet Us Where We Are

143

7 “By the Grace of God, We Are Making Out”

177

8 “We All . . . We Is Women Together”

203

9 A Daughter Comes Home . . . to Self

231

10 Leaving Guyana

259

11 Epilogue

267

Notes References Index About the Author

279 297 309 315

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This book is dedicated to my mother . . . Mattie Smith Nettles

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Preface

In a fine West African blanket, the weaver employs minute thread patterns to produce an aesthetically balanced textile. In memoir and ethnography, the weave of cultural threads and personal motifs creates a distinct world. Yet the memoir is often too narrowly stitched to the personal, while the ethnography is overburdened with impersonal detail. —Paul Stoller

Our goal, anthropologist and novelist Paul Stoller writes in the syllabus for his writing workshop, is “to bring textual balance to these genres of nonfiction [and] to strive for aesthetic and cultural balance.” And so we began. There were 12 of us from various disciplinary locations who had convened on the campus of Lewis & Clark College in the summer of 2005 to participate in the Writing Culture Summer Institute at the William Stafford Center. Paul organized a stimulating set of readings and writing exercises under the rubric “Weaving the World: Memoir and Ethnography.” Participating in this workshop was a pivotal moment for me. During the short time that we were there, writing, talking, eating and touring the city of Portland, my writer’s block loosened. I wrote a short story, “Women’s Work,” which became the basis for a chapter and set the tone. The book you now hold began to take shape during those five days. But any work of this sort, particularly a first book, has a long history. Indeed, in Guyana Diaries: Women’s Lives Across Difference I am asking that you join me in the journey of its making. Paul’s

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metaphor of the weaver is particularly apt here. The story that I am weaving is one about the meanings of home and belonging, activist engagement and self-empowerment. Drawing from nearly a decade of observations that began during my field research in Guyana with women from the Red Thread Women’s Development Organisation in 1996 and continued in subsequent years as I wrote and taught about Caribbean women’s activism, feminist ethnography, and women’s narrative writing, this book deals with the politics of identity and emotion in producing knowledge about the “other.” Positioned at the crossroads of feminist ethnography and critical autobiography, Guyana Diaries explores the relationships between researcher and subject, fieldwork and knowledge practices within the context of narrative storytelling. This work is based on real experiences drawn from field notes, in-depth interviews with the Red Thread women, my personal diaries, memory, letters, and discussions with colleagues, family, and friends. In it I employ a narrative framework that uses literary approaches (particularly dialogue and scene setting) to tell a story by interweaving my narrative with the women’s narratives I collected while conducting research in Guyana. As its title suggests, this book is written in a format that resembles a series of diary entries. Through this form, I construct a first-person account of my interactions with the physical space of Guyana and the women of the Red Thread, as well as my own reactions to the field research process. I also broaden the “field” to include my travels with the stories of the Red Thread women and my own story outside the formal data collection experience. Guyana Diaries is organized in two parts. In Part One, Introductions, I chart my intellectual autobiography and the process through which I encountered Guyana and the women of Red Thread. I then think through the politics of representation, illustrating that the texts we produce are shaped not just by the substance of the research but also by the ways we move with the project in our everyday lives. In Part Two, The Guyana Diaries, I draw inspiration from Katherine Dunham’s Journey to Accompong and write a narrative that is presented chronologically extending from my arrival in Guyana through my departure and journey home. This section constitutes the bulk of the book. Drawing on the life history narratives of over a dozen women, the chapters in this section are significantly about the Red Thread women as I retell their stories from my perspective

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and within the context of an interview process that is simultaneously warm, engaging, and full of misunderstandings and missed connections. Additionally, I explore my interactions with my host family, other Western researchers, and local activists. In the Epilogue, I reflect on the process of writing auto/ethnographically and consider what has been learned—about my self, about the Red Thread women, and about the worlds that we inhabit.

Acknowledgments I would like to acknowledge the people who in myriad ways influenced me and my work. As an undergraduate at the University of Southern California, I added a minor in Women’s Studies to my major in Broadcast Journalism primarily because of the courses that I took with Helen L. Horowitz, Michael Messner, and Barrie Thorne. Michael Messner supervised my senior thesis and, along with Helen Horowitz, was a constant source of support and advice as I applied for graduate school. As a graduate student in sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles, I was assigned to Walter Allen, who served as my advisor. He remained my advisor throughout my graduate school career and shepherded me through both the master’s thesis and the dissertation. He has been an ongoing and solid source of support. Karen (Brodkin) Sacks was also a member of my dissertation committee and read many drafts of the proposal. Nesha Haniff, Janice Jackson , Linda Peake, and Nigel Westmaas were instrumental in making my field work trips possible and productive. Sondra Hale was a great friend and mentor who modeled for me the heart and soul of teaching. For many, graduate school is where you develop relationships with peers that are sustaining during the stress of the process. I have been fortunate to have created a network of women who provided a sense of common purpose. These women—Estela Ballon, Edith Chen, and Gilda L. Ochoa (my cohort sisters), Ophella Dano, and Margaret Hunter—continue to be a significant part of my life. Others from this time with whom I felt kinship and community, even though we are no longer in close touch are Angela James, Joseph Jewell, Venetria Patton, and Juana Rodriguez. The first few years of life after graduate school were shaped by my moves from California to North Carolina to Memphis and then back

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to California. In this journey, I was fortunate to make connections with folks who have been a significant source of support, friendship, and intellectual stimulation. During my year as a Carolina Minority Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of North Carolina, Judith Blau and Sherryl Kleinman were engaged and committed mentors. I am especially thankful for the friendship Karla Slocum who, over the years, has read my work, offered critical and insightful comments, and never let me give up. From my time at the University of Memphis, Arthé Anthony, Shannon Diamond, Carla Goar, Alan Kim, Shara McCallum, Jacqueline Scott, Barbara Ellen Smith, and Ronald Sundstrom offered community and connection. On my return to California, I was fortunate to become a part of a department that has been a place of home and of struggle, which always go hand in hand. I am particularly indebted to Wendy Ho, Anna Kuhn, Judith Newton, and Leslie Rabine. Each of these women mentored me in important ways. Other past and present members of my faculty—Gayatri Gopinath, Carole Joffe, Suad Joseph, Caren Kaplan, Susan Kaiser, Luz Mena, Juana Rodriguez, jesikah maria ross, and Peg Swain—have been immensely supportive. Outside my department faculty, I have also been able to develop relationships with others that have facilitated both my work and well-being: Moradewun Adejunmobi, Cynthia Brantley, Miroslava Chavez-Garcia, Shaunna Ludwig, Carole Markese, Carolyn de la Peña, Milmon Harrison, John Ortiz-Hutson, Janet Momsen, Melissa Salazar, Vicki Smith, and Patricia A. Turner. Writing is in many ways, a solitary activity, but at various moments in the production of this work I wrote “in community” with others. My long-term writing partner, Cary Cordova, was a port during the summer of 2005. Knowing that she was waiting for me at Cafe Mishka’s every morning was the motivation I needed to get out of bed. Similarly, my “Just Right” writing group—with Richard Kim, Lisa Materson, and Bettina Ng’weno—was a space of camaraderie and gently critical readings of chapter drafts. At various stages in the process of writing, several people read drafts, often multiple drafts, of this work: Karla Slocum, Judith Newton, Gilda L. Ochoa, Paul Stoller, Leslie Rabine, Nigel Westmaas, and Myriam Chancy. Each of them contributed a great deal to the development of this book by offering suggestions, encouragement, and criticism. Ultimately, this book would not exist if the women of Red Thread had not given so generously of themselves and their time. I hope that my representation of their lives serves to honor the work that they do every day.

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This work has at various times been financially supported by the Social Science Research Council International Pre-Dissertation Fellowship, the American Association of University Women, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, University of California President’s Dissertation Year Fellowship, the University of California Humanities Research Institute, the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, the University of Memphis, the Carolina Minority Postdoctoral Fellowship, the University of California, Davis, and my parents. The book you now hold has been read in various stages by a number of people, most of whom I’ve already mentioned. I would be remiss, however, if I did not acknowledge the support and guidance from Carolyn Ellis. I “discovered” her book The Ethnographic I: A Methodological Novel about Autoethnography when it was first published in early 2004. It became a sort of “bible” for me as I took seriously my desire to write in ways that moved beyond the sociological traditions within which I had been trained. After reading Carolyn’s book, I took a chance and sent her an e-mail with an attachment describing in an expanded outline form a book I wanted to write. I didn’t actually expect her to respond to an e-mail from someone she’d never met, but she did. She was gracious and encouraging. She offered me comments on my outline and told me to send her the manuscript when I was ready. After several starts and stops, I sent her the manuscript, and she saw enough potential in its rough form that she agreed to consider it for the series she and Art Bochner were editing. Her thorough readings and detailed commentary have guided me through to this final product. But most of all, she encouraged me to claim the voice and the story within this work. The cover design, by Ebers Garcia of Somos Advertising, is an original montage of documents gathered during my journey to Guyana and photographs I took while there set against a background of embroidered images from Red Thread greeting cards. Embroidery was one of the first activities used to organize women from the communities. Hand-made greeting cards, pillowcases, and canvas bags were embellished with images of women engaged in various forms of labor or of local flora and fauna. Some of these embroidery patterns appear on the chapter-opening pages. The map, located at the beginning of Part Two, between Chapters 2 and 3, is also an original design by Ebers Garcia. In addition, I was fortunate in having

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a publisher, Mitch Allen, and a copyeditor and project manager, Stacey C. Sawyer, who worked to bring all these elements together. In a work that contemplates the significance of home and belonging and the need for connection with others to sustain us, it is absolutely essential that I remember those people who provide me with home places. First my mother, Mattie Smith Nettles, who has been my biggest cheerleader, and my father Lovie C. Nettles, whose quiet support I depend on. My sister-in-spirit, Robin Adele Dodson, whom I first met in 10th-grade English has been a never-ending source of inspiration and love. Karen Gordon Jones, also a best friend since high school, always pushes me to be truthful . . . and makes me laugh. Other women who have given me love and sustenance are my aunt Rose Duncan, my childhood friend Kimberly Mason-Butler, my cousins Quenetta Duncan and Belinda Nettles, and my friend Susanne Stieger. And finally, I am thankful for the love the companionship of Aaron J. Barcelón, whose faith and devotion sustained me through this writing. Kimberly D. Nettles March 2008

PART I Introductions

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CHAPTER 1 Histories

In 1984, the year I graduated from high school, my parents and other members of my family spent several days together in a resort on a Jamaican beach. Photographs of our vacation show me in various locations: lying on palm fronds on a sparsely grassed area; frolicking with my cousin in the ocean on the resort’s beach dotted with thatched cabanas; walking in a bathing suit and towel alongside a young hotel employee carrying a tray of food; and standing with a craftswoman who is wearing a brightly colored dress while balancing dozens of woven straw sun visors on her head. In looking back on these photos now, I am struck by my somberness. Indeed, my most vivid memories independent of the photographic record are of watching young children enthusiastically, even relentlessly, but not happily selling gum, T-shirts, and colorful jewelry to us as we exited the minibus in the town outside the gated, walled-in resort. I also remember the battle to remove/contain the abundance of tropical wildlife—particularly the bugs—from our hotel room. 17

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In retrospect, I believe our efforts to be tourists and connoisseurs of the tropical “other” failed. In thinking of these snapshots1—both real and imagined—I am also struck by the way in which the “other” is also not fulfilling its expected role as pleasant, happy purveyor of the Jamaican experience. I recognize, from this vantage point, the uneasy relationship across and within race—how do we articulate ourselves at this meeting: the black American middle-class tourist and the Afro-Jamaican tourist attraction?2 Given this earlier experience, I find it ironic that in 1991, as a first-year graduate student in sociology, I began a series of journeys into the Caribbean to do research. In June and July of that year, I participated in a six-week study-abroad program coorganized by my advisor. The group of undergraduate and graduate students from my home university in California and another large research-oriented university in the Midwest were to spend the month and a half learning about Jamaican culture, politics, and social life. There were about 25 of us, a fairly equal number of graduate and undergraduate students, who approached the trip with varying motivations, desires, and expectations. Most of the undergraduates seemed primarily interested in sampling the culture and the nightlife of Guyana. Several of the graduate students went on to pursue research focused on the Caribbean or Caribbean people in the United States. My journey there extended from my membership in a community of black graduate students who had been assigned to the same faculty advisor. In addition to sharing a faculty advisor my involvement in this community of students was personal. I had become linked romantically with a fellow, although more advanced, graduate student. He was a displaced grandson of the Caribbean—a tall, beautiful, dark-brown-skinned man who had laid claim to me almost immediately upon my arrival on the campus.3 Through him, I became a part of a community that as a displaced granddaughter of the American South I felt I had been missing my whole life.4 My parents had migrated from Alabama to Los Angeles, California, in the late 1950s. They were part of the massive influx of African Americans to California, especially Los Angeles, during the Civil Rights movement.5 My parents were in search of greater freedoms and economic opportunities not available in the southern states. Although they maintain a sense of the South, of Alabama, as “home,” my connection to that sense of place has been tenuous. So, as a graduate

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student and in my relationship with this man, I engaged in forming an intellectual and social life that nurtured a sense of belonging and connectedness to black people locally and globally. As part of his group, my identity as a black person seemed paramount. Traveling to Jamaica with him and the other black students as burgeoning scholars felt immense and important. Paradoxically, what I remember now about that first research journey into the Caribbean is my silence. Almost from the moment we landed in Jamaica and made our way from the airport to our Kingston residence my ability to speak diminished. The man that I was with, this man, with whom I had entrusted my person, became a larger-than-life figure. His presentation of self eclipsed my own. Whereas once he had spoken, as I had, of the difficulty living within the interstices of race and class in the United States and understanding himself as an educated black man in America, upon landing on Jamaican soil he became neo-Caribbean. He affected a pan-Caribbean accent that closed off our communication and left me feeling uncertain about my place in this new terrain. My silence reached epic proportions. On a bus trip to another part of the island, one of our coparticipants joked that he did not know what my voice sounded like because he had never heard me speak. While my companion exhibited a fluidity of identity, an ability to “fit in” or to “code switch” from one context to another—from one world to another trading on a blackness that was not bound by nation6—I could not engage in this kind of movement. I was unable to articulate my self. This experience led me inward. While my public voice was silent in our group and I struggled to maintain that feeling of connection to him and our life together in California, I also reconnected with the reasons I went to graduate school in the first place: to think and write about black women’s activism, black women’s relationship to feminist thought, and the ways in which to improve the social status and daily lives of women of color.7 This interest in black women’s collective work in opposition to dominant society was rekindled during one of our field trips. During our study abroad we spent one week focused on Caribbean women and, in particular, on Afro-Jamaican women’s experiences. We had a series of lectures by the Caribbean feminist scholar Dr. Lucille Mathurin Mair. We also visited Sistren Theatre Collective and spent the day learning about their work. We participated in some of the activities Sistren used to open up the lines of communication

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among women and men in the local communities. The photographic record I retain of this experience is striking. Over 90% of the nearly 65 images I collected from our journey to Jamaica are in black and white. Two pictures, however, stand out—color photographs taken during our visit with Sistren. In these photos, the women in our group are standing in a large circle and holding hands. In the first one, I am in the center of the circle as the women around me are singing. The next photo shows me having broken through the circle, and all of us are laughing together. While I clearly did not take these photos and actually cannot recall the specifics of the activity, I do remember that this coming together of the women had a profound effect on me. I seem animated and engaged in ways that had eluded me throughout the journey. Our time with Sistren helped me to break through my own silence. Indeed, as I read through Sistren’s book Lionheart Gal: Life Stories of Jamaican Women (1987) on the plane ride back to the United States, I was inspired by the collection of firstperson narratives of the black working-class women. Their courage to tell their own stories planted a seed that I would later germinate in my own work. On our return to California, my relationship with the man ended. My membership in the community of black graduate students also shifted. I continued my involvement in the politics of gender in our department and became more active in the women’s studies program on campus. Through a series of oppositional activities,8 I developed an informal support group of women-of-color graduate students from my cohort, and we met regularly to have dinner, go dancing, celebrate one another’s birthdays, complain or rejoice about the men in our lives, and read and comment on one another’s academic work. It was within this multiracial, multiethnic group of women that we enacted a powerful sisterhood.

Why Me? Why Guyana? During these early years of graduate school, my research interests also solidified.9 Through my advisor, I had been given access to some household-level data on the sexual division of labor in Georgetown, Guyana. Although much of this work entailed spending long and lonely hours running statistical models, I was also reading about the history of Guyana, of the racial/ethnic divides, and of the differential experiences of Afro- and Indo-Guyanese women. I developed

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hypotheses about the sexual division of labor in the household from this reading and tested them again and again in the computer lab of the basement of the building that housed the sociology department. Late one night, after hours underneath the fluorescent lights of the lab, I called Gina.10 She was a more advanced graduate student who, as part of the community of black graduate students, had been a close friend and mentor. I was in the final stages of producing the statistical analysis of the data for my master’s thesis, but I was exhausted and stuck and ready to just toss it all away. I needed Gina, who was training to become a demographer, to talk me through the current dilemma. “You just have to get over your math phobia. Just keep going,” Gina replied to my litany of complaints. But my complaints were not about the math, per se. I had always actually been good at math; liked it even. In fact, one of my favorite teachers in high school was our algebra instructor, whose unorthodox methods were engaging within the confines of a Catholic high school education. No, it wasn’t the math. My unease was more about the isolation, the solitariness of the endeavor. The removal of the work from my daily lived experiences and those of the women I was analyzing in my project was distinct. I did not know who these women were. I could not know who they were. But I was expected to prove (or disprove) hypotheses about their actions based on their answers to a survey conducted by a battery of researchers going door-to-door in various Guyanese villages and neighborhoods.11 This was not the kind of work that I wanted to do. I was neither asking the questions I wanted to answer nor hearing the responses from the women themselves. So, when developing the proposal for my next project, I began with the assumption that I would engage in qualitative, interview-based research with women. Returning to formative texts by the black and Chicana feminist scholars I read as an undergraduate and early graduate student, I knew I wanted the women to be women of color and to be involved in some kind of collective action toward the empowerment of women. At the time, I was reading and teaching from the writings of feminists such as Gloria Anzaldúa (1999), Patricia Hill Collins (1986, 1990), Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989, 1991, 1992), bell hooks (1989, 1990, 1993), Cherrie Moraga (1981, with Anzaldúa), and Barbara Smith (Hull, Scott, and Smith 1982). Within these texts I found a language, a place, a space. These authors’ writings spoke volumes about my own experiences and helped me to

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understand the experiences of my mother, my aunt, my grandmother, and other womenfolk with whom I felt kinship. These texts were also powerful records of women’s political and consciousness-raising work within the interstices of race, class, gender, and sexuality. These were the texts that I exchanged and discussed with my close cadre of fellow women-of-color graduate students. These were the texts through which we had created community. Becoming a part of this community, writing within this community, was what I envisioned for my work. Although I had been living and working within community in California, it is perhaps doubly ironic that I returned alone to the Caribbean in 1994 and 1996 to conduct research for my dissertation.12 Part of this return to the Caribbean was fortuitous. In my readings about Guyana for my master’s thesis, I learned about a women’s development organization—Red Thread—that had been engaged in oppositional collective action during the 1980s regime of President Forbes Burnham. Beyond mere happenstance, however, I was drawn to studying this group because their work appealed to my multiracial/multicultural feminist sensibilities: they sought to bring Guyanese women together across the divides of race/ethnicity, class, geography, religion, and age. These divides, particularly race/ethnicity, have been the basis of political and social turmoil in Guyana from its earliest days. Guiana was established as three colonies—Essequibo, Demerara, and Berbice—by Dutch traders under the Dutch West Indian Company in the 1600s. It was formally ceded to the British Crown in 1814, and the three colonies became counties within a united British Guiana. The myriad racial/ethnic groups now present in country are the result of attempts by the English plantocracy to secure a steady labor force. During the first decades of its existence, British Guiana was a plantation economy heavily dependent on the cultivation of sugar cane by forced African laborers. With the advent of the “sugar revolution” Guiana was thrust into the international capitalist system and formerly small plantations were converted to large-scale monocrop entities. By the 1800s, however, significant changes were underway. The slave trade was abolished in 1808, and 25 years later the slave system itself was ended. This left the planters in need of a reliable (and cheap) source of labor. Indentured laborers from India were introduced into the plantation economy, decreasing the ability of the formerly enslaved African laborers to bargain for better working

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conditions. Many left the plantations and moved to other parts of the country. The working conditions on the sugar estates were abhorrent, and by the early 1900s workers began to revolt against the plantocracy. Riots erupted throughout Guyana and led to the end indentureship period (1838–1916). Attempts to make political links between the East Indian largely rural population and the African more urban population were promising, with the establishment of the British Guiana Labor Union (BGLU) in 1905. But the internal divisions along the axes of rural/urban dwellers, East Indian/African agricultural-sugar workers/civil service workers, and so on were acerbated by the minority British ruling elite. The 1930s, then, were characterized by mass riots in British Guiana and throughout the West Indies. But, by the 1950s there was a provisional government in place led by the People’s Progressive Party, referred to as the PPP. Initially, the PPP was a coalition party—combining both African and East Indian Guyanese leaders who were presumably working for the interests of this population against those of the colonial power. But the coalition was fragile. Soon after the PPP won the first election under universal adult suffrage in 1953, the party split along ethnic lines. Two parties then formed: the PPP became associated with the majority East Indian Guyanese population and the People’s National Congress, or PNC, associated with those of African descent—who were the numerical minority (Latin American Bureau 1984). The remaining population was made up of individuals of Amerindian, Portuguese, Chinese, and some of “mixed” descent13 and may have been members of either of the two dominant parties or have smaller parties representing their ethnic or cultural group (Latin American Bureau 1984; Nascimento and Burrowes 1970). Despite this racial-ethnic diversity, national politics in Guyana have been largely figured within an African/East Indian binary. Indeed, there was a great deal of animosity between the African and East Indian descendant populations that had been both manufactured historically by the White ruling elite and fostered by these two political parties. By the 1960s the leader of the PNC, Forbes Burnham, had so ingratiated himself with Britain and the United States that Guyana’s independence was granted only with the provision that a noncommunist government under his leadership would be in place.14 After independence (in 1966), Burnham set about initiating a series of reforms that were geared at nationalizing the country’s

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key industries—bauxite, sugar, and rice. In addition to industry, the civil sector and all government and state institutions were declared the arms of the ruling party in 1975 (Latin American Bureau 1984). The educational system was also taken over by the state, and free education was instituted. Burnham’s 1980 constitution even adopted the direction of the UN Decade for Women by establishing a Women’s Advisory Board within the Office of the Prime Minister (Peake 1993). Despite all these seemingly progressive reforms, it is also well documented that the PNC manipulated elections to keep itself in power. And the same constitution that granted women equal rights,15 also granted the Executive Presidency with “imperial powers” and established Burnham as “leader for life” (Brotherson 1989, 1992; Daniels 1995; Latin American Bureau 1984; V. Radzik, interview 1996). The 1970s and 1980s were characterized by vast spending cuts that triggered widespread food shortages and the impending breakdown of the public and social service sectors. Mismanagement and simple neglect of the public works system made life unbearable for Guyanese citizens. The lack of running water, gas for cooking, communication, and transportation services severely hampered the quality of life for the average person. The legitimacy of the Burnham regime was being questioned even by those of African descent who had been loyal to the party. It is during this period, at the height of President Forbes Burnham’s (mis)rule that oppositional forces began to coalesce across the divides of race-ethnicity, religion, and class that had defined Guyanese political life (Lewis 1998). One response to the sociopolitical and economic turmoil was the emergence of a third, multiracial party: the Working People’s Alliance (WPA).16 The WPA began as a pressure group made up of disaffected African, East Indian, Portuguese, and mixed Guyanese who had been involved in various protests against Burnham (Kwayana 1988, Lewis 1998). They came together under the leadership of historian, social critic, and activist Walter Rodney, because they were fed up with the two-party system’s top-down style of rule, which bred ethnic factionalism and extreme repression of oppositional thought or action. The party was built on an ideology that sought to unite the popular classes across the divides of race, ethnicity, religion, and culture. The founders of Red Thread—Andaiye, Karen de Souza, Jocelyn Dow, Bonita Harris, Diana Matthews, Danuta Radzik, and Vanda Radzik—were activists within or supporters of the WPA and had been

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involved in various protests against Burnham’s hegemonic regime. They were engaged in struggles to establish viable trade unions and free-and-fair elections, to abolish violent repression of members/ activists in oppositional political parties, and to promote freedom of the press and speech. Several of them, particularly Andaiye, Bonita Harris, and Diana Matthews, were also engaged in the women’s movement—nationally, regionally, and internationally, linking their struggles to those of black and brown women throughout the world. At the same time, however, they were cognizant of the need to act locally to engender appropriate social and political change. The WPA women began to mobilize poor and working-class women in protests against the rampant food shortages17 resulting, in part, from the government’s attempt to comply with the structural adjustment mandates of the International Monetary Fund. Their decision to start Red Thread was a response to the narrowing of women’s choices (politically, socially, and economically) within Burnham’s increasingly authoritarian regime. They also articulated a desire to mobilize women across the divides of race/ethnicity, class/ status, and geography (urban/rural) that plagued Guyana’s national political culture (Red Thread 1994). The founding women came to be known as “resource” women in recognition of their roles as providers of various resources (grant-writing skills, meeting spaces, organizational experiences) that sustained the group. The resource women organized within Red Thread rural and semirural women of African and East Indian descent to participate in consciousness-raising and small income-generating activities.18 The women organized in this manner became known as “community” women—often referred to “grassroots” women in the literature on women and development.19 The Red Thread women defined their work as both community-building and a critique of the political status quo.20 The United Nations Decade for Women’s (1975–1985) emphasis on “third world” women’s economic development opened up space and provided ways for the resource women and the community women to come together (Bailey 2004; Pietilä and Vickers 1994). The organization, which began as the Women’s Development Committee in 1982 and was later renamed Red Thread21 Women’s Development Organisation in 1986, grew by 1990 to include several small scale enterprises: embroidery/handicraft and textile production; a printing press specializing in low-cost exercise and textbooks

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for school children; production and sale of hand-made furniture woven from locally grown Nibbi straw; and a community laundry (Peacocke 1995). In addition to the income-generating projects, Red Thread organized three collective units of community women charged with “implementing, managing, and evaluating awareness program[s] to facilitate both internal and outreach conscientisation processes” (Peacocke 1995:56). The three units were developed with representatives from each community. There was a workshop team focused on strengthening internal communication among the women and developing leadership skills; a health team that organized and facilitated community health projects, particularly related to women’s health; and a team of women trained to do social science research22 (questionnaire preparation, distribution and evaluation of surveys) and grant writing. Of all the materials that I had been able to access during my preliminary research trip to the region in 1994, Red Thread seemed a model of a successful women’s development organization. I had envisioned that my research with the members would give me the opportunity to analyze a significant example of women’s collective political mobilization and resistance. I wanted to deepen our understanding of the importance of that work for both larger social change and women’s empowerment. I conceptualized my study of this organization as rooted in feminist and antiracist practices and sources of knowledge.23 Most pointedly, I wanted to talk and interact directly with the women of Red Thread and create a space in which they would narrate their life stories. I hoped that they would tell me the ways in which their coming together to form Red Thread was an articulation of their grounded feminist/womanist24 consciousness. The narratives of the women of Sistren that I read in Lionheart Gal several years earlier on that plane ride home from Jamaica were a guide in my inquiry.

Feminist Ideals, Sociological Practices, and Ethnographic Realities In 1996 I flew to Guyana to gather the life histories of the Red Thread women. Over the course of several months, I spent time with 17 community25 women and 6 resource26 women, conducting interviews that ranged from 30 minutes to 3 hours. The interviews were

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typically done in the women’s home space or in the flat of resource woman Karen de Souza, which served as the primary Red Thread meeting place. I usually began by asking them general questions about their lives, for example, where they were born, how many siblings they had, and so on. What unfolded, then, was each woman’s telling of her personal history, which included stories of her upbringing, her experiences with school, her parents, her siblings, sexual and romantic relationships with men, and her children. Usually, the story of how she came to find Red Thread was imbedded in her telling of these interconnected stories of her life. By gathering their narratives, I believed that I was privileging their lived experience as the primary criterion through which to assess the significance of Red Thread in their lives and in the sociopolitical environment (Collins 2001). But I struggled with competing epistemologies. Because of my training in a fairly traditional sociology program, I went armed with hypotheses and theories through which I would categorize the Red Thread women and their collective movement. At the same time, I considered myself versed in and was, in fact, practicing feminist methods. I was conversant in the literature on the use of qualitative methodology, generally, and feminist oral and life histories in particular (Borland 1991; DeVault 1990; Gluck and Patai 1991; Perreault 1995; Reinharz 1992). But, given my disciplinary location, I was also aware of the critiques of these methodologies, largely rooted in concerns about issues of bias, subjectivity, and interviewer effects.27 Although my desire to be engaged in “meaningful” research overrode these types of concerns, I was still required to perform a particular kind of “scientific” endeavor. So, as I recorded the stories of the Red Thread women, I did not contribute my own—at least not in the formal setting of the taped interview. However, in the time that I spent with the Red Thread women—either in going to or from their homes or in moments of downtime at the Red Thread meeting space in Georgetown—we did engage in more “sisterly” types of conversations about men, about life, and so on. In these conversations, the women often asked me what brought me to Guyana and why was I doing this work. Some of the women thought that I had a Guyanese background. Others thought I had a Guyanese boyfriend. Most, I think, just thought of me as a woman researcher from the West interested in issues of social justice and equality for women. Although my feelings and emotions unconsciously shaped the research experience in significant ways,

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my self-disclosure was not built into the formal interview process (Ellis 1995b, 1991; Kleinman and Copp 1993). I had anticipated developing a sense of connection and camaraderie with the women of Red Thread. I imagined myself as both student and advocate for “their” cause. I believed that focusing my research on Red Thread would allow me to engage in a participatory research project. In my vision of participatory research, I was to become integrated into the organization’s activities and to feel connected to their struggles. I understood that my goal as a feminist researcher was to collect and analyze the life histories of the Red Thread women with a critical political eye and to hope the products of my research might become a part of the process of empowerment for “third world” women. Being in Guyana, however, interrupted that agenda. In creating my research project I had not taken into account how my previous experiences in the Caribbean might affect my current exploration into the field as a researcher. I had not anticipated how my feelings of uprootedness (as a displaced granddaughter of the American South) would shape the research experience. I was also not prepared for my reactions to the exigencies of life and work in the field. I found that each day was a struggle. Each attempt to go out and collect “the data” was like bearing the weight of my race, my class, my gender, and my nation on my shoulders. The differences in physical terrain were stark. I often struggled in the Guyanese context with the lack of conveniences I had taken for granted in the United States. Indeed, my relationship with the land, my movement within and across the landscape, had shifted. In Guyana, I was more likely to walk or take the minibus and periodically a taxi; in the United States, I was more likely to drive or ride in a privately owned car. Similarly, my negotiation of outhouses, outdoor showers, and indoor bathrooms with no running water challenged my “first world” sensibilities in ways that were humbling. Being a researcher in Guyana forced me to experience myself as a middle-class, American woman of African descent. Like my earlier experiences in the Caribbean—my trip as a tourist with my family in the mid-1980s and my journey there as a new graduate student in 1991—I became supremely conscious of the intersection of race, class, gender, and nation not only in one’s lived experiences but also as formative of one’s outlook or perspective. While in the United States, I understood myself within the context of racial (and gendered) injustice where economic and social

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privileges had been closed off to the majority of the population descended from enslaved Africans. Indeed, my presence in the graduate program was made possible by the collective struggles of black, Chicana, Native, and progressive white Americans for reparative programs such as affirmative action. Without the financial assistance that came from a fellowship geared toward minority students,28 attending a graduate program full-time would have been inconceivable. But my understanding of self and my social location shifted in the Guyanese context, where as an American academic (albeit one in training) I brought with me a certain amount of status and privilege (McIntosh 1988). This experience of my black American self complicated expected feelings of connection and camaraderie with the Red Thread women based on presumably similar or, at least, historically parallel racial and gendered identities.29 While in Guyana, I lived within the disjuncture of a scientifically rendered research design and a research experience that was embodied and ethnographic. I had designed a qualitative, interviewbased research project within a quantitative model of data collection. I had developed an 11-page interview protocol to guide my interactions with the women of Red Thread. I anticipated conducting interviews with the women within a specified time frame, returning to California to transcribe and analyze the interviews, and then “writing-up” my “findings” within the theoretical frameworks of social movement theory, the literature on women and development in the “third world,” and feminist thought that had guided my inquiry. I was not located anywhere in this production. I was not expected to engage in self-analysis or self-assessment.30 I was there, as one senior professor told me only partially tongue in cheek, to get “the data” and to get out. And so I tried to keep two separate accounts of the research experience.31 One was intended for public consumption. I kept logs of my interviews with the women of Red Thread and made notes on our scheduled meetings, the physical surroundings of the interview site, and the beginnings of theoretical analyses of their stories. In a private journal, sometimes written longhand in a purple spiral notebook or in a folder labeled “Guyana Diary” on my laptop computer, I recorded emotions deemed unfit, unruly, and unlikely to be shared with anyone. I intended this second account of the research experience to be a place where I could sort through and safely contain evidence of my struggle with living and working in Guyana. Journal

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writing had always served that purpose in my life.32 As an only child, keeping a diary was almost like always having my best girlfriend secretly tucked away in my bedroom. When in pain, or scared, or lonely, I would turn to my diary and write out my thoughts. When I was enraged, impassioned, or excited, the diary was where I could most freely express my interior life.33 I carried this use of the personal journal into the field as I conducted research. In my Guyana diaries, I grappled with a series of questions and concerns: feelings of displacement and discomfort “in the field,” only partially attributable to culture shock; concern with my ability to do the work and to adequately represent the complexity of the women’s lives in my writings; desire to create a connection with the women and with the Guyanese struggle but instead feeling multiply “other”—as a black American woman; confronting feelings of alienation and loneliness; and struggling to contain all these emotions so that they would not rupture and “contaminate” the research project. When I returned from Guyana, I put the diaries in a manila folder and filed them away. As a graduate student returning from the field, my primary occupation was the production of the dissertation that would mark my rite of passage34 from student to scholar. I completed my dissertation, applied for academic post-docs and tenure-track jobs, and generally set about the task of entering and establishing myself within the profession. In my analysis of the activities of Red Thread, who I was or why I had chosen to focus my work within the region was not central to my interpretation. The insertion of my self came only in my “Acknowledgments” section preceding the formal text of the dissertation and in a footnote in Chapter One: The politics of my identity in the “field” has been of particular interest. Because I am an African American, both Guyanese and Americans often ask me if I have some kind of family connection to Guyana. I do not. And, in fact, I have often questioned my own motivations in this arena. My reasons for doing this research are obviously complex, driven both by a genuine fascination with the political and social scene in Guyana and a fundamental concern with ways in which women of color, in the “first” and “third” worlds, affect change. I started this research wanting to make an explicit comparative analysis of women in the Caribbean and women of color in the U.S.35 but found this task too large an undertaking for my first time out. I remain committed, however, to linking these experiences to begin to understand the

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elements needed in a multiracial and gendered politic that may serve to empower “third world” peoples. (Nettles 1998:24)

Even here, perhaps especially here in the document through which the Ph.D. would be conveyed, my presentation of self is carefully circumscribed. I am aware of the need to construct myself as an authority, with clear and objective principles and goals.36 However, my Guyana diaries refused to remain silently tucked away in their manila folder. As I returned to the Red Thread women’s narratives in the post-dissertation phase, I also returned to my own. As I read, reread, and analyzed the stories of their struggles with poverty and economic uncertainty, their attempts to find a way to survive materially and emotionally, and their efforts to create collective spaces of empowerment and creativity, I thought also about my journey to Guyana and being among the Red Thread women. But even as I began writing about my own journeys in the field, I felt the need to keep our narratives discrete. I could not let go of the belief that my feelings of displacement while in Guyana were not a legitimate part of the story I should tell about the women of Red Thread.37 And so I labored many years producing two separate narratives: a self-reflexive one exploring my emotional reactions to field research and an analytical one examining the women’s movement and the women’s lives within the movement. As a result, I inadvertently recreated my earlier quantitative research experience in this writing process; the women’s narratives became disconnected “data” to be analyzed by me an omniscient observer. In fact, I created a type of dual personality, whereby I spoke relatively candidly in one context about the research experience and in another as an authority on the significance of Red Thread in the Guyanese sociohistorical order. I moved farther and farther away from what I had hoped to achieve: a work that not only informs and provokes debate but also captures the imagination of the reader (and the writer) by evoking a palpable sense of the research and writing experiences. I was losing sight of my own admonition: I am humbled and shamed by my experiences in Guyana. I, who had so many privileges and advantages—even as a black American—given to me, was oftentimes unable to cope with the “realities” of the country. I found it difficult to work through my own feelings of uncomfortableness

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| Chapter 1 and displacement to do the work at hand. I do not say this to call into question the substance of my writing, the content of my “data,” or the reliability of my “findings.” My candor here is to put into perspective the space from which this document was produced. As a young woman doing research in another place—another space very much apart from her own—and, at the same time, besieged with longings for home—not just the physical home of my birth but the home of my soul and psyche—which I never found in Guyana and which I suspected (before venturing on the trip) was/is located within—every day was a struggle. And so I refuse to produce a document that is written in the same academese, which bespeaks nothing and does not tell of the struggle to remain sane while “doing research” and appearing intelligent and representative of those like you. [I refuse to produce] a document written as if the research was really [only] a job and not [also] a convoluted way of discovering self. (Guyana Diaries, September 1, 1996).

Writing Autoethnography: Women’s Lives Across Difference Given the distortions of memory and the mediation of language, narrative is always a story about the past, not the past itself. (Ellis & Bochner 2000:745) Autoethnography is . . . a form of self-narrative that places the self within a social context. It is both a method and a text. (Reed-Danahay 1997:9) As a term of textual analysis and as an orientation to textual production, autoethnography renames a familiar story of divided selves longing for a sense of place and stability in the fragments and discontinuities of modernity. Writing and reading such stories [have] long been a means of collecting ourselves, of seeking order and meaning in a world that often conspires against continuity, and of actively confronting the vague empty spaces of modern life, as Marshall Berman . . . says, to “make ourselves at home in a constantly changing world.” (Neumann 1996:174)

Today, as I return to my personal diary kept during field research and explore my experiences traveling with the Red Thread women’s narratives and my own, I see that my researcher self and my personal self were (and are) intimately interconnected. The mind/body split that I was laboring under—that was both externally imposed and internally accepted—was a false construction. My Guyana diaries are about my personal and emotional reactions to the lived experience of field research. But they also document my attempts to make sense of my self within the context of the Red Thread women’s stories that

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I recorded and analyzed. In this book, my story, my movement in and out of the field, is only one of the narratives I tell. As such, this work emerges at the “interstices of autobiography and ethnography” (Hanson 2004:185). Like Hanson, I use the term autoethnography to connote a commitment to document both the lives of other people and the simultaneous exploration of the researcher’s relationship to the subject(s) of study. In my (re)writing, I pay attention to the deeply felt reflections in my field journals and endeavor to write in ways that honor both my own journey and those of the women I journeyed to and with (Dunham 1946). Significantly, this book documents my contact38 with the women and with Guyana and attempts to write through the friction39 of that meeting. So, while I tell the stories of the Red Thread women, I endeavor to make clear that I am constructing a narrative that privileges my emotional life as I did the field research and the writing that ultimately became this book (Abu-Lughod 1991, 1993; Brettell 1997; Ellis 1991; Ellis and Bochner 2000; Richardson 1994). I recognize that that my unspoken desire to “give voice”40 to the women of Red Thread masked the degree to which the voice I wanted to give them was not the one that they would claim. And, in fact, in my efforts to capture their stories and (re)tell them here, I am engaging in a process that actually gives me the voice that I have struggled to find (Nettles and Patton 2000). Thus there is a certain cathartic element in the writing and the telling for the author that I, nevertheless, hope does not eclipse the power of the Red Thread women’s stories for the reader (Sparkes 2002). Indeed, it is their stories—the impact they had on me and the responsibility I felt to get them right—that forms the basis of my methodological approach in this writing. As Carolyn Ellis writes: “I start with my personal life. I pay attention to my physical feelings, thoughts, and emotions. I use what I call systematic sociological introspection and emotional recall to try to understand an experience I’ve lived through. Then I write my experience as a story” (Ellis and Bochner 2000:737). In my case, I merge the two primary documents of my field research—the transcripts from my in-depth interviews with the women of Red Thread41 and my personal diaries kept while in Guyana—into a narrative that weaves in and out of the present and the past. In recounting events outside the formal field of research I utilized photographs, other diaries, letters, memory, and informal conversations with friends and colleagues.42

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Combining my self-narrative and the women’s narratives into an ethnographic form that is part fictional43 and part social-science prose allows me to be less bound to the proscriptive of “getting it right” and more concerned with “‘getting it’ differently contoured and nuanced” (Ellis 1991; Richardson 1994:521), to explore the ways in which my own thinking of self deepened as I thought more holistically about the women’s lives. When I spent time with the parts of their stories that resonated most with me and attempted to engage in an evocative representation of the field of research—which was located in and out of Guyana—I came to see the process as not one of “failure” (Visweswaran 1997), as my self-narrative alone seemed to suggest, but rather as rich, complicated, and complex. This book is a departure from the majority of my previous writings about Red Thread (Nettles 1998, 2003, 2007). In those I focused on the formation of the organization by a group of women who had been deeply engaged in the oppositional struggle against the oppressive regime of President Forbes Burnham in the 1980s. My interviews with the women in the mid-1990s focused, however, not only on their public activist work but also on their personal struggles with self, with identity, and with finding a place from which to craft a meaningful and sustaining life. Indeed, their personal stories were particularly poignant, given the economic crises that continued to plague Guyana and negatively affected their ability to maintain an active membership within Red Thread. While developing my original research proposal, I anticipated doing a case study of a successful women’s development organization. What I found upon my arrival in Guyana was a dramatically diminished base of participants. At its peak, Red Thread reportedly mobilized more than 200 community women in a variety of income-generating and consciousness-raising projects (Peacocke 1995). When I arrived, there were less than two dozen community women engaged in the work of Red Thread on a regular basis. And, the resource women were also scaling back their involvement to pursue paid employment in other locations. Among all the women I was able to meet with there was a sense of concern about the future of Red Thread. It was a reflective moment. It seemed clear in my talking with the women, particularly the community women, that beyond just the potential to earn an income, there was something else that kept them there and involved. Among those women with whom I had the most in-depth and lengthy interactions, there was an almost universal expression of how in their

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work with Red Thread they were able to “come out of shyness.” Many of the women found a space within the organization in which they have been able to articulate their political and social consciousness. A space where they learned more about Guyana, the world, and more importantly, themselves. A space where they could take what they have learned and pass it along to other women in their families and in their communities. And, a space where they might engage in and challenge the oppressive structures of society. Beyond their economic needs lurked a desire for a place of learning and community with other women. Their movement away from paid/unpaid housework to paid work in the capital city, other villages and communities not their own, and sometimes abroad served to expand their horizons in significant ways. Their work outside the traditional home-space allowed them to reconceptualize their labor within it (Nettles 2003). What the community women created, within Red Thread, was a sort of home.44 These women became owners of the group in much the same way as the middle-class women who founded the organization. So the income-earning potential, although significant, had been eclipsed by the importance of the women finding communal spaces in their work with Red Thread. Interestingly, it was especially in my interviews with the community women that I had to come to terms with my race and class status within the country. I found myself positioned in ways that fostered feelings of displacement, discomfort, and unease —of not being at home. However, I felt a distinct parallel between my experiences of uprootedness within the stories of several of the resource women. For the middle-class women, especially Andaiye, Vanda Radzik, and Danuta Radzik, travel in and out of Guyana during their formative years was a common occurrence. The experience of their Guyanese selves in other places pushed them to think of ways in which their political, economic, and social work could be done in service to a larger movement to create a Guyana for all the Guyanese people. So, for many of the resource women, becoming oppositional activists often precipitated their return home to Guyana. And, in their activist work with the WPA and other political organizations and then later within Red Thread, the degree to which they developed a strong relational network formed the center of their political identities. In this work, I show how the process of returning home (both symbolically/metaphorically and literally) for the women I

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interviewed and for me is not simply about a reconnection with a land or a people but also about a journey toward a more grounded sense of self and identity. I explore the ways in which going home is necessarily about a return to a place from which to engage in the struggle for self-determination, sovereignty, and the negotiation of a viable community. Working with a core group of 11 Red Thread women’s narratives, I use storytelling to illuminate the complex relationships between the apparent placelessness of global culture, seemingly uncomplicated transnational identities, and the ongoing significance of locality as a locus of self and meaningful personal and political engagements. In their narratives, the Red Thread women frame their movement within and outside Guyana and their decision to start or join Red Thread as manifestations of their desire to construct particular relationships to home—broadly configured as nation, household, and family. In a deeply interconnected story, I search for a place to call home in my public work as an academic and also in my private life. Bringing together the public and the private in ways that are sustaining is, I believe, at the root of my struggle. In my narrative, I trouble the black feminist ethnographic impulse to search for and expect kinship and community with research subjects of color (McClaurin 1996, 2001; Winddance Twine and Warren 2000). Specifically, I illustrate how my own desire to find a particular type of connection with the Guyanese women I interviewed was built on an assumption that we shared a history of colonization and were, at some level, sisters. However, my interaction with the women of Red Thread and within the terrain of Guyana was shaped by the profound differences of nation and class. Although I believe that questions of collectivity, community, and coming to voice are deeply imbedded in all our journeys, in gathering and reflecting on the narratives of the Red Thread women I have become aware of the ways in which our stories offer both compelling parallels as well as productive disjunctures.

CHAPTER 2 Critical Incidents: Representing Others, Representing Self

Mistaken Identities and Authorial Intent February 2002 I close the door to my office and walk down the hall to the African-American and African Studies (AAS) conference room on a Friday afternoon to participate in a seminar for black freshmen and transfer students. The seminar on Self Empowerment is designed to support the students’ entry onto a campus that has seen dwindling numbers of all students of color and most dramatically of black students in the post-Proposition 209 admissions climate.1 I was asked to speak to the students on any topic that I wanted: advice on adjusting to campus, how to choose a major, avenues to graduate school, or on my research. I decide to give a talk based on an essay I had just submitted 37

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for publication consideration that focuses on my emotional response to doing field research in Guyana.2 When I reach the conference room, the students are assembled around a large square table composed of several smaller, rectangular tables pushed together into the center of the room. At the back of the room there are beverages and snacks for us to consume after my presentation. The students are talking to one another and continue to do so as I enter and sit in a chair at the front of the room. The student affairs officer who organized the seminar greets me before he rises from his chair and takes the podium. “Welcome, welcome.” He says and then pauses to let the students settle down before continuing. “Today, we have Professor Kimberly Nettles who recently joined the faculty in the Women and Gender Studies Program. She is going to talk to us today about her research. Please do give her your attention.” The students clap as I rise to take the podium. I put my papers down and start with asking them a question, “How many of you have had the opportunity to travel outside the U.S.?” Out of about 15 students in the room, three or four raise their hands. “Where have you gone?” “Hawaii,” says one young man to my left. “Mexico,” says another student in the back of the room. “The Caribbean,” says a tall, very slender woman sitting on the right-hand side of the table. “Wonderful,” I say glad to hear that someone had been in the Caribbean and would have some reference point for my talk. “I did my research in Guyana, a Caribbean country that is located on the South American continent between Venezuela and Surinam.” The young woman nods her head knowingly. I continue: “I went there to do research with a group of women who were members of a development organization called Red Thread. This group was founded to assist women in getting access to education, to start small-scale businesses, and to produce workshops on issues related to women’s situation in the country. Issues like domestic violence or abortion rights.” Most of the students seem only marginally interested in what I am saying. But the woman who said she had traveled to the Caribbean did not take her eyes off me. As I gave more background information about the country and its sociopolitical history, it was as if she and I were having a conversation.

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I wrap up my mini-history lesson by saying: “What I would like to talk about today is how the process of doing research in Guyana really pushed me to think about my identity as a middle-class African American woman.” I pause and look down at my stack of papers. I find the beginning of my talk and begin reading. “For several years, really since my return, I have been working on a self-reflexive essay which is currently titled ‘Looking for Home in All the Wrong Places: Personal Reflections on Race, Identity, and the Emotions of Fieldwork.’” As I say the title, I hear a loud noise as if someone dropped a heavy notebook on the floor. I look up, and the young woman with whom I had been imagining a connection had slammed her hand forcefully on the table sending her pen careening across its surface before it landed on the opposite side of the room. I am stunned. She looks at me with her brows deeply knotted and then looks away. She is clearly upset, but I am unsure about what to do. The room is completely silent for several seconds, and then the student affairs officer clears his throat and urges me to continue. I nod my head, look back to my sheaf of papers on the podium, and begin speaking in the carefully modulated voice I use for academic presentations. A voice that belies the emotion I am feeling as well as the content of my paper. After I finish, a few students ask questions, but it is clear that my talk has not been well-received. As the session comes to an end, the student affairs officer encourages us to continue our “dialogue” while consuming the refreshments laid out in the rear of the room. As I stand awkwardly in the back of the room and drink a bottle of sparkling water, one of the co-coordinators of the seminar, a middleaged black woman who works as an administrator on campus, walks up to me and introduces herself. As we shake hands she says: “I know what you mean about doing research; I haven’t done any since I finished my dissertation and decided not to pursue the teaching/research track.” “Yes, well, I don’t know if it is the research itself or the writing. How do we express what we’ve experienced? How do we bring the stories back? You know what I mean?” She nods her head affirmatively: “Yes. That is a challenge. There is so much that’s often left unsaid in our official reports.” “Right, right.”

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As our conversation shifts to more mundane topics, I look around the room to see if the tall young woman is still there. Few students remain and she is not one of them. The following week, I receive this message in my e-mail inbox: …  …  …  … Hello Professor Nettles, I am a student in Self Empowerment, the class that you spoke in on Friday. From your lecture I got the impression that you had a somewhat tainted view of Guyana. To me a lot of what you said conflicted with my own views of Guyana and its people. Both my mother and father are from Guyana, and I have visited there myself. The Guyana that I have come to know bears no resemblence [sic] to the Guyana you spoke about. Maybe I misinterpreted some of what you said, but if I did not have any prior knowledge of Guyana or its people I would not think very highly of it or them from the way that you spoke. As I mentioned, maybe I misunderstood what you were trying to say but I would love the opportunity to discuss the topic at length with you. I would appreciate it if you could e-mail me in order to set up a time to discuss this.

…  …  …  … I assume that the student who had been visibly upset with my talk was the author of this e-mail. I was glad that she had taken the time to reach out to me, and I hoped that we would be able to have some conversation about what happened. After reading through her e-mail several times, I craft my response: …  …  …  … Dear Student, Yes, I think you misunderstood my intentions. The purpose of the talk was not to be negative of Guyana or its people but to understand the country and my experiences there within a particular set of racial, national, and political contexts—and as a critique of the assumptions I (as a black American) had going into the research project. Your experiences in and your understandings of Guyana come from a different place from my own—as a daughter of the country and with a strong familial connection to it. These two experiences are just that—different, each borne out of a different set of expectations, assumptions, desires, and feelings of connection and/or disconnection.

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I have been in dialogue with many Caribbean Americans and black Americans who have traveled extensively throughout the Caribbean and Africa, and I feel certain that while many felt “at home” in these places, many also shared my feelings of unease. If we are to engage in a true and ongoing discussion among people of the African Diaspora, I think it is imperative that we not pretend that there is one truth or one valid experience of self or self-identity . . . or one true notion of blackness. I am absolutely open to discuss this further with you at any time. (I am generally available for students Friday afternoons.) And, if you want to invite your classmates to continue this dialogue with me, I would be more than happy to facilitate that process.

…  …  …  … Although I hoped that she would take me up on my offer to facilitate dialogue between us, she does not respond to my e-mailed response. Had I been too strident? Too defensive? …  …  …  … Several months later, I am invited to attend a meeting of a Caribbean and Latin American Studies working group that meets regularly on campus. The student who was in the Self Empowerment seminar is also a participant in the group and is scheduled to give a presentation. I feel some unease, but know that I want to attend the meeting and to attempt to open a dialogue with her. When I arrive in the seminar room, I sit away from the main seminar table, along the periphery of the room. By chance, I am seated directly behind her while she gives her presentation. At several points during her presentation, particularly when describing the various political parties in Guyana, she turns to catch my eye and seemingly encourages me to offer input about the racial-ethnic affiliation of each party. Although I do give some input, I am conscious about not wanting to usurp her authority. Her presentation focuses on the racial-ethnic and class issues that permeate the historical and contemporary Guyanese reality. She begins by positioning herself within this topic by showing us pictures of her family and describing their racial-ethnic and class statuses within Guyana. She has marvelous old black-and-white photographs of her family and is clearly engaged in thinking through her own family history in the context of the sociopolitical history of Guyana. As a daughter of Guyanese immigrants, it seems that her underlying

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question is to examine why her parents had chosen to migrate from the land of their birth. After she concludes, the seminar participants—both undergraduate and graduate students—engage in a discussion of the material she presented. The professor who facilitates this group offers comparisons from other Caribbean places of how race-ethnicity and class operate. In his remarks, he refers to me as the Guyanese “expert” and defers to me when making substantive comments about the Guyanese “case.” It is a moment when my identities as a professor and Caribbean scholar are fore-grounded. The power differentials between me and this student are evident. Her claims of knowledge from a personal relationship with Guyana are of a different order. My claims of knowledge from the position of scholar and researcher seem paramount. It is an ironic juxtaposition. After her talk, we speak briefly. Neither one of us mentions our previous e-mail exchanges. Although I encourage her to come and talk with me if she wants any support with her project, I suspect that she will not. But I am thinking about her work, her identity, and my own. In my reflexive writing I understood myself as a student and individual working through complicated notions of home and belonging, discomfort and unease in my experience of the research process. Although I was focused on what I perceived to be my personal struggles in the course of conducting field research, my self-narrative evoked concern by this woman about my representation of her place of origin. By leading with a story of discomfort I had failed to fulfill my role as a conveyer of a particular discussion about Guyana or Guyanese people. I had not understood myself as an emissary who had taken on the role of cultural mediator to convey the “riches of the Other culture” to an appreciative audience (U. Narayan 1997:10). I believe that this black woman, who felt a Caribbean identity within a community of African American students,3 needed something more and different from what I delivered. My narrative of discomfort did not evoke solidarity with her across the divides of nation. She may not have felt empowered by my representation and may, in fact, have felt unfairly exposed. With so little available to the American consciousness about Guyana, beyond the tragedy of Jim Jones’s People’s Temple,4 my story of discomfort and unease perhaps only added to this negative public image.

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This series of exchanges gave me pause, and even though I received encouraging comments from the feminist journal who reviewed my essay, “Looking for Home in All the Wrong Places,” I decide to shelve it to think more about the politics of this writing process.

Whose Story Is It, Anyway? March 2004 “You’ve put so much work into it. I’d hate to see you give up now.” My mother says as she tries to comfort me from long distance. “But I can’t continue to ignore my feelings!” I nearly shout. “I need to have some peace in my life. I can’t let this drag on much longer.” “Oh, Kim . . . what can I say? You are very upset right now. Give it some time to settle, and then come back and think about it again with fresh eyes. I’m certain that all is not lost.” And then she adds, emphatically: “I don’t completely understand what you’re doing, but I think the project is important.” We talk for several more minutes, and I calm down a bit. When we hang up, I go upstairs to the bathroom and wash my face. After walking my dog Fudge and having dinner, I take a sleeping pill in an effort to get a full night’s sleep. The next day is a teaching day. But, as usual, I am awake at 2:00 A.M. As I lay quietly, half-heartedly doing deep-breathing exercises hoping to lull myself back to sleep, I think about the most recent crisis in my research and writing. Since it is clear that I won’t be going back to sleep, I get out of bed and walk across the hall toward my home office. In the semi-dark, the banner my friends and family signed at the party celebrating my receipt of the doctorate is slightly illuminated by the street lights outside. “Congratulations, Dr. Nettles” it proclaims. I avoid looking at the banner as I make my way to the door of my office. Once there, I switch on the overhead light and walk over to my desk. I sit and begin rooting around amid the stacks of papers and neatly labeled file folders, I locate the recent e-mail correspondence between me and one of the Red Thread women. I sit in my desk chair and reread our letters sent over the past two months, glancing up now and then to the main street outside my window. The traffic light goes from green, to yellow, to red. In the near distance, I hear the train rumble by, blowing its horn and causing the house to tremble. I wonder how long I will be awake.

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| Chapter 2 …  …  …  … 26 January 2004 Hello Andaiye, It has been over seven years since I interviewed you and the other women of Red Thread for my dissertation project. It is hard to believe that so much time has passed! I have read about various speeches and activities you have been engaged in over the years . . . and I hope that you are doing well. Since the time I spent in Guyana, I completed my dissertation and have taught at two universities. I now teach in the Women and Gender Studies Program at UC Davis. I have also written a couple of essays utilizing the interviews I conducted with Red Thread members, and both will be appearing as chapters in different books, one on Caribbean development and the other on women’s activism in the African Diaspora.5 I will make sure to send a copy of them as soon as they become available. Over the years, I have returned to each of your narratives and read and reread them. Your stories have been inspirational and sustaining for me as I have journeyed from one place to another. In fact, in some of my work I write about the parallels of my journey in relation to “home” along with the narratives of the Red Thread women. I am writing to you now because I have recently been in the process of conceptualizing a book using your life history narratives. I have begun by writing an essay that I am hoping to publish in the academic journal Meridians: Feminism Race Transnationalism. I am attaching a rough draft of the essay here and would welcome the opportunity to hear your feedback, particularly your feelings about my use of your life history in this way. I look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience. Sincerely, Kimberly

…  …  …  …

26 February 2004 Dear Kimberly, I’m sorry to have taken so long to respond. I’m copying this to Karen and Alissa,6 both of whom I consulted, since this is not only about me; it’s about Red Thread. I just want to say a few things briefly, and I hope you won’t be upset by them: 1. I don’t have any problems with people knowing almost anything about me—not the breakdown, the hospitalization, none of

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it. But there has to be some point to their knowing this, other than just getting it off my chest. And I confess I don’t see how it contributes to your point about “home.” I particularly don’t see what it does in an academic journal. 2. Because it’s been so long since you interviewed us, your information/analysis about Red Thread is out of date; this no doubt includes information/analysis that I might have seen as right then. That may not in itself matter, but surely it is a problem that other interviews have been done with me—including a very long one about to come out in Caribbean7—which would show this up. There are also a few errors, but those aren’t the subject of this e-mail. If this seems terse, it isn’t meant to be. I’m only trying to say what I think clearly. Warm Regards, Andaiye

…  …  …  … 28 February 2004 Dear Andaiye, Thank you so much for taking the time to read through my essay and respond to my e-mail. I appreciate your comments and would love to have the opportunity to talk with you about the issues you raised. Your input is important to me, which is why I contacted you. Let me take a moment here to briefly comment. I recognize that it has been quite a bit of time since I interviewed you and the other women of Red Thread. Since writing and filing the dissertation in 1998, my thinking about your life stories has evolved considerably. The dissertation (and the two essays I published out of it) were written primarily from a social-movement perspective. Essentially, I was interested at that time in thinking about how you all came together to form Red Thread. The focus of my writings were on your efforts to organize a women’s group during a particular moment in Guyana’s social and political history. Given the nature of academic publishing in the U.S. and my own movement to three different universities since 1998, I have just recently gotten these works out. Since I last interviewed you all in 1996, I have returned again and again to your stories and have been increasingly drawn to interpret them through the lens of “home.” As a social scientist, I have become interested in how people within the African and Caribbean Diasporas define and constitute home places wherever they find themselves (in the U.S., Britain, Canada, etc.). I was particularly taken with how several of the resource women expressed a palpable desire to make Guyana a home space that could support and nurture all Guyanese people. My analysis, then, is clearly based on an interpretation of

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| Chapter 2 your stories recorded at a particular point in time and what I heard in your life stories that you shared with me. In my interpretation, your life histories are almost like snapshots which record your feelings and understandings of your lives at that time . . . but I recognize that they may not reflect how you think about your lives now. In the essay I sent you, I am fundamentally interested in how individuals and groups define themselves and their connections to the lands of their birth at a particular point in history. Your story has been pivotal in my attempts to consider the significance of a deeply gendered Caribbean identity during periods of political and social unrest in Guyana from the 1960s through the late 1980s. As with any research, there can be multiple interpretations of information. My intention is not to misrepresent your story or to misconstrue the “facts” of your life history. Rather, I am attempting to offer one interpretation, my interpretation, of your experiences. I am willing to make this more explicit in the essay. I would be interested in continuing this dialogue with you via telephone and hearing more about your thoughts before I complete the essay. I also have some thoughts about revising it in ways that take your comments into consideration, and I would like to share them with you. I can call at anytime that is convenient for you and would welcome the opportunity to do so. Please let me know if you are interested in talking more and, if so, how I can best reach you. Sincerely, Kimberly

…  …  …  … I lay the papers down on my desk and think to myself, “How many times have I read through these messages in the weeks since my last e-mail to Andaiye?” Perhaps I need to face the fact that it is possible I will not be hearing from her or any of the Red Thread women again. The editor from Meridians is waiting for the final version of the essay, and I don’t know what to do. Had I merely gotten the story wrong?—as Andaiye seemed to be saying. Or were there other factors at work? It was painfully ironic that she referred to the interview she’d done with the editor of Caribbean. I found myself caught within this culture of academic publishing and the attendant commodification of knowledge. She probably didn’t know that I submitted an abstract of the essay about her life to this editor, who had expressed interest in publishing it in their journal. That was more than a year earlier, and I missed the deadline for submitting the finished piece. I dropped the ball by not following up and she evidently decided

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to do an interview with Andaiye herself. I am also certain that my lack of consistent communication with the women since 1998—when I sent them the transcripts of the interviews—is also a factor in this response. “But what can I do about this now?” I think as I look bleary-eyed around my office. This is the room I spend most of my time in surrounded by the stuff of my work and the photos of my family and friends who live hundreds and thousands of miles away from me alone in this small college town. It is a space that is just beginning to come together. I have several bookcases along the walls filled with my collection of cooking magazines, old cookbooks, novels, and women’s self-help books. Every available flat surface—on the window ledges and atop the bookshelves—contains mismatched framed photos of the people I hold dear. The one section of blank wall closest to my desk has two framed posters: one black-andwhite photograph of the 1968 Sanitation Workers Strike in Memphis, Tennessee, where hundreds of workers stood holding signs with the simple statement “I am a Man,” and the second an image of a black woman in shadow on a black background with the headline “Black Women in the Academy: Defending Our Name, 1894–1994” from one of the first conferences I attended as a graduate student. Over my desk is my new wall calendar, simply titled “Faith,” which features beautiful black-and-white photographs of young black girls. The March photograph shows a smiling brown-skinned girl missing two bottom teeth. She is looking straight into the camera, and her chin is resting on the bridge made by her interlocking fingers. Her hair is braided and decorated with beads shaped like bows and flowers. There’s a sense of joy, confidence, and playfulness in this pose and others throughout the calendar. I wonder if I ever felt what I imagine emanates from the expression of this girl. When I think about the more than three years I spent working on reconceptualizing my approach to analyzing the life history narratives of Guyanese women I collected for my dissertation, the possibility of feeling joy, confidence, and playfulness seems remote. I had taken a long, winding path to reach this place. I was moving from a standard, albeit feminist, analysis of the life history narratives of the Red Thread women within the literatures on social movements and “third world” women and development8 to a more creative, reflexive approach that emphasized my connection to their stories and placed our experiences within the context of the diasporic reality of displacement and longing for “home.” In fact, writing the essay on Andaiye’s narrative had

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been something of an “Aha!” experience for me, a sort of paradigm shift.9 I had begun with thinking through her name change, from Sandra Brown to Andaiye, which means “a daughter comes home.” What she told me all those years ago in the front parlor of her home on Croal Street in Guyana was that the change in name signified for her a movement toward an identity that encompassed recognition of her African roots and her Caribbean present. That she was, like the Jamaican novelist and poet Michelle Cliff, claiming a name she was taught to despise (Cliff 1980). This decision to change her name occurred long before she became an oppositional activist in Guyanese national politics and before she and the other women decided to start Red Thread. But the ethos that surrounded this change in name had put her on the road toward her grounded, feminist activism. So, Andaiye’s narrative was the lens through which I read each of Red Thread women’s narratives. Not necessarily substantively; each of their stories hinges on differing constellations of life events. But, metaphorically, I had come to see that each of their stories was, in many ways, about this return “home.” Not a romantic return to safety and comfort, however. What I saw was a return to the struggle for self, for family, for community, and for nation. Reading Andaiye’s narrative in this way also allowed me to think about my own return “home” as a researcher, as an African American feminist scholar, and as a black woman. The experience I had with the young black Guyanese woman student soon after my arrival on this campus had also pushed me to think through these connections. But, my effort to recast and recover what had been a difficult and unsettling research and writing experience was once again threatened. Andaiye’s lack of response to my last e-mail signaled her reticence to (re)open a dialogue. And, truthfully, I am both deeply saddened and relieved. Saddened because my fears of disconnect between me and the women of Red Thread have seemingly come true; but relieved because I want to move on, to let go of the responsibility of telling their stories. Trying to resolve these competing emotions is what keeps me up at night.

Crisis I found myself in the midst of a crisis in representation that, although reflective of my particular research and writing experience and felt

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at a personal level, is also part of a larger debate in ethnographic praxis (Behar 1990, 1993, 1996; Clifford and Marcus 1986; Denzin 2002; Fabian 1990; Flaherty 2002a, 2002b; Rosaldo 1989; Visweswaran 1994). Whose story does the ethnographer/researcher tell? In a recent Journal of Contemporary Ethnography Review Symposium Flaherty (2002a) cogently outlines the history of the “crisis in representation.” He charts its beginnings in the 1970s and 1980s as literary critics and later anthropologists began in earnest to question the epistemological assumptions within their disciplines. At the center of the debate, which has been defined the “postmodern turn,” was the question: What is the relationship between facts and interpretation? Reading through the pivotal writings of Clifford (1986), Fish (1980), Lyotard (1979), Marcus and Fischer (1986), Rabinow (1986), and Van Maanen (1988, 1995), Flaherty writes that the crisis asserts that “there can be no single correct interpretation, because one’s interpretation of the facts—indeed the facts themselves—are products of one’s interpretative stance” (479). For ethnographers, the work of collecting and analyzing field research narratives was understood as primarily interpretative, rather than observational or purely descriptive (Van Maanen 1988:93). Not only are the stories that we tell about the “other” largely stories about ourselves, they are also fragmented, partial, and incomplete (Rosaldo 1989). Many feminist and “third world” scholars found the postmodern turn liberating and necessary (Behar 1993; Behar and Gordon 1995; Church 1995; D’Amico-Samuels 1991; Ellis 1991; Naples 2003; Reed-Danahay 1997; Richardson 1997; Rosaldo 1989; Visweswaran 1994, 1997; Wolf 1992). However, others have argued that although it is important to pay attention to the power inequities between the researched and the researcher and for the researcher to understand her positionality in the field and as a writer, focusing only on the instability of the research subject/object can be immobilizing (Flaherty 2002b; Manning 2002; Snow 2002). If there is no true story to tell, then what is the purpose or the substance of the work we do as researchers and writers? How can we tell a story of the “other” that recognizes our multiple subjectivities (Alsup 2004) as researched and researcher? My interactions with Andaiye, as did those with the young Guyanese student years earlier, had plunged me deep into this conundrum. Our correspondence had illuminated the degree to which my personal conflict may not be a shared one. But this crisis in

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representation has deeper roots. It extends not just from the moment of writing but also from the entire process of ethnographic practice. Why had my experiences with the women and in Guyana been so emotionally exhausting? And why had I imagined something different? As I sit in the dawning morning, I know that the temptation to give up is compelling; but the desire to tell the stories of my journey is stronger.

Teaching Reflexivity—Negotiating the Desire for Truth With daylight upon me, I realize that there will be no possibility of sleeping. As much as I want to crawl back into bed, pull the covers over my head, and escape the doubt and confusion crowding my brain, I know that I have to prepare for my afternoon feminist methodologies class. So I do what I have been trained to do. I review the assigned reading material and organize my notes for an interactive lecture/discussion on the challenges of feminist ethnographic research and reflective practices. I plan to use myself and my research as an example and to solicit input from the students who are conducting their own field research projects for the class. At noon, I leave my house and walk from my home in a university-subsidized neighborhood to my office on campus. The Women and Gender Studies Program, which is my campus home, is located on the second floor of what I think is one of the best buildings on campus. It’s a 1920s Spanish-style, salmon-colored stucco building with large windows situated on the west side of the campus quad area and surrounded by a variety of mature trees. It is immediately adjacent to both the main library and the student union. My office is in the northwest corner of the building and overlooks another small grassy area. Besides its architecture and central location on campus, what makes Hart Hall special is that it houses the Women’s Studies, Chicana/o Studies, African and African American Studies, Asian American Studies, and Native American Studies programs.10 I feel a certain amount of privilege to be surrounded by other people of color who are actively engaged in creative and scholarly endeavors informed by issues of social justice. My academic wanderings seem to have brought me to a place where I can construct a home place. …  …  …  …

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My class is located in a building a few feet from my office. Afternoon classes begin 10 minutes after the hour, and after the first week of the quarter I like to arrive in class at about 11 minutes after the hour. There’s something I find appealing about walking into a class full of students talking about the goings on in their lives or the assigned readings for the day. When I make my way from the door at the back of the room, to the table at the head of the room, I love to eavesdrop on their conversations. But today, the students are silent. I come in, move to the front of the classroom, and greet them as usual: “Hi. How’s everyone?” I am met with a rustling of papers, some barely audible “Fine’s” and “Ok’s,” and many more uncomfortable looks. It is a rainy day, and I have come in with my umbrella and jacket. I put my bag on the chair adjacent to the long table at the front of the room, hang my jacket and umbrella on the wall hooks, and begin taking out my class materials. I put them down on the table, and rather than standing behind the podium as I like to begin each class, I sit on the edge of the table in front of the podium. “So,” I begin, “what’s going on? Were you able to complete the readings from Nancy Naples’s book?”11 I look around the room, especially toward those students who usually have a lot to say in the class. But, no one is forthcoming. I continue: “Last week, we ended class talking about ‘feminist standpoint epistemology’ and the ‘insider/outsider dilemma’ Naples describes. I asked you all to think about these topics in relation to your own research projects. Did you have any thoughts?” I am teaching this feminist methodologies course for upper-level undergraduates with a focus on ethnographic research. For three weeks, the students had been engaged in conducting field research with local community organizations doing work on issues related to women, gender, race, class, and/or sexuality. The students had been organized into groups of five or six and had chosen campus and community domestic violence centers, a queer student center, and a community woman’s group focused on improving birth outcomes for poor women of color. The groups were responsible for designing and conducting a project that would allow them to research a particular topic in depth but also to produce something that the organization would find useful. The week before, the students had given group presentations on their fieldwork experiences and were just beginning the last step in the project—to write individual papers reflecting

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on the work they had done. I hoped that the Naples’s readings on “reflective practices” and the challenges of ethnographic research would stimulate their thinking in this phase of their research. Monica,12 an energetic student who had been deeply engaged in her research site, breaks the silence. She says: “I really felt my own subjectivity during the process of doing this research.” “How so?” I ask. “Well, I was really scared when we went there for the first time. I mean here we were, six white women trying to study the activities of this mainly African American organization in a low-income community outside this college town. I’m from a predominantly white rural town, and I’ve only met and become friends with people of color since coming to college. And so I just always feel intimidated.” “And did that feeling persist?” “Yes,” she says quickly. But then adds: “Not exactly. I was excited to be there, and the organization’s director just took me under her wing and really made me feel welcome. But then I didn’t know how to end what had become a relationship between me and her.” I nod my head up and down. I’d felt throughout the project that Monica had become enmeshed, almost becoming an honorary member of the organization that they had chosen to examine. I was curious about how she was going to negotiate the move from participant to putting her ideas down on paper. “It’s been a couple of weeks since you were required to be ‘in the field’; has anything changed?” “Not yet. I’ve been still going there regularly. But I told them the last time I was there that I had finals coming up soon and wouldn’t be able to come back for a while.” Monica sits quietly for a moment and then adds: “It feels incomplete.” Monica was having difficulty negotiating a shift in her relationship with the women’s group. She needed to move from being a committed participant and observer toward assuming the role of a writer who must document and analyze her experiences and reflect critically on the group’s work. I suspected that there was a fair amount of guilt involved in this shift. She had spoken with me outside class on many occasions about wanting to give back to the group in some way that felt useful for them and for her. Just writing a paper about them was not enough. I recognized that for Monica having a social activist approach was central to her identity and to

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her definition of good research.13 I shared Monica’s ideals even as I have my own guilty feelings about not fully enacting them in my own research. So, rather than offer her advice, I ask the class: “What about the other members of this group or any of the other groups. What were your experiences?” Jennie, a psychology major who was strongly resistant to the idea of doing group work, raises her hand. When I acknowledge her, she says: “I never got over feeling like an outsider.” “Did you see this as something that you should ‘get over’?” “Well, I guess from reading Naples and listening to Monica’s experience over the past few weeks, what I thought was that my status as an outsider would shift during the process of doing the research. But what I felt was that I was there to observe what the group was doing and to report on it in our project. I’m not sure that my identity as a white, middle-class woman is really that important to the story.” I nod my head. I had felt at odds with Jennie throughout the course. While she is doing a minor in women’s studies, her primary major is psychology. I understood that the pull of positivism was strong in this discipline, and Jennie’s desire for a more positivist approach to research had been apparent. I wanted to respond to her in ways that didn’t discount the strengths of positivist epistemologies and methodologies. I wanted to encourage her to think about how many positivist approaches relied on the invisibility of her race, her class, and her gender. Before I can do so, however, Michael responds. “You’re acting like there is an objective truth!” He says in a low, but fervent voice. “The fact that I’m queer and a member of the organization that I was studying not only shaped how I was received by the group but also my perception of what I observed.” Alexandra, a member of Michael’s group jumps into the conversation: “Yes, I agree. When we met as a group before first going to visit the Queer Student Union I remember Michael talking about how the union was a space for queer students to feel at home. And although I wasn’t active in the QSU, as a person who identifies as queer I expected to have those feelings. But I didn’t.” I’m getting excited about the direction of the conversation. I ask them: “And did you all talk about this difference of perception and emotional responses to your research site?”

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“We talked about it after our first meeting with you,” Adrien, another member of their group, responds. “We looked at our field notes and thought about who we are, and it seemed quite obvious that the reason Alexandra didn’t have the same feelings as Michael was because the space may not be felt as friendly for queer students of color or queer women.” “And so how did this affect your research?” I ask. “It gave us a deeper understanding of why the queer groups of color have formed their own groups on campus. And,” Michael adds, “as an organizer I find it helpful for me to think through how to make the space more welcoming for all queer students.” Alexandra sighs audibly as she runs her fingers through closecropped curls, then says: “I think doing the research encouraged me to become more active in QSU. Although I think it’s important for people of color to have our own groups, as queer and biracial, I often identify with multiple groups. It would be great to have a place where all aspects of my identity can exist simultaneously.” Jennie shifts uncomfortably in her seat. Having read through each of their field notes, I know others in the class might also be feeling a bit uneasy. So I say: “Let’s look at Naples’s discussion of the limits and possibilities of reflective practices in research.” The students take out their copy of Feminism and Method while I go to the chalkboard and write: Reflexivity Accountability Reflective Practice “Strong” and “Weak” Reflexivity “Progressive-Regressive Method”

“Please break into groups of four or five and talk about each of these terms.” I look at the wall clock and calculate that we have about 45 minutes left in the class period. “Take 10–15 minutes, and then we’ll reconvene as a group to discuss them.” As the students settle themselves into groups, awkwardly situating chairs with attached desks into smaller circles, I briefly look over my notes to make sure we are covering the key points from the reading materials. Satisfied that we are, I move from group to group listening to their discussions and interjecting my own comments here and there. When we reconvene, I return to the front of the room and ask the students to define the terms on the board and to tell us how they’ve

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dealt with them in their own research. I am glad to see Jennie as a spokesperson for her group, who had been working on Naples’s concept of “reflexivity.” She says: “Ok. Well, I guess it is important to acknowledge your own identity when you are doing research. But I don’t think that means you have to become a part of the group. I think it just means that you understand that your race or class or gender may be different from the race or class or gender of the group you’re studying. And so you just have to make allowances.” Feeling a bit dismayed, I ask: “What do you mean by ‘making allowances’?” “For instance, our group was made up of four white women and one half-white/half-Hispanic woman, and we were doing research with a local domestic violence center that has a predominantly Hispanic clientele. So, when we wanted to observe the support groups, the woman in our group who is part Hispanic sat in with the Spanish-speaking support group. So this way she was able to blend in a little bit more.” I nod my head up and down: “Yes, I understand what you’re saying. And yes, it has been thought that matching the race or ethnicity or gender of a researcher with the race or ethnicity or gender of a community being studied helps to produce data that is less biased or even more revealing and truthful.14” “And that’s important, right?” Jennie asks. Her tone is eager, almost pleading. I try to respond carefully. “Recently, feminist and postmodern researchers have argued that all knowledge is socially constructed. In this text, Naples argues that who we are shapes the kinds of information generated in a research context. The impact, however, is not linear. In other words, being a so-called ‘insider’ cannot guarantee that you get the unvarnished truth. In fact, she and others we’ve read this quarter would argue that there is no unvarnished truth. Research is a dialogue between the researcher and the research participants in the context of a particular social and political milieu.” Although Jennie looks at me skeptically, many of the students nod their heads. I continue: “Let me use myself and my research in Guyana as an example. Before going to Guyana, I assumed that as an African American woman doing research within a largely African-descended community in the Caribbean I would be able to make connections with participants in ways that would be non-exploitative and

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even familial. But, as did Brackette Williams15 in her work in the rural South, which Naples describes, I had to constantly negotiate my racial identity while I was doing field research. And, in recent developments, I’ve had to reconsider the issue of power and exploitation while writing up my interpretation of the ‘data’ I gathered.” “So it’s not enough to match the race of the participant and the researcher?” Jennie asks, seemingly confused by my comments. “Right. In fact, there are multiple issues at work simultaneously. Whether you are or are not the same race as your research participants is just one of many possible points of difference or connection that need to be negotiated.” I notice students fidgeting with books and papers, and I realize that our class time has ended. I say to them: “O.k., we’re out of time, but we have one more class meeting before your individual appointments with me to discuss your final papers. Remember your outlines are due at the end of the week, and we will wrap up our discussion of the Naples readings at our next class meeting. See you on Thursday.” The students put away their notebooks and begin leaving the room alone and in small groups. Some are still talking about the readings and others are discussing their plans for the spring break. I return to the chalkboard and begin erasing it when Jennie comes up to talk with me. “Professor Nettles,” she begins. “I am confused about what our final paper should be about. Is it about our research or ourselves or something else?” I stop erasing the board and go to my stack of papers searching for the “project guidelines” sheet I handed out when they began their project. Finding it, I motion her closer, and we look at the sheet of paper together. I say: “Well there are three components.” ■

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A brief summary of your research site, research methodology, and “findings.” A critical analysis of your research methodology, positionality, and other issues raised in the course materials, particularly in the Naples readings. A log of your research activities. (Hand in your field notes.)

“So, you’ve done the first part with your group presentation. And since you’ve kept a log of your research activities and your field notes throughout the process of doing the research, that’s completed, too. The bulk of what is ‘new’ for the final paper is your reflective

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practice. I want you to explore how your identity informed your research process. What kinds of questions did you have going into the field, and what kinds of questions did you develop while there? How did your feelings about what you were doing shape what was happening? For instance, I noticed in your field notes that in the beginning of the project you were not comfortable with doing a group project because your past experience with groups has been where one member carries the whole group. But, by the end of your field notes, you seem relieved and pleased with what you and your group were able to accomplish by working together. So you may write about how you grew into doing more feminist collective work as a result of working collaboratively with this group.” “Well, do you have any examples of papers that former students have written so I can get an idea of what to do?” Jennie asks. I shake my head. “No. Not specifically of this kind of paper, since this is the first time I’m teaching this particular course.” “Oh,” she says. Adding dismissively: “Maybe that’s why.” Jennie pauses and begins gathering up her belongings. “Well, o.k. I’ll just figure it out. I’m just not used to working without really clear directions about what I’m supposed to do.” “I can understand that. The point of the class is that each of you will produce a final paper that is unique to you as an individual. Even though you’ve done this research collectively, your experiences are both collective and individual. Don’t forget that you are turning in a detailed outline at the end of the week, and I will meet with each of you individually to discuss your outlines and give you some guidance for completing the paper itself.” Jennie is nodding her head up and down, but she continues to look skeptical. Finally she says: “O.k. Thanks.” As Jennie leaves the room, I finish erasing the chalkboard. I know that she is not satisfied with my answers to her questions. She seems tied to a particular Eurocentric model of teaching and research that adheres more closely to a positivist framework. And although I have been at odds with her, in many ways her concerns mirror my own. Wouldn’t it be easier to believe in the possibility of objectivity? “Perhaps,” I answer myself as I pack-up my briefcase and walk out the door. But as my series of e-mail exchanges with Andaiye illustrate, it may not be possible to circumscribe the researcher’s subjectivity and emotions in writing about others. And, there may be no “clear directions” about how to proceed.

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April 2004 “Not continuing with writing a book will be like leaving a marriage,” I tell my mother while walking home, shifting the strap on my heavy briefcase from one shoulder to the other while balancing the small cell phone. “How so?” she asks. “Well, if you add up all the years from graduate school to now, I’ve been reading and thinking about Guyana for over 11 years.” I respond as I mentally count back the time I’ve spent working in the area. “Yes, it’s been a long time. I remember when you first went down there and how scared you were. But how is that like a marriage?” She asks, not understanding my point. I stop walking for a moment and watch a woman from my neighborhood cross the street with a large black labrador and a baby stroller. This dog always annoys me, because he barks and acts very aggressively toward Fudge, my elderly shepherd-labrador-rottweiler mix. Then I remember that my father gave me Fudge the year I started graduate school. He was just a round little ball of brown and black fur then. Now at 14, he’s nearly blind and largely immobile, and I am in the midst of having to make some decisions about euthanasia. It seems to be the season for endings. “Hello? Are you there? Did I lose you?” My mother asks in an irritated tone. I return my attention to the phone and say: “No, no. I’m here. I guess what I mean is that I have been committed to it for so long, and while I probably always felt like it didn’t fit me, I thought I could make the best of it and all would be well. And now while I am considering really leaving it, I keep remembering the good things and all the years of work I put into it. I think of how my identity, indeed my whole life has been defined by this thing. What will I be without it? You know what I mean?” “Sort of. I think you should write about that one day.” She says. “Yes, well, I don’t have time for that right now. I have to decide what I’m going to do about this Andaiye article and about the larger book project,” I snippily respond.

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My mother sighs. “Right. You always pull it together, Kim. I remember when you were all stressed out about the dissertation; and you finished. You always get stressed out when you’re close to a deadline, but you just buckle down and manage to get it done.” “But I don’t always want to be struggling with my work. I want to feel connected to something and that my writing has meaning.” I feel as though I’m whining, but I continue: “I don’t want to just write these articles and a book for tenure. I want to write because I have something I need to say.” “I’m just saying that maybe you’re being too hard on yourself. You internalize things too much. It’s like when you were a little girl in kindergarten or the first grade and you had that bald spot on your head and I couldn’t figure out why. Do you remember?” She waits briefly for my response. When none is forthcoming, she goes on: “So I took you to the doctor, and he examined you and could not find any physical reason for the loss of hair. He asked me if you were upset about something. And so I asked you if something was bothering you, and you told me how your teacher had a system at school where students got gold stars next to their names on a big wall chart for each book they complete.” I interject: “You always tell me this story.” She goes on, as if not hearing me: “And you were dismayed because you had far fewer gold stars than the other kids in your class since you were reading real books with smaller words that filled the entire page and were longer.” I wait for her to tell me why she sees this anecdote of my childhood as relevant to my current dilemma. But she doesn’t say anything more. I say: “It’s funny that I don’t remember that. Why do you think I didn’t say something to the teacher or to you before I got the bald spot?” “I don’t know. But I think that even though you felt like it was unfair that the teacher rated all books of varying lengths equally, you thought you would just read faster and get more gold stars rather than raise the question out loud.” By this time, I am at my house and searching around for the keys to my door. I am ready to end this conversation, because I always feel uncomfortable with the stories of my childhood. They seem to illuminate the deep struggle and uncertainty that continue to mark my relationship with the education process. I think about how some

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of the issues I confront today—particularly the academy’s focus on individual merit and “objective” criteria—are linked to these earlier experiences. And, it seems, that being unable to speak up for myself has deep roots. But I say to my mother: “My battery is fading, I’ve got to plug it into the charger and go walk Fudge. I’ll talk to you later.” “O.k.,” she says. “Cheer up. Call me later.” I find my keys and open the backdoor. The alarm buzzes as I enter, and I walk over to the keypad to punch in the code. As if to appease my guilty conscious for lying about the low battery, I do plug the cell phone into its charger. I hear my cat, Pepper, running down the stairs to greet me, and I go over to Fudge, who is lying on his bed seemingly in a deep slumber. I pick up Pepper and stand looking at Fudge to make sure that he is still breathing—a new homecoming ritual. Satisfied that he is, I look around the living room to see if he had any accidents in the house. Having been delayed on campus, I knew I was taking a risk leaving him inside for so many hours. But all is fine. So I feed Pepper before I wake Fudge, and we head out the door for our nightly walk. As Fudge and I begin our slow tour of the neighborhood, I see my neighbor trimming the rose bushes that frame his yard. Norman, a 50-something-year-old white man who has been a professor at the university for more than 20 years, waves and calls me over. As we approach, he leans over to greet Fudge, before straightening up. “The quarter’s almost over,” he beams with cheeks reddened from the exertion. “Yes, I’ll be glad to have a few days of no teaching.” “Are you going to take some time away for Spring Break? Maybe take a drive to Napa or Lake Tahoe?” I shake my head. “No. I’ve got a zillion things to finish up. And I’m feeling pressure to get writing done. I’ve got an article that I need to make some revisions on and to also think through my options for a book-length project.” “Oh you’ll be fine. I find that I can’t ever really get moving on a project until it’s close to being overdue.” I nod my head back and forth, neither up and down nor side to side. “Weeeelllll,” I begin breathing out heavily; “I’m trying to work through some shifts in my work, and I don’t have a lot of time before tenure.” “Listen, don’t worry about tenure. Just do your work. All the university wants is for you to be an expert in your field.”

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I look at him, wishing that I had gone out of the front door rather than the back and avoided having this conversation. This is the very thing that constantly trips me up: What is my work? What is my field? I decide to change the subject. “Hey, I’ve got to walk Fudge. He’s been indoors all day.” “How’s he doing? I notice that he’s walking a lot slower these days and has some trouble standing up.” “Yes, well the vet put him on a new drug, so I’m hoping that things will improve. But I think we’re near the end. It’s just all about making him as comfortable as possible in these final months. You never know how long to let these kinds of things go, you know?” Norman nods. “Yes, I know. We had the same struggle with our dog. Remember? We kept giving her more and more medication and hoping that she would somehow rebound from that surgery to remove the tumor.” “Yes, I remember. Your wife and I would talk about it every week while we did work in the yard. She didn’t want to let the dog go, because she had been such a long-time companion and had brought so much joy and love to her during her own struggle with a serious illness.” “Sometimes our bond with our pets seems almost like our love for our children. They give us a kind of unconditional love that can be very sustaining.” “Yes, I agree.” I certainly felt that way about my little menagerie of pets. They had been with me through graduate school and in my journeys crisscrossing the country since completing the degree. They were like the children I had never had and sometimes felt I sacrificed to the relentless pressures of academic life. I sigh deeply and say to Norman, “I’ll talk to you later.” But as Fudge and I continue our walk, I think about how much I have appreciated living in this neighborhood. It is the closest I have ever felt to being a part of a community that can combine my professional and personal life. After years of commuting from Compton to West Los Angeles while in graduate school and then living in North Carolina and Memphis immediately after, I knew that I was lucky and privileged to live in this place. The village is owned by the university, and most of the residents are affiliated with the university. On a daily basis, then, I interact with faculty, graduate students, researchers, and other university employees. We often engage in lively conversations about academic life, local politics,

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and neighborhood gossip. It is a seemingly serene environment: the houses are well-designed and comfortable, and there is an abundance of greenery and a multitude of fruit trees. The neighborhood is centrally located, such that campus is a mere 10-minute walk from home, and there is easy access to restaurants, coffee houses, and movie theaters. It is an idyllic life—on its surface. But I had not settled into it comfortably. My chronic insomnia seemed to be getting worse. Living in a community that hinged on my successful advancement in academia was beginning to feel not just stifling but uncomfortably tenuous. I desperately wanted the security of a home place with a greater sense of permanence, a deeper network of roots, and connections to family and the land. I think about the Guyanese expatriate’s quote that I have been using in my revision of the Andaiye article: For many Guyanese living overseas and especially for me, Guyana conjures up images of the fabled El Dorado—a dream deferred. We are like global schizophrenic nomad exiles . . . We are indeed a people separated by race but more deeply by culture, reinforced and abetted by religious practices. We are a people in search of One People, One Nation, One Destiny. Yes, this dear land of Guyana made rich by the sunshine and lush by the rains. Our El Dorado. (Phillips 2002)

Phillips is writing out of a sense of outrage and impotence at being unable to claim his homeland because of the political and economic situation that has rendered the place nearly unlivable. He is describing a feeling a double-ness of not being at home in the world, but rather (dis)placed in the world. But his feeling of schizophrenia seems rooted in the reality, whether imagined or not, of a place where feelings of at-home-ness would predominate. This place, Guyana—the “fabled El Dorado”—exists in his memory and serves as a tangible space of connection and belonging. He posits this state of schizophrenia as a temporary malady that might be eradicated on his return to his homeland. Even though the return journey would be possible only within a transformed or perhaps refurbished Guyana, the possibility of becoming whole again remains. What does it mean, I think to myself, when I do not have in my memory a place where I might become whole again? I certainly felt a DuBoisean sense of double-ness, of having one’s foot in two worlds. Had my endless shifting16 between the worlds that I only partially inhabit (black America, academia) created an instability of self?

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Fudge and I round the last corner, and I stop to retrieve my mail from the bank of postal boxes a few feet from my back door. As I pull the mail out of the box, I get a glimpse of my watch and notice that it is nearly eight in the evening. My lack of sleep the night before is beginning to catch up with me. “I hope I can sleep tonight,” I think to myself as I go inside and call my mother as promised.

Looking Back to Move Forward June 2004 I am walking down a long path headed toward a large house. The woman walking in front of me is pointing out various things that she thinks I will find interesting—the large fig and magnolia trees, the well-manicured rose bushes, the dry creek bed running just in front of the house. I nod as I walk behind her, taking a mental note of all of the features that seem to make this a perfect house . . . maybe even a home. We walk across a small bridge that is painted a brick red color. I think to myself, “This is the color my parents use on their house. Funny to see it here, too.” Just then the woman stops walking and motions me forward. “Look,” she says, “it’s a lovely old structure. Isn’t it interesting how it sits slightly raised above the ground.” I turn my attention to the house, to the area underneath it, and it occurs to me that I see something moving. I take a step forward and I see that the ground is undulating. But I can’t focus, so I squint my eyes and move a little closer. I see that there is an infestation of bugs, roaches, maggots, ants, and others that are unidentifiable . . . thousands, maybe millions of them. I begin to step back and try to reach for the woman trying to show her that there is something terribly wrong. But she’s no longer there. I don’t want to see the bugs, but I can’t stop looking at them. I am beginning to itch. My hands come up to my neck. I scratch frantically, and when I pull one hand away and look down I see that it is also covered with bugs. My neck is imploding, exploding . . . …  …  …  …

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I wake screaming. My eyes are shut tight. I am deeply shaken and can barely catch my breath. Slowly I realize that I was having a nightmare. They seem to be getting progressively more disturbing with each passing week. I lie in bed for a long time, hoping to go back to sleep. But instead I listen to the usual predawn sounds, a curious combination of birds chirping, the engines of the trucks idling in the parking lot of the strip mall next to my house, and the distant whistle of a train. Since sleep is not forthcoming, I roll out of bed and decide to go to my office. Is it at my desk, turn on the computer and wait for it to boot up. Avoiding the folders and papers, I look out the window and see that the sky is making that turn from darkness to light. I look back down at my desk and see pushed off in the corner a cassette tape labeled “life path consultation 5/14/04.” Suddenly, I decide to take a walk on the arboretum trail and listen to this tape rather than sit in front of the computer. After putting on my running clothes, I go downstairs. Fudge and Pepper are both sleeping on Fudge’s bed in the living room. I tiptoe past them and go out through the backdoor by the kitchen to walk the short distance to the trail. When I get there, I start to stretch and think about my session with Dojoge.17 His profile in Share Guide: The Holistic Health Magazine, which I pick up from the natural foods market, had caught my eye. It read: Dojoge is a teacher and life path counselor. For most of his life he has been listening to people and helping them find their path. He has investigated and studied many areas of health and healing through the integration of mind and body. Dojoge serves as a teacher, counselor, coach, and student of life. He believes that happiness and peace of mind manifest through connection—your connection with yourself and your connection to the rest of creation. Connection involves going deep inside, rediscovering yourself, understanding your life’s purpose, shedding unnecessary beliefs, and emerging anew to continue your journey with enhanced consciousness.

I was intrigued by this description, and after reading through his webpage several times and having a rather lengthy phone conversation, I had scheduled to meet with him in person. When I finish stretching, I put my headphones on and start the tape. “Testing, testing. 1-2-3,” the sound of my own voice floods into my ears. “I think its working fine.” I hear myself say.

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“Good, good. So, why don’t we get started?” Dojoge says. “O.k.” “You said in your message to me that you feel at an impasse in your work. Tell me a bit more about this.” “Well, it’s as I said in our phone conversation. I am struggling with writing a book on the research I did with women in Guyana for my dissertation. And I’ve been going back and forth about whether to continue or to let it go. But to let it go will feel like failure.” “Explain why it would feel like a failure.” “Well,” I sigh, “I am expected to produce a book-length work on the research I did.” “Who expects this?” He pushes me to think it through. “My peers, my senior colleagues, the university administration, my family, and friends.” I pause. “Everyone.” “Including you?” “Of course. Me included. I’ve been trained well.” I smile and go on, “So, by not doing the expected thing, I would be failing to live up to my responsibilities and to follow the path that is charted.” “And so there’s no room for changing your mind and pursuing something different?” “I’m not sure. If you are on the tenure-track, then there is a certain prescribed time frame. There are a certain number of publications you must have in addition to ‘the book.’ So it feels as though there’s not much room for exploration and discovery. And, all of these clocks are ticking away—the tenure clock and the biological clock.” There is a long pause on the tape, and I remember how I felt embarrassed to admit these things to him and to me. Finally, I hear Dojoge’s response. “It’s no wonder, then, that you suffer from chronic insomnia. You are under a great deal of stress brought about, it seems, by negative anticipation of possible future events: not getting tenure, not becoming a parent. Your stress comes from not living in the present. I have a good deal of experience working with people who are seeking something more and different from their chosen work. So let’s return to your questions of failure.” There is another long pause. I wonder if it is at the end of this first side. But then I hear myself say: “Yes, you know I was thinking that the reason I feel like a failure is not just because I may not write a book-length academic analysis of the Red Thread women’s narratives. It’s also because I am disappointed in my experiences doing the research.”

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“Mmmh. What was your experience with doing the research?” Again, another long pause. Then I answer him with a low voice: “Overwhelmingly, I felt out of place and disconnected.” “Why?” “I’m not sure. I think initially I was focused on the lack of comforts and adjusting to the food and other things like that. But once I became more acclimated, I was still questioning why I had chosen to pursue the project.” “Once you were there you were no longer interested in the topic?” “The funny thing is I remained interested in the general topic. And for all of my unease ‘in the field,’ hearing and recording the women’s stories was a fantastic learning experience. I mean I still think the women’s stories are very compelling. But I struggled for a long time trying to sort through my reactions to or emotions surrounding doing the field research. First I wrote only about those emotions, which felt incomplete. And when I was finally able to get back to the women’s stories as narratives, one of the women strongly questioned my interpretation of her life. So although I believe I have a certain responsibility and accountability to the women to get their stories ‘right,’ I also want to acknowledge who I was then and how my story interfered with my ability or even my desire to produce a certain kind of scholarly work.” Again, there’s a long silence on the tape. Although I can hear faint scratching noises, I assume that it must be Dojoge taking notes, since I didn’t take any. As I jog, looking up at the trees and reveling in the scent of eucalyptus, I remember how I was sitting in his office enveloped by the smell of lavender incense and marveling at how one can open up to a stranger. Finally, I hear Dojoge clear his throat and say: “I think that what is keeping you from moving forward is a need to go back and figure out what happened. You have a lot of unresolved issues in relationship to this research project that may have more to do with who you are than the substance of the work. Or, maybe more to do with why you responded in the way you did.” At this moment, the tape clicks indicating that this side is finished. I am also nearing the end of my run on the trail and finish the route in silence, deeply contemplating. When I get back to the house, Pepper greets me at the backdoor. “Hi, Pepper girl. I bet you need food.” As if she understands me, she runs to her food dish in the guest bathroom.

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I follow her and see that Fudge is still sleeping on his bed in the living room—his stomach rising and falling with each breath. I put food in Pepper’s dish, put the tea kettle on to boil, and quietly sneak upstairs to take a shower. Just as I am getting out of the shower, I hear the tea kettle whistling loudly. I pull on my robe and go downstairs to find Fudge sprawled in the middle of the living room. His hind legs spread out in an unnatural position. I also see that he has defecated and is partially lying in it. “Dammit!” I shout out. “I knew I should have walked you before I took a shower.” Fudge just lies there panting. I immediately regret my outburst and rush over to help him up. Once he’s up, we go out the back door and walk down the street a short distance. As we turn, to return to the house, he stops to finish his bowel movement. His hind legs are weak, and I reach around his midsection to hold him up while he relieves himself. When we get back to the house, I leave him on the porch drinking from his water dish while I go inside to clean up the mess with a damp paper towel and disinfectant. I take the plastic bag with the poop and the paper towel and put them in the garbage can outside. Then we both go inside the house. …  …  …  … I walk purposefully up the stairs to my office. Open on my desk is the file folder with the correspondence between me and Andaiye. Next to it is a large manila envelope containing the final copyedited version of my essay based on her life history. It is addressed and sealed with postage ready to be mailed to Meridians. I take the envelope and go outside to put it in the outgoing mailbox. I walk back to the house and go inside. Standing in the middle of the kitchen floor I see that Fudge has made his way to his bed and is sleeping. Pepper is curled up next to him. I sigh deeply before reaching for the phone to call my vet’s office. When they answer I ask to speak to Fudge’s vet, and in a few moments he is on the line. “Hello, Kimberly,” he says. “Hi, Dr. Ray. I guess you know why I’m calling.” “Yes. Do you want to schedule the procedure?” I sigh and try to hold back the tears. “Yes.”

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“O.k., we can do it at the end of the week. Bring a blanket or something familiar to him. It helps to have the situation be as free from stress as possible.” “O.k.” “And you should come in sometime this week to pay so that you don’t have to worry about anything else on that day.” “Yes, right. O.k. I’ll come in tomorrow.” “That’s fine,” he says. Perhaps sensing that I am struggling not to cry, he continues. “This is a difficult decision to make. But Fudge has lived a long and full life. You’ve taken good care of him.” “Thank you,” I say. I am now unable to hold back my tears. So I mumble a hurried goodbye to Dr. Ray and hang up the phone. I lean against the door jamb and give myself over to the tears, to the realization that my time with Fudge is over. Finally, I wipe my eyes and walk to where Fudge and Pepper are sleeping. I don’t want to disturb them, so I decide to return upstairs to my office. When I get there, I sit at my desk and look down at the folder containing the correspondence between me and Andaiye. I close it and move to file it away in one of the cardboard file boxes filled with materials I’d collected from my research trips. As I stuff the folder into the box, I notice several folders with handwritten labels. I pull them out and thumb through them, looking at the purple spiral notebook paper interspersed with typewritten pages inside. After a few moments, thinking about my session with Dojoge, I decide that I need to read through these documents. So I go back downstairs, make a cup of tea, and settle onto the sofa. Fudge stirs a bit but doesn’t wake up. Pepper perks up, looking at me alertly. She stretches and then jumps onto the sofa, settling herself in against my side. I look down at her and smile. Then I pick up the first folder and hold it in my hand; it is labeled simply “Guyana Diaries.” I open it up and begin reading . . . and find myself slowly transported back.

PART II The Guyana Diaries

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15 August 1996 Late evening “It’s almost 10 o’clock!” I say to my mother as we speed west on the 105 freeway headed toward the Pacific Ocean in route to the airport. “Don’t worry we’ll make it in time. I’ll just drop you off and then go park the car. I’ll meet you at your gate.” “O.k. I mean the plane doesn’t leave until 12:55, but just in case I have some problems with my luggage. They are so heavy. Maybe I should have packed less.” “Well, you are packed for a long stay. It’s better to have more than you need.” She flips on the turn signal and glances over her shoulder before easing into the right lane. “Is Antonio going to meet us there?” “Yes. I hope so.” Less than five minutes later, we get off the freeway at the Sepulveda exit. I breathe a sigh of relief. I won’t have a repeat of my 71

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last trip to Guyana, when I almost missed my flight because of poor planning and the traffic from my apartment in the Koreatown area of Los Angeles to the airport on the Westside of the city. This time, I made sure to leave enough time to allow for delays. Fifteen minutes later, I am standing at the Continental counter checking in my luggage. “What is your final destination?” The woman behind the ticket counter asks. “Timehri airport in Guyana.” “Yes.” She looks through my flight documents. “I am checking your bags through to Miami. In Miami you will have to disembark and claim your luggage. Your flight to Guyana is on British West Indies Airlines. You will need to check your bags directly with them.” “Oh, really? O.k.” “Yes. But you should have plenty of time. Your flight arrives in Miami at 11:48 tomorrow morning, and then you depart for Guyana at 2:45 in the afternoon.” Twenty minutes later, I sit at the gate waiting for my plane to board. I look up from the magazine I’d been thumbing through and see my mother and Antonio walking down the long tiled corridor. “You made it.” I say, standing up to greet Antonio with a kiss when they reach my gate. “Yes.” He says leaning into the kiss and wrapping his right arm around my shoulders. “You smell good.” I murmur into his ear as I stand on tiptoes. Antonio smiles, his dimple creasing the left side of his face and his bluish-green eyes crinkling at the corners. He squeezes my shoulders and says: “You too.” “Is your plane on time?” My mother asks. “Yes, I think so.” I turn to my mother. “Did you run into each other in the parking lot?” “No, just as we were coming through the security screening.” “Oh that’s good.” We sit mostly in silence for the next hour. I hold Antonio’s hand and try to memorize the feel of it, my hand in his. I know the months I will be gone are going to be ones of intense separation—not just physically or geographically, but emotionally. My hold on our relationship is tenuous, the demands of his family are always something to be struggled against and best done in close proximity. His mother and sister require ever more attention, support, and

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assistance since his older brother abdicated his role as the surrogate man of the house. I am depending on him, too. He had agreed to care for my cats, Sawdust and Pepper, and my apartment while I am away. He also promised to check in periodically with the woman who had taken in my dog, Fudge. So I am feeling nervous about the well-being of my little family. But I push this aside and try to focus on the work at hand, on my journey back to Guyana and my plan to interview the women of Red Thread. Two years have passed since I first visited the country and made the decision to focus on the organization for my dissertation. I think it must be a pivotal year for them; it’s been 10 years since they came together as Red Thread. Although I am feeling more than little bit nervous about my return, I anticipate that there will be lots of activities to keep me busy, and my time in the country will go quickly. “I think they’re getting ready to board the plane,” Antonio says shaking me out of my deep thought. I hear the flight attendant making an announcement, and I become more alert, readying myself to board the plane. …  …  …  … 16 August 1996 8:30 P.M. Nearly 24 hours later my plane lands in Guyana. I am exhausted from the hours of travel, especially those spent sitting in airports and on runways—Houston, Miami, and then Trinidad—waiting to catch connecting flights or to load new passengers. Finally, I have arrived. I go through Customs and walk out of the airport into the night . . . looking around for a taxi to take me into town. It is warm, but there is a slight breeze. The sky is a deep indigo, and the stars twinkle brightly. “Taxi, Miss?” A young man says as he motions toward his car, a small late-model Toyota Corolla with a hand-lettered sign on its side: Qik Transport. His car seems small, and I’m not sure all my luggage will fit, but since there are no other taxis around, I ask how much. “Where you goin’?” “Georgetown. Kitty.” “Twenty dollar U.S., miss.”

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I pause a moment. I have no way of knowing whether this is a good price or not. But since I want to get to the Singh house as soon as possible, I agree to the price with a shrug. “That’s fine. My bags are right there.” The driver nods, opens his trunk, and heaves one of the two suitcases inside. My extra-large duffel bag will not fit inside the trunk, so he props it up on the one side of the back seat, vertically, so that it sits up like a person against the seat. He then takes one of my carry-on bags—the small duffel bag with all my toiletry items—and puts it on the front passenger seat. Opening the back door, he ushers me into the cab, and I settle into the seat next to my luggage. I search around for a seat belt, and, finding only a lap belt and not a shoulder harness, I again consider whether I should arrange other transportation. The idea of not being properly buckled in is worrisome. As he starts the engine and we pull off, I clutch my backpack in my lap and send up a silent prayer for our safe arrival. The road from Timehri airport to Georgetown is dark. Since there are few street lights, the oncoming headlights of passing cars provide most of the illumination. Cars speed along the partially paved, two-lane highway, jetting in and out of the traffic lanes in an effort to get ahead more quickly. It is a terrifying and exhilarating drive punctuated by shouts and gestures from my driver and others on the road. When we reach Georgetown, we head to the part of town known as Kitty. I can make out only vague outlines of the neighborhoods we drive through. Most of them do not look familiar, but it seems that not much has changed since my last visit. “What is the address, miss?” I unzip my backpack and pull out my worn leather day planner. I tell the driver the Singhs’ address, and he nods with recognition. It seems only a matter of minutes before he pulls into the driveway, stopping at the large decorative iron gate. I get out of the car and look up at the house. It is a large, two-storey structure. In the dark night, the whitewashed stone seems to glow, reflecting the moon, the stars, and the sporadic street lights. As the driver takes my bags out of the car, I glance around the neighborhood. Many of the houses are whitewashed. Some are stone, but most are wooden or some combination of the two materials. All sit high off the ground . . . to protect from flooding, I presume.

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“You wan’ me to take these inside, miss?” The driver interrupts my thoughts. “Yes. I should let them know I’m here.” As I walk to the gate, I see a door open at what appears to be the back of the house. Two people emerge and walk towards me. “Miss Kimberly?” A woman’s voice calls out over the distance. “Yes. Mrs. Singh?” “Yes.” She turns to the other person and motions to him to come forward with the key to the gate. “We does look out for you.” Mrs. Singh stays back in the shadows as the man comes forward and uses a key on a large ring of keys to unlock the gate. “Welcome,” he says, holding the gate open for me. “Thank you. Are you Mr. Singh?” “Yes, yes,” he motions me into the concrete front courtyard. Large planters with palm trees and other plants are scattered throughout the yard. “Let me assist the driver with your luggage.” “Thank you.” I fumble around in my backpack, searching for my wallet with the money to pay the driver. Mr. Singh rolls the large duffel bag that had been on the backseat, and the driver carries my suitcase and carry-on on bags. I follow them into the backdoor of the house, through the kitchen, and into the front parlor. I turn to the driver and thank him while handing him the agreed-on $20 U.S. and small tip. He nods his head, and Mr. Singh shows him out of the house. “Your room is upstairs. The last bedroom on the left-hand side. Leila will show you.” Mrs. Singh motions to the young woman standing at the foot of the stairs. “O.k. great. Thanks.” “Would you like something to eat?” “No, I think I’m o.k. Just tired.” I grab my smaller bags and follow Leila up the stairs. The main room downstairs is spacious and clean—almost sparkling. The wood floors and carved staircase gleam a rich burnt umber with several coats of varnish. The flooring upstairs is this same deep rich wood, offset by white-washed walls. The upstairs has a very open feeling. The upstairs parlor or sitting room is along the right. Four doors on the left lead to family bedrooms—one for the parents, two for the children, and the last door on the left is my room. And at a right angle from that room, I am relieved to see, is a large tiled bathroom.

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As if sensing my preoccupation with the bathroom, Mrs. Singh says: “We have a large water pump. So there is plenty water. It is not heated, but it is comfortable.” “Oh. That’s great,” I say. When we reach the room I will be living in for the next two months, Leila opens the door and stands back while I enter. It is a fairly large room, about 10 by 14 feet, I think. A small desk is immediately to the right of the front door, a full-sized bed with mosquito netting is just ahead along the left wall, and across from the bed on the opposite wall is a large built-in wall closet. The ceiling fan rotates above, and slatted windows located up high along the back wall are open to bring in some of the cool night air. I lay my bags on the bed and turn to Mrs. Singh and her daughter. “Everything looks just fine. Really good. I appreciate your renting to me during my stay.” “Miss M.1 told me that you are a student here to work with some of the women that she works with.” “Yes. I am.” “You are from Canada?” “No, no. I am from the U.S. From California.” “Oh.” Mrs. Singh looks at me with a slight frown. “Yes. I met Miss M. here the last time I came to do research. Two years ago. And when I knew I was going to return, I asked her for some help arranging housing.” Nodding her head, Mrs. Singh says: “Oh, I see. I used to watch Miss M.’s little baby while she was workin’.” “Yes, she told me.” “Here are your bags,” Mr. Singh calls out from the top of the stairs. He continues down the hallway and stops at the door of my room. I motion for him to enter, but instead he leaves the bags there and says to his wife: “It is late, we have a drive tomorrow.” He walks back down the hall and goes into the first bedroom by the stairs. I push my bags into the room. Mrs. Singh and Leila say their “good nights.” Mrs. Singh adds: “There are towels there.” She points to the towels on the back of the small chair pushed up to the equally small desk in my room. Then they turn and walk down the hall, each going into one of the other bedrooms along the wall. I stand in the door, between the room and the hallway for a long moment. Just on the other side of my door is an alcove with a large bookcase. Most of the shelves are stacked with novels; at least 100

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romance novels standing vertically and lying horizontally, their white jackets yellowed from age and the humidity. I chuckle at this, without knowing yet that they will become a ready source of relaxation and escape during my stay. On the bottom shelf of the bookcase, glass doors protect a small shrine or alter with bronze candles and incense holders, flowers, and framed posters of an Indian man sitting cross-legged and another of a woman in an elaborate sari surrounded by animals and other women. I snap out of my reverie and turn toward the room to grab my toiletry bag and the towels Mrs. Singh has laid out for me. I walk into the bathroom and close the door behind me, locking it. I turn on the shower and adjust the knob to the red side. While waiting for it to warm up, I wash my face and brush my teeth in the sink. When I return to the shower, I realize that the water is not going to get hot. There is running water, I remember, it’s just not hot-and-cold running water. But the water is surprisingly refreshing—warmed slightly by being in the barrel suspended above the house, I suppose. In any case, I am so worn out from my trip from Los Angeles to Georgetown that I welcome the shower just as it is. …  …  …  … 17 August 1996 Mid-morning I wake to the heat of the morning—hot and clammy under the light covers of the bed. “Perhaps I should leave the fan on during the night,” I think as I lay there groggily looking up at the ceiling. Suddenly, a gnawing hunger propels me out of bed. I get up and dress before heading downstairs in search of food. “They are in the country,” Leila tells me when I walk into the kitchen asking about my hosts. “They will return tonight or tomorrow.” “Oh,” I say, as I spread some of the English marmalade on a roll that Mrs. Singh left for my breakfast. “I am to look after you while they are gone.” “O.k. Thanks.” I chew on the bread and take a sip from the black tea Leila prepared. “Are you the oldest?” “Yeah. I am almost 20. My sister is 14, and the little boy is almost 8.” “Oh, so do you go to school?” “I not doing anything right now. I help out here at home.”

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“Oh. I see,” I nod and wonder if she will continue with school or if she will be married. Instead I ask, “Is your sister still in school?” “Yes, she an’ my brother go to school.” We sit together for a while, and then Leila gets up from the table and goes to a room adjoining the kitchen. I hear water splashing, and I guess that she is washing clothes. I put my cup down and join Leila in the small room. There are three large machines along the wall—a washing machine, a dryer, and a large roller. To the left of the machines is an over-sized white-tiled shower. On the floor of the shower is a large metal tub filled with water and wet clothes. Leila is leaning over and scrubbing what appears to be a pair of jeans on a washboard. I stand at the door and watch. Wondering why she is not using the washing machine, I ask: “You do all of the wash by hand?” Leila looks up at me. “Not unless there is no current. We use the machine.” She tilts her had back motioning to the washing machine. “But my mother likes to do the hard pants, the denim, by hand. They get cleaner.” “Do you put them in the dryer after you wash them?” “That dryer is not working just now. We hang the wash on the line out back.” “Oh.” I stand in the doorway watching her for a few moments. Her back is toward me and her head is bent as she works scrubbing the pants. Wisps of hair escape the long braid snaking down her back. Leila is a very pretty young woman. She’s about my height, but quite thin. I look at her thinking that, although she is young, there is a quiet maturity in her manner. This reality is confirmed by the fact that she is left in charge of the household while her parents are away. Not having anything more to say, I return to the kitchen and finish my tea and roll. I feel jetlagged and want to get some more sleep, so I go upstairs and get back in the bed. I sleep off and on for the next two days. …  …  …  … 19 August 1996 10 A.M. “Can I pay you for my lodging with a traveler’s check?” I ask Mrs. Singh as she is cleaning up the breakfast dishes.

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“Yes, that is no problem.” Mrs. Singh pauses and then turns to look at me. “It is $100 for the room, and two meals a day an additional 10 dollars U.S.” “Oh?” I say a bit confused, because I had been quoted a lower price. “Is that for each week?” “Yes.” “O.k.” I’ll just have to make some adjustments to my budget, I think. Then to Mrs. Singh, I say: “What about the phone? I noticed that there’s a phone in my room. Is it a separate number?” “Yes. You will pay for the calls you place.” My mind flashes back to Antonio’s mother refusing to accept the charges for collect calls I made from pay phones in Guyana during my last trip. I cringe with the memory and breathe a sigh of relief. Mrs. Singh has resumed her dishwashing. I get up and take my dishes to the sink. “The first couple of weeks I’ll probably eat breakfast and dinner here and get lunch in town.” She nods her head, but doesn’t say anything in response. “So I’ll just let you know each day if I will be here for lunch or dinner.” I pause: “Is that o.k.?” “No, that is not a problem. I does cook the midday meal and the evening meal on the days my husband goes to work. He often comes in for lunch.” “Really?” I am somehow struck by this fact. Struck by the idea that he travels back home each day for the mid-day meal. As if sensing my questioning tone, Mrs. Singh says: “Yeah. He does like a hot meal in the day.” She pauses and glances at me. “There is always food to prepare.” I stand uncomfortably at the sink with Mrs. Singh. Like her daughter, she is about my height but much heavier with a stocky frame and short, dark hair, curled around her head in ways that suggest a salon permanent. I guess that she is either in her late 30s or early 40s—although this assumption is based on the age of her eldest daughter and what I‘ve learned about when women usually begin having children.2 But in terms of appearance, she looks much older; older than Mr. Singh, actually. “I am going to go over to the Red Thread office and into Georgetown today. I should be back in the early evening.” “That is fine. Here, me give you the key.” Mrs. Singh dries her hands on the kitchen towel and reaches into the pocket of her apron to hand me two keys on a ring. “The small one is for the gate at the driveway. The larger one is for the doors—the front and this one here

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at the back.” She motions to the kitchen door. “We also have an alarm. But we arm it at night only.” “Is there a code?” “Yes, I will instruct you.” We walk over to the alarm pad next to the kitchen door. After the lesson on how to use the alarm, I return to my room. I am eager to get to the bank to change some money, but I decide to call Antonio first. “Hello.” A woman’s voice comes onto the line, but it is difficult to hear her. “Hi. Lizetra?” I speak loudly into the phone. “Yes. Who is this?” “This is Kimberly. I’m calling from Guyana. Is Antonio there?” “No. He’s working on the apartment building. There’s a new tenant coming in, and he needs to get the unit ready.” “Oh. O.k.,” I sigh. “Well, just tell him that I arrived safely and that I have a phone number in my room where I can be reached.” “Why don’t you call him on his cell phone? I’m in the middle of something right now.” “Oh. O.k. I’ll do that. Just tell him I called.” “Yes. I will. Goodbye.” She hangs up before I can say anything more. And so it begins, I think. I press the button to get a new dial tone and decide to call my mother instead of Antonio’s cell phone. “Hello.” “Hi Mom. I’m here.” “Oh, good. I was getting worried that I hadn’t heard from you yet. How is it?” “It’s fine. The house is clean and comfortable; very middle class.” “That’s good,” she says with the sound of relief in her voice that I realize uncomfortably reflects my own sense of relief. Then she adds: “What about the food?” “I haven’t really eaten anything yet. I’ve been mostly sleeping since I got here—just exhausted from the long hours of travel. I had some tea and sweet bread on Saturday and Sunday morning. And this morning Mrs. Singh prepared breakfast.” “You better eat. You don’t want to get sick.” “I’m sure I won’t get sick from missing a couple of meals!” I say laughing. “But I will eat lunch in town today. I’ve got to go exchange some money. And I want to see if the Red Thread women are around.” “Good. So how can I get in touch with you?”

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“I have a phone in my room. Take down the number.” After we hang up, I go to my carry-on bag and take out the small metal box I am using to store my valuables. With the small key on my key ring I open it and remove the packets of traveler’s checks. I count out enough to cover my room and boarding fees, then clip them together with a large paper clip. Of the remaining checks, I take out a couple to exchange in town. While I’m doing this I think of my mother’s overprotection. She had not been entirely supportive of my trip back to Guyana. Even though I am 30 years old, as her only child I think she found it unnerving for me to be thousands of miles away from home. We had been engaged in the dance of separation fairly intensively the past few years. She wanted me to soar, but not too far away. I look at my suitcases lying open on the floor of my room. I realize that I packed enough clothes and toiletry items to last six months or more. I remember Antonio making fun of me as I prepared for the trip, adding more and more items to the “must take” pile. “Why don’t you just take a few things?” he says with obvious dismay. “I want to be prepared,” I respond glibly. “For what? You are not going deep into the rainforest. Georgetown is a city. You can pick up things as you need them.” “Yes, well. I like this brand of soap. And anyway I don’t have the money to buy a bunch of stuff while I’m there.” “You could just use the local stuff. It will be cheaper.” “Probably, but I just want to be comfortable.” Antonio laughed at me then and I laughed too. But now, standing here in my bedroom at the Singh’s house, I am embarrassed by my insistence on “being comfortable.” Although graduate school had opened up possibilities to explore the world in ways that were not known to me or my family, I find that I remain tethered to the familiarity of home. …  …  …  … 19 August 1996 Early afternoon “Where you goin’, miss?” I look at the slip of paper where I have written down the name and address of the bank. “To Guyana Bank for Trade and Industry on Water Street,” I say.

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The hot afternoon air flows into the car as the driver heads toward town. Out of the window I look at the neighborhood. I can see more clearly what I could only glimpse in the darkness on the night of my arrival. There are a mix of houses, some large and white and others smaller, wooden, and weathered. I see women in their yards doing wash and hanging laundry and some men and women working in small shops set up in front yards selling sodas, packaged snack foods, and other basic food items. The neighborhood is a mix of people—some who look Indian and some who look black and some whose racial-ethnic identity is unclear to my outsider eyes. When we approach town, I tell the driver to let me off before we get to the bank. I want to walk a ways to get a feel for the city again. I exit the taxi on Main Street in front of the Hotel Tower. I am near the center of Georgetown’s commercial area. I walk to the corner of the wide tree-lined street and pause to get my bearings. If I head south and to the west just a bit, I will be working my way toward the bank, and I can take a peek in several shops and at the government building along my journey. As I finally reach Water Street and walk across the courtyard to the bank, I see that it is closed. I look at my watch. “It’s one o’clock in the afternoon. Maybe they close for lunch.” I look closely at the glass doors of the bank. The hours posted say that it closes at 12:30 P.M. Mondays through Thursdays. There are afternoon hours only on Friday. “Shit!” I say to myself as I stand unsure of my next move. Then I remember that there are small cambios to change money throughout the city. And that I had, in fact, passed one on my walk through town. I retrace my steps and see a sign directing me to the cambio a bit down on a side street. Thinking that they won’t be willing to change traveler’s checks, I take a few U.S. bills out of my jeans pocket and go inside to change them into Guyanese dollars. After I’ve made the exchange, I decide to walk back to Kitty, rather than get another taxi. “Might as well start being conservative about my spending now,” I think. “Pssssssssst.” A man driving past in a car tries to get my attention. Another man, walking on the opposite side of the road shouts out “Hello Miss.” I just keep walking. A taxi driver stops his car in front of me and asks, “Where you goin’, Miss?” “Kitty.” “I can take you.”

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“How much?” “Three hundred Guyanese.” That’s almost double what I think is the going rate.3 So, rather than haggle him down, I say: “No, that’s o.k. Thanks.” He sucks his teeth,4 in that decidedly West Indian way, and drives off. I walk for what seems like another mile. The city, with its gridlike layout, is easy to maneuver. Mrs. Singh had thoughtfully left a map of Georgetown in my room, and in the last couple of days I’d studied the map—in between sleeping. However, the ease of getting from one place to another was hampered by the intensity of the heat and humidity. My California clothes—denim jeans and a cotton t-shirt—are feeling heavy. “Beep, beep, beep.” A small car horn gets my attention. An older Afro-Guyanese man leans out of the car, “You need a ride, miss?” “Thanks, but I’m o.k.” “Where are you goin’?” “To Kitty.” “Get in, I am goin’ that way. It no problem.” I look around and wonder if I should just tell him to go on his way. I ponder this for a moment and then look again at his face. “O.k., thanks,” I say as I get in the car suddenly thankful for some respite from the sun as well as the constant questions and whistles from the men on the street. “You from the States?” “Yes,” I answer him and wonder if there is something about me that says: American. I ask: “How did you know?” He laughs and shrugs his shoulders. “I live in the States for many years before I return home, to Guyana.” I sit waiting for him to say more about the clues to my American-ness, but he doesn’t offer anything else. So I ask: “How long have you been back?” “Since the General Elections in 1992.” “Did you come back because of the elections?” I knew that this election was the first free-and-fair election in Guyana since Burnham and his People’s National Congress party took office in 1964.5 “Yes. I want to be a part of the new democracy here. I want to come home back to the land of my birth.” “And so have things gotten better?” He shakes his head, slowly back and forth. “It look like t’ings get better for a time. But we still have many of the same problems. And the government not up to snuff, so to speak.”

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His tone of frustration reminds me of Jamaica Kincaid’s description of Antigua in A Small Place—where independence and sovereignty have not meant prosperity or even stability for many of the people. Like Kincaid, this man places part of the blame at the feet of the government. “Do you think you’ll stay?” I ask, looking over at his profile and thinking that with his dark brown skin and grizzled wooly grey hair it’s almost as if I’m talking to my father. In fact, beyond the physical similarities, there is a restlessness of spirit that also feels quite familiar. “Unfortunately, I hope to leave again. To go somewhere else, maybe Canada or England. I got family in both those places.” “Really? Because of the political and economic situation?” “Yes, yes.” He glances over at me and says: “Your people originally from Guyana?” “No, actually. I’m just here to do some research on women, focusing on a women’s development organization.” “I see. When did you arrive?” “I just got here a few days ago. But this is my second time here. I came two years ago.” “Ahh, and so you returned?” “Yes.” I smile brighter than I feel and nod my head. “I’m hoping to write my dissertation on this group.” “Mmhh, a university student. That is excellent,” he says as we get to the intersection of the Public Road and he stops the car. “I goin’ more east. Can you find your way from here?” “Yes. I should be fine. Thanks so much!” I reach into my backpack and grab my wallet. I begin opening it, but he says: “No, miss. It my pleasure. Good luck with your studies.” “Thank you, thank you.” I jump out of his car and wave as he drives off. I take a moment to orient myself before heading toward the Singh house. Once there, I walk up the long driveway and enter the house through the kitchen door. Inside I see that preparations for the evening meal have begun. Vegetables are chopped and sitting in small colorful piles near the cook stove. The lid on a large saucepan is bouncing up and down emitting small wisps of steam and the aroma of cooking rice. But Mrs. Singh is not in the kitchen, and I hear voices and music coming from the main parlor. The music seems familiar to me, but I can’t place it.

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When I enter the parlor, Leila and Mrs. Singh are standing in the middle of the room watching the television, talking and laughing with each other. Mrs. Singh has on an apron and Leila is holding a broom. I smile at them and then turn to look at the TV screen. Instantly, I recognize the montage of pictures, fading one into another, with the overlay of the theme music from the daytime soap opera. “You get The Young and the Restless?” I ask, a bit surprised. “Yes, we have satellite from the States,” Mrs. Singh responds. “Oh, I grew up watching this one,” I say to them. “But I haven’t kept up with it much recently.” “Yeah? We like to watch it while we do the afternoon chores,” Leila says. “So, what’s the latest? The last I knew the woman that Nathan had an affair with was dying from AIDS.” “She die a little bit ago, and her doctor, you know the wife of Nathan, kept their son away from him. She angry because he expose her to the AIDS when they tryin’ to get a new baby,” Mrs. Singh explains. “Yeah. And then he felt push back and decide to take the child and run away,” Leila adds. “Let me get the daal started before the show does come back on,” says Mrs. Singh as she walks quickly into the kitchen. As if on cue, Leila begins sweeping the floor. I stand awkwardly in the middle of the parlor, then say: “I’m going to take a shower. I’ll be back down in a while.” I go upstairs, drop my backpack in my room and grab my toiletry bag before heading into the bathroom for a long shower. About half an hour later, I walk back downstairs. Leila and Mrs. Singh are sitting on the sofa leaning forward, listening and watching the television screen intently. I join them, quietly sitting on the sofa next to Mrs. Singh. The scene is in a hospital. The music is low as the camera zooms in on Nathan lying in a bed, seemingly unconscious. “What’s happened?” I whisper. Mrs. Singh motions me silent with her hands and we watch the scene together. At the commercial break, Mrs. Singh leans back on the sofa. I ask again. “What happened?” “Nathan does come to bring the boy back to his mother, and the boy got so excited to be home again, he does run away.”

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Leila nods her head and picks up the thread, “Then Nathan does run after him and gets hit by a car. He goin’ die. So they sent for Miss Olivia and the boy.” “Oh, wow.” “Yeah. And Paul, you know who was helpin’ Miss Olivia look for Nathan and the boy?” Leila looks at me and I nod my head up and down, urging her to continue. “He talk to his wife Christine, and they goin’ have they honeymoon in St. Kitts. The thing that funny is that they don’t know that the other woman, Phyllis, goin’ to the same place for a vacation.” “Phyllis?” I wonder out loud. “Is she the one who tried to break up Christine and Danny?” “Yeah, that her,” Leila replies. “O.k. Right. I remember her. The crazy one.” “Yeah, she does hate Christine. But Christine not with Danny now, she just marry Paul,” Mrs. Singh says to me. Then to Leila: “Get the table set, girl. Your papa will be home soon.” Leila gets up from the sofa and begins setting the large dining room table for dinner. Mrs. Singh opens the front door and shouts out for the small boy, Jalil, to come inside and prepare for the evening meal. The middle child, Zenia, comes downstairs at about the same time. She has a notebook and pencil in her hands. “You complete your school work?” Mrs. Singh asks her as she turns from the front door and walks back toward the kitchen. “Yes, ma’am. I finish. I just need someone to check my sums,” Zenia responds. “Leave it for your papa. He will look it over after we does eat.” Several minutes later, the show comes back on, and we all gather on the sofa to watch the final scene for the day. As the credits roll, I hear Mr. Singh’s car pull into the long driveway. Mrs. Singh stands up, wipes her hands on her apron, and goes to greet him at the kitchen door. Jalil also jumps up and runs to the back of the house shouting “Papa! Papa!” Leila and Zenia and I remain sitting on the sofa. Leila says: “It too bad Nathan die. He and Miss Olivia have much love for each other.” I nod my head, up and down. “You does live in the States?” Leila asks looking at me. “Yes. In California,” I say. “Is it like in the show?” Zenia asks.

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Sort of,” I say. “Well, more in some places than in other places. These people would be considered very wealthy.” “Oh.” Leila and Zenia say simultaneously. “I mean some people probably live like they do, but most people don’t.” I pause thinking about what I want to say. Both of them are looking at me with such a sense of expectation in their eyes. But before I can say more Mr. Singh comes out of the kitchen. “Good evening,” he says. “Good evening, Papa.” The girls say in unison, jumping up from the sofa and going to greet him. “Good evening,” I say, standing as well. Mr. Singh nods in my direction. Then as he and the girls walk arm in arm he says: “We are to eat now. I will clean up and join you for the meal. Go help your mother with the food.” Zenia and Leila go into the kitchen, and in moments all three women come out with platters and bowls filled with steaming food. Jalil rushes out of the kitchen after them, pushing a toy truck across the floor on his hands and knees. Mrs. Singh says to the little boy, her tone sharp: “Put that away now and go wash your hands. We goin’ to sit down for the meal!” Still standing, I walk over to the table. “Can I help with something?” “No. Just sit right here.” Mrs. Singh motions me toward one of the side chairs. She sits at the head of the table to my right, and the girls sit across from each other to my left. Jalil sits across from me and next to his oldest sister. While we wait for Mr. Singh to come downstairs, Mrs. Singh describes the food. “Today is a meatless day. I prepare yellow pea daal,” she says pointing to a large soup tureen. “And this is ochro cooked with onion. Over there is the pumpkin. It is a bit spicy. The roti is there under the kitchen towel.” Then, uncovering the last bowl, she says: “This, of course, is rice.” As Mr. Singh comes down the stairs, Zenia jumps up from her seat and runs into the kitchen, saying: “The achar.6” When she returns with the jar of green mango pickle, Mr. Singh is seated, and we begin to eat. I watch closely. First, the daal is poured into our shallow bowls. Then the roti is broken into bite sized pieces and placed in the bowl. Then the other things are added, almost as seasonings: the ochro, the pumpkin, the achar. All this topped off with enough fresh cooked white rice to make it a consistency that can be picked up with the fingers.

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I follow their example, but just as I am about to dip my fingers into my bowl, Mrs. Singh says: “You can use a spoon if you feel more comfortable.” “O.k.” I think for a moment before picking up the spoon and digging into the bowl, appreciating how Mrs. Singh tries to make me feel a little less awkward. The food is quite delicious, and I eat silently listening to Mr. Singh tell us about his day. …  …  …  … 20 August 1996 10:00 A.M. I walk up the long driveway toward the flat of the Red Thread resource woman Karen de Souza.7 Because Karen is my primary contact person for Red Thread, I had been calling her flat off and on since my arrival in Guyana. But since there was never an answer, I decide to take a chance and just go to her flat after leaving the bank. When I get to the door, I hear talking inside, and I hesitate a moment. Just as I raise my hand to knock, the door opens, and a young black woman is standing there. “Oh!” she says, clearly surprised to see me at the door. “Sorry . . . Hi. I’m looking for Karen de Souza?” “She not here just now.” “O.k.,” I pause. This woman looks familiar to me, so I ask: “Are you with Red Thread?” “Yeah.” “I don’t know if I met you before, but I was here a couple of years ago. My name is Kimberly. I’m from . . .” She moves closer to the threshold. “Are you the one from the States?” “Yes. That’s me.” “I does meet you when you were visitin’ before.” “What’s your name?” “Michelle.” “Yes, I thought you looked familiar.” I remembered meeting Michelle briefly during my last visit to Guyana. She had just had a baby and wasn’t as active in the organization as she had been. “Come in ‘na. Karen does tell us you were comin’ again.” “Oh good.” I step forward, and as my eyes adjust to the relative darkness inside the house, I see that there are several women in the room.

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“Ladies, this Miss Kimberly. She come here from the States. Remember Karen does say she would be comin’ sometime this week.” “Is Karen here?” I ask. Michelle responds: “No. She not here just now. She away in the interior.” “Oh.” I stand just at the threshold of the door. It is warm in the room, and the straps of my backpack are slipping off my slightly damp shoulders. I remove it and set it down on the floor next to my feet. “When will she return?” “We not sure,” says a woman standing near the computer. Michelle begins to introduce the women in the room. “This Miss Leslie,” she nods toward an older black woman sitting on the sofa sorting through a stack of papers. “And the two over there workin’ on the computer are Miss Lisa and you remember my mother, Miss Joan. Over there at the sink is Miss Nati.” I look around the room as Michelle introduces each of the women. They are in various states of undress, mostly without blouses and with skirts pulled up over their bras like halter tops or just wearing their bras. This is an effort, I assume, to remain cool in the heat. I am also extremely hot in my jeans and denim short-sleeved shirt, but I don’t remove my shirt. “Hi everyone. I do think I met some of you before, when I was here two years ago.” Some of the women nod as if in recognition, but no one says anything. I go on, “What are you working on?” “We tryin’ to see what wrong with this machine. It not work since the blackout last week,” says Miss Joan. “Really?” “Do you know anyt’ing ‘bout these kinda machines?” Miss Joan asks. “Well, I know how to type on them, not how to fix them.” But I pick up my backpack and walk over to the machine anyway, just to see what they are doing. The case containing the hard drive is open, and the women are peering down into it. I join them. After several moments, when it is clear that I can offer no concrete help, Michelle says: “We ‘gon have to find someone who can repair it.” “Are you working on a specific project?” I ask. “We workin’ on a proposal to get more fundin’. Karen does leave us to work on this t’ing ourselves. But soon after she gone, we have trouble with the machine.” Michelle says in her sing-songy voice.

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“Oh, that’s too bad. Sorry, I can’t be of more help.” “It no problem. We does find a way.” Michelle says resolutely. “What you workin’ on, girl?” Joan asks me. “Why am I here? Back in Guyana?” “Yes ‘na,” she says, nodding her head. “I’m interested in talking with you all and learning about why you joined Red Thread and your experiences with the group.” “You writin’ a report?” Joan continues questioning me. I hesitate because I never know quite how to describe what I’m doing. “I’m working on a project for school; for my graduate school degree. I am interested in how you all came together to be in Red Thread.” “Yes, yes. I does remember you.” Joan has been watching me closely the whole time I was talking. “You put on a bit.” “I have?” Not really sure what she means by this. “Yeah. You look good, good. But a bit more . . .” she pauses and motions around her own body. “A bit more ample, ample.” I am taken off guard by her comment, but I have to laugh. “Joan!” Lisa says. “What ‘dis here girl goin’ t’ink?” “No, it’s o.k.,” I say. “I probably have gained some weight since I was here last.” “You get baby? You does marry?” Joan asks, still pressing the issue. “No. I didn’t have a baby or get married.” Either of which, I suppose to myself, would explain my newfound plumpness. “Oh,” Joan responds. We stand in silence for a few moments. Then I say: “Anyway, I want to interview as many Red Thread women as possible about your lives and experiences.” “How long you visitin’?” Michelle asks. “I’ll be here for two months. I’m living here in Kitty, and I can interview some of you right here in town. But I would also like to travel to where you live to do the interviews in your home. If that’s possible.” “We can host you in Linden,” Michelle offers. “Thanks! That would be really great.” “You does know Miss Julie?” Lisa asks. “I’m not sure? Is she a Red Thread member?” “No, she like you.” Lisa pauses and then says: “Well, she from Canada, not the States. But she also interest in Red Thread.” “Oh, right, yes. I am supposed to meet with her tomorrow evening.” “Good.”

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“Is the phone working?” I ask, thinking that would explain why no one had been answering it when I called. “Yes, man.” Michelle says. “Oh?” I pause, then continue, “I need to call Nigel.8 You know the WPA activist?” “Yes, yes. I does know him.” Michelle nods. “I haven’t seen him since my last visit here when I did so much research in the WPA archives. I am hoping to have lunch with him today. But, maybe I can come back tomorrow or the next day to talk more with you all? Will you be here?” “Yeah, we does be here.” …  …  …  … 20 August 1996 Noon. I sit on the Georgetown Seawall9 and wait for Nigel. It is a fairly clear day, with bright fluffy clouds off in the distance. The ocean is calm, but not clear—it is a brown color at the dark rocky shore and a deep bluish-brown farther out. I wonder if people ever swim in it. It does not look inviting. The shore certainly does not fulfill the expected images of a white, sandy Caribbean beach. “You have returned.” Nigel says, interrupting my thoughts as he joins me. “Yes. I made it back.” I smile up to him offering my hand to shake. He clasps it in both of his and smiles broadly, revealing a missing molar. His face is as handsome as ever, with deeply brown eyes that crinkle at the corners. “How long will you be here?” “About two months. Depends on how it goes with the interviews,” I respond. Nigel smiles and shakes his head back and forth. Perhaps he is remembering that I kept wanting to leave during my last trip to Guyana. But he just says: “Let’s walk and get some lunch.” We walk along the seawall and then end up at a small cafe on the road. On the wall next to the door is a sign with the words “Creole Dishes” hand-lettered in large block print. Below this is a list of available foods: stew chicken, chicken curry, cook-up, and so on. Once inside, Nigel orders the curried chicken with rice, fruit salad, and a soda. Not feeling especially hungry, I have fruit salad and a soda. We settle into a table on the outdoor patio.

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“So, how is it so far?” Nigel asks. “O.k. I think. The Singhs seem pretty nice, and the room is comfortable. But I went to Karen’s this morning and found she’s out of town. I don’t know when she will return.” I pause, drinking my soda. Nigel nods as he eats but doesn’t say anything. “I’m going to go back and talk with the Red Thread community women that were there either tomorrow or the next day. I can probably set up interviews with them and hope I get interviews with the resource women later.” “They are in and out.” Nigel says. “The resource women?” “Yeah man. I t’ink Karen is the only one that is here steady, steady.” “Oh. I didn’t know.” Realizing that I have a limited time to be in Guyana, I wonder how this will structure my work. Of course, I can’t expect that the women would just be waiting for me to interview them. They have lives and commitments. But this reality doesn’t stop me from feeling worried about accomplishing what I proposed. Given my preliminary research, I believe that the resource women’s perspectives will be important to get a sense of how the organization began. I am particularly interested in learning about how they came out of formal party politics to engage with women at the local levels. Well, I think, it’s probably fitting that I must begin with interviewing the community women. Not only are they here and relatively more available, but their stories are likely to be central to understanding the core of the work of Red Thread. …  …  …  … 20 August Early evening As I turn the corner onto the Singhs’ street, I see Jalil racing up and down the road on his bike. He’s laughing and screaming out to a small group of boys riding behind him on their own bikes. Jalil is still wearing his school uniform—short khaki pants and a white, button-down short-sleeved shirt. I watch his spindly legs and knobby knees go round and round as his almost too-big feet pump on the pedals. The other boys are black and seem older than Jalil. They are not wearing uniform clothes; in fact, two of them have on worn jeans and no shirts. Although they are laughing too, there’s a slight edge to the

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interaction. But I can’t understand what they are saying to each other, so I just pass them and walk the short distance to the Singh house. By the time I get inside the house, I realize that I am just in time for The Young and the Restless. Mrs. Singh has set the ironing board up in the main parlor and is working through a stack of clothes. Leila is folding clothes already ironed, and Zenia is sitting at the dining room table doing her homework. “Hi,” I say as I enter the parlor. “Good Evening,” Mrs. Singh replies. Both Leila and Zenia smile but say nothing. “I did not prepare dinner tonight. Mr. Singh is working late and will eat dinner in town. But there is plenty food already prepare if you does want.” “Thanks, but I am going to meet some folks in town for dinner this evening.” “Sssh.” Leila makes a small noise as the soap opera begins. I sit on the sofa and watch the television. The scene opens focused on one of the main characters and then pans out with a long shot of a tropical-looking beach. Steel band music is playing in the background. Christine and Paul are sitting on a blanket spread out on the sand on the beach. A picnic basket is open, and there are remnants of their meal strewn about in front of them. PAUL:

[looking out at the beach and then back at Christine] So, beautiful. Ready for dessert? CHRISTINE: I don’t know if I have room, after the feast we’ve just had. PAUL: The hotel really went all out. CHRISTINE: Eggplant and avocado casserole, hot and sweet peppers, lobster baked in coconut milk . . . PAUL: Speaking of coconuts, check out the fruit platter. [He gestures toward the platter.] Fresh mangoes, papayas, sugar apples, genips. CHRIS: Genips? PAUL: Sort of a cross between a lime and a . . . Here taste. [Christine takes it in her mouth, sensuously savoring it.] You like? CHRIS: Very much. PAUL: I’m talking about the fruit. CHRIS: Oh, right.

Leila giggles nervously and looks over at her mother. Mrs. Singh is smiling, too. I am struck not by the double entendre and playful sensuality of the program but by the incongruity between the tropical Caribbean scene I am witnessing on the television and the Caribbean

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scene I am experiencing.10 Indeed, there is a double-imagining that is happening. Yesterday, when Leila and Zenia were asking me questions about where I am from, it was clear that they wanted to know if I lived like the Americans on the screen. In the television show, the Americans visit a tropical island and partake of exotic fruit within the context of a pristine beach and luxurious hotel. Both sets of images are constructed out of an upper-class, Anglo-American imagination. But they are consumed by all of us, and they shape our perceptions of one another. …  …  …  … 21 August 1996 6:00 P.M. “Come in.” A young white woman answers the door. She has on a beautiful print skirt that flows down to her ankles and a long tunic with embroidery around the sleeves and neck. “I’m Julie.” “Yes. Good to meet you,” I say as I walk into the apartment. “Just leave your things there,” she says motioning to the small bench to the right of the door. “We are preparing dinner.” I put my backpack on the bench and follow her down the narrow hallway to the main living space of the apartment. Three others are gathered there—an Asian woman, another white woman, and a white young man. Julie introduces them to me. They are all volunteers with the development agency with which she is also affiliated. “Do you want something to drink?” Bertram, the young man, asks. “Let’s see, there is beer, rum, and some fruit juice.” “A beer would be good.” He jumps up from his seat on the floor and walks over to the galley-style kitchen on the left side of the room. Melinda, the other white woman, says: “We were just talking about the abundant bug life.” “Oh?” I say, as I settle into one of the empty chairs. “Yeah. And I was telling them how I found this huge flying beetle, and I was so impressed with it that I decided to kill it and preserve it in alcohol.” I think back to my previous trip, when I battled those enormous flying beetles, although I had referred to them as “flying roaches.” I had also found myself dealing with an invasion of frogs; frogs from the size of my pinky fingernail on up. And then came the spiders.

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I had stocked up on bug spray, the really bad kind that you can’t buy in the U.S. anymore, and used it liberally. It had never occurred to me to preserve one of these creatures. So as I sit listening to Melinda I am slightly dumbfounded. All I can manage to ask is “Really?” “Yeah. I’m going to take it back to Canada with me.” She laughs, and the others join in. Bertram returns to the living room from the kitchen and leans over to hand me the beer. It’s nice and cold, and I take a long drink while looking around. “Don’t mind her,” Bertram says motioning over toward Melinda. “She’s easily impressed. And . . .” he pauses for effect, “her tour of duty is over. She’s leaving tomorrow.” “How long have you been here?” I ask her. “A year.” “Wow!” “Yeah. It’s been a real trip.” She laughs and drinks from a glass. “Did you find the beetle here in Georgetown?” I ask. “No. I work out in one of the Amerindian villages in the Interior.” “Oh yeah. On what?” “Lots of different things the whole year. But the biggest projects have been to dig a well and to get a school started.” “Yeah. We are all out in the Interior,” Bertram says. “Except Julie. She’s been working mostly in Georgetown. So, when we can leave the villages we come here and crash.” Julie is in the kitchen, and so I get up and join her there. She is stirring a pan of potatoes and other vegetables. The room smells of curry and coconut milk. “Can I help?” I ask her. “Well, it’s almost done. But we were going to try our hands at making roti?” She pauses and looks at me. “Have you had it yet?” “Yes, the woman that I am boarding with makes it pretty often. She’s a really great cook, and her roti is excellent.” “Oh yeah? I’ve been practicing.” As the others join us at the small kitchen table Bertram says: “It’s an art, man.” The other young woman, Elizabeth, says: “Yeah. I don’t get to cook much where I’m staying, and they actually don’t make a whole lot of roti there anyway. I always think of it as a Georgetown thing.” We spend the next half hour talking one another through the roti-making process. Julie has a cookbook on Guyanese food, and we take turns reading and rereading the recipe. Finally we produce a heavier and slightly greasy version of the Indian flatbread. As we

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sit on the floor of the living room eating the roti and curried potatoes and vegetables, I listen to the easy chatter. “So they told me I have funny blood,” Melinda says louder. “What does that mean?” Bertram and Elizabeth ask simultaneously, looking at each other and laughing before settling in and holding hands. “Well, I went to for malaria screening, and the technician told me that my test was negative, but that I have funny blood.” Melinda explains matter of factly. “Do you think you have malaria?” Bertram asks. “Well, I thought I was having symptoms. So I decided to check,” she answers. “Oh. So now what?” Julie asks. “Well, he said I should go get tested again.” Melinda laughs, and the others join in. She continues: “I leave for Canada in the morning, so I’ll just get tested when I get home.” Elizabeth asks: “How are you going to get to the airport?” “A bunch of us are going on the back of someone’s truck. I’m not sure who’s truck, but I’m sure we’ll get there o.k.” She leans back, popping a bit of roti and vegetables into her mouth. They all nod and continue the conversation. I sit silently and think about their nonchalant attitudes. It all seems foreign to me. Later that evening, as I help Julie clean up the kitchen, she says: “You got kinda quiet.” “Oh, I did? Well, I’m probably just getting adjusted after the journey down here.” I say. “So what do you think about Red Thread?” “I haven’t spent any time with the women yet. But from my last trip here, I think that they are doing really interesting work.” “Yeah. I’ve learned so much being here. You know people in the North don’t even recognize that women in other parts of the world have vastly difference experiences.” “Yes, that’s true.” But while I say this I am thinking: “Forget other parts of the world, right there in our own backyards women are having vastly different experiences.” Julie continues: “I have been so engaged with this group’s work. We have to find ways to get more funding down here.” I nod my head in agreement. Julie is now wiping down the counter, and I am stacking plates in the cupboard.

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“There’s a big conference on development coming up in a few days.11 You should go. I think some of the women from Red Thread will be there.” “Oh, yes. Where will it be?” “In town, at the Hotel Tower. Over on Main Street.” “O.k. I was planning to check out the National Archives anyway, which is downtown. So I’ll just make a day of it.” Julie says: “Good. Then I’ll see you there tomorrow.” “O.k. Well, it’s getting late. I should get a cab and get back home.” I sit in the cab on my way back to the Singh’s house and think about the evening. My first thought is that even people like Julie, who care deeply about poverty and inequality, still have to go half-way around the world to discover it and be amazed and in awe of women managing to survive and empower themselves. But I know this is too harsh; perhaps I am reacting to the incongruity of the evening’s conversation. Julie, who is closer to my age, seems really committed to being a catalyst for change in Guyana. She understands her role as a privileged North American is to work toward a more equal distribution of the world’s resources. In contrast, Melinda’s youthful exuberance seems rooted in seeing herself as experiencing the exotic other.12 Along with her preserved native insect, she will return to the North with tales of adventure and escapade. This whole thing just doesn’t feel right, I think.13 But I am here, too. I chose this work. Where do my sensibilities lie? What role will I play? I ask myself these questions as I enter the Singh house. Everyone has gone to bed, and the house is still. I go through the kitchen, the front parlor, and then up the stairs to my bedroom. Once there, I turn on the overhead light and sit on the bed, appreciating the breeze from the ceiling fan. I remember that I bought a journal for my time here, so I get up and search around in one of my bags for it. When I find it, I return to the bed and open it, running my hand along the blank lavender-colored pages. I reach over to the small desk and grab a pen and begin writing on the first page: August 21, 1996 I’ve been in Guyana for about a week. So much has happened already. I’ve become reacquainted with some of the Red Thread community women. And today I met some other North Americans . . .

I write well into the night.

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CHAPTER 4 Women’s Work

31 August 1996 3:30 P.M. It is the warmest part of the day. A noon-time rain shower has intensified the heat and humidity of the afternoon. Nati, Lisa, and I rush across Water Street eager to escape the glare of the sun. Lisa is in front of us, boldly stopping traffic with a bright goldentoothed smile and flounce of her short skirt. Nati and I are a bit slower, weighed down, perhaps, by our heavier clothes, damp with perspiration and the remnants of the earlier shower. As we reach the other side of the road, Lisa pauses to chat flirtatiously with one of the passengers in a passing car. At first glance, we might have appeared to be a group of girlfriends or co-workers walking together at the end of a busy workday, heading to the center of town for a dish of ice cream or a tall glass of cold Coca-Cola. Indeed, there was nothing that unusual about two East Indian women and one black woman walking together, friendly 99

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and familiar on the streets of Georgetown. The intense racial tensions and animosity of the past had given way to a sort of multicultural Guyana. Even though, as I will learn with my host family, racial distrust often bubbles just under the surface of class relations. But, today, we three women, drawn together by Red Thread, were a witness to the work of the organization, facilitating cross-cultural, cross-class, and cross-racial collaboration and communication among women from several villages throughout Guyana. Nati and Lisa, both East Indian women from villages miles apart from each other, had met in Red Thread and formed a friendship through the skills-training and consciousness-raising activities of the group. As a burgeoning scholar of women’s cross-cultural and cross-ethnic political mobilization, I am here to learn about the organization and the lives of the women who worked within it. After over two weeks in Guyana, I am finally taking my first trip outside Georgetown to interview two community women in their homes. “How you like working here, with us?” Nati asks me as we head into the Stabroek Marketplace, the bustling center of Georgetown, Guyana’s capital city. “I’m learning so much,” I respond, not willing to commit to anything in particular as I wonder how much to reveal about myself. Perhaps sensing that I am uncomfortable, Lisa says: “It would go much easier for you if you had a man to show you around and such.” I laugh in that forced way that indicates surprise, but not mirth. “Well . . .” I start to say, looking toward Nati for support. But Lisa continues: “If you had a man to take you around places here you could be more free.” “Well, my boyfriend in California wouldn’t like it if I had a boyfriend in Guyana.” Nati and Lisa laugh.. Lisa says: “You think so highly of him that he does not have another woman?” “I don’t know. I guess what I don’t know won’t hurt me.” They exchange looks but say nothing. We approach the minibus terminal. Drivers are shouting out the qualities of their service: “We got Calypso here!” says one man motioning for us to choose his minibus. “I get you where you going, fast fast,” says another. I’m overwhelmed by the press of people, jockeying for space on crowded buses. Incongruously, the scent of Kentucky Fried Chicken permeates the air, mingling with the smells of the road, the fruits from a nearby

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open-air produce market, and the sea. Nati separates from us and goes to the food market to pick up a few last-minute things for dinner. Lisa goes to secure our passages on minibuses, and I tag along with her trying to understand the negotiation process that she engages in. After nearly 45 minutes, Lisa boards a bus to her village, and Nati and I are settled onto another minibus going to her village on the West Coast of Berbice.1 As soon as we are in our seats, Nati says to me: “Lisa walks too slow to town and then takes too long to secure passage. She got her son only . . . she has time to spare. Here it nearly a quarter past four and me . . . I got to cook, wash, . . . it just me. Lisa got her mother to be there, to have cooked food waiting.” “Lisa lives with her mother?” I ask. “She does stay by her mother, and her son is there with them. So she don’t have the same pressure . . . you know,” Nati says in a softly lilting voice with the sound of Guyana in her words. As we travel on the minibus, bumping along the highway, paved in some places and dirt in others, I think about what Nati is telling me. I wonder about Lisa’s insistence that a man would make my life in Guyana easier when she has chosen a different path. “Nati girl, is dat you?” An older East Indian woman on the back of the bus shouts out. Nati turns around and looks at the woman. After a few moments she recognizes her and says: “Yes ma’am. Is me.” The woman shouts forward: “I does see you on the bus coming and going from Georgetown. What you up to gal?” “I’s working with the women’s group—the Red Thread,” Nati replies. “Oh I does here about them.” The woman sucks her teeth. I sense disapproval. The woman continues: “I thought you did marry girl? You must have a good husband . . . or a bad one.” Nati laughs uneasily but does not respond. A heavy-set Afro-Guyanese man sitting closer to us picks up on this thread when he says to everyone and to no one in particular that he is surprised to see all these women on the minibus so late. He asks: “Why you not at home cooking for your husbands?” With a look somewhere between a sly smile and a grimace on her face, Nati turns to the man. “Is that all women are supposed to do? Is this our role in life? Why? Why?”

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I lean over to hear his answer, but at that moment the minibus hits a bump in the road. All conversation is halted as we lurch forward, and several people shout out: “Careful na, Man!” After several minutes of intense turbulence, we settle down. Nati shifts in her seat and brings the shopping bag closer to her chest, securing it. Somehow I hadn’t noticed that her left knee is bandaged until she lifts her long denim skirt a bit to extend her leg into the aisle of the minibus as far as possible, in between those of other passengers who are standing. The sky is darkening as we continue to bounce along the road to Nati’s village in Berbice. The darkness of the night is quite stunning. Although the lights of the capital city, Georgetown, do not compare to an even moderate-sized city in the U.S., the absolute clarity of the sky and the brilliance of the stars in the villages surrounding Georgetown seem almost incomprehensible. It takes us over an hour to reach Berbice. We exit the minibus and walk on the road to Nati’s home. I’m carrying a small bag with a change of clothes and some toiletry items. I also have my backpack with the detritus of my work—a tape recorder, a notepad, some pens and pencils, batteries, and extra cassette tapes. Nati is carrying the bag of food and another bag with items similar to my own: a notebook, writing supplies, and materials from her work with Red Thread. Nati and her family live in a typical Guyanese home, built up high, with a partially open “bottom house” that she tells me they are in the process of enclosing and making into a kitchen and indoor washroom. Nati shifts her parcels to free up one hand to push the door open. As we enter the house, I see that various members of her family are sitting and seemingly waiting for our arrival. An older man and a young girl sit at the large kitchen table just to the right of the front door. A man, who I learn is her husband, is sitting at the top of the stairs leading to the top house, where the parlor and the bedrooms are located. Three young men sit just below him. After Nati introduces me to everyone, her family disperses to other rooms in the house or the yard. But her youngest, her daughter Leeta, stays with us and watches me—shyly at first and then openly. Our arrival is punctuated by Nati’s sudden flurry of activity as she sets to cooking right away. “You does eat meat?” She asks me, taking chicken and potatoes out of the shopping bag. “Yes, yes, I eat meat. Can I help you with the cooking?”

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“No, no . . . I will do it. You said you want to talk to me, interview me?” She gives Leeta a small paring knife and a bowl to peel and cut the potatoes. “Yes, I’d like to ask you some questions about your life. Is it o.k. if I ask you while you are cooking?” “Yes, man. No problem.” Nati goes outside the kitchen door, and I hear water running. She returns with a small plastic pitcher and wipes her hands on a kitchen towel after setting the pitcher down on the counter. She then dips flour from a large jar and sieves it into a metal mixing bowl before adding what looks likes ghee (clarified butter) from another smaller jar sitting near the back of the kitchen. She rubs the flour and fat mixture together with one hand and adds the water from the plastic pitcher with the other. Her hair, which was neatly pulled back into a bun at the nape of her neck, comes lose a bit and frames her face. She finishes the soft sticky dough and leaves it to rest before pouring the remaining water out of the pitcher over her hand into the large wash basin perched on a board lying on cinder blocks. She wipes her hands again on the kitchen towel and then places it over the metal bowl containing the dough. The process takes only a few minutes. While Nati works, my eyes adjust to the room, dimly lit with several candles. I remove the tape recorder from my bag and put in a new cassette tape. I test it to make sure the batteries have power. “With the blackout there is no current,” Nati says to me. “No, it’s fine. I have batteries.” I set the machine to record, and I ask Nati to tell me about her childhood. As she chops onion, garlic, and a small chile pepper, Nati weaves the tale of her life. I listen and ask questions here and there, deciding not to consult my lengthy interview protocol. I want to let her tell her story in a way that makes sense for her. But this is an artificial relationship. I am here thousands of miles away from everything that I know and from my own questions about my life, sitting in the kitchen of this East Indian Guyanese woman asking her about her life. Asking her to reflect on the choices she’s made, the constraints she’s labored under, and the joys she’s experienced. Although only five years separates us in age, our lives seem distinctly different. Her family responsibilities—four children ranging from 9–16 years old, a husband of 18 years, and relatively elderly parents—have shaped her life. But where I notice mostly the burdens of obligation, Nati tells of those spaces where change and exploration have been possible.

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“When you were ready to get married, did you and your husband ever talk about whether or not you would work outside the home?” “No.” “You didn’t talk about it? Was it assumed that you weren’t going to?” “Well, as everything else, as the man said on the bus today: ‘What you t’ink I married a woman for; she is to cook and clean, look after the family.’ So I think that was how it was for me. That was how it was, you know, actually set up. And, well, at that time, I never really thought about workin,’ too. And then after I started getting the children, there was a lot to do. I tend the garden, the animals . . .” I interrupt and ask: “How many animals do you have?” “Most of the animals was done only recently, because we hadn’t had a lot of animals before. But my husband did get back pay at one time, and that’s how we did buy a cow and two sheep. And as time go by, you know, you get increase. And later on we did buy another cow . . . no, we bought two more. Now we have seven. Just have them for milkin’ purpose. So I don’t have to buy milk, and I make my ghee; probably when they get old we sell them to the butcher. But back then, I was rearin’ chicken.” “So when did you start working with Red Thread?” “After I was at home for 11 long years.” Nati says this drawn out slowly as if reliving the length of this phase of her life. “Just lookin’ after the family and being at home, one day some women from Red Thread came to invite me out to attend a workshop. I said, o.k., here was an opportunity to go out and exchange some ideas or just listen to something that I think would be useful.” “Had you heard about them before they came around?” “No, no, no. I didn’t. Four women came to my home and invite me out to the workshop. And I said to them, ‘O.k., I’ll come.’ And they said, ‘Don’t let me down, you know. I lookin’ out for you or else I gon’ come and carry you down.’ And, I went to the workshop. It was very educational for me.” “What kind of workshop was it?” “‘A Woman’s Place.’ The information they shared was very good. And we, the women who attended the workshop, said to ourselves: ‘This is a good opportunity for us to start having a group and name it Red Thread.’ So we . . . about 35 women within the community . . . get together and decided that we have our weekly meetin’ on

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every Tuesday with some ideas from the women who came from Georgetown. And that’s how I became involved in Red Thread.” “So during your meetings that were once a week, what kind of things did you do?” “We started to do embroidery. We did skills trainin,’ Everybody had a piece of cloth, and they would go to learn to sew who didn’t know how to sew. And during that time we had some money. We had different projects. And money was allocated to us to do a saltfish project, to do samples of a garment production making baby diapers, vests, and shimmies.2 And we had money for a store, like a little snackette. Oh, and we had money for poultry rearing. But, unfortunately, all fail.” “They all failed?” “Because the saltfish was on the market, but then there was a fluctuation of the market price, and so it really couldn’t pay to do it. And the garment samples, we had them out, but . . .” Nati pauses and adds chopped garlic, onion, hot pepper, and seasonings to oil heating in the large stew pan. They sizzle, and the pungent aromas of curry powder and vegetables permeate the air. She stirs them for a while in silence and then says: “I don’t think they were really up to standard; because we had no over-edgin’ machine, just a simple machine.” Nati adds the chicken and potatoes to the stew pan and lets them cook on high heat. “And the poultry was going good until they had an outbreak of a disease that you call yaws.3 Which is like the fowl, you know the chickens, their face would start to get like pocks and they would just die off. So that’s what did happen to the poultry. Now for the snackette, it was like everybody was trying to look at the fast dollar, and nobody really tried to put in their lot about finding x-amount of time to go to somebody home to help prepare this thing to sell. And some people was like, just taking credits and didn’t pay.” “So after those projects failed, what happened to the group?” “The group was still meetin’. And we were still carrying on the skills training, because we had cooking classes goin’ on afterwards too. We even had like spelling, you know, like brain teasers and games within the meetin’. So it was like helping you to develop yourself educationally, as well as training in skills.” Nati looks over to her daughter. “Leeta girl, go get some water.” Leeta jumps up and takes the small pitcher outside and collects some water. When she returns, Nati is stirring the contents of the

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stew pan with one hand and adding some additional seasonings with the other. She directs Leeta to begin pouring water into the pan. “So you’ve been involved pretty consistently in Red Thread since then?” “Yes, well, after being in the group for some time, the team from Georgetown came up to do a workshop which was on child abuse; if I could remember well. And they ask for volunteers to do their very work, which we are doing right now. And I was interested.” “Which was putting on the play?” “No, doing workshops in different communities. And I said to myself, ‘Here is an opportunity for me to get out of the house.’ They told me, ‘Well, you have to volunteer your service without any money. Your travels will be paid, but then you have to be in Georgetown for 10 o’clock in the morning. You have to be careful because you have a husband, and you have to decide if that is what you want.’ You know?” Nati checks on the dough. She lightly flours the counter and turns the dough onto the surface. Using her fingers she breaks the dough into about 10 small pieces. “I said to myself, ‘I would like to be an independent woman. I’ve been in the house too long.’ So I persuaded myself to answer in that by myself. Well, they said, ‘o.k., you have to discuss this with your husband.’ Because they’re not tellin’ me to decide without my husband. And then I would only go for a few morning and then I’ll have to leave because of my husband. And I came home and just . . . like I couldn’t really put it over to him. I just like givin’ him a little piece and a little piece and just . . . trying to get him in, you know.” Nati laughs at the memory as she takes each piece of dough rolling it out thinly, coating it with some ghee, and dusting with flour. I laugh with her as she reenacts the conversation between them while putting the pieces of dough on the hot tawah. “And I said, ‘Boy, you know, they want women to go into trainin’.’ And he said, ‘For what!, And I said, ‘To teach them, you know, more on education; to share information.’ And he said, ‘o.k., you could give it a try.’ And I said, ‘We only have to go for a one-month trainin’.’ But by then I knew right along that it wasn’t a one month, it was something, you know, for a period of time. But I just couldn’t come out and tell him that it was for, let’s say, for a year.” “So you had to break it up . . .”

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“Yes. So I groomed him into just allowing me for the one month. When the one month complete I said, ‘Well boy, you know, the time extend.’ And it gone for two more months, which is three months. And he said, ‘Oh, from one month to t’ree months!’ Like he just couldn’t believe it, right. But anyway, he allowed me.” Nati stops talking and takes the roti off the pan and begins clapping it between her hands in a kitchen towel. As I watch Nati, I remember Mrs. Singh, the matriarch of my host family in Georgetown, trying (unsuccessfully) to teach me how to make roti. The key to a light and flaky bread, Mrs. Singh would instruct, is to remove the cooked dough from the ghee-oiled griddle pan while it is still hot and clap it together with the heels of your palms releasing the steam and opening air pockets. Women become known for their skill in making this flat bread used to capture the deeply spiced curries and stews of the Indo-Guyanese cuisine. I imagine that at a certain time of day, you can hear women throughout the Indian neighborhoods clapping roti together and shouting out to their families as Nati does now, “The food is just done.” Then, to her daughter, she says: “Show Miss Kimberly to the washroom.” Leeta gets up and walks toward the back of the kitchen. She pauses there and looks at me. I stop the tape recorder and get up to follow her. I realize that it had been a long trip, and I needed to use the bathroom. “Get a candle, girl. It dark . . . Miss Kimberly not used to that.” The young girl reaches up to take the candle perched on the frame of the glassless window in the back of the kitchen. I follow her down a narrow pathway and see the outhouse up ahead to my right. I hesitate. “An outhouse,” I think. “How do I use it?” Leeta shows me the latch on the door and then hands me the candle. I take it from her and she goes back to the kitchen, walking backward, watching me as I enter the wooden, ceilingless structure. Once inside, I stand looking around. I realize that I’m holding my breath. I let it out and try not to notice the smells that rush at me: damp, musky odors. There is nowhere for me to set the candle. So I hold onto it as I unbutton my jeans with one hand and maneuver over to what I presume is the toilet. Just then, a cockroach flies up, and, startled, I jump and drop the candle onto the dirt floor. It goes out. Almost immediately I want to cry, and I long for the cool white tiled bathroom of my host family’s house in Georgetown. But my eyes .

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adjust to the darkness, and the stars overhead illuminate the inside of the outhouse. When I return to the kitchen, the family is gathered around the table. I ask Nati if I can wash my hands in the kitchen sink. She looks at me strangely and then motions me toward another washbasin just outside the kitchen door. I wash my hands and join the family for the evening meal. It is nearly 7:30 P.M. The family eats while talking about events of the day. Nati sits at the table, rests her foot on an overturned steel pail, and massages her knee—eating very little of the meal she prepared. I see that her knee is now swollen almost twice the size of the right one. Her husband praises her on the food, and I join in telling her that the roti is delicious. “I heard you does like it, so I wanted to make it for you special,” she says. It is in this moment that I wonder if the whole meal had been “special” for me. Had Nati added this chore to her list of evening activities because I would be there interviewing her? As we eat, I watch Nati. In the flicker of the candlelight, she seems both young and old. Her life is reflected in the faces of her children. Her sons are almost men and resemble their father—darkeyed with deeply brown skin and sharp shoulders jutting out from shirts of fabric worn thin from wash and wear. But the roundness of their faces, their full cheeks, gives them a sort of feminine softness. Nati’s daughter, who sits to my right, is small and angular . . . fairerskinned, like her mother, with sparkling brown eyes flecked with yellow. Leeta continues to watch me, looking through long eyelashes as she eats. When I catch her eye, I smile, and she returns one . . . fleetingly with small white teeth squared off and finely chiseled. I remember Nati telling me of almost losing her, of her struggle to be both mother and worker. It was after Nati had begun working in Georgetown with Red Thread. Her family had not adjusted to her being away from home. She recalled: “It was kinda hard, because sometimes my husband would . . . like he just couldn’t take it anymore, my not being at home. After having a wife at home for 11 long years, just cooking and doing everything. And then I was gone . . . and the kids weren’t that much big.” “Leeta was still a baby?” “Yeah, she was two or t’ree. And it was like they were . . . the boys were just goin’ wild. My sister-in-law would overlook Leeta until

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I get home in the afternoon, or until the father comes home. She would overlook my daughter, but the boys, she would just leave them. But one time, my daughter went swimming with my sons, and a villager was passin’ on the road and it was just then that he did see when this little child was just goin’ like into the deep of the water. He knew she couldn’t get out . . . and these boys were just swimmin’ . . .” “Not even paying attention . . .” “. . . yeah, have no time to look at her. And she was there with these boys, with the t’ree brothers.” Nati shakes her head back and forth with a pained look in her eyes before continuing: “And the villager went into the water and took her out and he brought her to my mother and that very night when I came home, my mother started to quarrel saying that ‘You leave your children unprotected? Why not leave the work? You know, imagine your only daughter, and she would have been drowned. With you being in Georgetown, she would have been drowned.’” Although Nati enjoyed the work too much to give it up, she knew that she had to make some changes. “At that same time, I had a choice between going t’ree days per week on the Health Team or working five days per week on the Education Team or the Workshop Team. So I thought to myself, o.k., I’ll stay at home and look after the kids and just try to get the t’ree days, which wasn’t very consistent. It was like, you know, a Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. So you had a day in-between to set up your home and talk to the kids. But after a while talking to them, counselin’ them, they understand and they managed. They managed.” I recall this story as I watch Nati rubbing her knee and taking a momentary rest before getting up to clear the dishes and begin soaking the clothes to be washed and hung up to dry in the morning. After dinner, Nati packs some food in an empty pie tin and gives it to her father. Her mother, she had explained, was helping with her youngest sister, who just had a baby. She was taking care to feed her father while her mother was away. While Nati washed the dishes I ask her: “Before Leeta’s accident, were people nervous about your getting involved with Red Thread? Your family?” “No, I wouldn’t say my family, but within the community there were like my husband’s friends. I would say men . . . men saw that having a woman’s group was something rebellious against the men. So, like his friends would tell him: ‘You allow your wife to go and join

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a woman’s group? Boy, she goin’ t’row you out. Because that what they teachin’ them to just fight back against man, and these things, you know?’ But then my family had no objection to it. And when I out on the Red Thread business I always let it be known that I have a husband and family.” After the dishes are washed, I go with Nati outside where she takes a large washtub and sets it under the standpipe in the yard. After it is full, she calls out to her sons to move the tub into the house so she can soak the clothes overnight. It is nearly 10 in the evening, and I know Nati has been up since 5:30 that morning. I wonder about her commitment to working with Red Thread. “Do you hope to continue with Red Thread?” “Yes, I hope to continue with it, because I love the kind of work that Red Thread is doing. And Red Thread really did bring me out to talkin’ more. Like educatin’ me more. I really did look for that opportunity and just expandin’ me on my education.” As she sorts the clothes she continues: “I like to meet new people and talk with people on the minibus and the different places I’ve visited. I travel a lot in Guyana with Red Thread. I’ve been to Lethem, been in the Pomeroon, Kwakwani, and Linden to spend the nights. Outside of Guyana I’ve been to St. Vincent and Dominica.” “Mmh. You’ve traveled quite a bit. Have you ever thought about migrating? I know that a lot of Guyanese want to migrate out of Guyana to find more or better work in other countries.” “No. I’ve been to two countries already, and to me you’re not as free as Guyana. I feel you’re very free in Guyana, and I don’t really think about migration. So I would only think about like going on holidays and so.” “When you say freer in Guyana, what do you mean?” “Well, probably not knowin’ about a country, that could be one and being comfortable at home. Because I feel, you know, being born Guyanese, you know a lot about your country. You know more about the people. You know about the environment. Why would I leave paradise? For what? The unknown?” I nod my head and ponder Nati’s description of Guyana as paradise and a place of freedom.4 I had not expected such a characterization because of what I deemed to be the overwhelming nature of the hardships she endured on a daily basis. But Nati, and as I will later discover in my interactions with Lisa and Joan in the coming weeks, does not accept the belief that life outside of Guyana

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will offer her more than what she already has: a loving family, a plot of land, and a bit of space to negotiate greater mobility to work and to learn. Nati takes a cake of laundry detergent from a nearby shelf and crumbles a bit into the washtub. She bends over the tub, swishes the water with her hands, and adds the clothes to the tub. While straightening up she says, “That done.” We return to the kitchen table and have a cup of tea. Again Nati massages her knee while we talk. The house is quiet, and the only sounds are the frogs singing to one another outside. After a while, Nati sighs deeply, rises from her chair, and goes around the room blowing out the candles. She keeps one lit to carry with us as we walk slowly upstairs. I am to sleep in Leeta’s small twin bed . . . while she will, I presume, sleep with Nati and her husband. As I adjust the mosquito netting around the bed, I know that even though I am exhausted sleep will not come soon. My mind turns over and over with the sights and sounds and experiences of the day—this woman’s work and my own. …  …  …  … 1 September 1996 8:15 A.M. Early the next morning, I leave Nati’s house and walk down the road to meet with another Red Thread woman who lives in this village. In the daytime, I see that they live on a fairly wide road. It seems to be a main thoroughfare with lots of trucks and buses as well as cars passing by. Nati’s house, like all the houses I see along this stretch, is set far back off the street, which gives a sense of distance and privacy from the hustle and bustle of the road. The houses are also spaced very far apart from one another, which helps to create more of a bucolic setting than one would expect. After I walk for about a half mile, I see the landmark stream that Nati told me to look out for, and I know that I am close to Berta’s house. I search for the street numbers on the houses, but I don’t see any. Then I notice a short, stocky, brown-skinned woman standing at the top of the stairs of a large two-storey house. She waves down at me as I approach and says: “Welcome. Do come straight up here.” “Hi.” I pause to shade my eyes as I look up at the weather-beaten wooden structure. “Berta?”

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“Yes. Nati does tell me to look out for you this morning. You come from Georgetown yesterday?” “Yes. I did.” As we talk, I open the front gate and walk through the yard. Although several kinds of palm trees thrive in this village, Berta’s yard is hard compact dirt. Large metal barrels, rusted out and empty, are scattered throughout the yard. Dozens of plants, mostly various varieties of ferns, in pots large and small soften the barren landscape and are situated along the fence and the base of the house. Clothes and towels are spread out on the tall, spindly picket fence. Low-hanging power lines run from the house to a wooden pole in the neighboring yard. “I does finish my morning tasks and I ready to be interviewed.” “Great!” I get to the top of the stairs and stand with Berta on the small landing. I reach out to shake her hand and she embraces me instead—drawing me close and patting my shoulders. “Thank you for agreeing to talk to me,” I say as I pull out of the embrace quickly a bit embarrassed by her affection. “Sure. It no problem.” She smiles at me, takes my arm, and guides me into her home. We enter what appears to be the living room or front parlor. Inside it is several degrees cooler than outside, a small fan circulating the air. “Sit there.” Berta directs me to the sofa just to the right of the door. I glance around the long and narrow room. To the left of the door is a small dining area, and just behind that is a half-wall. I cannot see what is behind the wall, but I assume that it is either a kitchen or another sitting area. Just opposite the front door are two more doors to what I think must be the bedrooms. “Franklin,” Berta shouts out. “Bring this girl somet’ing to drink.” Then looking at me she says: “You does want ice?” “Yes. That would be good. It’s pretty hot today.” “Boy, chip up some ice!” Berta motions for me to sit as she lowers herself into one of the chairs opposite the sofa. I remove my backpack and then begin the process of setting up for the interview. I clip the small microphone on the collar of Berta’s shirt. “O.k. I just wanna test our levels. Just talk normally, but try and talk really clear, as clear as you can. O.k.?” I take out my thick sheaf of interview questions. “How long have you lived here?” Berta clears her throat before answering in a slow and deliberate manner. “Thirty-one years. I was married for the past 31 years.”

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“So you moved here as soon as you got married?” “Yeah.” “O.k. I’m just going to check.” I click off the tape recorder and rewind it to play back. We listen together. “O.k. that’s good.” A tall, thin man enters the living room carrying a tray with a bowl of ice, two glasses, and a bottle of Coca-Cola. “Kimberly, this my husband, Franklin.” “Hi. Pleased to meet you,” I say looking up at him. He nods his head silently and sets down the tray before returning to the room behind the half-wall. Berta pours the soda into the two glasses, and I eagerly reach for one and take a long gulp. Because this is my first meeting with Berta, I decide to give her an overview of the project: “Let me just tell you sort of basically what I’m trying to do. I’m looking at why women have gotten involved with Red Thread. Sort of what your life history was leading up to the time that you got involved in the organization and how your life has been affected by the work that you’ve done with them.” Berta leans back in her chair and begins to tell her story. “O.k. Before I came into contact with Red Thread, I was normally just a simple housewife doing household chores. Assistin’ doing poultry rearin, also rearin’ pigs and lookin’ after cows and such like.” I nod my head, writing on my yellow legal pad. Like Nati, Berta describes this complex set of tasks as part of her ordinary household duties. Much of this homework is hidden, and it is almost always unpaid. And, like Nati, I learn that Berta’s work with Red Thread must be negotiated within the demands of this labor. Berta continues: “Then a friend told me that they would have a workshop, and she goin’ to tell me more about it. Well, it so happen I did not see the friend again. But two weeks after, I was takin’ a little nap at about one o’clock. And my son, the little one, he said, ‘Mommy, somebody come to . . . some ladies come to see you.’ So I said, ‘Ladies?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ Well, I got up and I said, ‘Good afternoon. Could I help you?’ And they said, ‘Yes. We were invitin’ you out to a workshop.’ And they were from the Red Thread Organisation.” “And who were they?” “They were Joan from Linden and Christine from Victoria. And they invite me out to the workshop. And the topic was ‘A Woman’s Place.’ And from then, from that workshop, I had other ideas after the workshop. Persons were askin’ questions, and then I said to myself,

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‘This looks good. And I t’ink I would like to be involve in it.’ So from then on I started going to the meetings.” “Where were these meetings held? In Georgetown?” “No, they was in the village over there.” Berta motions out toward the road. “In the next village,” she says pointing south. “Oh. O.k.” “After I went a couple of months and so, they had other women from Red Thread that started comin’ and doin’ workshops. A question was put out that they wanted volunteers to go into town and learn workshop techniques. So I was interested. Karen was there, and I go to her and I ask her, and she said, ‘You’re interested to go?’ So I told her yes, and she said, ‘O.k., you could come down with the others.’ And I went. And my experience was very great. Because bein’ I wasn’t the eldest of the family, I was the third child, and I didn’t get much . . . much exposure. So I was glad for the opportunity.” She pauses and says in a lower voice, as an aside, “and, I will come back to tellin’ you how I was reared and so.” Then returning to her full voice, continues: “But all I know, after I married was, just to be a housewife. Rearin’ children and the work that my husband do is makin’ copra and makin’ coconut oil. And when he cannot go to Georgetown to carry the copra, I do.” “Sorry, I have to interrupt you. Copra? What is that?” “You know the coconut? The inside of the coconut?” “The white part?” “Yes, you burst it. And put it out in the sun. In about two or t’ree days it would get like . . .” Berta pauses searching for the right words “. . . it would get hard. And you dig it out from the shell and you would place it in bags and take it to the copra mill. It go through a process and then you get fry oil.” “You take the dried coconut to the mill, and they make the cooking oil there?” Berta shakes her head indicating that I am not understanding, then continues to explain: “You carry the coconut to town and get grate. You come back and you wash it. And you have to let that stand for a day. And the next day, you would dip it out. And you would boil it in a big stew pan. And after . . . when it finish boilin’, you would take that, heist it off the fire, and then you would dip it out. And then you would squeeze the t’ing that you call chanchee. And then you would carry it and sell it.” “And he does all of this here?”

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“Yes.” Adding emphatically, “We does. We does.” “Both of you?” “Yeah. So that was the only exposure like to go out. So I was very glad to be in the workshop team. My first venture to go and do a workshop was at Met-en-meerzorg, where Lisa is from. And it was excitin’ for me because going and hear other people experience. Then doing the actual workshop and then gettin’ the response from the people.” Berta stops and takes a drink from her glass before continuing. “And I was kind of, what I must say, overwhelmed. That was my first experience then.” “How long ago was that? When was that?” “It was in 1992 in October. I can’t remember the exact date. And from then on I started to feel this, what must I say, well like I was lost but now like I come in. You know?” I nod my head up and down. “Like before you found the group you felt . . .” Before I can finish my sentence Berta says, “Yes, yes. You’re sharin’ different experience with the other women in the group, and from there I t’ink that brought me out from where I was too.” I will find that this theme of how Red Thread afforded the community women the opportunity to do something outside their roles as wives and mothers is expressed again and again in the women’s telling of their stories. I wonder how Berta negotiated this shift in her identity with her family members. I ask: “How did your husband feel about you getting started with Red Thread?” “Oh,” Berta laughs, shaking her head. “Before I really went on the team, I put my two sons together with they father, and I told them that I would like to go on the workshop team but it means travel every day. I want to stop and then come in, if it’s once a week or twice a week.” “You mean you wanted to stay in Georgetown for a few days and work and then come back to Berbice a few days?” “Yes, that is it. But they said no, they prefer me to travel every day. So I told them that would be o.k. The organisation would take care of that. Well, then, they say alright. But they don’t want me to stay out. I must travel every day.” “Every day?” “Yeah, go and come. And well this boy, my old son, he works at Guyana Electricity Corporation (GEC). So if I don’t be at home to

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prepare lunch for him, he wouldn’t be able to go to work on time. So that was one advantage they had over me; that I must be home to prepare meals for him to go to work. But one thing . . .” Berta shifts in the chair, tucking her legs underneath her and covering them with her long red skirt, “when I away, they don’t feel at ease.” “No?” “They always uneasy. Because at the same time there was the General Election5 had just finished. They had all these things were goin’ on. So they were a bit afraid for me to be out late. But as things went by, I overcome that and they overcome it. And then I started to be out of the home . . . like up a night or two nights.” “Berta, before we get too much into the work you’ve done with Red Thread, I want to ask you about your life before. You know, growing up and stuff like that.” Although I had not consulted my interview schedule, I knew that I wanted to get a bit more of a sense of Berta’s pre-Red Thread life. Berta breathes in and out deeply before continuing. “I was . . . I’ll go back to my mother and father. I was born to a Miss E. Joseph, and my father was D. E. Colbert. They weren’t marry. And I was the third child. They live together for some time, and then they separate. After that, my mother had to work to maintain the family.” “How old were you when they separated?” “Oh, pretty small. Can’t remember.” Berta pauses as if thinking, but then goes on, “And from then on my mother would had to work, do domestic work to maintain us.” Berta pauses again, glances away, and then turns back to me. “Well then we come . . . we became five. Two other fathers. And my grandmother took me when I was 7 years old.” “Where was your grandmother?” “She was livin’ in New Amsterdam. And after growing up with her for quite some time, she became sick. She could not really do anything to maintain me. So my mother had a friend, and the friend told her that she knew about two sisters that wanted girls. And she found out where these people are living. And so she got in contact with them. One sister said she would like to have a girl. Well bein’ that my sister she was the eldest, and she had wanted a lot of t’ings.” “Things like what?” I interrupt. “When I say a lot of t’ings . . . like maintainin’ her to go to school and such like. And my mother couldn’t have afford, because at that time she had very little. So she gave us up to the adoption.”

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“Oh, wow.” I hadn’t expected this and didn’t conceal my shock. “But we didn’t go through the adoption board.” “When you say you didn’t go through the adoption board, what do you mean?” “We didn’t go legally.” “Oh, I see.” “So my sister went the one year, then I went the next year. I went when I was 9 years old. And the people, they were Chinese. The husband was from Hong Kong, and the wife was Guyanese. And each sister had two children. Two boys, the one sister had. And the sister I was livin’ with had a girl and a boy.” “Where were you? Where did they live?” “My eldest sister she live with one sister, and they were livin’ on Regent Street. And I was living with the other sister on Light Street in Georgetown. The family had a grocery. And being that I was the eldest there with the two children, I was forced to do a lot of strenuous work.” “Really? Like what?” “One like gettin’ up early in the mornin’ and goin’ to bed late at night. It was during the 80-day strike.6 That was in 1964. Yes, in 1964. I was to get up early in the mornin’. A woman use to deliver bread early in the mornin’, and the next thing they call a butter flap. As soon the one make like this . . .” she leans over and knocks two quick raps on the table between us: “I had to be out of my bed and go down. Don’t mind how sleepy I be, had to get up and go receive these things and to put them in the glass case and such like. And from then my day started.” “So you weren’t going to school?” “Yes, I was going to school.” “Oh! You were going to school, too?” “Yeah. Yeah. But it wasn’t a nice experience, because you were not privilege to do what you like. You were not privilege to have friends. You were not privilege to go out and say, ‘Well, I would like to have this drink.’ Could I have it? No. There was always this barrier . . . I gotta say a barrier between myself and these people I was livin’ with. I wasn’t free to do anything.” “So you were never really . . . I mean did you feel like part of the family?” “No, no. I wasn’t part . . . I felt I was not part of the family, but I was just like a servant to them. And what they did, like when they

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had functions to go out, I wouldn’t get a new dress. The only thing I would get is new underwear. What was small for the woman, she would alter it, and I would have to wear it. I wasn’t privilege to go out and have a walk with her kids. I had to be at home.” “Did your sister have the same experience with the family she was living with?” “We were not privilege to see each other.” “Oh! You didn’t even get to see each other?” “No. But what I use to do, when I go to school I would ask to leave. And the teacher was very understandin’. One day I told her what it was all about. And so I left, and I went to see my sister at her school. And when she saw me, we talk and we learn we in the same situation.” “So what happened?” “So I decided, I say to my sister, ‘Girl, hear what I tell you. Me no t’ink me gon’ stay more long. It’s either I know where we mother livin’ and get away or something. Because me ain’t able to continue with this thing. This thing too hard. You got to get up so early. You not privilege to mix with the children and such like.’ And as time roll by, roll on, she would ask to come to visit me. Well she normally get more privilege than I do. So this way when she came to visit me, the man’s wife wasn’t at home, and we had an opportunity to talk. And I leave and I come outside.” Berta pauses, clears her throat, and takes a deep breath, exhaling it with a big sigh. “And I am telling this . . . it wasn’t easy. The only thing I could of done is to . . . well . . . they puttin’ me like to steal.” “What do you mean?” “Because if you are not privilege, as soon as you get the opportunity you would steal. And in those days money was valuable . . . more than now. And I could remember when my sister come there to visit me and I was comin’ out of the entrance to come out to the front, I had the opportunity of grabbin’ some money. And I grab it, and I give my sister for her to keep. I told her, I say, ‘Hear now, you take care of this for me.’ Right? Because I knew I wouldn’t be here for long. And she said, ‘Girl, if I tell you much I get. You know.’ So from that I say, oh, like we are in the same plight.” “Did you two run away?” I ask with an urgency that reveals that I feel caught up in the suspense of Berta’s narrative. “No. After a while they find that I was gettin’ rude. And they say, you know, I don’t hear them and such like. So they decided to tighten

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up the screws. They stop sendin’ me to school. Stop sendin’ me about to do errands and so.” “So it got even more uncomfortable there.” “Yeah. But at one time my mother come to see me. And when she come to see me, I told her, I said, ‘Hear, me ain’t stayin’ here. I want to go home. And if you can’t carry me out, I goin’ get away. I ain’t goin’ stay here.’ And then she say, ‘You mean it?!’ I say, ‘Yes, because me ain’t gettin’ good treatment.’ So she say o.k. and less than two weeks after she came for me. And the t’ings the woman gave me, I was ashame to wear them when I reach at my mother. I was ashame to wear them.” “How old were you?” Berta pauses slightly but continues with her story without answering my question. “And from then on my mother said, ‘If I’d a know that this would be the outcome of it, I wouldn’t a take you all and give you all away to people. But I thought I was doing good. I didn’t know I was doin’ harm to myself and to y’all.’ And I didn’t get a proper secondary education, because you cannot concentrate. You were tax at home with work, and when you go to school you cannot concentrate.” “Did you continue with school when you went back to live with your mother?” “I go to primary school and wrote, what do you call it? the preliminary examination. I didn’t really get much. I think if I were at my parent, I would have done better. Don’t matter what the situation would have been. I would have done better, because I would have get to concentrate more on my school work and content with the little that my parent could have give me. So I think that was one error in my life.” Berta pauses, and I take the moment to re-ask an earlier question: “How old were you when your mother came and took you back?” “I was 15, 15 plus.” “And what about your sister? What happened with her?” “She came home.” “What happened then?” “After I came home back . . . six months after, I met my husband for the first time.” The tape clicks off. “Berta wait a second, let me check the tape.” I open the recorder and flip the cassette tape over to the next side and press the record button. “O.k., you were saying that you’d come back home.”

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“Yes. After then, I started to go to primary school, and he used to go to that side of the playground to buy coconut. And you know seein’ him every day and he would interfere with me. But I was a bit shy. Because that fear was still in me. Because of the resentment from where I was first in Georgetown.” “Right, yes.” I nod my head, but it is difficult for me to imagine how she must have felt. In some senses, she was given into a life of indentured servitude that paralleled the East Indian side of her family’s experiences in Guyana. Her movement from a home-place into another was not unlike that of those laborers who, over 150 years ago, left the squalor and poverty of what is today India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh to journey to this British colony on the promises of a better life. Berta’s story is also tinged with the realities of gender exploitation and, although she doesn’t imply that anything of a sexually untoward nature occurred, I do wonder what would have happened had she continued to live with this family. Berta continues: “So that fear was still in me. I was not open really to say anything. So I just had that selfish way. So I wouldn’t respond until one day, while he was passin’ he came into our house. And he knew my big sister well. My sister was goin’ around with one of his cousin. So I bein’ there and he was interested . . . he start comin’ over. And there and then we started to exchange a few words. And he propose marriage, and we were married in six months.” “Really?!” I am taken by surprise, and I let out an involuntary laugh. “And from six months . . . that was in 1965. Up to now . . .” Berta smiles contentedly and reiterates, “the 26th of December 1965 we were marry and up ‘til now we are still . . .” “Still married?” “Yeah.” “So you were 16 years old then?” “Sixteen.” “Well, you had a happy ending . . . sort of. Not an ending, but . . .” “A kinda way.” She smiles and nods. “But I was really glad to be back and out of that bondage there. And at times I does feel as though . . .” Berta pauses before continuing “. . . that I must not, after I start having children I feel that I musn’t send them away. But I must keep them with me and let them enjoy the freedom of everything.” “Yes, I can imagine. You want to protect them.” Then I ask: “How many children do you have?”

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“I had t’ree sons. Two survive. My second son dead.” “What happened with your second son?” I look at Berta and wonder if I am pressing her for too much information. “If you don’t . . . I mean you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t . . .” Berta’s facial expression remains impassive as she continues. “The second son, he borned . . . he born normal. And when he was at the age of 4, about 4 years, he start to get like on a fit. He would get this fit at six o’clock every morning. He got his fits at six o’clock for one month straight.” “How long would the fit last?” “It would last about 15 minutes. And after that he would sleep a good length of time and then when he wake up, he would be walkin’ up and down. Just walkin’ up and down. He wouldn’t settle one place. So I carry him to several doctors and such like. And he didn’t get help.” “You took him to doctors out here, or did you go to Georgetown?” Berta waves her hand in the air. “Yes!” “You went all over?” “Yeah. I even went to the Bush doctor. Nothing doing, nothing doing. He survive for 10 years. And at the age of 15 he died.” I don’t respond immediately to Berta. I just don’t know what to say. She is telling me this story in a way that is somehow both matter of fact and full of emotion. There’s a quiet intensity that seems to come from her having pondered the situation long and hard over the years; perhaps wondering if more could have been done. At the same time there is a sense of resignation: this terrible thing happened and one must press on. Nothing I had done to prepare for this trip, this journey into Guyana to collect these women’s stories, had given me the tools to process the hearing of their stories. So, I retreat to facts, and ask: “How often did he have fits during those . . . that 10 years?” “When he got the fits, after the first month they decrease, and the fit would come like every other day he would get a fit. But he wouldn’t get it at just six o’clock in the mornin’. He would get it at any time in the day.” “And did you ever find out what was wrong?” “Before we went to a doctor in Georgetown, he was attendin’ that children clinic. And the doctor prescribe, took care of tests, and he did X rays, he did stool tests, he did urine tests, and such like. Blood tests and so. And he didn’t tell us anything more than just give us a couple of worm tablets. That’s all. It wasn’t a nice experience a t’all.”

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I am imagining the sense of powerlessness that must have been a part of this experience. I ask: “What did you do? What other options were there?” “Someone from the community advised me to go to the Bush doctor, and they did what they got and . . . it didn’t help him. He got worse.” “Really?” I shake my head back and forth. Again, not sure how to respond. “Kimberly, at one time this boy taken with this thing for a week; wouldn’t eat anything, he would just lie . . . and getting this fit all the time. And well, I said he would pass away. We carry him to the doctor, and the doctor give him an injection. This the district doctor. And he said: ‘The boy goin’ feel good.’ And a couple of days after he get up and was movin’ about. And t’ree months after he take a turn for the worst. He never regained consciousness. He died a Saturday mornin’, ten-thirty.” Berta pauses before saying, “He was 15 years when he died.” We sit in silence for several moments. I feel overwhelmed with this story of the sickness, illness, and loss of her child. Where do I take our conversation, this interview, from here? Finally, awkwardly, I say: “Let’s shift gears. I know you all talk a bit about women’s issues in Red Thread. What do you see as women’s issues here or the things that are most important for women . . . pressing concerns?” Once the question is out of my mouth, I realize that it is more than just ironic; it may also be quite insensitive. She has just described for me a primary issue—the lack of access to adequate health care. But Berta picks up the thread, perhaps also glad to move from our previous topic. She says: “There are a lot of domestic violence. And you have incest, child abuse, and you have sexual harassment. So within Red Thread we are trying to see how, in what way we could make them understand, especially the male, that this is not the right way. I don’t have girl children. I don’t think I would like to see my son marry and then treat somebody else’s girl child bad. I can’t stand for that.” I nod my head. “Because I have a incident with my eldest son. He got a girlfriend, and I never saw it, but I heard that he ill treat the girl. And I spoke to him on several occasion, and at one night the girl came here and she was complainin’ to me at the same time he walk in. And he ask the girl what she was doin’ here. I say: ‘How dare you to ask her what

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she doin’ here.’ He say, to the girl, ‘Well, try go along home now.’ I said, ‘Well, hear now, when she ready to go, she would go. You don’t have to tell her she have to go.’ And he was in a terrible rage. And I said, ‘Oh, I does hear, but I see for me self now.’ And he was tryin’ to get the girl to come out of the house, so that he could start his ill treatin’. And I told him that she wouldn’t be goin’ home, that she would be spendin’ the night here.” “And so what did he do?” “Well, happen so he left, and he went out. And I took the girl, and we walk in a different direction, and the girl got home. So he was on the road, up and down on his cycle, lookin’ for the girl. So when he come home at night, I didn’t say anything to him. I allow him for his rage to cool down. And then before he left the next mornin’ to go to work he say, ‘Mommy, you know you did right.’ He said, ‘Me no know really what is get me so.’ And so I ask him, I say, ‘You see that your father does knock me? Eh? You father does beat me?’ He say, ‘No.’ I say, ‘Well, you ain’t see him doin’, well why you doin’ it for?’ He say he just think it fun. And I say, ‘Well, it’s not fun for me. You see and don’t ever do it again and let I hear.’ And from then I ain’t hear anything more up to now if he does still brutalize the girl or what. So that what Red Thread really lookin’ into.” Like most of the Red Thread women I come to interview, Berta has the ability to link her personal/familial struggles with the larger mission of the organization. These women have remained Red Thread women over the years, I think, because they believe in the intrinsic value of the work they do—for themselves and for their communities. Berta continues: “And I think that is a wise step to let the male especially know that it is not right. And most women you find that are in these situations are most women from the estate or ones that cannot read properly. Because in the estate, you find that the mothers and fathers have to go out to work in the field. And if they have a girl that is old enough to care of the other smaller ones, they will take out the girl from school. So you find like that now they are out of school at a tender age. Then they find somebody to marry them, and the man will take advantage. So Red Thread is tryin’ to make women conscious of they place and such like.” Berta’s attention shifts from our interview. She shouts out: “Franklin! The ice . . . it melt out. Could get another pan for us? Please bring over where Kimberly could get some more.” “Thank you.”

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Berta continues, laughing . . . “Ice to keep her awake.” I join in with her laugh. But I am embarrassed. I think to myself, “Why am I struggling to keep my eyes open? What is having such a soporific effect on me? Is it simply the heat and too few hours of sleep?” “I see the tiredness,” Berta says to me as she continues to smile. “Can you?” “Like you want to fall asleep.” “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m so tired. I don’t know how you guys do it all. And Nati works so hard. She’s up at five in the morning to get the kids ready and everything ready. And she was working last night until . . . after ten. It’s a lot of work.” Berta sits up in her chair. “I rise earlier than Nati.” “Do you?” “Yes.” “What time do you get up?” “T’ree thirty.” “Oh my goodness. “Cause you have to look after the cows and things . . . the animals?” “We don’t have cows now. They are in the creek. And we got rid of the pigs. So we only have ducks and fowl. But we get accustomed to it. But I don’t go to bed very late at night.” “What time do you go to bed?” “Sometimes nine o’clock is the latest. Because I do stay up to listen at the radio announcement.” “That’s a long day still. Even going to bed before nine. Because that means when you get up at three or four, it’s still dark.” She shrugs her shoulders. “Yeah. Pretty dark. But what I usually do, if I have to wash in the mornings, if I come home early from work I would soak the clothes down and leave it. So in the mornin’ when you get up, while you still hustlin’ to cook, you rubbin’ at the same time.” “And does your oldest son still live here?” “Yeah.” “So you cook, and he takes he takes his lunch every day?” “Yes.” “And where do you cook? You cook in here? Over on the side there?” I motion to the back of the room. “Just at that stump wall. We had a kitchen downstairs, but when the rain falls it does be in a state. And my neighbors over there, they had a cow-pin. And they had cows and sheeps in there. It used to get

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the place really messy. And the kitchen was on a 4-inch block, and the stuff would wash over and eventually start buildin’ up.” Franklin enters the room with the ice. “Please hand here. I got this thing attach to me so I can’t . . .” Franklin puts ice in our glasses. “Thank you.” I say to him. Again, he silently returns to the backroom that I now know is the kitchen. Berta returns her attention to me. “Yes, so like that. Eventually we abandoned the kitchen, and we came up here. Because I used to got these kind of a itch . . . a brown itch from walkin’ in the stuff.” I am nodding my head while also looking through my list of interview questions. Thumbing through, but not really reading them. The fact is that I’m really feeling worn out and, I’m ready to end our interview. So I say to Berta: “I honestly don’t think we have anything else. Unless there’s anything more you’d like to tell me.” “One thing I forgot to mention. That we, the women of the educational team, some of us went to adult education classes.” “When was this?” Berta removes her microphone and stands up to retrieve a small box of papers from the shelf behind the sofa. She pulls them out and begins looking through them, handing some to me. “That was in 1994. I went to the Queen’s College compound. And I did the course in community development. ‘Principle and Practice in Community Development,’ that was the name of the course.” Then, reading from the yellowing paper in her hands: “We had sociology, history, leadership style, leadership function, knowin’ your community, assessment needs and resource, introduction to social research, and how to assess needs and program planning.” “This course . . . did you get a certificate at the end?” “Yeah.” “Who paid for these classes?” “Red Thread.” “Did you use any of the information that you got out of this class in any of the work that you’ve been doing?” “Yes, within the workshops. But what I find they had mostly students that been to . . . who took courses already. And for me it was the first. And what I find it was a bit difficult for me. Why?” Berta pauses, then answers herself: “The language barrier. When the course started when I sit down, I listen, you know I can’t grasp a lot of what they say. So when I go back I tell Karen. So Karen say, ‘Hear, why you think you get a English-speaking tongue in you head!’”

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I laugh trying to imagine Karen saying this to Berta. I hadn’t seen Karen since my last trip to Guyana, and I remembered her as more silent and reserved. Berta goes on. “Karen say, ‘If you don’t understand, say I don’t understand.’ And I took the courage. I went to the person that was teaching the community development class and I said, ‘I got a problem.’ And he said, ‘What is your problem?’ And I say what it is. And he said, ‘Oh, don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid a’tall. Listen to me. If you don’t understand something, tell me.’ You know. And from then on he started coming down to my understandin’. He would sit down and he would chat with you.” “Did you finish the course?” “Yes. I persist and got to write the exam. On the mornin’ of the exam I had to drop a parcel in Charlotte Street for one of the resource women. And I had to walk from there to Queen’s College. And that’s a good distance. And the rain come down, and there was nowhere to shelter. So when I got there I was drippin’ wet. But that didn’t stop me. When I went in my teacher said, ‘You are all wet! And, most of all, you are shiverin’. How are you goin’ to write this exam?’ I told him, ‘Yes I could. And I am going to.’ And he said, ‘How are you goin’ to sit there and write this exam and the place cold and the clothes you got wet?’ I said, ‘I’m going to write the exam.’ And I don’t know where, but another teacher got a skirt, a long skirt, and she ask me if I feel comfortable wearin’ the skirt. I say, ‘Yes, as long as it is dry.’ And I took these wet clothes, and they put them by the fan. And took the skirt and pull up the top right up to here . . .” Berta demonstrates with her hands motioning above her breasts, “and had a necktie and I just put it around here and tie it. And wrote my exam comfortable. And believe you me the sun came out, too. In all its glory. It was pretty hot. And they took off the fan and put the clothes in the sun. And they were dry when I ready to come out of the examination room.” Berta laughs at the memory of this moment. “And when was time for graduation—we had six person wrote the exam—and it’s only one person turn up for the graduation. And I was only person. So my teacher say, ‘Well, I can see that you are determined and you did it.’” I smile with Berta, but I am struggling to remain alert. She looks at me and says: “Girl, you really tired. So that is all. Let me go and start prepare these thing for you.”

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Berta puts the papers from the course back in the small box and returns it to the top shelf before walking to the kitchen to prepare lunch. Grateful for the break, I lay my head against the sofa. “The heat and the intensity of these interviews must be getting to me.” I turn this thought over in my head. But I know that it is more than these external factors. It seems odd to feel so drained physically when all I am doing is listening and recording these women’s stories. I am, perhaps, weighed down by the gravity of the task I have set for myself. We the women who toil unadorn heads tie with cheap cotton We the women who cut clear fetch dig sing We the women making something from this ache-and-pain-a-me back-o-hardness Yet we the women who praises go unsung who voices go unheard who deaths they sweep aside as easy as dead leaves7

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CHAPTER 5 Woman Out of Place1

No she wasn’t prepared for the sea that lashed fire that seared solid earth that delivered her up birds that flew not wanting to see the utter rawness of life everywhere2

2 September 1996 Early morning I wake unsettled. My return from Berbice last night was uneventful, but my physical exhaustion was so intense that I came in and immediately went to bed. But I am awake before the day has dawned. The house is still . . . giving my mind the freedom to roam, to actively reflect on my 129

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experience of Berbice. I sit up in bed and reach for the journal and flashlight I keep nearby, within the cocoon of the mosquito netting. I open the purple spiral notebook and begin writing a series of questions: “Why am I exhausted? What is the source of it? What does it mean for my work with these women? How do I work through it?” I sit with these questions for several moments then I put down the notebook. Quietly, I get out of bed and dress in comfortable pants, a long-sleeved t-shirt, and my running shoes. I make my way out of the house being careful not to wake anyone. Once outside, I look up at the sky and see the bluish-grey signaling that the sun is just beginning to rise. I do a few stretches before unlocking the gate and starting a slow jog down the road heading toward the Georgetown Seawall. As I jog through the neighborhood I see people preparing for their day. At one house women are hanging freshly washed clothes out to dry. At another, two men are washing their cars, readying them for a day picking up and dropping off passengers. I keep a steady pace, more walking than running, but in what seems only a few moments I approach the seawall on the outskirts of the Singh’s neighborhood. Others are already gathered there—stretching, running, praying, or simply gazing out toward the ocean. I climb onto the low wall and join them looking out over the ocean. I learned from the map and reading materials Mrs. Singh left in my room that the seawall and the elaborate pumping apparatus were built by the Dutch to protect Guyana’s below-sea-level coastline. Much of the infrastructure in Guyana can be attributed to the Dutch; the many canals and garden spaces I’m certain were once quite beautiful. I stand on the seawall and look left and right. The wall stretches out along Guyana’s entire dark and rocky coastline. It seems to go on endlessly. Then I look straight ahead, facing north toward the Atlantic and imagine crossing it and returning to the United States. But I know there’s work to be done first. I turn and join the other runners, jogging with more speed than I had before. After my run, I walk back to the Singh’s house through the streets of the Kitty neighborhood. I think about my arrival to Guyana several weeks earlier and my relief at finding their home comfortable with my own room and access to an indoor bathroom with running water. But each day as I walk through the neighborhood, I am struck by the incongruity of their lives. Today, especially, I seem to notice the

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Georgetown Seawall

evidence of extreme poverty and relative wealth. Large, newly built stone and concrete block houses painted white, some with tall gates and others with alarm systems, located side by side with older, barely upright weather-beaten traditional wooden houses. Although the proximity of poverty and affluence is not unfamiliar to me, in Guyana the differences feel stark and uncompromising. And my place within them is unclear. Growing up in a lower-middle class family within a working-class neighborhood in Compton, I remember making the daily commute from my parents’ home to the university in Los Angeles. On many occasions, I would take the surface streets rather than the freeways in an attempt to avoid the legendary Los Angeles gridlock. During these drives, I would watch as the neighborhoods shifted, from poor and working-class in the south area to extremely affluent on the west side. It always seemed that the sun was brighter and the sky clearer on the west side; certainly the streets were cleaner and the buildings better maintained. Making that drive from south to west meant also reorienting myself. I wanted to live in that part of town that was prettier and cleaner, while not abandoning the place that was less than that. Similarly, making the journey to, in, and around Guyana requires a conscious rethinking. As I get nearer to the Singh’s house, I wonder in what ways did

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Kitty, Georgetown, Guyana

my relief that they are a middle-class family mirror my drive from south to west in my California life? How was my extreme exhaustion during Berta’s interview also reflected in this sense of relief? Living with the Singh’s, I was in a space that was clean and bright. But going into Berbice I had to face the hard reality of the persistence of poverty and the fact that my role here is to gather the stories of the women and make them legible to others in the United States. I was feeling, in this intermediary position, a sort of schizophrenia—a fissure that is, perhaps, irreconcilable.3 When I approach the house, I see Mr. Singh outside cleaning the canal in front of their house. He has a cutlass and is chopping back the vegetation that grows rapidly in the dark, murky water. He is a short, stocky Indo-Guyanese man. I notice his slightly bowed legs and think about my conversation with Mrs. Singh several mornings after I arrived in Guyana. “My husband’s mother was bent over the rice paddy during her pregnancy. That is why he was born with bowed legs.” “I hadn’t noticed.” I laugh while sipping the hot coffee Mrs. Singh prepared specially.

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“Yeah man. His family was very poor when he was growing up. His mother sold fruits in the market as well as pick rice. His father cut bushes on that same estate.” “Really? But you are doing much better now.” “It true. His family was very poor, but he was very ambitious. When my husband was a boy, he was ‘adopted’ by a negro man. This man looked after him when he was growing up—christened him and provided him with education. My husband was very ambitious, so he was able to move up in life.” Mrs. Singh nods her head and motions around to their home. “When we bought this land, we lived at the back house and rented out this bottom flat. We also had a couple of hire cars. But it not worth the confusion. The drivers were not honest. They drove all around town and did not give us all they took in. So we stop.” “And now?” “Since we built the upstairs addition, we don’t rent out much. The house there in the back . . .” Mrs. Singh points out the kitchen window to the modest wooden house several feet behind this one. “It belong to us. We does rent it to a family there.” I look out the window for a moment. I seem to remember seeing a black woman and several small children go in and out of the house early in the mornings. But I had never seen Mrs. Singh interact with them. It was as though they didn’t know one another at all. This fact, the separateness of their lives, seems particularly salient to me today. As I wave to Mr. Singh and walk up the long driveway across the canal toward the back door of the house, I see that the middle daughter—Zenia—is also helping in the yard by watering the plants in the large planters scattered along the fence. When I open the back door, Mrs. Singh and Leila are in the kitchen making the preparation for the mid-day meal—chopping vegetables, cleaning chicken, and grinding spices. The smells of the ingredients stimulate my appetite. “You were out early this morning.” Mrs. Singh says to me as I walk into the kitchen. “Yes. I couldn’t sleep, so I went for a jog.” “You hungry?” “Yes. I didn’t eat anything this morning.” “Sit down, let me prepare something for you.” She heats up some of the yellow pea daal, spicy ochro,4 and pumpkin, which must have been from dinner the previous evening,

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and takes out the pan to warm some of the leftover roti. She pours the warmed daal in a shallow bowl and adds some fresh hot rice along with the vegetables. “Thanks.” I accept the bowl she offers and sit down at the kitchen table. “I might have an interview in town today. Did anyone call for me while I was out?” “No.” “Mmh.” I take a spoonful of the daal, careful to get some rice, pumpkin, and ochro on the spoon. The flavors and textures are both warming and comforting. When I arrived in Guyana, I was dismayed that the Singhs asked for a higher weekly room and board fee than I had negotiated with my contact person. But, after several weeks of Mrs. Singh’s cooking, I realize that the extra 10 U.S. dollars is a bargain. “When you finish, just leave the bowl in the sink,” Mrs. Singh instructs me as she and Leila leave the kitchen to clean other parts of the house. “O.k. Can I help with the cleaning?” “No. It’s alright.” I remain at the table and finish the daal. Mrs. Singh had warmed only one piece of roti, but I wished for more. Just as I think “I want to get another lesson in how to make that bread,” I remember how I felt critical of Julie and the other Westerners as we cooked together soon after my arrival in Guyana. I had been quick to accuse them of appropriating Guyanese cultures in uncritical ways. But I am here, too, operating within the same economy of exchange. I shake my head as I finish eating and then put my dishes in the sink. I leave the kitchen and head upstairs to take a shower and make some phone calls. When I reach the upstairs parlor, Mrs. Singh motions for me to join her on the front verandah. “Shush!” She puts her finger to her mouth and says, “Listen!” I maneuver myself past the large ironing board and basket of fresh laundry to be pressed and strain my ears to hear something unusual. As I walk out onto the verandah, I do hear a faint drumming noise, rhythmic and low, emanating from the house next door. Mrs. Singh is leaning on the handrail, and I am close behind her peering over into the neighboring yard. This is one of those ramshackle houses that dot the neighborhood, conspicuous next to the large stone houses painted bright white. Mrs. Singh and I lean together looking for an open window or crack in the door to see what is going on. And then I catch

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a glimpse: the small front house is full of people dancing around and chanting. Drummers are keeping the time . . . but I can’t see them through the crack in the door left after someone enters the room from the outside. “They does practice the obeah,5” Mrs. Singh says in a whisper through barely moving lips, as though the people in the house might see her. “Oh,” I say, not sure what her evidence is that it is an obeah ceremony. I wonder if Mrs. Singh is assuming they are practitioners of obeah because they are black. “They do this regular. It very strange,” Leila says from her seat on the other side of the verandah. “BAM!” Just then, the door to the house slams shut and the sounds are again muffled. Mrs. Singh and I straighten up but continue to stand awkwardly side by side. I look back over at the house—wooden, sun-faded, with a rusted tin roof. “Oh well, they will continue all day and into the night,” Mrs. Singh says as she steps around me and returns to her ironing board. Mr. Singh is still outside cleaning out the canal with his machete, and Zenia is now helping to clear away some of the cuttings. “Very interesting,” I say out to no one in particular, awkward in the silence. At this moment, two black boys on bicycles speed by on the road below. They are laughing and talking with each other. I look down at them as they ride past a few houses and then turn around and head back in our direction. Mrs. Singh shouts out to them, evidently in creole, because I cannot understand what she is saying. Zenia looks up and catches my eye, then looks at her mother and laughs . . . nervously. “What did you say?” I ask, feeling dread rise up. “That boy, he does look like a chimpanzee,” Mrs. Singh says to me with steady eyes. I stand there stunned. “Did she just say that the boy looked like a monkey? No, a chimpanzee?” I think as I look back at the boys on the road. My heart begins to pound in my chest. I am having difficulty breathing. These are the kids I see on the street all the time. They are black and obviously poor. One boy sits hunched over the handlebars of the bike with jeans and no shirt. He looks up at us on

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the verandah. “What am I supposed to say to her?” I think. “What are they thinking?” I wonder about the boys. “Well, they’re just dirty, nasty little boys,” Mrs. Singh continues in a lower voice. Several moments pass and we all just stand there, as if suspended in time. I look over at Leila sitting quietly in the far corner of the verandah. Eventually, the boys resume their laughter together and ride off. But I stand there, unsure about myself and my place. “Umm. I’m going to go to my room for a bit. I need to call the woman I was supposed to interview to see if she’ll be available today or later in the week.” I quickly walk off the verandah and through the upstairs parlor past the Singh’s bedroom, the kids’ rooms, and finally reaching my own at the end of the hall. Once in the room, I close the door and stand in the middle of the floor for what seems like a very long time. Finally, I move to sit at the small desk and open up my laptop computer. It takes a while to boot up, but when it does, I open a new document and begin writing. I describe what’s happened, and then I reflect on why the incident has left me so unsettled. I write: It was a strange and weird moment—one where my racial solidarity with the boys was strongest, yet my inability to say something to scold or reprimand Mrs. Singh was salient. I mean I took the comment as a racial slur—and I think the boys did, too. And I also think that Zenia understood it for what it was, which was why she laughed when she glanced at me on the verandah. Her reaction was almost as if they got caught revealing their “true” feelings about black people. But I know it’s not as simple as that. These kids that ride around the street on their bicycles are also of a lower class status. The Singh children are always clean and fresh looking, largely because Mr. Singh can afford a stay-at-home wife who makes sure to keep the place tidy, the clothes washed, their lives in order. Many of these black families seem very poor and living under fairly wretched conditions. So her comment, although clearly racial, was also intensely classed. Overall, I am finding that the contradictions of race here are extremely confusing.

I look up from the computer and think. Mrs. Singh had been nothing but kind and welcoming during my stay in her home. I had been included in family gatherings, such as Zenia’s birthday party, where black girls and Indian girls were there to celebrate. And Mrs. Singh’s description of her husband having been “adopted” by a Black man really makes the question of racial bias less clear. My racial status

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in this home and perhaps in the country is shaped directly by my foreignness and my assumed middle-class status. But I am feeling separated from poor and working-class black people in ways similar to those I have increasingly felt in the United States, where the acquisition of higher education seems to erode the links to the very people I believe my work should serve. Coming all the way to Guyana to do research with the Red Thread women seems a curious way to build sustainable connections to a community. I am suddenly anxious, and don’t want to think about these things anymore. I save the document in my “Guyana Diaries” folder and close the computer. After several moments, I pick-up the phone and call Nigel. “Good Afternoon.” “Good Afternoon. Nigel?” “Yes, it is me. Is that Kimberly?” “Yes. Yes, it is.” “Oh hello, my dear. How are you?” “Fine. I was just wondering how you were doing?” “I’m good, man. Just recoverin’ from the hernia operation.” “Can I bring you anything?” “I doing good, don’t need anything really.” “What about some food? I can bring something to you.” “My appetite not yet up. But some juice would be refreshin’.” “O.k., I’ll get some and bring it over. Are you strong enough for visitors?” “Yes, yes. Do come by.” I gather my toiletry items and go into the bathroom for a quick shower. The water feels wonderful, slightly warmed by the mid-day sun. I am careful, though, not to stay too long. Although there had been rain, I don’t know if the water tank is getting low. Once I finish, I return to my room and dress. I am glad to have something to do that will take me away from the Singh house for a while and also not engage me in research. …  …  …  … 2 September 1996 Late afternoon I arrive at Nigel’s flat. Although the door is slightly ajar, I knock lightly on it and wait.

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“Do come in!” I hear Nigel say. “Hi,” I say as I come fully into the flat carrying the bag with two aseptic containers of juice. “Hello, my dear.” Nigel motions me in, perhaps sensing my hesitation. “I am not contagious!” I laugh and put the bags on the counter next to the sink. “Where is your glassware?” “Just above you, to the right.” “Oh. Do you have any ice?” “You can check, but the power been going off and on quite a bit the last couple of days. Not sure it cold enough to freeze up the ice. You know?” “Oh,” I sigh. I open his small icebox and look in the freezer compartment. There are a few bits of ice in the tray. I take them out and distribute them between the two glasses. “Which one do you want? Orange or cherimoya?” “The second.” “Good,” I say because I hadn’t tasted it before and wanted to try it. I pour out the juice into the glasses and take them over to Nigel. “You look fine,” I comment while looking at him. “Yes, I feel well. Just a bit tired.” “Mmmh.” I drink from my glass. The juice tastes really nice, like a cross between a banana, a pineapple, and something else I can’t place. I sit savoring it and thinking about Nigel’s comment about the blackouts. “When I arrived in Berbice to do interviews with some of the Red Thread women there was a black-out. It went on into the night. Maybe all night.” “Yes, it probably happen more frequently outside of Georgetown. But it happens here often enough.” “Nigel, I just don’t understand. Why don’t more people protest?” “Under the rule of Burnham to protest was to take your life into your hands.” “Was it different before?” “Yeah man. People use to protest all the time. But over the years people are just beat down. Those who could no longer take the conditions of the place and had the means to migrate did so. Among those who stayed, many just struggle to survive and nothing more.” Nigel shifts in the bed. He is propped up on pillows and is trying to remain relatively immobile as he recovers from the operation.

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“But I am encouraged by people’s renewed desire to fight. You’ve been to the university since you arrived?” “Yes. I went to meet the head of the Women’s Studies Unit. And I had some time to walk around and go to the library. I noticed that the campus is a bit run-down.” “The conditions of the place have been deteriorating for quite some time—rodents, missing window screens, broken-up chairs and desks, bathrooms with debris and human waste all around. How can we study in such an environment? Students and administrators have chosen to overlook, ignore, and struggle silently. But last term I participated in a protest, and I was surprised by the militancy of the students. I suggested we throw all the chairs out of the classrooms and onto the ground to illuminate the fact that conditions were terrible. And we did this.” “Really?” “Yes. And earlier in the term, I decided to paint some of the classrooms myself, and I sent a bill for the paint and my labor to the administrators. Just to make a point and draw attention to the issue.” “And what happened?” “Well, little has changed. But I feel hopeful that the fight continues.” I look at Nigel, nodding my head up and down before sighing deeply, “I don’t think I can stay, Nigel. I can’t understand why I came back. This is not my fight.” “Yeah man.” Nigel throws his head back and lets out a sudden burst of laughter. “Each day I expect to hear that you have gone. But you are here . . . you remain.” “Yes. I remain,” I say in a small voice as I sit in the chair with my bare feet propped up on the end of Nigel’s bed. I find these conversations with him comforting, reassuring. In his small flat, dominated by a large bed and several shelves overflowing with books, newspapers, and notebooks crammed with his writing and reflections, I don’t feel crazy or disjointed or out of place. I am not here to interview him, and, consequently, our conversations are more friendly and natural. I don’t feel the same need to hide my unease as I do with the Red Thread women. I am also able to relax in ways that I struggle with at the Singhs. My relationship with Nigel is rooted in desire, not primarily of a sexual or romantic sort, but one connected to an organic interest in learning about each other’s worlds. It’s what

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I had hoped would form the basis of my work with the women of Red Thread, where instead, I cannot seem to shake feeling opportunistic. But Nigel and I meet as equals on the terrain of politics and ideas . . . a landscape that I have grown to appreciate. …  …  …  … 2 September 1996 Evening Knowing that Nigel needs rest, I leave his flat after a couple of hours. When I return to the Singhs I see that they have all gone out. On the kitchen table is a note from Mrs. Singh telling me that they have gone to visit family in the interior and that there is food on the stove for my dinner. I am relieved to have the house to myself for the evening. After eating the chicken and vegetables Mrs. Singh left for me, I go up to my room to place a call to Antonio’s cell phone. After what seems like a dozen rings, he finally answers. “Hello?” He says, sounding slightly out of breath. “Hi. It’s me. Kimberly.” “Oh. Hi, babe. Your number didn’t come up on the phone. So I didn’t know who it was.” He pauses and then says: “What’s going on? Is everything o.k.?” “Yes. Fine. I just wanted to hear your voice.” “Oh. Something’s wrong.” “No, not really. I just had an interesting interaction today with my host family, and I don’t know what to make of it.” “Oh yeah. What happened?” “Well, it’s kind of a long story. Are you busy?” “Yeah. Well, I’m waiting for the guys to come back from the store with the paint for one of the apartments. It’s been hectic getting these units in shape after years of squatters and Section 86 renters. You know what I mean?” “Yes. I do.” I think to myself that his mother had finally found an activity that would engage Antonio. He seemed to enjoy the work of upgrading and maintaining the units in the apartment building she purchased with the last of the life insurance money from his father. As immigrants from Venezuela to the United States, his mother and late father were eager to secure their financial futures. Owning real estate was one avenue to create a bond between them and an enduring

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connection to their adopted homeland. But, I was more than a little jealous and worried about the future of our relationship. Since it seemed that I was not going to be able to keep him on the phone with tales from my travels, I decide to change the subject. “Well, look, let me just ask how are things with Sawdust and Pepper?” “I checked in on them last night, I think. They seem fine. They kept wanting me to pet them. But I couldn’t stay that long.” “Oh. How often do you go to my place?” “I try to go every other day.” Perhaps sensing my concern, he adds: “Don’t worry, they’re fine. Everything is fine.” “And what about Fudge? Have you checked in with the woman whose keeping him?” “Oh right. You know your mom said she would take care of that. So I’m just keeping an eye on the cats and your apartment.” “Oh. I talked with my mom a couple days ago, and she didn’t mention that. Well, I’ll have to make sure.” I think: “I suppose I could just call the woman from here.” “Hey, babe, the guys are here now. I’ll try to call you later today when I’m done with this. Hang in there. You’re doing great!” I say, loudly, “I miss you!” He responds, “I miss you too. I gotta go. I’ll talk to you later. Bye.” “O.k. Bye.” The phone goes silent, and I return the handset to the base. I sit at the desk. It’s too early to go to bed, I think. So I decide to choose a new book from the shelf of Harlequin romance novels in the bookcase outside my room.

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CHAPTER 6 Meet Us Where We Are

9 September 1996 Late afternoon “Mrs. Singh . . .” I call out as I walk down the stairs carrying a small duffel bag and my backpack. “I’m leaving now.” Mrs. Singh comes out of the kitchen wiping her hands on a kitchen towel. “You does leave for Linden1 now?” “Yes ma’am. I’ll be in Linden until Thursday.” “No problem. We does see you when you return. Travel safe.” I leave the Singh house through the front door and cross over the canal on the small bridge leading from the front yard to the street. I am going to Linden to spend time with some of the Afro-Guyanese Red Thread women. Michelle and her mother Joan, both long-term members, have invited me to stay with them for several days and arranged for me to do interviews with the women in their village. Although I am still processing my Berbice experience, I am looking forward to my interviews with some of the black women who are members of Red Thread. 143

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I spent the week since visiting Berbice keeping myself busy in my room by indexing interviews and writing field notes. I came out of my room only to make frequent journeys into other parts of Georgetown. I did some archival research at the university, met again with the director of the Women’s Studies program there, visited the offices of UNICEF and CAFRA (Caribbean Association of Feminist Research and Action), and did massive amounts of photocopying at one of the copy shops in town. I was also taking photos of everything, trying to establish a visual record of the people and the place. But I continued to long for the familiarity of home. The exhaustion I felt during my interview with Berta had morphed into something more. I was constantly nauseous and headachy, alternating between constipation and diarrhea. While I found Mrs. Singh’s cooking exemplary, I had begun to dream often of American food, especially my family’s Southern fare of greens, cornbread, and barbecued ribs.2 Today, I am setting out to collect more life histories. I feel purposeful. My stomach is settled, and I have pushed the homesickness toward the back of my mind. Walking fairly briskly, I arrive at Karen’s flat in about 15 minutes. Michelle and I had agreed to meet here, and then I would accompany her to Linden. When I enter the main living area of the flat I see Michelle, her daughter, and another young girl I had not seen before sitting together on the sofa. Several of the other Red Thread community women are also there. It is the end of the workday, and they are all preparing to walk together to the minibus terminal at the Stabroeck Marketplace and head back to their respective villages. Michelle and I take some time after everyone leaves to begin my interview with her. I set up the tape and clip the microphones on each of our tops—maneuvering around her daughter nestled in her arms. “How old is she?” “Two years old.” “She’s only 2? Oh, she’s big.” I pause and look at the little girl staring up at me with large brown eyes and thumb in her mouth. Ujana’s hair is sectioned into small segments, braided, with the ends captured in colorful plastic barrettes in the shapes of bows. Ujana has her mother’s facial features—with full lips and prominent cheekbones. But she is several shades lighter brown. I continue: “So, what sort of relationship do you have with her father?”

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“Mmmmh . . . quite alright.” Michelle’s high-pitched, sing-songy voice plays over the statement and marks her relative youth. “Are you married?” “No.” “And where does he live?” “He lives in Linden, but he’s working in Georgetown.” “So Ujana gets to see him and spend time with him?” “Yeah.” “Do you have plans of getting married any time soon?” Michelle laughs, but does not answer. “Or at all?” I laugh, too, uncertain about my question. “Yeah, I plan on gettin’ married, but I don’t know I ready for that right now. Because workin’ in Red Thread sometimes I got to be away for a month, two months, right. And I like doing workshops. I like, you know, meetin’ people and discussing these things.” I nod my head. “So you think if you were married you wouldn’t have the freedom to go and do those things?” “Well, it depends on the person I marry. I mean if you got a relationship you mightn’t get no problem because, I mean, you’re single. But when you marry, you know, people change. He would feel, ‘Well you’re now my wife and these things you can’t do anymore.’” Michelle pauses and looks down at Ujana. “When she was 3 months old I had to go away to Barbados. We had a workshop on developing skits.” “And you took her with you?” “No.” “So who took care of her?” “Joan.” “Your mother?” Michelle nods her head and continues. “Yes, she look after my daughter while I away. Bein’ she also in Red Thread, Joan understand what I was doin’. She know why I want to go and that it was a good thing.” Michelle pauses before adding: “A man would maybe not be so understandin’.” “Right,” I say in response thinking about how both Nati and Berta described the process of convincing their husbands to let them travel to do Red Thread work. Michelle’s decision to remain unmarried seems quite savvy in this context, leaving her free to travel as she sees fit. I go on to ask: “So just you, Ujana, and your mother live together in Linden?”

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“No. My younger sister does live with us.” Motioning over to the young girl sitting at the far end of the sofa, Michelle continues: “Kya is just 16. We have another girl that is one of my cousin that is living with us. She’s still at school.” “How old is she?” “She’s 14. And I got my daughter, and I got another, a niece, one of my sister’s daughter. She’s living with us. She’s 4 years old. She start out to nursery school. Actually we’re responsible for her and everything she has to do. My mother, myself, and another sister I have, we are the sole breadwinner in the home. The money that we gettin’ from Red Thread is not anything much, right. We have the rent to pay. It’s not our own house. Right? And then you got food, you got children for school, and these thing.” “I know your mother is a Red Thread member, too. Where does your sister work?” “She, well, only the other day she start workin’. She’s doing babysitting for one of my cousins, a doctor. She would pay her to look after her baby.” “So, you all live together and put your resources together.” “Yes, this is how we live. Even since I was 6 years when my mother and father separated. We were actually livin’ on our own because my mother used to work. She had to do domestic work, caterin’ and them things in order to maintain us. So from the age of 6 we children had to start hustlin’ on our own, like doin’ the cleanin’, the washin’, the cooking, and these things. Because it was too much for her when she come home in the afternoon.” Kya, who had been listening intently to our conversation, gets up and goes to the washroom. I watch as she walks away and wonder momentarily if I should be asking her questions and trying to include her in the discussion. Michelle continues: “At one time she had to do t’ree different type work.” I redirect my attention to Michelle. “Three different jobs?” Ujana has fallen asleep, and Michelle shifts her weight on her lap before answering. “The same domestic work, right, but for t’ree different homes. Like one was t’ree days a week, right? And the others was two days a week. So what she uses to do is the ones that were two days a week, go in early so she could finish by mid-day so she can go to the other one. Because the money wasn’t much, right? So she had to do t’ree in order for us to have school clothes. She had

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seven of us to look after. My two older brothers, they go with my grandmother in Berbice.” “As the oldest girl, did you have more responsibility to help with your younger brothers and sisters?” Michelle shakes her head back and forth. “Actually, my brother before me, right, he’s two years older than I am. He had a lot, a lot of responsibility. Because he was the eldest in the home, and so he used to do like the cookin’, the washin’, even bathin’ our skin and comb our hair and these things. And for that he had to come out of school early. He left school in form two. Just to look after us so my mother could work and so.” “So he came out of school to look after you all,” I say as I think to myself that this seems unusual. I expected that boy children were more likely to be protected and to be allowed to finish their schooling. I ask: “Did he ever go back into school?” “He uses to go to evenin’ classes. And then he left and went to Berbice to live for some time. He start go to church and the church had different classes and he was interested in developin’ himself in that way. So, he preachin’ now.” “And who helped with all of you after he left?” “We all does. During my secondary school we uses to make puri3 to supply places, right. Because Joan was workin’ in Red Thread at that time and it was only 80 dollars a week, you know, a small piece. Because it wasn’t an income-generatin’ project. So like every morning we use to make 250 puri, daal puri, to supply places with it. Like Joan would help me roll out the dough, and I would do all the baking. And to finish fast we would use t’ree stoves. Then when we finish doin’ that, we get the children prepared for school. And then Joan had to go to work. When the children gone to school, I have to carry the puri to places—the hospital canteen and the market we have.” “You did this while still in secondary school?” I ask, shocked at the amount of work. Michelle nods her head affirmatively. “Yes. We use to carry the puri there. Then I come home back, I would clean up, and then I had to prepare for school. I use to go to school for a quarter to one. So in that time when I finish I had to clean, cook. If I clothes to wash, I had to wash it and reach school for quarter to one. Sometime not leavin’ school until a quarter to six. Sometime you tired, but you ain’t got nobody to help. So you got to do it.” “And how long did you keep this pace?”

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“With the puri and then the burger we did that about a year and a half.” “And then why did you end up stopping?” “We had to stop the puri because it was some pain in the wrist and the elbow and fingers. Because the heat, right, in the hand. So we had to stop that. Then we use to supply people with hamburger. So when I come home from school in the afternoon, I would mix the bread by the time Joan come home so we could bake it in the night. We get up in the morning and make the burger. Sometimes we used to get up at three o’clock in the mornings. If we didn’t get to bake the bread in the night you would have to get up earlier to bake. When we mix up in the night, you barely sleep, you get up at one o’clock to bake, you might lie down, but you got to jump up back.” I shake my head back and forth, struck by the intensity of this labor. “And so why did you stop making and selling the hamburger? Because of the pain, too?” “No, with the burger, the shop that we uses to supply, they had to close down. But, like we do caterin’, even now. Like when there any wedding or so, right, people would come and ask us to do some caterin’, and we would assist Joan in doing it. Now most of the caterin’ myself and the other sister will do it. Because Joan can’t face a lot of heat. So even if she take the work, we would do it.” “Do you get a lot of this work?” “It not steady steady. And we don’t really charge nothing much. Right? Because we get it from my mother. If people ask her to do these things, she would say, ‘Man, give me anything.’ Right?” I nod, thinking about my own parents’ side-line entrepreneurial endeavors—my mother designing and altering clothes and my father catering parties. Like me, Michelle is frustrated with how little money people pay them for their services. And, perhaps more importantly, how they devalue their own labor by pricing their products too low. This, I am coming to believe, is a fundamental shortcoming of the women-and-development model—the people’s efforts to make a living on what they produce in an economically depressed environment. Kya emerges from the washroom. Michelle looks at her and then says to me: “Let us get on the road to Linden.” I get up and untangle the microphone cord from Ujana’s sleeping form. As I put the equipment in my backpack, Michelle gingerly lays Ujana on the sofa and then disappears behind a tall screen dividing the main living space from the sleeping area of Karen’s flat. Karen had

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been out of the city for a time, and the Red Thread community women had been living in her flat. I assumed that Karen was returning the next day, since all the women had gone back to their villages tonight. While we wait for Michelle I turn to the young girl: “Tell me your name again.” “Kya.” “You were just sitting there so quietly. And how old are you?” “Sixteen.” “Are you involved with Red Thread or just spending time here with your sister?” “Just right here.” “Do you go to school?” “I finish.” “Oh, you’re finished. You guys finish school so early.” Kya laughs, but does not say anything. Michelle reenters the front of the room and responds to my statement. “You know here we got . . . you got your primary school, you got your secondary school. If you weren’t fortunate to pass the secondary school examination, then primary school get up to form four. Right? And by the time you reach form four you’re 16, some, depends on the age you went into school, you’re 15.” “When did you stop school?” I ask Michelle. “I started out to school early, at an early age. Because they had a private school next door to us. At that time my father was living with us. I was around, about 2 years old, and he started sendin’ me to that school. So by the time I reach the nursery school age, I had already know how to read, to write, and these things. So I spent a couple of months in the nursery school, and then I go over to primary school. So I only went to nursery school to pass the time, because the words they were giving the children . . .” “You had already had . . .” “Right. So I spent a couple of months in the nursery school, and then I go over to primary school. So I had two chances in writin’ common entrance.4 Right.” “So when you write the exam, depending on how you do on the exam, that determines where you go from that point? Like if you’re going to secondary?” “Well, no. The CXC is what you write in the secondary school. You write it in the fifth form. And when you finish the exam that’s basically . . . if you have money you could further your studies. It

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depends on how much subjects you write, you could go to U.G.,5 and that depends on money, too. You understand?” “Right, right.” “But I couldn’t try because of money. At that time my mother couldn’t afford it. My father, he was responsible for it. I had wanted to write six subjects. He said that was too much for him to pay. Then I decided, ‘O.k., I going to write four.’ But when time reach, he hadn’t the money to give me. So I had to come out of school.” “Oh! That must have been upsetting and frustrating.” Michelle just nods her head and then motions for me to gather up our belongings and prepare to leave Karen’s flat. We close the window jalousies and straighten up the room a bit. Michelle wakes Ujana and urges her to walk on her own. “Me no wan’ to carry you all the way,” she says to her. “Here, take her outside.” She directs Kya to take Ujana’s hand and guide her out the door. I follow them outside while Michelle locks the door and then takes the key to Karen’s mother, who lives in the house next door. I stand in the long driveway with Kya and Ujana. When Michelle returns from next door she says: “Let us secure a minibus to town. It getting late.” We walk out onto the road and head toward town, stopping about a quarter mile later at the intersection of two roads. “Joan does tell the women that you are to interview them tomorrow.” “O.k. good. How many will there be?” “Me no know for sure. Maybe seven or eight . . . depend on who in town and who working at the Laundry.” “O.k. good.” We catch a small minibus to the Stabroek Market. Once there, Michelle negotiates our passage, and we settle into a bus headed to Linden. As we ride along, Ujana is on Kya’s lap, and they are both falling asleep. I think it might be a good time to talk. I want to get more of the story of Michelle’s relationship with her father. “Do you mind if I ask you some more questions?” “No man.” “O.k. You were telling me that you had to come out of school at 16 before writing the common entrance exam. You said that your father was responsible for paying for the exam and he said that he couldn’t afford it. Right?”

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Michelle nods her head. “O.k. So I wondered if you still see your father now?” “I can’t tell you the last day I see him. Back then, I use to see him quite often. Now we don’t really get along much.” “You don’t?” “No, because I feel like he did a lot of wrong t’ings to us. Right. And so like every time I see him these things would come to me, right.” “Other than not having the money to pay for your exams, what kinds of things did he do wrong?” Michelle takes a deep breath in and out before answering. Then she says: “Sometimes you wouldn’t get money from him for weeks. At one time I could remember when I wrote common entrance, he was drinkin’ with his friend in the rum shop, and I went to carry the paper to show him that I passed into secondary school. So I go in there and I tell him, ‘Man I passed!’ And I give he the test. And he start boastin’ about he daughter, ‘And this is my daughter.’ He say, ‘Oh, you see my daughter do good, man. She get first. And she goin’ to the school just now.’ He start talkin’ about how he love he children, you know, and these things. He start boastin’ about how much children he got, how much get big. I was real annoyed. And the people, the men start callin’ him Nelson the Big Daddy. And I turn to he and I say, ‘You gotta stop bein’ a daddy and be a father.’ And he said, ‘Why you so mean?’ I say, ‘You figure out.’ But when I was supposed to write common entrance and I ask him to buy a pair of boots for me, he didn’t do it. He told me I can borrow his hard boots, and when I finish I can take it back to him. And I said, ‘I don’t want it!’ And I would tell him as it is. And he couldn’t take from me. He used to get annoyed. But I used to say, ‘I don’t business how much you vex, this is how I feel about you!’” “So your problems with him were mostly about his not supporting you financially?” “Not just so. When I was 12 years old he want to beat me for something, and I run away. I wasn’t living at him. And I say, ‘Man, me livin’ at you? You mindin’ me? You ain’t beatin’ me!’ Right? I run away, and I end up in hospital because I run on a board with t’ree 2-inch-and-a-half nail. And when I saw him coming behind me, I keep running with the board. It was pierced to my foot, but I keep running with it in my foot. And I run ‘till I reach home and I close the door.” “So you took it out yourself?” I say, stunned.

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“Yes, I pull it out. And then I call a friend next door, and she came and see and she beat the foot out and it start bleedin’ and so. Well, I didn’t say anything to my mother about it. And the next morning when I wake up, the whole foot swelled to a size. And it was black. So I had to end up in the hospital. I didn’t mind, because all I tellin’ me self, ‘He ain’t beatin’ me.’” “Yes, yes. I can imagine.” “He use to beat cruel. When he beat you, blood, he gotta see blood. So I tell me self he ain’t knockin’ me. I didn’t see him back for a couple of months. I know if I go around he woulda beat me. So I never use to go. He didn’t see me for a good while. I use to tell him off because I honestly don’t like the things that he did to us. When I couldn’t write my exam, I turn to him and I say, ‘You know something you could never keep me down, no matter what you do.’ I say, ‘I goin’ to show you that I get up.’ So me an’ he couldn’t agree. Even to now, we don’t get on much. Because I would tell him off.” Kya is awake and tapping Michelle’s arm. We were both so engrossed in the telling and listening, that Michelle didn’t notice we were close to their village. So we hurriedly gather ourselves and prepare to exit. Michelle tells me that once we get off the minibus, we have to walk about a mile or so to their house. Her brother, she says, is going to prepare the evening meal. It is nearly dark by the time we arrive at the house that Michelle, Ujana, and Kya share with Joan, one niece, and a second cousin. They live in a four-room “top house” with two bedrooms, a kitchen, and dining room/living room. Another family lives in the “bottom house,” and both families share an outdoor toilet and a shower. The “top house” is clad in horizontal wood siding and has a tin roof. A half dozen large windows in the front of the house are trimmed in white and red paint, chipped and worn from age. In fact, one window is missing its glass and is boarded up, but the temporary board has become a part of the structure—weathered to the same ashy brown as the rest of the building. The “bottom house” has a stone facade and two windows. Two doors are on the sides of each window, but only the one on the right seems functional. Tall and steep stairs along the side of the structure lead up to the second level and the door located on a small landing that serves as a mini-verandah. As we make our way up the steep steps, the children running ahead of us and shouting to those inside that we have arrived, I think about the next several days I will spend among Afro-Guyanese

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Linden, Guyana

women in this village. Up to now, I reflect, I have not interviewed many black women or spent much time with black people. By far, my most regular interaction has been with my East Indian host family. And although they have been more than kind and gracious, I was still having trouble shaking the tense moment with the black neighborhood kids. I was looking forward to spending some time living with an Afro-Guyanese family and meeting the Red Thread women in this village, whom I assumed would also be black. I am to bunk in the room with Ujana and her small aunt and cousin. This is the room in the front of the house, with one broken window. Three twin-sized beds are pushed against each of the walls leaving very little room for any additional furniture. There is no closet. Clothes are hung on hangers and suspended from nails in the walls. There is a large barrel—the kind that people use to send goods to Guyana from the States—in one corner. I presume it is being used as a clothes storage area. A large canvas turquoise shoe bag is tacked on the wall next to the barrel. Its color is perhaps the inspiration for the room’s color scheme, pale lime green on the walls and turquoise on the window frames. The floors are wooden and stained a dark color—either intentionally or from the ever present black dust that permeates the area and coats every surface. Linden, after all, is a mining town.

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“If you does have to relieve yourself in the night, the pan is right here.” Joan shows me the bed pan located under one of the twin-sized beds that has been reserved for me during my stay. I nod my head but hope that I will not have to make use of it. The little ones have already been tucked together into one of the beds, and Kya is preparing to lie down on the second. I ask Joan if I can use the outhouse now. “Kya girl, accompany Miss Kimberly to the toilet.” Kya stands up and removes an oversized sweatshirt from its hanging place on the wall and slips it on over her night clothes. I then follow her into the living room and out the front door. As we approach the outhouse, I notice a handmade sign which states: “Don’t dump piss here.” I wonder, where should it be “dumped” if not in the outhouse. But I don’t spend too much time reflecting on this, because my stomach has been bothering me all evening. The evening meal was heavier and greasier than I had expected—and an off taste was there. I couldn’t place it but thought perhaps it was due to the coal stove the family used for cooking. I hoped that my stomach upset wasn’t a recurrence of the earlier illness. Perhaps it was simply a case of nerves about the next couple of days of interviews. When I finally return to the house and go to bed, I sleep fitfully through the night. It is quite warm in the house, the heat from the day drawn to the tin roof and seemingly trapped inside. I wish for a shower or bath to cool off and remove the feeling of grit from my skin. But several hours later, it feels quite chilly, and I find myself reaching for the covers to bundle up. I am anxious for the morning. …  …  …  … 10 September 1996 7:00 A.M. Michelle wakes me in the morning. “The shower out back. You does refresh yourself. I prepare the meal.” It’s a bright morning. The house feels more cheerful than it did the night before. As I make my way down the steps with my toiletry bag and clothes, I look out over the yard. The house appears to sit up on a slight rise or hill that is thickly covered with a dense low-growing

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plant. The house is flanked on both sides by mature palm trees, and a fence runs the length of the yard on one side. Another house on the left is slightly hidden by several additional smaller palm trees and some lower growing trees.There is quite a bit of outdoor space, because the lot is wide and deep. The lushness of the plantings and the expanse of space lend a very pleasant ambience to the place in spite of the obvious signs of poverty and lack of upkeep. I make my way to the back of the house and see that a few feet from the outhouse is a three-sided wood structure. A spigot with a tall pipe attached to it extends over one side of the structure. I walk around to the open side and hang my bag and clothes on one of the hooks outside. I step inside the shower, onto the wooden planks of its floor and pull the curtain closed. I look up at the overhang of trees and I hear others in the community talking to one another, engaging in their morning rituals. I hesitate a bit before I disrobe. I feel exposed and suddenly shy about my body. But the desire for soap and water are stronger. I remove my clothes, hang them on another hook just to the right of the shower opening, and turn on the water. The combination of the cool water, the early morning sun, and the birds singing above me is so refreshing that I almost forget where I am. When I finally return upstairs, Michelle remarks: “I just about to look for you.” I smile, but feel reprimanded for taking too long. “Joan is in Georgetown today. She arrange for you to meet with Sylvia, Marcy, Miss Dorothy, and Miss Christine.” “Ok, that’s good.” “You does eat, and I will prepare myself.” About 30 minutes later, Michelle and I make our way to Sylvia’s house. Off in the distance a half dozen smokestacks rise up above low-slung, industrial buildings. One emits a steady stream of smoke. “Is that the mine?” I ask Michelle. “Yes, Linden got built up around the bauxite mine. But right now, everybody just lookin’ to go out of the country. Go abroad to see, you know, how they could fair in the Caribbean or in the States. Everybody just lookin’ for that. Because you gettin’ a lot of retrenchment in the bauxite company. Just now you get a lot of people without jobs.” “So do you think things are better in other Caribbean places? What did you think about Barbados?”

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“I was ashamed when I go to Barbados, because that country so small. Over here, our country is far bigger. That’s a little rock in our river. And we got so many different resources, but those people are far more developed than we. Like a guy in Barbados ask me, ‘Why you think Guyana is in this state?’ I said, ‘Boy this is because of bad management.’ That is what I feel. And people are just looking after themself and what they could get. Right? People in the government. And he said, ‘You feel Guyana could get better?’ I said, ‘No.’” “You don’t think it could get better?” “I don’t think so. First what done happen, Guyana right now in a lot of debts. Everyday we in debt. You know, most that we doin’ right now is working to pay . . . ain’t even payin’ back the debts. Just payin’ the interest.” So I don’t think it could be better, so. It hard. You tryin’ in one way and then you failin’ in another way. So, it don’t matter who go in. They would try, right. I won’t say they won’t try.” “So you don’t have much faith in what the politicians are doing, trying to do?” “For me, as far as I concern, all them just lookin’ out for themself. They promise you, ‘Oh we’ll do this, we will do that.’ When the time comes . . . mmh hmm . . .” Michelle shakes her head slowly from side to side, emphasizing her negative viewpoint. “Do you think it would be different if women ran the country?” Michelle pauses and thinks for a long moment. We stop in the middle of the road, and she turns to me, her lightly lilting voice belying the depth of her thoughts. “I think so, you know. I feel so. Because a lot of people in these positions, they don’t really know what is goin’ on here. They’re outside lookin’ in on what is going on. I went on the abortion committee, that’s before the bill was passed for abortion legalize, right? And, what we had to do was like hold meetings in different part of Guyana to see how many people is for abortion and who are against it. Right? And we had some form they have to fill up, you know. In the committee the only grassroot people was myself, the other two from Red Thread, and another girl from another community development group.” Michelle stops at this thought and then adds, “And in that committee it had 35 persons. All the rest was doctors, is some tutor at the University of Guyana, is a lawyer, you know. These kinds of things.” “So how many of these other people were women?”

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“Mostly you had a lot of women, hardly any men. One of the problem that we were facing, even with the women that were in that thing, they themself they runnin’ down other women. When we had these meetings, like we would plan what we goin’ do and how we goin’ do it. Let’s say I might make a suggestion, this person would skin-up she face.6 The other one, ‘Yeah, I think that’s a good idea.’ But that was it. They never really pick it up.” “That must have been frustrating.” “BLAAAAAAAH!” A man driving a 1950s-era red pick-up truck with the letters M & T Co. Linden painted on its empty bed honks loudly, warning us to move to the side of the road. Michelle and I run over to the side narrowly avoiding a woman walking with an umbrella. The sun is hot and high; several women walk along with colorful umbrellas to shield them from its intensity. As we stand to catch our breath, Michelle continues: “One time I tell Karen, ‘You know something, I ain’t going back to this meeting.’ Karen say, ‘Hear now, if y’all come out the meeting, y’all fail to represent the people. They don’t have any grassroot people, and y’all got to stay, you understand. To represent the people.’ And I said, ‘Karen, I can’t take these people.’ They had one woman I couldn’t really get along with. She was a lawyer. I couldn’t take this woman at all. Everything she feel is women fault. It’s the women fault. I turned to her and had to ask her, ‘Are you a woman or a man?’” “Did you ask her that!?” “Yes,” Michelle says in a serious tone. “She said to me, ‘What a silly question.’ And I say, ‘It might sound stupid, but because your attitude.’ Then I said, ‘Don’t be annoyed, but I have to tell you.’ From since then, you know, every time she see me she would . . .” Michelle scrunches up her face to demonstrate the kind of reaction she would get from the woman. I laugh and imagine that this is the same forthrightness that Michelle used with her father nearly a decade earlier. Michelle goes on. “And I tell Karen, ‘You know, I done make a enemy there.’ So Karen say, ‘I don’t mind if you make a hundred enemies. Stay right there, you know.’” We resume our pace, walking to my first interview of the day. It is mid-morning, and there is quite a bit of activity on the road. Men in old trucks drive noisily down the highway spewing dust and gravel from tires and smelly exhaust from tail pipes.

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“We had to really fight to stay on that committee. Soon as the session over, we would talk to each other and say, ‘Girl, what you think about this afternoon?’ And the other would say, ‘I ain’t comin’ back.’ I say, ‘No! Hear now, we goin’ tell them off. We ain’t care if they vex.’ But in the end, I think it was successful, and I don’t regret stayin’ on, because at least you get them to meet the people on their level. Sometime they want to plan these meeting in these big places in Georgetown. And I said, ‘Why don’t we go into these communities like Albouystown, like Tiger Bay. You know, go into the community and keep these meeting?’ It better to get five community meeting and you know whether you get something out of it than you get five meeting at the big place in Georgetown and you waste time and waste money.” “How did the committee respond to this?” “After a while they say, ‘This idea that Michelle give us a good one we do.’ Well, at that time I start laughing. They say, ‘Why you laugh?’ And I say, ‘You know I feel sometimes y’all does feel that y’all too good to listen to people. I workin’ class woman, but sometimes there are t’ings you could learn from me. I mean I might learn from you, if you come down to meet me. But there are things that you could learn from me. You feel you know everything. Man, you feel like you all are on outside lookin’ in. How are you to know how these people would react or think if you don’t go down to their level.’ And that’s how we start gettin’ some results.” “Like what?” “They want to do advertisement on television. I say, ‘A lot of people don’t have television. The people that are faced with these backstreet abortion, drinkin’ these bush remedies . . . they not going to have television. So how they goin’ to know about this new thing?’ So they start printin’ flyers. And I say, ‘You goin’ to print the flyers? I could read, my friend might not be able to read this. Right! So I think what we should do is go around in to the community and announce this thing.’ But they were feeling too good to go down in these places. So we had that problem. But in the end it was successful.” Listening to Michelle’s assessment, I think of the Hemispheric Summit I attended with Julie soon after I first arrived in Guyana. Several of the middle-class, resource women were there, but none of the Red Thread community women. In fact I don’t believe any “grassroots” women were in attendance at all. Julie had raised it as a problem with the resource women. They uniformly blamed the

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organizers of the Summit, who located the event in Georgetown in the middle of the day to attract government officials and development officers rather than the community members that might be more directly affected. In our private conversation, I learned that Julie was disappointed in this response from the resource women. She had wondered: “If the important thing is to facilitate connections between the state and the people—to develop participatory democracy—then why didn’t Red Thread include the community women?” My response to Julie then was that at the national level, Red Thread is often defined as the resource women—they are significant public voices for women’s issues in the country. They were who had probably been invited to attend. But thinking about it again, in light of what Michelle is telling me, it seems clear that both issues seem to operate simultaneously. The community women are an integral part of Red Thread and should be invited to participate in national level discussions because, as Michelle’s work on the abortion committee reveals, they bring a lot to the table. At the same time, those national level discussions should also happen in the communities and villages surrounding Georgetown.7 And as I walk along with Michelle, I am also struck by her careful parceling of the differences among women when she emphasizes that if grassroots women had some say in the government things would improve. Michelle understands the nature of class relations and recognizes that shared gender may not produce the kind of solidarity the women of Red Thread are working hard to achieve. We turn off the main road onto a smaller road. About a mile down, we approach a house, and Michelle tells me we have arrived. We walk up to the front porch. I stand back toward the walkway while Michelle knocks lightly on the screen door. After a few moments, she knocks again, and then I see a woman walking toward us from the fields behind the house. Michelle and I stand together in silence waiting for the woman I assume to be Sylvia to traverse the distance. But I am thinking about Michelle’s analysis of her work with Red Thread. Although she may not have intended it as such, she is really giving me valuable insights about the nature of cross-class work among women. Meeting with women where they are located seems a simple concept; however, enacting this kind of on-the-ground methodology forces us to confront our own limitations and biases. I have certainly felt this strain during my research journey, particularly in my extreme

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exhaustion when interviewing Berta. And, as Sylvia approaches, I realize I am holding my breath in anticipation . . . hoping for a connection. …  …  …  … 10 September 1996 9:30 A.M. “I look out for you all morning!” The woman shouts as she approaches the house. “Sorry, Miss Sylvia. It does take us a while to reach.” “I don’ have time for no interview. I just now finish cuttin’ some cane. We clear a field for plantin’ farm, and I weary.” “Oh!” I say. A bit startled by her attitude. “Well, that’s O.k., I understand.” I look toward Michelle for some reassurance. When she doesn’t offer any comment, I turn back to Sylvia. “I could come back tomorrow?” Sylvia ignores me and turns to Michelle. “Been a lot of upheaval. My husband and me got to separate. He have another woman, and I just can’t take that kind of nonsense. I build a house for me self alone.” Looking at me now, she points off in the distance and says: “It right over there.” I nod my head in anticipation that she will consent to be interviewed, but Sylvia turns her attention back to Michelle. She tells her that they’ve had another tragedy in the family: her grandson recently died at Linden hospital. Her daughter took the baby to the hospital because he was suffering from seizures. The doctors put the baby on oxygen and told her daughter to return the next day. When she returned to the hospital she learned that the baby had died. Sylvia was upset with her daughter for trusting her grandson into the care of the hospital. She says that when she has had the child and he suffered from a seizure, she simply would give him something to drink and he would recover. Sylvia and Michelle fret together about the lack of quality medical care in Linden. I stand off to the side and listen intently but do not offer any comments or try to enter into the conversation in any way. About 30 minutes later, Sylvia looks at me and says: “You does return tomorrow.” Then turns on her heel and walks into the house. Michelle and I walk silently down the road. I realize that I am feeling both irritated and embarrassed by my reaction. At a gut level,

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I thought about the long walk to Sylvia’s house, and I had hoped she would take that into consideration before turning me down. But had I taken into consideration the tragedies she was experiencing? Was I expecting Sylvia to push it all aside, because the American researcher is here to interview her? I force myself to imagine what it would be like to be in Sylvia’s situation, struggling with this kind of upheaval and then being asked to talk about her life and her life choices into a tape recorder for a stranger. I am unsettled by the dynamics of this process. Michelle interrupts my thoughts and says: “Ms. Marcy not too far. We will go to she next.” I take a deep breath. I’m only just beginning my time here, I continue to think to myself, so I need to make the most of the situation. I respond to Michelle in an upbeat tone. “O.k. Good. Isn’t she married to your brother?” “Yes.” “I think I met her before, when I was here a couple of years ago. She had just joined Red Thread then, I think.” “Me no remember da,” Michelle says. We continue the rest of the distance in silence, and I observe our surroundings. While Sylvia’s house was situated in an area where there were few houses and lots of wide open spaces, Marcy lives in a more densely populated community. Clusters of houses are grouped together and seem to share a common yard. The houses are made of concrete block walls with tin roofs, although some have roofs made out of a heavy material. Michelle tells me that this part of Linden is known as “Canvas Town,” because many of the houses have roofs made out of canvas. As we weave from one cluster of houses to another, there are chickens roaming freely and some in coops, a few goats scaling piles of refuse, and some small children running around and laughing. After a few moments we reach Marcy’s house. When we arrive, Marcy is doing laundry—rinsing clothes in a large plastic wash pan and hanging them on a nearby line. She smiles pleasantly when we approach. As we get closer, I see the deep dimples, and I am struck by how young she looks. I remember that she and Michelle are the youngest of the current Red Thread members. I know that Michelle is 24, but I am unsure of Marcy’s age. “You does make it.” “Yes, girl.” Michelle replies.

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“I was not expectin’ you for a hour.” “Miss Sylvia was not agreeable. So Miss Kimberly did no interview.” “Oh. I need to finish this laundry and prepare lunch. You does want to eat?” “O.k.” I say. “Can I help with something?” “No man, you just rest yo’ self.” Marcy shows me to a sofa inside the house. “You want something to drink?” “Yes. That would be good.” Marcy goes into the kitchen and comes back out with a small glass bottle of Coke and a plastic tumbler filled with uneven chunks of ice. I thankfully take the tumbler and sit down on the sofa. Michelle and Marcy return outside, presumably to finish the laundry. I sit and look around me, noting that the inside walls are concrete block painted colors similar to those at Michelle’s house—deep green and turquoise blue. I assume that Marcy’s husband painted the inside of both houses. After drinking the soda, I lean back and promptly fall asleep. I wake up to laughter and the smells of food cooking. I get up and walk toward the back of the house. The kitchen is actually a partitioned-off section of the main room. It is quite colorful, the same green and turquoise walls, with several plastic containers hanging on hooks or neatly situated on a handmade shelf—containers for washing dishes, mixing food, a matched set of graduated-sized containers labeled harina, azucar, cafe, sol and large cups for measuring and drinking in bright yellows, reds, and blues. Marcy and Michelle are just finishing up preparations for lunch. I join them, and in moments we are sitting down to a tasty meal of fried whitefish, stir-fried greens, and steamed white rice. Afterward, Marcy and I return to the parlor where I had been napping while Michelle stays in the kitchen cleaning up the lunch dishes. “How did you get involved with Red Thread?” I begin after we sit down on the sofa. “T’rough my mother-in-law, Joan. She told me about it, and I start. This was 1990, I just marry then. I start attendin’ Red Thread meetin’ here in Linden. In 1993 I start workin’ with Miss M.8 on the research project.” “Oh yes, I think that’s when I met you when I came here before.” “Yes, it true. I was workin’ with Miss M. in Georgetown just then. But I work up here with her, too, when she want to know about the

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bauxite industry. When the people get retrench, she want to know about them. How they gettin’ along now since bein’ retrench.” “So had you just finished school when you started workin’ with Miss M. on this project?” “I complete primary school, and then I leave and went to work studies. They sent us to learn to do this hair . . .” she pauses, searching for the word “. . . dressing. This is how to do the hair. Right?” I nod my head up and down. “Had you ever thought of doing that as a profession?” “Mmmh. I never did think about it serious. I mean it’s something good, eh, but I never really think about it as a profession or so. After I complete work studies I come off of school.” “And then you got married in 1990?” “Yes.” “How did you meet your husband?” “I meet him right in Linden. Because I normally go to the Pentecostal church. And from church, you know, I met him and after then, you know, we get closer to one another and just decide to get married.” “How old are you?” “Twenty-two.” I do a quick mental calculation and determine that she was about 16 years old when she got married. Then, I ask Marcy: “And how old was your husband then?” “About 20 . . . 23. About that.” Our interview continues along. Marcy tells me about growing up in Linden the daughter of a St. Lucian father and Guyanese mother. She is the middle child of her parents’ three daughters, but she also has four older brothers “on her father side.” Her parents, although still married, have lived apart for about 11 years. Marcy’s father, like many of the residents of Linden, left Guyana after losing work with the mine. He maintains his support of the family by sending remittances about two times a year. “And what about your husband? What does he do for a living?” I ask. “He use to work at Guymine. He was lay off. But now he’s not workin’ . . . what I mean, he is self-employed now. He doin’ barbecue.” “Doing what?” “Barbecue, you know, he barbecue.” “Oh, you mean he does barbecues for, like, parties and . . .”

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“Good . . . right, right, right. You got a function, you know, he would go and they would hire him, and he would do it for them, and so. ” “So, other than the work with Red Thread, is there anything else you do to earn money? How do you and your husband manage financially?” “I use to sell, after my mother went for a year to visit my father in St. Lucia, I use to sell right in her stand at the market. But after I marry, I maintain the house, do the cookin’ and cleanin’. I have fowls and goat and I like mindin’ them.” “Do you sell the milk and eggs?” “I don’t milk them goat. I never eat the milk. I eat the meat and the fowls, too. I use to sell the eggs, but now I keep them and make my own use for them.” “How many goats and chickens do you have?” “I have t’ree or four baby fowls and then about 15 or 20 of the big mothers. I have t’ree goats. Suppose to be four of them, but I lose one.” “Did it get stolen?” “No, I never really heard people out there stealin’. I know when the goat go and graze people will hit them, pelt them, and they run off.” “Do you have a garden?” “No, not a garden. I go to market for greens, because, you know, I don’t have place to . . . because this is not my own place. I use to have a little kitchen garden. My husband normally plant seasonin’ and so. It’s still there at the back, and I will cut my little seasonings and t’ings. But nothing to talk about.” Michelle comes into the parlor and sits in a low chair opposite the sofa. “Miss Christine expectin’ us.” “Oh!” I’m surprised by this, since I knew we were early for my interview with Marcy, and she and I hadn’t been talking for that long. Then, I realize with some embarrassment that I must have slept longer than I thought. “O.k.,” I say. “I think we can stop here. Thanks so much for everything, Marcy. The food was delicious! And I think I got to ask most of the questions I had. Maybe I could come back and take a picture?” “It no problem.” While my time with Marcy was pleasant, I was not sure how to think about her story in relation to the other women I’d interviewed

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so far. Indeed, thinking of Marcy and Michelle together, I got much more of a sense of a reaching toward Red Thread as a manifestation of long-standing dissatisfaction with the status quo in Michelle’s story than I did with Marcy’s. Michelle had found a space within Red Thread to articulate frustrations with the lack of options available to her. Her engagement with the group was shaped by the conflicts she had over time with her father, her and her mother’s efforts to bring money into the family, and her work to provide for her own daughter.9 What seems clear is that some of the women, like Michelle, are storytellers of the highest order. These women need only a gentle prod to lay out a narrative in which they put themselves at the center, inhabiting several often contradictory parts simultaneously: naive/worldly, adventurer/settler, independent/dependent. Marcy, however, describes herself as largely compelled by circumstance. But what did this mean? Perhaps more time spent with Marcy would reveal a complex rendering of her life. I put the equipment in my backpack and follow Michelle out the door and into the yard. The clothes are nearly dry on the line—blowing stiffly in the hot mid-afternoon breeze. Marcy stands at the door to the house, showing off her dimples while shading her face from the sun with her hand. As we walk down the hill, I look back up at Marcy who has begun to take clothes off the line—stretching on petite legs to unclip shirts and underwear. Her pace quickens as the sky suddenly darkens and fat globules of water begin to dot our skins. Michelle hurries me along, “Miss Christine live just a mile down the road.” We hurry along, taking shelter finally under a large mango tree in the courtyard leading to Miss Christine’s house. After the rain lets up a bit, Michelle goes to the door and knocks several times. A large tabby cat saunters over and walks around my feet, talking to me with a raspy meow. “Hi kitty.” I bend down and try to pet him but he runs off before I can touch him. Michelle returns to where I’m standing. “She not here. Miss Dorothy is not too far. We walk there, maybe she know what happen.” Several moments later, we are at Dorothy’s house. The rain continues to threaten but is not coming down again just yet. As we stand on the side of the road and look up, I see two women sitting on the porch landing of the second story. One, a medium-brown skinned woman with a short jheri-curl style hairdo, is talking intently

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to another medium-brown skinned woman with shoulder-length naturally curly hair. Something about this second woman is familiar, and as I make my way up the stairs to the landing, I realize that it is Sylvia. I brace myself for rejection. “Good afternoon,” Michelle says to the women. “Good afternoon,” They reply in unison. “We just come from Miss Christine. She not there. She pass by here?” “No. Me no see her.” The woman I’ve not met yet responds. “This Miss Kimberly . . . the one from the States here to talk to the Red Thread women.” Michelle introduces me to Dorothy. “Hello.” I say, still standing slightly behind Michelle on the stairs. She nods her head in my direction. “Yes, I does know you comin’.” “Oh. Good.” I respond with forced enthusiasm. I stand behind Michelle, peering over her shoulder as we crowd onto the small landing. The women continue with their conversation and make no efforts to move. After a few moments, Dorothy stands and motions for me to follow her into the front room of the house. Michelle moves more fully onto the landing, and I maneuver around her to follow Dorothy into the house. Sylvia and Michelle remain on the porch until the rain makes good on its threat and starts to come down in massive torrents. They come into the house to wait out the downpour . . . and when it lets up just a bit, Sylvia departs for home. Dorothy and I sit at the small kitchen table. I set up the tape recorder and microphones, and we begin the interview . . . tentatively at first, but then gradually getting into a rhythm punctuated by the sounds of rain on the zinc metal roof and the saws and hammers from the furniture workshop below. Dorothy, I learn, has been a Red Thread member for more than eight years. She tells me that she joined when a good friend invited her to attend a meeting. Like many of the other women, Dorothy recalls being “just at home not doing anything” and thought that it would be good for her to get out and learn something new. We sit and talk for over an hour. But I get only bits and pieces of her story through the nearly deafening sounds of the rain pounding on the tin roof above us and her husband’s work in the furniture repair shop below their flat. The sky is unnaturally dark, and I strain my eyes as well as my ears while writing furiously on my notepad. After our interview, Dorothy, Michelle, and I sit together and have a cup of tea while we wait out the rainstorm.

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When the sun returns, Michelle and I walk back to Christine’s house. Several small children are now playing in the courtyard. “Miss Christine in?” The girl, perhaps 5 or 6 years old, shakes her head “no,” but does not say anything. “You she granddaughter?” The little girl nods her head affirmatively, up and down. The barrettes on the ends of her braids bounce against one another, making slight clinking noises. “Tell she Michelle pass by with Miss Kimberly. Hear?” The little girl nods her head again and runs off. Michelle turns to me and says: “We will go back home.” …  …  …  … 10 September 1996 4:00 P.M. At Michelle’s house, Joan has prepared potato curry and bake.10 Although I still feel full from Marcy’s lunch, I sit with the family and take the evening meal. “Did the work go well today?” Joan asks for an update since she has been in Georgetown all day. “Yes. I was able to interview Marcy and Dorothy.” “Miss Sylvia not agreeable.” Michelle interjects. “She don’ consent to interview today.” “Cho! What she say?” “Well, we were late getting to her house, and so she wants me to come back tomorrow.” I respond to Joan’s question, feeling responsible. Joan sucks her teeth. “Me no think this right.” Michelle nods her head silently in agreement. “Well, it’s really fine. I will get an interview with her tomorrow.” “I no go into Georgetown tomorrow. You does interview me before you go to Sylvia.” I am worried about being late again to interview Sylvia, but I feel a certain degree of obligation to conform to Joan’s schedule. So I say: “O.k. Great. Thanks so much, Joan, for talking to everyone and getting this set up.” “No problem, man.” Just as we finish the meal, there is a small knock on the door. Michelle gets up to open the door, and the same little girl that was in

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front of Miss Christine’s house is standing there. She and Michelle talk quietly for a moment, then Michelle turns to me and says: “Miss Christine is back home now, and she ready to be interview. Just follow this little one . . . she will direct you. I come to retrieve you.” I was hoping for a bit more downtime before the next interview, but I knew that I had to take advantage of the opportunity. I check my bag to make sure I’ve got everything in it, heft it onto my back, and follow the little girl down the stairs and over to Miss Christine’s house. As we approach the structure, I note that what I thought was a small courtyard in front of the house is, in fact, a concrete block wall that encircles the entire house. This creates a feeling of seclusion from the busy street outside. Spilling onto the path and ambling up the stone, there are an abundance of plants and flowers. The orange tabby cat I saw earlier sits on top of the stone wall, looking down on us, swatting his tail back and forth. Before I reach the door, a nearly 6-foot-tall woman opens it and stands balancing on one foot. Her other foot is bandaged and looks swollen. The little girl runs ahead of me, past this woman, and into the house. “Come, come.” She angles around in the doorframe dwarfed by her imposing frame and hobbles into the house. I follow her into a spacious living room liberally furnished with reproductions of Victorian-era furniture—two ornate velvet sofas, a dark wood china cabinet, and several chairs in a deep floral pattern. Miss Christine lowers herself gently into one of the chairs, filling it to capacity, and props her bandaged foot on a footstool. I sit opposite her on the sofa and take out my equipment. “Sorry I does miss you when you pass by today. My foot was aching me so I went to hospital for treatment.” “Did you hurt it today?” “No, no. I impale it on pickaxe while gardenin’ a few months back, but it not yet heal up. They give me injection at hospital. I does need more treatment, but me no know when I collect the funds for that.” “Oh,” I say. “Are you o.k. to do the interview? Or do you need to rest?” “I just rest it here,” Christine says. “I leave for Crusade meetin’ for seven tonight. Can you complete the interview before that?” “Yes, I should be able to.” “You does want something to drink?” “Water would be good.” Then I ask, “Do you want me to get it?”

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“No, my daughter does bring it out.” Christine leans her head back and shouts out: “Stephanie! Bring this girl here some water.” Christine turns her attention back to me and adjusts her glasses, precariously perched on her nose. They remain lopsided, however, and I see that they are being held together by masking tape on one side. Christine is a light-skinned black woman who appears to be in her early to mid-40s. Her sandy brown hair is curled into a soft afro that frames her rounded face. I immediately feel a certain warmth for her, perhaps because she reminds me of my favorite aunt. Since I know our time is limited, I start. “How did you get involved with Red Thread?” Christine begins. “I was sittin’ at home one evenin’, and a friend of mine living about two houses from me, she came and she told me she heard about this organisation. Some women coming up from Georgetown and bringing up materials and training, giving you to do embroidery and they pay you and so. And the reason why she come and tell me ‘cause she know that was one of my weakness. I like doin’ embroidery.” “Did you do all this embroidery?” I motion to the walls of the room covered with various brightly colored wall-hangings depicting images of flowers and women working. “Yeah, I did those. I does do all kinds of things. I does knit. I do paintin’. I’s do cake decoratin’. I does sew. Everything, every ‘lil thing I does do. Until my stupid glasses got broke, and I can’t even afford to buy the glasses. Cost about 15,000 dollars11 for the glasses. So I at home now, and I can’t even do a little embroidery and so on.” “You’re not getting much work with Red Thread right now?” “Well, I’m a bit down now in spirits. Because, you know, the work is not flowin’ now, you know. We just receive a little stipen’, a 6,000 dollars in the month. And that really can’t do anything. So I’m a bit down in spirit, and it’s all because of funding’. Red Thread is not really a money organisation. They can’t afford to pay everybody passage to go down to Georgetown. So when we run out of fundings we got to be at home.” “Have things changed since you first got involved?” I pause, looking through my notes. “Wait, first: when did you start with Red Thread?” “From the inception. 1986. And we started doing embroidery . . . was things like pillowcases and handtowels at that time. Those four women from Georgetown, I could remember it was Jocelyn, Andaiye,

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Vanda, and some other person, just come pay us for the cloths, give us more material, and then they gone. So I say to them, ‘Man, I don’t like how this thing really goin’. If we handlin’ money, it must done, you know, with firm. I think we need to get organise.’ So they say, ‘Well, if you feel that y’all should be organised as women, you all go t’rough.’ So when they left for Georgetown, we sat down and we discussed the whole issue.” “How many were there discussing it?” “At that time is was about 30-something women. And I said, ‘Look, let us organise this thing as a group. Let us have a chairperson, a secretary, a treasurer, and so on.’ And with that we did, it wasn’t a election . . . was selection. Or we just ask persons to volunteer. Right? And I took the secretary position. And we started as a group-wise.” Christine shifts in the chair and tries to steady her labored breathing. I wait in silence, taking notes and giving her a chance to catch her breath. After a few minutes I ask: “Did you work outside of the home before Red Thread?” “I used to work at Linmine . . . Guymine. I was a welder. I work for five years with Linmine. Before that was I was self-employed. I used to make like black puddin’ and these thing and sell . . . because I could not of gone anywhere and work. Because I hadn’t anybody to keep the children. ‘Cause they were all small, you know. I use to gotta try and call my mother . . . but she was livin’ with a man that he didn’t even use to want to hear a cat cry. So she couldn’t take a chance to look after.” Christine laughs but then sighs deeply and says: “I went t’rough a struggle in life.” I nod my head and think that this, of course, is a common theme in many of the women’s stories—the reality of struggle. Indeed, the precariousness of life is also apparent as Christine’s answer to my next question reveals. I ask her: “How many children do you have?” “I make 10 children. But I have five alive. And I’m a single parent . . . I raise my children alone.” “The father does not help you?” “Well, um, between the set of childrens I got, there’s three different fathers. It’s only my two last kids, the father really assist in mindin’ them. ‘Till now, he looks after them. The girl, she’s at MacKenzie High School. She’s 15 years. And the boy he’s 17. He’s now residin’ in New Jersey. He attend an Adventist boarding school. He left about

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three weeks ago. But I went t’rough a struggle in life as a single parent.” “Yes, it sounds like.” I nod my head and then continue. “When did you have your first child?” “At the age of 16. I became pregnant at 15 and got my baby at 16. I had to leave my mother home when I got my first child. When I come out of the hospital, just about two months later I had to come out of the house. Because my grandfather use to cuss-up a lot and that sort a t’ing. My mother couldn’t give me anything, and I had to rent a little room. I hadn’t anything, just a little bed my father bought me, and my mother bought a little stove for me. I could remember I had it on the ground. I had three to four rum bottle with my drinkin’ water. Right? It was a struggle. I use to sit down and cry many days. And that is how I come to get t’ree sets of the children father.” I am not making the connection. So I ask, “how?” “’Cause after I get the first child and the children father lef’ me and go away. And I did finish gettin’ the baby, one of his cousin go to Georgetown and tell him that, ‘Ah, man, Geoffrey, this child is your own. And you should really come and look at the child.’ And he come back, and he apologize to me and so on and start maintainin’ the child. And then we start back with the relationship, and then I got pregnant and then he gone again!” “Mmmh!” Christine nods her head and repeats to emphasize, “I got pregnant again, and he gone his way. That time he didn’t turn back at all this time. So he left me two, you know. When I finish gettin’ baby can’t go work—‘cause one born ’68 and one born in ’69. I just got to mind the two babies. And I had to pick somebody to assist me . . .” Christine laughs at the memory “. . . and with that I got pregnant again.” “Mmm. Hmm.” So I am beginning to see the pattern of her effort to find stability by connecting with a man who would, she hoped, support her and her children. Christine goes on. “And I got two children for that boy. And he came one night and told me that he gonna leave and he’s goin’ to Georgetown and spend a week and come back. Not knowin’ he schedule his flight to leave Guyana for the next morning. And he leave me pregnant, too.” “Oh my goodness!!” I say as I shake my head back and forth. Christine laughs and sighs simultaneously. “And he never sent a cent for the children. And one die, the same one that I was pregnant

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with. Boy, I use to cry and lay down so . . . he was born with a heart problem. That child die when he was a year and eight months. And I still had t’ree there leave in my hand. So I take somebody else now again and then start having children and then he left, he went away to Trinidad. And leave me with them. But then after he started to send money.” I am mentally counting up the number of pregnancies and live children when Christine explains that in between these last two children, she had two pregnancies with twins, but the children did not survive. And, after her youngest child, the now 15-year-old high school student, she “did a series of abortions.” “I could recall,” she says breathing heavily, “I did abortions two or three times a year.” “I mean I don’t want to be too personal, but why did you do so many abortions?” “At that time birth control was not available like now. And I took the cup of tea . . . the loop was what we call it. But I got pregnant twice with it.” “Has your health suffered at all from the abortions?” “No, no. I never did it, what we would call a quack abortion. Well, the first abortion I did was that. And it weren’t a nice pain to go through. When I start bleedin’ I went to the hospital right away, and I told the doctor what I did. But after then, all my other abortion, I go the hospital. But about two or three years ago, I decided to stop. The doctor took the tubes and tied them up.” She claps her hands together to punctuate the finality of her decision. I think back to Michelle’s answer to my question about if the work of Red Thread was improving the situation for women. Michelle and I had been talking about the retrenchment at the Linden mine and her work on the national abortion committee. While we had been talking about topics at the community and national level, her answer focused on the interpersonal situation of women and how Red Thread was educating them and providing a sense of options out of relationships riddled with violence. Hearing Christine’s story, I realize that it’s almost a classic understanding of how the personal is political and the interconnections between lack of jobs and lack of opportunities to forge economically sustaining livelihoods may lead some women to develop and maintain unsatisfactory relationships with men in an effort to gain some economic stability.12

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I think of this as I ask Christine: “Do you think that there are . . . I mean listening to your story and thinkin’ of some of the other women I’ve talked with, it seems that women will have to have some man to take care of them, and then they end up having more children . . .” “Mmm. Hmm. Maybe.” Christine doesn’t seem convinced by my logic. So I add: “But there doesn’t seem to be opportunities for women . . .” Then she gets more animated and says: “No, at that time there were no opportunities for women. If you didn’t gain any certificate to obtain a proper job, you had to go and do domestic work. They use to get somethin’ like t’ree dollars a week at that time. So, you know, it could not have paid. When I first go work at a restaurant I start workin’ for eight dollars a week. And I use to pay a woman five dollars out of it to look after the children. So you see there’s where you had to go and get a gentleman to assist.” “But you became a welder at Linmine. How did this happen? Did things change for women?” Christine shifts in her chair again and breathes in and out deeply. I suspect that the tape will be difficult to transcribe so I try to take copious notes. As my own exhaustion creeps in on me, I wonder about Christine’s. How much longer will she want to continue? After several moments, Christine forges ahead. “T’ings I would want to say change. T’ings had changed, but it change again. Because a few years ago in Burnham time, he look at equality for all. He look at women and men and want them to do the same work and same money. That’s how I became a welder. Because I start workin’ as a janitor at Linmine. And I use to be around the men while they’re weldin’ and so. And one day the foreman call me and he said, ‘I notice when you finish workin’ you does watch the men weldin’. You like weldin’?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘Want to learn?’ And then he came down on the floor, and he asked the guys them to teach me. And in the space of six weeks, I start workin’ as a welder.” I am impressed by this story. In my mind she had been successful at moving into a well-paid and traditionally male-identified job. I would have imagined that this would shift her status upward and increase her stability. So I wonder about the decision to leave the welding. I ask: “But you left Guymine and started to work full-time with Red Thread. Why did you do that?”

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“I work for five years with Linmine, and after joinin’ Red Thread I was encourage to, you know, come in full-time in Red Thread. So I leave the work and went into Red Thread. It was a good decision at that time, because I could earn myself more money. And my knowledge grew. What I gain from Red Thread is that it allows me to speak out. Because I remember years ago nobody could have gotten me to sit and talk like how I’m talkin’ to you here. Yeah. It allows me to speak out. Because when I go out to do workshops, you know, I could discuss free with people; which I could not have done in the past. So Red Thread helps me speak out. It also helped me along educationally. Because the work we doin’, going out to speak at people, I use to tell myself I can’t do that because I didn’t had any secondary education. But I use my experience and my knowledge and my common sense.” I nod my head, writing eagerly. Christine continues. “Because I remember at one time I went to Barbados. I attended a conference there at WAND.13And I had to do a presentation on the effects of the bauxite dust on the life of women in Guyana. It was an exciting time for me. It was a excitin’ time and a time of fear too. ‘Cause when I got there and I see . . . I saw all those big celebrities, doctors, lawyers, and teachers. And as a grassroots woman who didn’t went through any high school, you know, I was a bit fearful. But then I said, ‘I’m going to talk the way I knew to talk.’ And I did my presentation, and that whole conference took a turn and they bought a ticket and sent me to St. Vincent to meet and discuss with women in St. Vincent. So that was one of the other t’ings that I like about Red Thread. Red Thread don’t really look at those up there,” Christine points up, waving her arm in the air. “They give the grassroot women a chance. I think most of us grassroot women in Red Thread we went abroad. But now things are different. There’s not as much money for travel with Red Thread.” I nod my head and think how Christine’s involvement in Red Thread transcends the money-making dimension. The women who remain in the organization do so because of the commitment they’ve made to one another . . . and to themselves. But my time in Linden is revealing for me the precariousness of the situation. I had come to Guyana looking for a 10-year celebration but had found, instead, a moment of reflection and regrouping. Christine continues. “Women in the country had the opportunity at a time to learn. But now you find that the thing turn again in

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that women . . . the only work that women could do right now is security work or domestic work. That’s the only work available right now for women if they don’t have qualifications. Even some have qualifications but job opportunities are not there.” Christine had been an active supporter of the Burnham government. In fact, she served as a reservist with the People’s Militia and the Guyana Defense Force. She was promoted to the rank of Lance Corporal on the basis of her shooting skill. As we sit in her living room, she directs my attention to the shield hanging on one of the walls. So I was curious to know what she attributed the shift in opportunities for herself and other women. I ask: “So when do you think this change happened?” “Ah, I don’t know. It happened a couple of years ago since Burnham die, you know. And the new government, the new leader took over.” “Since the elections in 1992?” “Yeah, about so.” “And when did the money start decreasing in Red Thread?” “I say about t’ree years ago. About two or t’ree years ago. We start gettin’ money problem. We had a shop and because the money ain’t comin’ in, you know, we can’t do business. But it get worse from last year, early last year.” “So how do you manage to maintain your house and children?” “My two big son livin’ with my eldest sister. She live in Bartica. They does assist me a lot in life, you know, ‘cause they workin’ but they ain’t married. And I got a very good friend in Canada. She does assist me a lot too. She send money and barrels. Nothing in this house here I really buy. Well, this house is my mother house. When she die she leave it me. I use to live at a small little room at the back there. And some of things here was my mother’s own. You know.” I nod and look down at my watch just as there is knock on the door. It’s nearly seven o’clock. “I should let you go. What time is the, um . . .” “Crusade? Seven, seven-fifteen. I does leave here by seven-fifteen.” Christine shouts out to her daughter, “Let the girl in.” Christine’s daughter comes from the back of the house and opens the front door. I hear Michelle’s sing-songy voice: “I come to accompany Miss Kimberly.” I thank Christine for her time and begin to gather my belongings. Christine says: “You going back to the States?”

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“Yes, in about a month or so.” “Oh, and what you goin’ to do with this information you collect?” “I’m going to write a report for my school project on Red Thread. But, before that, I will send you a copy of our interview.” “Yes?” She looks up at me and then adds, “You can send me a glass frame?” It takes me a moment to figure out what she means, then I get it. “Oh, yes. O.k. I can do that.” “Good.” “I have your address, and I will send them as soon as I can.” “Good.” I finish putting my work equipment in the bag, and I leave with Michelle. When we get back to her house, no one is home. Michelle explains that everyone is at the Crusade meeting. “Do you go?” I ask her. “No, I haven’t gone since I got my baby,” Michelle responds. “Oh. I see.” I am curious to know why not, but I don’t press her. I’m eager to lie down and get a bit of sleep. So I say: “Michelle, I’m going go and rest a bit. Do you mind?” “No man. It a long day, nah?” I nod my head affirmatively and turn to go into the room I am sharing with the little girls. There is a lit candle sitting on the window ledge that casts a warm glow over the room. I see that Joan or Michelle has left a small washbasin filled with water and a hand towel. I wring out the hand towel and use it to clean the grit of the road off my body. While I change into my nightclothes I think about the women I spent the day with. The tone of my interactions here are much different than those with Nati and Berta in Berbice. Although they are also struggling financially, Nati and Berta told stories about their lives that let one see a sort of hopefulness.14 But being in Linden was different. What had Christine said? That she was a bit down in spirit? This exactly captures the mood, a sense of malaise that coats the spirit like the toxic ash and dust from the bauxite mine coats the skin. It feels unshakeable and one wonders: What will happen next? How will this situation be made better? What can I do beyond sending the eyeglass frames Miss Christine requested? More than ever I feel the limits of my presence here.

CHAPTER 7 “By the Grace of God, We Are Making Out”

11 September 1996 9:00 A.M. “Girl, look, take off the t-shirt and I press!” Joan has come out of her bedroom and is walking toward the large square table in the kitchen where I sit having mint tea and a piece of the bake that was leftover from yesterday’s evening meal. “Oh! Is it too wrinkled?” “Yeah man. Come ‘na.” She motions me over to her room where the iron and board are located. I take off my shirt and hand it to her. While she presses it out, I stand there in my bra and jeans finishing the last of the bake. After she’s done, I put it back on and we walk together into the kitchen. I sit at the table while Joan prepares herself a cup of peppermint tea. “You does interview me now?” 177

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“Yes. Maybe we can sit outside on the veranda?” “Yes, good.” “How long do you have for the interview?” “I going visitin’ with my church group today, we got the Crusade this week, and we out to invite.” “O.k., well, you just let me know when you have to leave. O.k.?” Joan nods her head, and I go to my bedroom to prepare the equipment. I was quite worn out when I returned the night before, so I hadn’t labeled the tapes from my interviews with Marcy, Dorothy, and Christine or put in fresh batteries for today’s round of interviewing. After I ready everything, I return to the front room and hear Joan’s voice outside. I prepare another cup of tea, hoping the mint will settle my perpetually upset stomach. “I need to buy them some more of those tea bags,” I think to myself as I join Joan on the small landing and begin the interview. Joan is sitting with Ujana on her lap, combing and braiding her hair. Ujana watches me as I sit down, and I smile at her. “Good morning, Ujana.” “Mornin’,” she says smiling shyly while bringing her fingers up to her mouth. Joan swats Ujana’s hand out of her mouth. “No put your fingers in ‘da.” I attach the microphone to Joan’s shirt collar and then to my own before sitting down in the chair opposite her. The morning sun is bright, and it is already quite warm. Although we are shaded by the wooden overhang, small beads of perspiration dot Joan’s forehead as she labors to brush Ujana’s thick, full hair. “So you’ve been with Red Thread since the beginning?” I ask, jumping right into the interview. “One year after. Red Thread started in ’86 and I joined in ’87. A woman I know was attendin’ the meetin’ and she told me about it. So the next week I went. And I used to go because you had nowhere to go in the evening. And what I used to like about the group, even though there used to be a lot of quarrels at that time, I used to like how they socialize together. You know, in terms of bringin’ advice and so.” “Christine was telling me last night that she loved doing the embroidery. That was what drew her to the group.” Joan shakes her head stridently back and forth. “I never like embroidery. So when I was given one tablecloth to do my friend did

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it, and we split the money up among us. Right? It not that I cannot do embroidery. I could, but I don’t like to do it. I don’t have patience. Because when I was young my mother used to send me to learn to do embroidery and to do sewing, and I still don’t like it. I like cookin’. But then we start doing the exercise books, and I was asked to be a supervisor on that project.” “What was this?” “We use to make exercise books and textbooks for school children that were affordable for working people. And while we was doing that, the resource women came up from Georgetown with an idea askin’ persons who were interested to do trainin’ workshops. Well, at that time I didn’t know what a workshop was, right. But, I’m a nosy-parker. Right? I like to push my nose into everything. So I went and I liked it. And I stayed on.” “So, before you got involved in Red Thread what were you doing?” “I worked for seven years with the YMCA as a supervisor in the canteen. And I did a lot of domestic work. I had nine children to bring up. Seven were with me and two with my mother. Myself and the children father were separated. It wasn’t easy. I had to hold down t’ree jobs. Plus the children use to make their own little things to sell like tamarind balls, tamarind syrup, sugar cake, and these things. Any little thing that they could make, they put on a tray and they sell.” As Joan talks, she puts the final touches on Ujana’s hair and says to her: “You go away ‘na girl. I done with you hair.” Ujana scoots off Joan’s lap and runs back inside the house. “Yes, Michelle said that her brother left school early to help take care of the younger kids.” Joan nods her head. “He leave school around, must be 13, 14. Very early. So as to assist me. You have to say he was the main person in the home ‘cause he used to cook, he used to clean. He would wash my clothes, you know. I train them that I hide nothing from them. Any money I have, I would say, ‘Look, this is what we have. This is how we have to spend it.’ And they would do the spending. They would do it—they know everything concernin’ me.” Joan takes a handkerchief from the pocket of her shirt and wipes her forehead before continuing. “And there were times when I have to hold down t’ree works. Michelle, which is the oldest girl, used to come along with me. And assist me. Right? It was very difficult. What I like about my children, even though we were strugglin’ and even

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though I could not have given them everything, they were contented. You know, they were contented.” I nod and watch Joan’s face. She is smiling, but there’s something else; some unspoken thing that I can’t quite pinpoint. “And they were brilliant children. Kya, she did not like school at all. She was the only one I had problems with at school. But when we opened the Laundry, Karen came up and want to spend one week with us to show us how to run the Laundry. And she took Kya in hand. In terms of telling her to ‘bring your books and let me see,’ you know, every night and so. And then she would teach her and tell her how important school is. And that’s when Kya start likin’ school. That she finish school now and she cannot even continue. She didn’t accept it. I still have to think of ways and means now to get her back into school.” Joan sighs deeply before continuing. “None of my children can take exams—because of finance. Michelle, she pass common entrance, and she had to go to a night school and wasn’t easy to get her into the high school because the father was no help. Right? But I did get her. She did well. But when she was to take the CXC exam, that’s where it ends. Because there was no money. And I know she would have made it. Right?” I nod my head affirmatively. Like Joan I can see that Michelle is both bright and ambitious. In talking with Michelle, I know that part of the lack of finance to continue her education is due to her parents’ separation. So I ask Joan: “How did you and their father separate?” “At first I used to be, I would have been ashamed to say what cause the separation.” Joan shakes her head slowly and licks her lips several times before continuing. “But I was gettin’ our sixth child and I was very ill, and he told me he was goin’ to get a woman to assist me with the housework and so. And I say, ‘Man, look, I have my niece who just at home.’ I was lookin’ in terms of developin’ my family. Because now that I came to Linden I feel life differently. Life in Linden and life in the country is different. And I was saying, ‘Look this money could go right back into my family instead of givin’ it to somebody else.’ So I said, ‘She’s at home not doing anything, so let her come.’ And she came.” “Why was this pregnancy so difficult?” “’Cause when I was gettin’ that baby, I contracted typhoid. And I had to be admitted in the hospital. And then my niece was at home with the rest of the children and him. And so a relationship come between the two of them.”

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“What? Between your husband and your niece?” Joan shakes her head. “Yes,” she says with simple resolution. And then continues with more details. “So when I got out of the hospital, I had a neighbor who does tell me. Here in Guyana, of course, any one would tell you if they see something going on. They would say, ‘Watch it.’ You know. But I used to like people far from my business you know. But, she was right. And the girl, my niece, was a Christian.” Joan shakes her head with disbelief. “One morning her mother came up with her children to spend some time. And one of the child took sick. So one mornin’ my niece left to go to the hospital to check on this child and she never return. And he never return. Right? And here with me is one of her child.” “Oh really! She left one of her children here with you?” “Right. And you know persons are saying that I’m stupid. But,” Joan pauses and reaches down to her neglected cup of tea sitting on the small table between us, “I have a lot of love in my heart for people, regardless of who the person may be. And I never looked at it that way. I mean I looked at the child. I want to help the child who is living here, there, and everywhere.” “Right. No one place.” “Yes. Good. So I want to give her a stable life.” She drinks from the cup and sets it back down on the table. Like her friends and neighbors, however, I am surprised at Joan’s generosity. Indeed, Joan says that the four children her niece had with her former husband would also be welcome in her home. She says, “I have a forgiving spirit. I’m not concerned with anybody else.” I am struck by her clear dedication to her Christian principles. Her desire to create a stable home space for her niece’s child overriding the sense of betrayal she must have felt is quite stunning. I am intensely curious to learn more about her life. So I say to Joan, “I wanted to back up and ask you, you said you came to Linden. Where did you come from?” “Berbice. And you see why I came to Linden because there was a lot, a lot, a lot of work. When I came to Linden I work for $6 a week. And $6 was a lot of money. I hadn’t to send any money home for my children because my mother would not have taken any. Right? But when they started going to school and so, you know, I would in the new school term buy their school clothes. And I would send it home. That she would accept. Right? And, I was livin’ with my sister when I came to Linden, and she never take any money from me. Right?”

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“So how old were you when you left Berbice and came to Linden?” “About 17 plus. I was 17 plus. Because I had it in my head my mother should not take on my responsibility plus take on my children responsibility.” “So the two children, your two oldest children, do they have the same father?” “Yeah.” “And did he help at all?” “Help along for a time. Help along for a time. Because I left, there were confusion among the two families. His family—my own. In terms of . . . he was a teacher and then he became a mechanic and then the mother sayin’ how he now start working. You know how you get some mothers like to hold onto their sons?” I nod and think of my own struggle with Antonio’s mother. I could never tell whether she seemed to be trying to keep him from greater engagement in our relationship because I was a threat to his role as the surrogate man of the house or whether she was simply not pleased in his choice of a black girlfriend. Indeed, the issue of race came up fairly early in our relationship. When I first met his mother, she took one look at my natural, close-cropped hair and asked: “Does your hair grow?” I was stunned by this question but managed to recover and ask with more than a tinge of sarcasm: “Do you mean can it grow? Or, do I plan to grow it?” To which she just laughed and said: “Oh well, you can carry it off.” On other occasions, she and his sister would regale me with memories about how Antonio was such a beautiful baby born with blond hair and blue eyes. So, I thought that I could understand Joan’s position. Joan continues to explain to me how her relationship to the father of her first two children fell apart. “At that time when you’re doing mechanic it’s a very good job. And, his mother say that now he started workin’ he can’t start he marriage; and my mother saying something else and I just left.” “So when you left, did you come here to Linden?” “I left and went to my father. He was a foreman at that time in the Corentyne. He was workin’ on the roads, he used to build roads. He used to go home only every fortnight. And I went away there with him. That was when I was gettin’ the first one, then I came back to Berbice, and then the second one came along. And then I left. You know the same confusion again. So when I come up here, I end it. Right? And then he left the country shortly after.”

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“Have you heard from him since?” “Now that the children get big, they heard from him. And they were given the address. The last thing I heard from my son is that he says he’s coming back to Guyana. I don’t know if he’s gonna plan to take . . . see if he can get them across or whatever it is. Because I’m not really interested now. When I came to Linden, I meet up with Michelle and they father. And the six is his.” “And your youngest daughter?” “That Kya, the last girl, she’s another person’s child. Right?” I nod my head but don’t ask how she came to meet the father of this child. Joan was talking fast and steady, so I do not interrupt. “Let me backtrack a little. In my teens, I was also brilliant at school. I wasn’t no dunce, as we call it here. But when it get down to me, ‘cause I was the last. My father had resigned. And you know those old-time people, they don’t say like, ‘Well, look this is for if I get old and I have any children left to go to school I can have this money.’ My father wasn’t like that. My sisters they’re well educated. One of them, she did a lot. She did commercial. She pass all her exams. But when it get down to me, there wasn’t that kind of money. And not even money, too. Because when I look back at it now, you know, I don’t want to say I blame my mother, because she was brought up that way. They never tell you, sit down and tell you the facts of life. And even though she was strict, you know, I think if she had take more time to sit down and to tell us what it was all about. I mean for a lot of us in our family things might have been more better for us. But what I like about myself, from the time I got pregnant at age 15, my mother had no more problem with me. At age 17 I started working even until now.” “Mmh. Hmm.” I think to myself how Michelle and Joan share a stubbornness and conviction of spirit. In her example, Joan has taught Michelle to stand up for herself. “Right? Even until now. At age 17, at 17 plus when I came up to Linden and I can remember she told me, ‘O.k. you’re going. There are two roads, the broad and the narrow, and you choose which one you want.’” “And what did that mean?” “At that time, it didn’t really register what she really was saying to me. But then as I came up here and I looked around this community, it wasn’t easy. ‘Cause you would leave from where you come from and you come with your husband or your wife and you lose them.

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You know? It was very fast, it was very fast. And, when I got here then I really understand what it is she was saying.” I nod my head, but I am still a bit unclear about what Joan is trying to convey to me. She is wiping her forehead with the handkerchief and has leaned forward in the chair. I listen intently. “I mean even though there are times when things were rough . . . it wasn’t easy, it was very rough. You get up in the morning and wonder, ‘What am I going to eat today?’ Or, ‘What am I going to give the children today?’ And at that time I wasn’t a Christian. I was not a Seventh-day Adventist. And it wasn’t easy.” Joan sighs long and low before she continues in her deeply timbered voice. “But, God has been good to me, because he has given me the strength to hold down t’ree jobs. I used to have to walk miles, miles in the morning because walking from Victory Valley or to Richmond Hill and walking from Silver Town to Richmond Hill is not easy. It a very good distance. Because when you finish walking and you come home in the afternoons, you still have to come and work again. O.k.? The kids they would clean, yes, and especially when you’re at weekends, the children would clean, but then you have to do a general clean so as to get the house tidy. The children they were real good. Because even though they were brought up so poor . . .” Joan says this with great emphasis, “ . . . they were contented. I had no men problem with them, until when they get big and they’re of age. Only one girl gave me problem, but she was of age.” Joan says that she had been disturbed when her eldest daughter decided to move out and live on her own without marrying. She recalls: “Why I said it was a problem because we were brought up that way. You stay home with your parents, you know? Which now when I joined the organisation and I looked back at it, she’s of age. So she can do what she wants.” I understood that the tradition for both Afro- and Indo-Guyanese families is to live within extended family households,1 but I had not realized the extent to which young people were not expected to venture out on their own once they reached a certain age. So I ask: “How old was she?” “It’s a stupid thing!” Joan’s voice rises. I ask again, “How old was she when she left?” “She was 18.” Joan pauses and then sighs before continuing. “Now looking back it’s a stupid thing. I see things differently now by moving around in other countries and see, listen to other women,

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listen to their lifestyle and these things you know. I think differently now. Because in Guyana, here a child leaves home, it’s because it’s a shame on you the parent.” “So because of Red Thread you have gotten a different perspective.” “Yes it true.” Joan nods her head. I wonder to myself about Joan’s own experience of leaving her mother’s home at 17. Did she see her parents as having “failed” her, or was she made to feel that she had brought shame to her family? But I am especially interested in how she links her experiences in the women’s organization as significant in her rethinking cultural norms. So I ask: “I want to know a little bit more about how you think your life has been affected by the work you’ve done with Red Thread.” “As I get into Red Thread, I’ve learned a lot, a lot. I was shy.” “You were shy?” I am surprised by Joan’s admission. Although almost without exception each of the women described herself as shy before she became a Red Thread member, Joan’s forthright personality seems an integral and organic part of who she is. Joan goes on to explain: “I was shy in terms of not talking to people. When I started attendin’ Red Thread meetings I would go in there, and I wouldn’t say a word until I leave there. Right? And when I joined the workshop team I get to understand that you can talk out when things not going right. Because I used to go the meetings, and when we were going home, I would say to Sister B.,‘I don’t like what these people doin’ this is not right, you know.’ Because I was in groups before, so I know. But the groups that I was in never teach you to . . . they did things differently than Red Thread. They lecture. Right? And Red Thread teaches you that you can talk. I learn that I can talk. And that is what I did. And that’s it. And it leave me so ‘till now. ‘Till now.” “What other groups were you in before Red Thread that just lectured?” “O.k., they had this 4H club. It’s a club like that which is to help the community to live a better life. Right? And it was mostly for teenagers. It was mostly for teenagers.” “Were you ever involved in any other of the women’s organizations like the Women’s Revolutionary Socialist Movement,2 or . . .” Joan shakes her head and responds negatively in rapid succession, “Unh-uh, unh-uh, unh-uh, unh-uh. Me never liked Party-nothin’.”

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“No?” “I didn’t use to go and vote, you know.” “No?” “It’s since I join Red Thread, I no know how many I had voted . . . once? Once or twice. When the election come again I’m not goin’ to vote.” “No?” “I don’t have time to waste.” “You think it doesn’t really make a difference?” “It didn’t make no difference in here. Because don’t matter who go in, they’re all them goin’ and t’ief up the money and do the same thing. For me ain’t got time. Me ain’t got time. You know.” “So you don’t think things are any better . . .” “And it wouldn’t get better.” “. . . with Jagan?” “It wouldn’t get better. To me things get worse. Because this use to stay smoke . . .” Joan motions towards the mine “ . . . and people still used to work. You understand? People still used to work, but look what is happening now. What is happening now. See if you look around, if you look around Linden, a lot of people have small shops—I myself had wanted to put a small shop down there. But when you look around who’s gonna buy from you just now?” “Right.” “Who gonna buy from who? And that’s it,” Joan pauses and looks at me before leaning back in her chair and closing her eyes. Then she continues in a low voice: “I mean even until now, Kimberly, it’s not easy . . . even until now. It’s not easy. Right? But I mean we are still, like I said, the children are contented. And we are making out. By the grace of God we are making out.” Thinking about the prevalence of out-migration3 I ask:“With the difficult economic situation here have you ever thought about migrating from Guyana?” Joan opens her eyes and looks at me. “O.k. Let me be honest with you. Right now I need a house. I can’t get a house in Guyana. And for me to migrate, I would only just go for why I wanted. To go and live and take up permanent residence—no. But I would like to see places because I love travelin’. Now they are giving visas. If you go in, if you’re lucky, sometime you get five years, sometime you get two years. And let me say I go and I get two years, I would want to use it up in terms of workin’ and when I get back I can able to do

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something. But otherwise, you know, I’m not centerin’ my mind on migrating. You know. If the opportunity comes, I’m not going to say that I am going to turn it down. If I see the way to go. But I’d go for a purpose. A purpose.” “Michelle tells me that because of the retrenchment at the mine, many are looking to migrate to the States. What do people think of life in the States?” “You know what I use to say at first, ‘People live good in the States. They don’t have to ask for nothing.’ You understand what I mean? But then when there are person going and coming, some of them just brag and boast. And some of them are honest to say the truth, ‘It’s not easy when you go to the States. You have to work.’ And others say, ‘Oh man, look, life easy. Everything is on a silver platter there for you to just go and collect.’ Some people come and boast, ‘Oh the supermarkets, you could go in and eat how many packets of biscuits you want. You can eat what you want. You don’t have to pay for it once you eat it right in there.’ All those things you hear, you know. I don’t know how true it is.” Joan looks at me closely, eyes narrowed. I feel compelled to comment on this idea although I’m feeling awkward and outside the usual researcher role. “Well, I guess you can and you’re not supposed to, but you can. And people do it. I see people walking through the supermarkets eating.” “O.k. But they’re not supposed to?” “They’re not supposed to,” I confirm. “Management could stop them?” “Yeah.” “O.k. So it’s not a normal something. Girl, I tell you something, if you listen to people.” I laugh softly while thinking about the romantic visions of the Caribbean that Western tourists and travelers paint, emphasizing the beauty of the beaches and the friendliness of the people. Of course, it is not untrue; the beaches are quite beautiful in many Caribbean places, and the people are quite warm. But, as Jamaica Kincaid (1989) reminds us in her rather vitriolic A Small Place, this is an incomplete portrait that can serve to mask the hard realities of life outside the resort communities. Joan continues: “But in all, I would like to see this place that they call the States . . . the America. Because in Bible times America is the lamblike beast that the Bible talks about. I don’t know, you don’t

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prophecy, so you might not know that. But America is the lamblike beast. And when America crumble, when America crumble, all over will crumble . . . the entire world crumbles.” Joan looks at me, expectantly. “You don’t believe that?” “I don’t know. I don’t know.” I shrug my shoulders. “The prophecy talks about the lamblike beast—which is America—it would rise up greatly. And see America flourish. Right? But whenever America crumbles, look up, Jesus is puttin’ in his appearance.” “Well, I think it’s already crumbling.” Joan nods her head in agreement. “Because it crumbling already. And that what we know. And that is why I don’t worry . . . because I know that. I don’t worry when people they come and go so much in America.” Joan’s thoughts reflect those of several Red Thread community women. For them, migration to the U.S. offers promise as a place to go earn money but not as a place to take up permanent residence.4 Joan leans back in her chair again, folds her arms across her ample bosom and sighs deeply. “Take off the thing. Me weary talk now.” I stop the tape recorder and stand up, unhooking the microphone from my shirt before walking over to unhook Joan. As I am packing up the recording equipment, I ask: “Where is Michelle? She is supposed to take me to see Sylvia again and then to the Red Thread Laundry.” I realize that I have spent well over an hour with Joan and imagine that Sylvia will not be happy to see me arriving again so late. I am also feeling the limits of my research design—my push to interview as many Red Thread women in Linden as possible in a mere three days. I am really drawn to this family and would love to learn more about them. But, I must press on. “She in the house doin’ some cleanin’,” Joan says and then she shouts out: “Michelle girl! Come escort Miss Kimberly to interview Miss Sylvia.” Instead of Michelle, Ujana emerges from the front door and attempts to run down the stairs. Joan reaches out her arm, stopping the child in mid-step. “Little girl, you must stay right here. Me no want to have to bathe your skin tonight for the meetin’.” And then to Joan asks: “You does accompany us to the Crusade?” “Yes. I would like that. Thanks.” “So you goin’ to interview Sylvia and go to the Laundry today?”

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“Yes. Did you ever work the Laundry?” “Yeah man. When we first got the Linden group we were advised to think of ways and means where we could bring in money by ourselves in terms of not depending on the resource committee in Georgetown. And we look around the community, and we see that the community need a laundry. And so we talk about it, we discuss it and then we put the idea out to Georgetown. And then they look for machines for us, they look for two machines and a dryer and I look for the buildin’. And that’s where we started the laundry. Right? And then I was chosen there to be a supervisor for the Laundry.” “Oh. But you don’t work with the Laundry anymore?” “No. It have another set of workers now. I start workin’ on the education team and doin’ workshops.” Michelle then comes out on the verandah. “You finish?” I nod my head, “Yes.” “Good. I ready to take you.” I go into the house and gather together my work tools. Then Michelle and I head down the stairs and onto the now familiar path to Sylvia’s house. …  …  …  … 11 September 1996 11:00 A.M. “It was a good interview?” “Yes. It was very informative. I really enjoyed hearing about your mother’s life.” I pause and then say: “I was wondering, Michelle, your mother has been a Red Thread member for a long time, almost since the beginning. Do you remember her talking about the organization back then?” “Yeah, in the 80s, they use to talk about different work they doing. At that time they had the embroidery section. They had the books section where they use to reprint school textbooks for school children and sell them at a lower cost. And also the exercise books they use to sell for t’ree dollars. She used to come home and talk about the things they doin’.” “And so did this encourage you to join the group?” “She used to invite me to go, but I never wan’ go because I used to say, ‘Man, it’s sheer women.’ I didn’t like women company much,

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most of my friends were boys. I used to like limin’ with the boys from since at school. So I never use to go.” “Really?” “And then sometimes they would get problems in the group, and I would hear my mother and some other people from the group talkin’ over the problems. I say, ‘You see what I talkin’ about, there sheer confusion.’” “What changed your mind about getting involved?” “Joan, she use to invite me and I tell she how I don’ like the confusion of what they gettin’ and so. And then she say she never know that I use to listen to the conversation. Since then even if they got any problem she would not talk to me because they use to encourage me to join the group.” “And you finally did. Why?” “They had a workshop, I think it was on employment among women. And they invite me to that workshop. I went. It was in 1990. And after that workshop they had two other workshops: ‘A Woman’s Place’ and one on teenage pregnancy. And after those three workshops, then I decide to join the group because the workshops were interesting. Right? And then I said, ‘Well, man, maybe I could learn something from this group.’” “Have you been in the group ever since?” “Yes. I finish school when I was 16 years old. I start evening classes, but I didn’t write the exam there because most of the time you didn’t get no tutor. So I decided, around exam time, that I’m not ready for this exam because of let we say 20 sessions, must be about six times you get tutor. So it didn’t make any sense to do any exam. And, after joinin’ Red Thread, I didn’t even bother to go back to the classes. I started doing some work on the computer with Karen.” I think about how Joan is most disappointed about the direction of Michelle’s life. She believes Michelle’s potential has not been met and regrets not being able to finance her secondary education. I ask Michelle: “Do you think you’re going to go further with Red Thread, or do you have plans for after Red Thread?” “I don’ work so regular now with Red Thread. I had to stop because I get pregnant. And by Karen used to smoke, I couldn’t take the cigarette smoke. So I stop. So I tell she when I settle down I goin’ to start back. But we ain’t start back regular yet. We encounterin’ some problems with our comin’ down everyday. First when I start we used to come down to town everyday, right. Five days a week. And in that time we would plan

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the workshops. But because of money we don’t come down everyday anymore. We would work in we own community.” Michelle pauses and continues: “I still want to write my exam. But that again depends on money.” …  …  …  … 11 September 1996 Just before 12 noon Sylvia and Marcy are sitting and talking on the porch as Michelle and I approach the house. Marcy is facing the road and waves at us as we walk up the road. Sylvia is sitting on the porch railing and turns around and sucks her teeth loudly. “I look out for you since 10 this mornin’! I on Red Thread time now!” “Are you working on a project together?” I ask as we get closer. “We waitin’ for Miss Dorothy, and I got a pot on the fire.” “Oh.” “We no know we gon’ be this late. Miss Kimberly talk to Joan this mornin’ and then we walk here quick quick.” Michelle says in a tone of voice that suggests a reprimand, but is careful not to offend. “Well, me jus’ busy now,” Sylvia responds. “I can talk to you while you do your work. I have a tape recorder and microphone,” I say. “I can watch you pot,” Marcy adds. “Me no wan’ to be record.” “No problem. I can just take notes,” I say. There’s a long moment of silence. Then Michelle says softly, “Come ‘na, man.” Finally, Sylvia sighs and repositions herself on the porch facing me. I take this as permission to join her on the porch, and I do so quickly. Michelle and Marcy disappear into the house. Sylvia and I then stand side by side, each of us facing the house and leaning on the porch railing. “Thank you so much. I appreciate your time.” I open up my bag and take out my pen and a yellow legal pad of paper. “What you gon’ do with me interview?” “I am writing a research project about Red Thread for school. I’m interested in how women got involved in the group and how it has affected their lives.” “Mmh.”

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Although Sylvia consents to the interview, she clearly is not eager to share her life story with me. Throughout our time together, Sylvia talks in an extremely soft tone, and I find myself struggling to hear and to make notes on her narrative. I feel awkward and unsure as we stand side by side on the porch and talk. Sylvia tells me that she and her husband had separated over a year ago but were just now in the process of establishing separate residences. Our conversation, though, is mostly about the work she has done before joining Red Thread and as a member of the organization. We are finished in about a half-hour. …  …  …  … 11 September 1996 Just after 1:00 P.M. Michelle and I leave Sylvia’s house and head toward the road. “There are two ways to get the Laundry,” Michelle tells me. “We can take the minibus or go by ferry.” “The Laundry is not here?” I ask a bit confused. “It in Wismar on the other side of the river.” “Oh.” “The ferry is more regular. But the minibus is closer to us here. It not so steady, steady. We will have to wait for it to arrive.” “Mmmh. Let’s take the minibus.” For some reason, I feel more apprehensive about riding the ferry. Luckily our wait is minimal, and less than 20 minutes later we stand looking up at the sun-faded sign, which reads: WISMAR RED THREAD L A U N D RY MON–FRI. 6:30 A.M.–6:00 P.M. SAT. 8:00 A.M.–5:00 P.M. RED THREAD SCHOOL BOOKS SOLD HERE

The Laundry is in a building that was once a two-family house, and perhaps the upstairs still served as living quarters for someone. The yard is unkempt, with lots of dirt, clumps of grass, and other patches of shrubbery. Along the fence is a dense planting of ferns and low-growing ground cover. Two women are working in the yard, hanging wet clothes on the clotheslines and the fence or removing dry clothes to be sorted inside.

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Red Thread Laundry, Linden, Guyana

By all outward appearances, the Laundry is doing a brisk business. But, like the other Red Thread income-generating projects and small-local businesses in general, the Laundry had become less profitable in recent years. I recall Joan’s description of how the economic situation in the area had affected this business. She’d told me that although the Laundry had once been doing well, people in the community can no longer support the service. So that although there are clothes there and it seems busy, the people are not able to afford to pick them up. As a result, the workers are not being paid regularly. But they are managing to sustain themselves by servicing their own machines and volunteering to not get paid on a regular schedule. As we approach the Laundry, a woman emerges from inside. Michelle motions her over to us. “Good afternoon Miss Brenda.” “Good afternoon.” She replies but only slightly slows her cadence and continues in the same direction. “This Miss Kimberly. She want to interview.” Michelle says, motioning for me to speed up a bit. “Yes, I does hear you were coming. But me just finish work. I don’ have time for interview just now. You come to the Laundry tomorrow in the mornin’?” “Yes, I can do that.”

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“O.k. fine. I does see you.” Michelle and I walk into the now-empty yard of the Laundry. The two women who had been outside hanging laundry are inside sorting two big piles of clothes. One of them says “Good afternoon” as we enter the building. I return the greeting and wait for Michelle to make the introductions. “Good afternoon, ladies. This Miss Kimberly. She the researcher from the States who want to interview women in Red Thread.” Michelle’s words are met, initially, with silence. As my eyes adjust to the dark interior I see that there are three women working. I also notice several washing machines and dryers, a number of large plastic containers with washboards leaning in them, long tables for folding and sorting clothes, and a few chairs. There are clothes everywhere: folded and tied in bundles, piled on top of the inactive dryers, in heaps on the floor, and strewn out on the tables. Washing machines make swooshing noises, and the air is warm and humid. “I would like to talk with you about how you got involved in the organization and your experiences,” I say. The women turn and talk among themselves as Michelle and I stand waiting. It is decided that I will interview each one on the stairs outside. The woman who first greeted me, Miss Irene, agrees to be interviewed. We walk outside together, and she directs me to the stairs that lead up to the second floor flat above the Laundry. We stand awkwardly, side by side, engaging in the question-and-answer process. But just as we begin, a helicopter flies overhead, and this, coupled with our uneasy positioning, creates a disembodied and disjointed interview. Each subsequent interview, with Miss Margaret and Miss Janice, is also plagued by similar dynamics. Although Miss Janice was a bit more forthcoming, the overall depth of this afternoon’s series of interviews contrasts sharply with my morning spent talking to Joan and the previous day’s meeting with Christine. I reflect on this as, less than two hours later, Michelle and I walk to the minibus. Michelle secures our passage. We sit on board in a companionable silence, but my thoughts are unsettled. Many of the women I have encountered in Linden have been reluctant to be interviewed. And although I know that this is probably not uncommon, I wonder about the reasons for this. What should I have done differently? When we arrive at Michelle’s house, I go into the room I share with Kya and the other little girls. They are preparing to go with Joan

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to the Crusade meeting. Michelle is preparing food and doing some housework. I sit and label my interview tapes and make notes in the purple notebook that has become my outlet. …  …  …  … 12 September 1996 8:00 A.M. I wake thinking of the Crusade meeting the night before. The Seventh-day Adventist Church has a strong presence in Linden.5 There were easily over 50 people there last night . . . mostly women, it seems. I was surprised that the meeting reminded me a bit of the revivals I went to during the summers I spent visiting my grandparents when I was a small child. At least the structure seemed similar. There was a visiting speaker whose remarks were pretty brief, and most of the evening was spent alternating between prayer and song. And although the tone was less insistent than that I remember from those long-ago summers in Alabama, the goal was the same . . . to bring people into the fold, into the congregation of believers. By night’s end, several had come forward. I remained seated in the back of the makeshift structure and felt a restlessness. And this morning, as I shower and listen to the birds chirping overhead, I try to mentally prepare myself for the return to the Red Thread Laundry. I hope that the day’s interviewing goes a bit more smoothly. I look up at the ominous clouds, fluffy with colors ranging from almost white to a deep slate grey. “This is the last day,” I say to myself. “We take the ferry to Wismar today,” Michelle tells me as we walk down the path from her house. “You can get a good view of the mine along the river.” “O.k. Sounds great. I wanted to take some more pictures today, too.” When we reach the ferry station, Michelle goes to secure our passage, and I walk around a bit with my camera. One of the mine’s stacks is sending up smoke, but otherwise it looks pretty desolate. It is a sprawling structure situated right on the riverbank. On the bank opposite the mine, where I stand, the ground is littered with piles of waste—discarded tin barrels, chunks of concrete, ragged sheets of rusted metal, empty food cans, flattened aseptic juice boxes, and bits of clothing nestled into piles of debris decomposed to a dark brown

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Guymine, Linden, Guyana

unrecognizable mass. Two small, canoe-like watercraft go by with three people—two in one and one in the other—rowing steadily but slowly along. “This how people from the villages get down the river to town and to the mine,” Michelle says as she joins me at the river bank. “Come, the ferry due to leave.” The ride across the river is calm and my nervous stomach remains settled. But I am relieved when we soon arrive in Wismar, disembark, and walk to the Laundry building. Two women are inside working. “Ahh, you does come back.” Brenda looks up from a large ledger-type notebook. She is a thinnish, dark-brown-skinned woman. “Good morning. Yes, I hope that you can talk with me today.” Brenda sucks her teeth and closes the ledger book. “You goin’ compensate my time?” I stand quietly, not knowing what to say. I hadn’t anticipated paying her and so don’t quite know what to do. I try to calculate how much I could give her that would not be an insult but would also leave me with a few dollars in case I have an emergency on the trip back. But before I come to some figure, Brenda says: “Come ‘na. I does talk to you.”

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“O.k. Thanks. I really appreciate your taking time out of your schedule to talk with me.” I walk quickly to the table and begin unloading my equipment from the backpack: notebook, pen, tape recorder. Brenda holds up her hand and waves her wrist back in a sweeping motion. “Me no wan’ be tape.” “Oh. That’s fine.” I put the tape recorder back in my bag and open up the notebook. I decide to just jump into the questions. “How long have you been a member of Red Thread?” “I been workin’ with the Laundry six years. But before I just attendin’ meetings and volunteer with the group.” “How did you find out about the organization?” “My cousin does tell me about it. I went with she. And that’s it.” “Before you joined Red Thread and start working here at the Laundry, what did you do? Did you work?” “Yes. I work for eight years as a domestic for a family.” “And before that?” “I was just at home.” “Do you have any children?” “Yes. Four. I got t’ree girls and one boy. My biggest child is 20 years. She finish school and work as a nurse in a housin’ scheme. The others they still at school.” “And are you married?” Brenda shakes her head, indicating that she is not married. “I does live with the father of my three small children. And that’s it.” “O.k. Uhm . . .” I write furiously on the yellow legal note paper while trying to formulate my next question. I don’t even think about consulting my interview protocol. “Does he work at the mine?” “No. He does sell different t’ings. He self-employed and sell at the market and so.” “O.k.” “You have more questions?” “Just a couple more questions. O.k.? When and where were you born and raised?” “I was born the first day of February in 1958 at MacKenzie Hospital. I does live here since then.” “And did you live with your parents?” “Yes. My mother was a teacher at the nursery, and my father work for Linmine.” “And did you have any siblings? Any brothers or sisters?”

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“One sister. She and I didn’t raise together. She just 21 years now.” “Oh?” I want to probe this a bit more. But Brenda says “Well, I done.” “O.k.” I decide not to press on. “Thanks so much.” Brenda smiles slightly, revealing teeth that protrude awkwardly. She then stands up and walks to the washing machine. I look at my watch. The whole interview took less than 20 minutes. …  …  …  … 12 September 1996 3:00 P.M. After my interviews with the women at the Laundry, I return to Michelle’s house to collect my belongings. She then walks me to the minibus terminal in MacKenzie. Michelle and I walk along the road, not saying much. I feel worn out from my visit and look forward to getting back to Georgetown. “Ding! Ding!” A tinny bell sounds, and a young black boy in burgundy short pants and a white shirt with a large backpack speeds past us on his bike. I look up ahead and see dozens of young people in matching outfits—burgundy and white—some with ties and others with vests; girls in pleated skirts and boys in short pants. They are walking along in clumps of three and four talking and laughing. “We just passin’ the school,” Michelle informs me. “It looks like a new building.” “Yeah.” “When was it built?” “Since I finish schoolin’. I no know for sure.” As we walk past the building, I see several kids gathered around an older black man selling something out of a little cart. One boy is walking away with a container in his hand—a drink box or a canned soda. Several minutes later, Michelle and I stand at the minibus terminal in MacKenzie. “Michelle, I wanted to give you something for all your help this week.” I reach into my backpack and pull out a small envelope containing a thank-you note and G$2,000 dollars. “I really appreciate your walking me around from one place to another and looking out for me while I was here.” “It no problem, man.” Michelle smiles as she takes the envelope from me and puts it in the pocket of her shirt. “You get what you need?”

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School children, Linden, Guyana

“Yes, I think so. When I get back to the States, I am going to type up all the interviews and send them back to you all. Should I mail them here or send them to Karen’s flat?” “Just send them by Karen and we get it.” …  …  …  … 12 September 1996 5:00 P.M. As the minibus approaches Stabroek Market, I decide that I will take a taxi to the Singh’s house rather than take another minibus or walk. I am eager to get home, take a shower, and write some reflections on my trip to Linden. The taxi driver pulls up in front of the Singhs’ house, and I ask him to wait while I run inside to get money for the fare. I am surprised to find that no one is home and speculate on whether the Singhs went visiting with relatives or shopping for the household—the only two activities that ever take Mrs. Singh away from the family compound. In any case, I am thankful for some quiet time. After showering and eating leftovers in the kitchen, I return to my room, close the door, and sit at the small desk where my laptop

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computer rests. There is no black-out tonight, and the room feels very comfortable with the ceiling fan whirring away at top speed. I flip up the laptop screen and turn on the power. I open the folder labeled “Guyana Diaries” and write: I just returned from Linden this evening. Linden is hard. People are really living “hand to mouth” in Silver Town, Silver City, and Canvas City. (Silver Town and Silver City were so named because the houses were all made from sheet tin—at least the roofs—and Canvas City because the houses were made of canvas.) Anyway, most people do not have indoor bathroom facilities, the houses are made of just a little more than some lumber or concrete block and sheet-tin roofing, which can be very cold at night and boiling hot during the day. Yet Joan and her family seem so happy (“content” was the word she used). The interviews in Linden were definitely a mixed bag. I mean a couple of them— particularly Joan and Christine’s—were fantastic. They seemed to understand what it was I was asking of them and were able to both respond to my questions and elaborate on their own. I also felt this way with Michelle. I think the key is whether or not the interviewee was sympathetic to me or liked me. In some of the other interviews, I felt very much like I was intruding on the women’s lives, and the intrusion was not welcome. So they were not candid, did not offer any information other than what I asked for, and were generally uncomfortable throughout. But their body signals told me as much about what the issues facing women and development as the others did. I think that at one time—maybe at the start of Red Thread—there was a certain optimism, a certain sense of taking control of their own destiny that motivated their actions and their work with Red Thread. And the development monies being granted allowed them the space to develop programs and workshops and small business ideas among themselves as women. And so, when people from “outside” came to interview them or ask them about their situation, they may have been more ready to respond; perhaps with the thought that “finally, something is going to be done.” But I think that optimism is now over—the development monies have diminished, the groups have dwindled, the mine has been retrenching workers, the small businesses have failed, . . . and little has changed. In many cases things are even worse. And so they seem less ready to tell their stories, less willing to open their homes for inspection by the curious “people from outside.” Because we leave and don’t come back. We move on to other things, other causes, other hotspots, other issues. And they are left to make do, perhaps wiser, perhaps empowered, but without much that is tangible to show or to pass down to their children. I mean I think that this assessment is probably unnecessarily depressing—in my interviews, many of the women expressed that they have gained far more from their participation in

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Red Thread and are glad that they became members. So, in this sense, the organization has been successful, and the current dismay is rooted in the ever-worsening economic situation within the country. Given all this, I find it incongruous that my time in Linden, although difficult in many ways, was rather enjoyable—at least I think what made it so was the way Joan’s family welcomes you in. Although it is the same with the Singhs, I think it just felt good to be around black6 people. I had forgotten how little time I actually spend with black people—anywhere. I want to make that a priority when I return home. I guess I really am feeling the desire for community, and I think I have to make it for myself.

I look up from the screen. I hit the Save button, close the screen, and go to bed.

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CHAPTER 8 “We All . . . We Is Women Together”

“When you get to the Stabroek Market, look for the 32 bus. It will bring you right to my village. When you get there, just tell the driver to let you off at the tire shop. And directly opposite, to the right of the public road, is my house,” Lisa told me when we confirmed my visit to her house in a couple of days. “I meet you there,” she’d said. …  …  …  … 14 September 1996 6:00 A.M. I rise early Friday morning and tell Mrs. Singh that I will be in Met-en-Meerzorg1 all day and expect to return later in the evening. She makes me a breakfast of a few pieces of roti and some baked chicken from our meal the previous evening. “You does shower early this morning,” Mrs. Singh comments. 203

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“Yes, sorry . . . I was hot and thought it would help.” I had been up because of insomnia, and with the black-out, the room felt stifling. I thought a shower would refresh me. But I hadn’t counted on Mrs. Singh being awake, too. She goes on: “Yeah man, it was hot last night. The black-out make the air still still.” “It seems like we have had a lot of black-outs the past couple of days. Don’t you find them difficult to deal with? Do you get angry or upset?” “We got fewer black-out now . . . since the PPP. Before with Burnham it was more steady.” I nod and think how many of the East Indians I’ve talked to or read about in the newspaper feel that the change of government has made life in Guyana more bearable. In fact, the shift has created a sense of hopefulness for some Indo-Guyanese; a resolution to make it through the inconveniences of the black-outs, lack of water, high food prices, and so on, because there is a sense that the government is working on their behalf. However, many of the Afro-Guyanese have expressed different sentiments. I am especially reminded of Christine’s belief that her life has gotten a lot harder since the change in leadership, particularly the death of Burnham and the election of Cheddi Jagan. Christine’s involvement in the military and her work as a welder gave her a feeling of hopefulness when Burnham’s party was in power but, consequently, a clear pessimism with Jagan’s government in power. I don’t want to push the point with Mrs. Singh, though. I know that I need to leave if I want to get to Lisa’s house early enough to do a lengthy interview and return to Georgetown before dark. I put the food package in my backpack and leave for the market. Once I secure passage on a minibus, I settle myself into a seat directly behind the driver. I explain to him where I am going, and he promises to let me know when we arrive. “I look out for you,” he says. As we travel along the road, I review my interview schedule and eat the roti and chicken. Lisa and I had become quite friendly during my visit, and I was eager to learn more about her life. As I exit the minibus, I put on my sunglasses and look around. Across the road, I see Lisa waving at me and motioning me forward. When I reach her, she smiles brightly revealing two golden front teeth. She reaches out and pats me on the arm before saying: “You arrived!”

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“Yes. I managed to do it!” Lisa’s naturally straight jet-black hair is curled in small tight ringlets, highlighted red, and cut into a bob. Her bangs are straighter and fall slightly into her eyes. She brushes them away and directs me to walk along with her. “How long have you lived here?” “Since I got born I does live here. Right here. My parents were involved in community development on these houses. As you can see, well, it was a scheme. Like today you work on this house, tomorrow you work on another house, you know? It was self-help work they were doing in the community. My parents actually built this house.” “This was during the time of Burnham?” I ask thinking about Mrs. Singh’s perception of life under Burnham. “Yes, yes.” “Does this kind of community self-help work still happen here?” “No, no, no, no.” Lisa pauses and looks at me. “To me, you won’t find people have that cooperation and comin’ out and say, like the drains need cleanin’, say, ‘Let us come out and clean it and things.’ No, you won’t find people coming together and do these things. You won’t find it here.” I am again reminded of Miss Christine’s experiences during the self-help era. She too felt a certain optimism that has since been eroded. Both of them are expressing a longing for an active supportive community. And for Lisa, an East Indian woman, that longing transcends the racial politics of the country. I ask her, “So, how do things get done in the community?” “You have to do it yourself until the people from the government comes through. But you have to do it yourself if they don’t come. But Mommy, she does go out and weed out front of the house. My brother does weed it, right. And, like diggin’ the drains and so, Mommy would kinda dig or my brother would dig. Mommy will do anything. And my brother he would help too.” “Where does your brother live?” “We pass by his house just now. See there.” Lisa points to a wooden house set back off the street. In fact, all the houses in this community were set back from the street, some low-slung and others more typical of houses I’d seen in other parts of the country—built up high with either open or partially enclosed “bottom houses.” Deep canals run along each side of the street, and small bridges are used to

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cross over into a family’s yard. The dirt road was wide, and people walked along it heading either to the main public road or back to their houses. As we walk, I ask more about Lisa’s family. “Is your brother married?” “He does live with a woman.” “Is he your only sibling?” “I does have a sister. She married about 10 years now. But before that she does live with another family. Then she got married and they live with her mother-in-law until she got her own house.” We continue to walk. “They does live right there.” Lisa points to a house very similar to the one her brother lives in, although a bit smaller. “She does live with her husband and son.” “This it,” Lisa says a few steps later as she motions up to a house on our right. The low-slung houses of her brother and sister are both much smaller than the family home. This home has a more ramshackle appearance—as though several rooms had been added on as needed through the years. Perhaps, I wonder, with each new child or influx of money. The front yard is lushly overgrown; at least a half dozen palm trees sway in the slight breeze. A thick ground cover cushions our feet, and several trees with a tangle of branches intertwined make a natural canopy along the path leading to the front door. “Were they mango?” I think as I remove my sunglasses and put them in my bag before looking up to see if I spot any of the ripened elliptical fruits. Lisa takes the lead and walks briskly up the stairs, her short skirt flouncing on narrow hips showing off her thin but muscled legs. We enter the house, into a sitting room with a long sofa along the left wall and two cane-backed chairs along the right. The floors are bare, wide-planked wood, worn but well swept. Lisa motions for me to sit on the sofa. I put my bag on the low, wooden table in front of the sofa and sit down. Lisa walks to the back of the room, past a medium-sized round kitchen table, partially hidden by a handmade waist-high shelf. She disappears into a room, and I hear her talking with someone in low tones. Several minutes later Lisa emerges. “You want some tea?” “Yes, thank you.” Lisa goes to the back room, and I hear talking again. When she comes out, she is carrying a tray with two small coffee cups, a ceramic teapot, and a dish of course-grained Demerara sugar. She sets

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them down on the table and then sits on the sofa next to me. A few moments later an older woman enters the room with a small can of evaporated milk. As she puts the milk on the tray, Lisa says: “Mommy, this is Kimberly. She does interview us, the Red Thread women.” Lisa’s mother is a thin, wiry woman. She is taller than Lisa, but they look very similar. I try to guess how old she is, but I can’t. Her deep cinnamon colored skin, though not wrinkled, seems weathered from years of working in the sun. As she smiles, she reveals several missing teeth. I smile back and thank her for the tea. “No problem. If you want something more just shout out, hear.” She then directs her attention to Lisa, “We does prepare lunch when you ready.” Lisa nods and then her mother moves off to what I now assume is the kitchen in the back of the house. “Do you mind if I tape record our interview?” “No. What you going to do with it?” “I’m working on a research paper for my doctoral degree.” “Oh, so your teacher does read it?” “There are four people on my committee who will read it when I’m done with it. And then I may try to publish it after that.” “Oh,” she says not sounding particularly excited about the prospect. “Is it o.k.?” I ask. “Do you want me to use a different name for you?” “Yes, girl.” “O.k.” “Lisa. I does like that name.” “O.k.” I set up my tape recorder and clip the small microphone to her blouse. I then take out my notebook, and on a form I’d made, I write her preferred pseudonym and the date of our interview and hand it to Lisa to read and sign. While she looks at it, I attach my own microphone and look briefly at the list of questions. After Lisa signs the form and hands it back to me, I say: “So, when did you first start getting involved with Red Thread, and how did that all come about?” “Well . . .” Lisa begins, settling back into her chair. “I start gettin’ involved with Red Thread in 1986. Right. And it’s through my brother. And he told me about these women meeting in Met-en-Meerzorg and they doin’ embroidery work. And the woman that he’s living with, her sister was the organizer for the group at that time. I had no idea about

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embroidery work. I didn’t know how to do it. And I said, I’ll get up and go and see, right. And I went and they kinda share a cloth. And then they do this embroidery you get paid for it.” I pour tea into the two cups as Lisa talks. I add sugar to mine and stir before taking a sip. “And it wasn’t really hard for me to catch on. I don’t really take long to catch something. I learn fast. So that is how I become involved in Red Thread.” Lisa scoops sugar into her tea, stirs it around, and then pours in a little milk. “But in moving forward in Red Thread rather than only doing embroidery, I was a nosy person . . .” she laughs“ . . . who like to put myself in everything in Red Thread. So, one day the organizer said we could attend these workshop in Georgetown if I want to go. Eventually I start goin’ to work in Georgetown and being on the Education Workshop team. And then, afterwards, fall into the Health Workshop team, and everything I was into. Because I wanted to kinda develop myself, learn more, and things like that.” “What did you do before you got involved with Red Thread. Did you go to school or work?” “I stopped school at age 16. And that was Form 4.” Although I’d learned that it was common for most girls to stop school at this age or earlier,2 each of the women whom I’d talked with during my trip had a very particular narrative about why she was unable to continue her schooling. Lisa’s story began with a criticism of the schoolteacher. “I had problems in school with the teacher. She was kinda rude and hoggish and things like that. And she used to beat, right, she used to beat a lot. And one time she put maths on the board for us to do, and my sums that I did in my book was right. Right? And she did it on the board and hers was wrong, and she was telling everybody that it was right. So I went over to the form-three teacher, and I asked him if the sums was right or not. And he said, yes it was right. And then he came with me back to class and showed her her mistake, and she was annoyed because I did that. And she kind of lash . . . lashes me all across my back. And I told my mommy. Mommy talk to the Head Mistress, and she said she sorry and she won’t do it again. But she still continue doing it. So I had to leave school. I couldn’t really continue taking abuse from her. So I had to leave school.” “And there was no other school nearby?”

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“Well, to be honest, Mommy couldn’t really afford to kinda send me to another school. Because there wasn’t another nearby, and Mommy couldn’t afford the travel for me to go up and down. It was last form, and it didn’t make any sense. To me they don’t believe in writing exam and then you have to work. They believe in from school, its home doing housework, married, get children. Look after them. That is your work.” “So when you say ‘they,’ do you mean your parents or society?” Lisa pauses, taking a long drink from her cup. “I ain’t really talkin’ about society. I would say my mom because I didn’t really grow up with my father. Mommy and Daddy separate when we were small.” I nod my head, drinking from my cup, too. “At least I had some commercial training—writing shorthand, typing. But I didn’t get to write the exam. Only one exam I wrote, because they find out I talking to boys and these things, it’s time for you to be home. Not out on the road. That was one reason I stop going to commercial.” Setting her cup down she says “That’s how it goes.” “So, how old were you when you had your son?” “I was 25 when I had my son.” “You had a long time before you . . . you had a child,” I say. “Because the way I was brought up. Right?” Lisa shifts in her seat, pulling a little bit at the microphone I have clipped to the collar of her blouse. “We really couldn’t go upon the street and reach a boy . . . have a boyfriend and things like that, because Mommy . . .” Lisa scrunches up her face and shakes her head back and forth, her curls stiffly bouncing around. She is giggling under her breath. I laugh, too, remembering when I was a young teenager sitting on my next door neighbor’s porch braiding her grandson’s hair. Jay was by far the cutest boy on my street. The delicate beauty of his hazel-brown eyes and caramel-colored skin offered a compelling contrast to his nascent streetwise attitude. Unfortunately, my father had chosen just that time to come home from work, and when he saw me sitting there with this boy he called me over forcefully and told me to go into the house. Once inside he said, simply: “That is not for you!” I was stunned and felt harshly chastised. So I could well imagine Lisa’s mother offering her a similar warning. “What were you doing, then, before you got your baby?” “Nothing, nothing. Be at home all the time. Doin’ all type of housework. And sometime Mommy usually farm. She used to plant a farm in the backdam—that’s way down in the back. And we would

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go with her and help in the farm. Go in and take out provision and bring it, carry it around, sell it, and things like that. That was mainly it.” “You helped your mother on the farm. What about your brother and sister? They were younger, maybe they were still in school?” “My brother leave school early because he have to help Mommy work in the backdam. And my sister, she leave school . . . she go up to the last form in the Community High school and that was it. When she was old enough she kinda cook and things like that. Then she got married.” Lisa’s mother comes back into the room carrying two glasses of water. She silently sets them down on the table in front of us and returns to the kitchen. “Because, as I said before, my mother didn’t believe in a girl child workin’. A man supposed to go and work and bring in the money and give you. A man supposed to mind you. Right. But . . .” Lisa picks up a glass of water, the ice clinks together as she swirls it around while sighing. “ . . . Aaah . . . in my early 20s, about two years before I got my son, I couldn’t really take it anymore. And I said, hey this is nonsense. I wanna get out there and work and have money of my own. And my mother’s words was, ‘If you leave the house don’t ever come back.’ So that was sayin’ clear to me, don’t go and work. Stay home. But I was determined and I went out. I got a job as a sales clerk in a store. Because I didn’t really have no certificate that I could present and get a higher job, right.” “What store?” “A general store on Water Street in Georgetown. It did sell cloth and other things.” “So did you have to leave your mother’s house to work there?” “Mommy was still annoyed . . . she was still kinda not keen on me out here doin’ work. But I was determined. So I travel everyday to work. Still come home back livin’ with mom. She didn’t want me to work, but I had to leave, I had to force myself to go out.” I nod in recognition and feel connected to her struggle for a life different from that which was expected. I imagined that her work in Georgetown somehow led her to Red Thread. I ask: “How long did you work there?” “I work there over two years, because I was pregnant with my son and I was still workin’. And when I was near time to gettin’ the baby, I stopped working.”

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“Did you meet the father of your child in Georgetown?” I ask, thinking that it was the process of going away from home that allowed her to do something different with her life. “No. Came right here. He and my brother was friend, and he just stop in one day. And that was it. He was all mine.” She smiles and adds: “Until he get caught again.” “Until what?” “He get caught again.” “By someone else?” “Yeah.” “Do you still see him?” “Yeah.” “Yeah?” “He would come, and he would look after his son. He would see to everyt’ing. Anything that we want, he would give me. You know? Because he really didn’t get married of his own will, it his parents. You know? Because at that time we still had this racial thing in Guyana. And my mother was living with a negro guy.” “So his family didn’t want him to be with you because of your mother?” “Yeah, because my mother lived with a black man. Well, they had separated. But she had lived with a black man before and got my sister. And so his parents thought she just kinda bad and things like that.” “But you still see each other?” “Yeah.” “I mean romantically.” “Yes, yes, yes, yes. It just like if he didn’t even married. ‘Cause he still come and show me the same kinda love and everything.” “And you have no plans of marrying?” Which, of course, I realize is an odd question given that he is already married to someone else. But Lisa answers. “No. I have no plans, because I wanna be free. Because living with a man you find that you can’t go out here. You can’t go there. And workin’ with Red Thread call for time. Sometime you have to leave home for two, three weeks if you have to go and work out of town. And you know, sometime I go out to work and man comment, ‘You ain’t home?’ When you come home you waitin’ for get blows.3 Me never heard that. I come in when I want and go out when I want. And I workin’ for my own money, so nobody can say here money and you got to stay home. No way, I just don’t think so.”

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Michelle and Lisa’s views on this are quite similar. They relish their freedom from a marital relationship, because it allows them to pursue their work with Red Thread. Their approach is quite different from that of Miss Christine, who a generation earlier had seen connecting with men as the best way to garner some kind of economic stability. As I sit and think this through, wondering in which direction to take our interview, I realize that Lisa and I had been sitting together for almost an hour. I shift in my seat and say: “Lisa, let’s take a break here.” “O.k. you does need to use the washroom?” “Yes.” “O.k. It right out the back. I show you.” I stop the tape, remove the microphones pinned to our shirts, and lay them on the table. We get up and walk toward the back of the house. When we get to the kitchen, I see another older woman sitting at a small table. She’s chopping an onion and humming quietly to herself. “This is Miss Kimberly. She does interview me.” “Yeah girl, I does hear.” “Miss Kimberly, this is my mother mother.” “Oh . . . Hi. Pleased to meet you.” I stand awkwardly, hand poised to reach out. She nods and continues with her work. I relax my hand at my side and watch as she pushes the onion to the side and begins to dice several small chunks of peeled pumpkin. I notice a basket with tomatoes also on the table, waiting to be chopped. Lisa and I continue out the door. “Go past the cook stove, and it over there,” she directs. As I walk to the bright yellow painted cement block structure that houses the washroom, I admire their lot. It is deep. There are at least a dozen rows of vegetables, several fruit trees, and more palm trees. Just next to the outdoor clay cook stove there are two, long and low chicken coops. Several chickens wander about the yard, clucking and pecking at the ground. There is no grass or ground cover, just hard compact dirt. The yard is enclosed by two fences pieced together with varying lengths of wood posts and corrugated tin. Strewn along this rag-tag fence are large pieces of lumber that I assume may be cut down and used to fuel the stove or to shore up a section of the fence. When I enter the washroom, I think about what Lisa has told me so far. I am particularly struck by her narrative of freedom and how

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Outdoor cookstove, Met-en-Meerzorg

it has been repeated in various forms by each of the Red Thread community women I’ve interviewed during my stay. “Freedom is not easily defined,” I think as I try to wrap my mind around these competing narratives. I recall Lisa’s telling me almost a month ago now, that things would go easier for me if I had a man in Guyana. I’d found the advice curious then, but I am even more puzzled as I learn more about her life. Lisa’s efforts to create an independent identity, to expand her options, and to learn about and participate in a life outside her small village contradict the cultural expectations of women. This does not surprise me, and, in fact, I had anticipated this type of discourse as part and parcel of the narrative of empowerment that threads throughout the literature and political praxis of women in “third world” development organizations. But Lisa’s “freedom” is predicated on the labor of her mother—a single woman—and grandmother to provide home-grown foods and childcare. Similarly, Michelle’s “freedom” is possible only with the support of her mother—a single woman. Being an “independent woman,” as

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Chandra had explained, required that she train her family to learn to make do with having her at home less than full-time. In this context, my experience of “freedom” was not dissimilar. I was depending on my mother to look after my obligations while I traveled for work. However, that I didn’t “feel” free seemed particularly salient. When I walk back to the house, I see Lisa’s mother out in the yard hacking down some bushes with a large machete. As I stand at the door, I watch Lisa’s grandmother in the kitchen. Lisa calls me into the sitting room. “Do you want to have lunch?” “No, I’m o.k. right now. I had some breakfast from Mrs. Singh on the minibus, so I probably won’t be hungry for a while yet.” I sit down and check the tape recorder. “Do you want to continue? Or do you want to eat now?” “Yes, we can continue. I expect my son home soon. We can eat when he does arrive.” “He’s at school?” “Yes.” “O.k. good.” I clip the microphone back on Lisa’s blouse and on my own shirt. “You mentioned that you have done a lot of traveling since you’ve been in Red Thread. Where have you gone?” “I was in the group for about four years, and then we started going to these training sessions in Georgetown. Karen would kinda train us to go out and do workshops. And then we went for a one-month trainin’ in Jamaica to kinda develop workshop skills and do more training in it.” “So you stayed in Jamaica for a month and you worked with Sistren?” “Yeah. Sistren was doing workshop techniques and drama and stuff like that. It was good.” “And what did you think of Jamaica?” “Oh Jamaica’s a beautiful country. I like Jamaica, because I was treated equally in Jamaica.” “How do you mean?” Lisa smiles slowly. “When I was goin’ out anywhere in Jamaica, I had to have two body guards with me.” Laughing now, she continues. “One in the front and one in the back. Because everybody just—Indian, Indian, Indian! They’re all out for the Indians, you know. It was good. Everybody is just one. That’s how I see it. Very friendly people. The atmosphere very, you know, it nice.” “How was the work with Sistren?”

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“At that time I didn’t really takin’ Red Thread serious. Because you know I was just beginnin’ Red Thread. So, to me, at that time it was too early.” “Too early?” “Yeah. Because being in Red Thread for the first time, you know, you wasn’t really serious with what you were doing. I wouldn’t say I thought I didn’t learn anything or I didn’t put anything that I learn into practice, but I could have done more. I could have done more.” “So if you went to Sistren now . . .” “Yes! It would be different. Because you would learn so much more because you already into this thing, right. You do so many workshops out of different communities, like in Pomeroon, like in the Essequibo. You know you went out you do so many workshop and you work with schoolchildren. You’re more exposed now. Now you know more about the work and you kinda come out of the shyness and things like that. At that time I was still shy.” My ears perk up at this. “It’s funny, because everyone I’ve talked to has been telling me how different she was before Red Thread, and how she was shy and all that. And I can’t even picture it.” “You just ask Karen about me. I would sit down and not even say a word. Sometime Karen come down . . . I tremblin’. And I would start doing something, some kinda thing to start doin’. Karen would say, ‘Lisa, sit down girl. Sit down. Sit down. Your time is goin’ to come when you’re goin’ to start talkin’.’ I was really, really, really shy.” She pauses and takes a drink from the glass of water that had been refreshed while we had taken a break. “Now? You know bein’ in Red Thread I’ve learned a lot, lot. Help me improve myself a lot.” I nod my head and wait for Lisa to tell me more. Each of the women I’d talked with was certain that Red Thread had improved her life . . . even if she hadn’t earned a lot of money doing the work of the group. Lisa continues: “Things I wouldn’t have been able to do if I wasn’t in Red Thread, I’ve done it. Because, for one, just being able to visit so many places in Guyana. Like Kwakwani, the Pomeroon, Essequibo, Berbice, and Linden. I would never ever think about going to places like that, right. Because money-wise, one. Right. Out of the country was zero for me. Because when I wasn’t in Red Thread I would look at the planes passing up in the air and say, ‘Would I be able to sit in one of that?’ So when I choosing to go to Jamaica, it was like, ‘Me, in a

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plane?’ Even though I’m workin’ I can’t really afford to leave Guyana on my own unless I had some backing from somewhere.” I nod my head and think about my own travels to Guyana. Just a few years earlier I would never have thought I would be traveling here to do this work. I ask Lisa: “Where else have you gone?” “I spent three months in Canada. It was on a cultural exchange program with Canadian Crossroad International.4” “When was this?” “Last year. We had one of the Crossroaders who came in exchange to come in Guyana. She work with us in ’93. And she suggested that somebody from Red Thread go to Canada. So she made the suggestion to all the people in Canada, and they decided that somebody from Red Thread should go. The persons in Red Thread had to choose somebody to go to Canada and they choose me to go. I went in 1995.” “What did you do while you were there?” “I worked with, actually volunteer work with, the Help & Shelter for Battered Women. I worked at the crisis center. Not really talking to the battered women in Canada but just work along with the people and learning from their experience and things like that.” “How’d you like it?” “Well, I’ve learn a lot being in Canada. Because being here, right, you could lean on anybody for support. Because you have a lot of friends. You have workmates who working along with you. But being in Canada, being on your own, right, you have nobody to lean on. So you had to get up and get. You have to be on your own, you have to t’ink for yourself. And you had to do everything on your own.” “Were you homesick?” I ask, thinking as much about my own traveling feelings as I am about what Lisa is telling me. “No. Because this is what my hobby—visitin’ places and meetin’ people and things like that. I does learn a lot in Canada. Learnin’ to mix with a lot of people. Like meetin’ people from different country because in Crossroaders you have people from as far as Africa and them places. I meetin’ a lot of people from Zimbabwe, Costa Rica, a lot of people. And we just learn different culture.” Leaning into the tape, Lisa continues: “The only time I would think about home, like on Sunday we have a get together, then I would think about home.”

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Thinking more about my own traveling experiences I am interested in knowing how Lisa managed the feeling of homesickness, of being so far removed from her family. So I ask her: “What would you do?” “I would call my aunt who does live in the States and ask her if she hear anyt’ing about Mommy and my son, because I never used to kinda write them. Because after moving from one place to the next you can’t really write. Sometime I all over the place, right. So you can’t really receive mail. And I couldn’t really call because we don’t have phone here, right. And to call from overseas to Guyana it expensive. So I never really used to call because I didn’t really go with money from Guyana to do all of that. So you had to kinda adjust yourself to the situation. But it was good for me.” “The only problem I had,” she continues, “was the place that I was staying, you know. The kind of food, you know, because we’re not accustomed eating the type of food they cook. And the place used to smell moldy, moldy. I couldn’t really take it. When you kinda breathe in you know that the air that you’re breathin’ is not really pure.” As if on cue, I suddenly notice the smells of food cooking in kitchen and recall my desire for foods from home. I say to Lisa: “Yes, I think adjusting to different foods and climate is one of the difficult things about traveling for extended periods of time. But besides adjusting to the environmental stuff, how did you feel people were treating you?” “The other thing I notice in Canada too, right.” Lisa pauses and then says as an aside in lower tones: “If you don’t want it you can erase, right, when I finish talkin’” She then sits up straighter and says: “In Canada I find that the white people treat, not really Guyanese, but black on the whole, they don’t treat them equal. They treat them like dogs. Right. Once you’re a black, you’re a dog. And I don’t like that.” Lisa sighs and expels air forcefully out of her mouth before continuing. “I was walkin’ on the street one day, and this white woman, she was just swinging her hands, nothing in her hands. And this girl, she had the baby—apparently she was babysitting for this girl, this woman, I suggest. Right? Because this girl was a black, too, right, the girl was a black. And this girl was tired. You could see the baby was a hefty baby. There was no stroller, she had to kinda hook the baby on her hips.” Lisa demonstrates the technique . . . standing up and pantomiming a large infant on her hip.

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“And she was tired, and she said to the woman, ‘Can you assist me with the baby?’ “And the woman word was, ‘What did I employ you for?’” “I said later, boy, I can’t leave Guyana. I’m not going to no other country to slave for nobody. No way, it doesn’t make sense. You leave your good job and go slave for white people that don’t even care nothing about you.” I am struck by Lisa’s story. Although she is Indian, she sees herself as linked to the experiences of this black girl in Canada. Was she operating within a certain diasporic rendering of “black” identity akin to the moment in 1970s Britain when South Asian, Afro-Caribbean, and African immigrants appropriated a “black” signifier as the basis of their antiracial alliances?5 Or, I wonder if she has had a different experience of race in Guyana. I ask her: “Is it different in Guyana?” “In Guyana here, everybody treat equally. Whether you’re black or white or whatever . . . everybody is one. But in Canada you don’t have it. You don’t have that there.” I am a bit skeptical of this characterization, but I am curious about her framing Guyana as a place where race does not matter and Canada as a racist place. I probe a bit further: “So you would not consider moving out of the country, to Canada or the U.S.?” “People does say, ‘Go to Canada. Get a job. Find a boyfriend. Don’t come back to Guyana.’ Hell no, I would advise anybody, I does tell them, ‘Stay here. If you wanna go work, go and work, fine, and come back.’ Because over there everything you have to pay tax. Every single t’ing is tax. Even the water you got to pay for. Here we use lavish water. You don’t even look back. Here you have where you could catch water. In Canada you can’t catch any water to use it. Here you could plant a kitchen garden, get greens and things. In Canada, where you can plant? Where I was staying have no space there that you can plant.” At that moment, Lisa’s little boy comes running up the stairs and into the sitting room. “Mommy, I home!” Lisa gets up from her seat and he reaches around her leg, getting tangled up in the microphone wire. He steps back and looks at me while Lisa unhooks the microphone from her blouse. “Hi,” I say, smiling at the boy. He doesn’t respond, just looks at me with clear and bright, large dark brown eyes.

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“Ravi, this is Miss Kimberly. She from the States. She interviewing women in the Red Thread group.” He reaches out silently and shakes my hand. I shake his hand. “Nice to meet you.” But before I finish the sentence he runs off to the kitchen, glancing back and smiling widely. Lisa shouts out: “We going to eat lunch just now! Go and wash up.” I turn to the tape recorder and click it off. As I pack up the tape, Lisa tells me that when she was traveling in Canada, her son struggled with school. When she got back to Guyana she was concerned about his grades slipping so much and had started beating him to make him go to school. “I beat him, break my nails beatin’ him.” Shaking her head sadly, she says: “The next day when I sat down with the child and asked him, ‘Why you don’t wanna go school?’ He said, ‘Mommy, the teacher does beat.’” She sighs loudly, and continues: “I was shock. From this I learn that this is not the way to raise-up children. Sometime you say to children, ‘Don’t do this. Don’t do that.’ And we don’t tell them why they musn’t do it. I was grow-up like that . . . and I was doin’ the same t’ing with my boy. So I started doing workshop with parents at school to sort of educate them more.” Like Joan, Lisa was actively rethinking her parenting strategies. When Joan realized that she was concerned about her daughter’s decision to move out on her own without being married, because it reflected badly on her parenting, she drew on her experiences traveling with Red Thread abroad and meeting other women who did things differently to reframe her own situation. Lisa was taking it one step farther by bringing her personal lesson to other parents at her son’s school, drawing on one of the basic principles of Red Thread—to educate. We walk back to the kitchen, and on the table are four places set. Ravi is already sitting down as we sit. Lisa’s mother has her back to us and is dishing food from several small pots situated on the propane stove. After Lisa’s mother fixes our plates—a colorful mélange of stewed pumpkin with fish, steamed rice fragrant with coconut milk, and the slow-cooked greens I think are called callaloo—she makes one for herself and joins us at the table. After lunch, Lisa and her mother take me on a tour of the backyard. We all walk together around the yard while Lisa or her mother points out the various plants.

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“Planting the kitchen garden was the only way to earn an income,” says Lisa. “When we were small it was hard, because sometime we would come home from school and Mommy would have nothing to give us, right. And we would have to go back to school without anybody knowing anything. But now, it’s not a problem. When my Auntie move to the States, she does send us $20 U.S. to try to sustain us.” “Did your father give your mother money to help?” “No, no. My father was a drunkard. As soon as he get his money,” she snaps her fingers, “it finish! That was the main reason why they separated. He would kinda drink out all his money and behave bad and wanna fight and t’ings like that. If you really, really want to get money from him, you would have to go to where he working. And you have to go before he draw money to get something from him.” “What about now?” “My father die about, let me see, about 11 years now since my father die. But beside being a drunkard, he was good. Anything that you could get him to do, like painting, like repair the house, anything, anything. He take care of us.” I nod my head, thinking about the contradictions between him really taking care of them and his not being financially responsible and wonder if this is similar to Lisa’s relationship with her son’s father. I don’t ask this question, though, as she continues talking. “Mommy really used to kinda plant the yard,” motioning to the front, side, and back yards, “from this side straight down to the back. You know she used to really work hard with the sheep, cow, and this kinda thing. It’s only now that we stop mindin’ cow because I tell Mommy I ain’t able to do it. Because you got to run behind them, you gotta go behind them in the sun, the rain. No, I ain’t do cow.” Switching thoughts abruptly, Lisa says: “But it was really hard growing up without a father. Really, really, really hard. I can’t really say I had any kind of father love. Because I don’t know what it is like growing up in a mother and father home. When I was in Canada, you know, it kinda hurt me a little, because I stay by my host family, her mother and father place. And you know, the way they were living there. You know, they dwell among each other. It kinda hurt me to say, well, I couldn’t really grow up in that thing. You know?” Lisa’s mother, who had been walking with us silently, says: “I recall when my father was killed on the road outside the house. He was hit by a truck as he cross the road. I was just a little girl, and I saw when it did happen.”

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We all continue walking. No one says anything as we approach the back of the house. But I’m thinking that Lisa’s mother reminds her that she, too, was raised without a father present. Lisa’s story is part of a larger one. The implications seem clear to me—generations of women, living together, trying to make do without the clear and consistent support of men or the availability of jobs with life-sustaining wages—creating what Trotz described as “confederations of female kin6” to survive. At the same time, however, this reliance on female kin creates a measure of autonomy that may not be possible in a marital relationship. This was certainly evident in Michelle’s understanding of her choice to remain unmarried.7 Back in the sitting room, I pack my tape recorder, notebooks, and other belongings into my backpack. I prepare myself for the ride back to Georgetown in the late afternoon heat. “I walk you back to the main road. I no know when the next bus to come . . . so I wait with you.” Ravi emerges from one of the side doors with his school books and sits on the floor in front of the low sofa table. “I just going to show Miss Kimberly to the bus. We go over your maths when I return.” We walk out of the door and onto the veranda. A woman walking down the street waves up to Lisa. Lisa waves back. “Do you have a lot of friends in the neighborhood?” “Yeah.” “That you visit with one another?” “No, no. It’s just ‘Hi’, right, you go on your way. Because for me bein’ in Red Thread I’m a different person. But other people out of Red Thread, right, they won’t kinda understand me. Because sometime you will find some womens sit down, gang-up. You will find that they talkin’ about somebody else. And who they talkin’ about? They won’t talk about a man, they will talk about another woman. So you know, them kinda things that I don’t encourage.” “Yes, sometimes women are hardest on other women.” “It true, but you know bein’ in Red Thread, I’ve learned a lot. Because it’s like, before, if I does see a girl walking with a short clothes, I would start talkin’ bad about this girl, say, ‘Look at she. She wearin’ short clothes.’ But not now. Right?” I nod, encouraging her forward as we walk. “Anybody do what they want, right? And sometimes you would hear people sit down gossipin’ about this woman and that. And I say, ‘Hear, them things is not for we. We all, we is women together.”

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Lisa pauses and then continues: “So I don’t have friends. Because sometime you find that they will talk good, right, and the next minute: I don’t see you, you don’t see me. This is one thing I like Canada about though—nobody business about you. Wear what you want, you walk how you want, nobody cares. But here . . .” “Everybody’s looking . . .” “Everybody. If you go out in the morning. If you left home 8, 9 o’clock and you come back 10, 11 o’clock in the night and you say you went to work its, ‘Where she workin’ them hours so? Which firm openin’ them hours so?’ That’s these people. I don’t even bother. I don’t even look over my shoulder. I don’t care. Sometime I have some low-cut thing on, Mommy does ask me, ‘Where you goin’ with . . .’ I stop her, I say, ‘Hear you, take your time.’ Or, I may have on a short skirt and a shirt button-up low . . . Mommy say, ‘Button your button.’ I say, ‘Hear you, left me.’ You know, because sometime you feel like dressing that way. You go in Canada, you see the oldest woman with her mini and them things like that. Here a old woman could wear a mini, well everybody laugh she and tantalize she all the time.” Lisa sucks her teeth, exasperated. “But I don’t have friends.” I stop and put my hand on her arm. “But, don’t you consider the Red Thread women your friends?” Lisa smiles while shaking her head affirmatively. “Yeah, they’re all my friends. All. Because I will go home with Joan in Linden and stay by Joan for weeks, right. Because I don’t come home. You go to work, you come back, you stay there, and come home when the work finish. They all my friends. And we all one. Right? No matter black, no matter what race, religion, we all of one. If I know well Joan don’t use meat, I say o.k. nobody uses meat. Right. You’re not forced to do it. But just the relationship you have. We can fight now, we can quarrel now, and next minute we back together. And we will argue, argue, argue, argue. Sometime over what? Over work. That I make a suggestion and somebody in the group wouldn’t agree and we argue. So you know there would be high, high argument and then back, normal, we circle back together as one.” I love the imagery that Lisa paints here. It seems to reflect the best and most powerful aspect of a multiracial coalition of women. But I suspect that there’s more to it than this. That their circling together “as one” has meant doing the often uncomfortable, sometimes dangerous,8 threatening work of coming together across the very real

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differences between them—religion, economic resources, and race/ethnicity as well as age, motherhood, and marital status. The walk back to the bus seems to have taken a shorter time than when I arrived. Lisa and I are already at the place where the minibus stops. She is still telling me about how the Red Thread women have navigated difference. As we stand in front of the tire shop, she continues: “Sometime in the bus, Joan say, ‘Coolie-girl, you don’t payin’ today?’ Everybody goin’ turn around watch us. I say, ‘Joan, you see everybody lookin’.’ But we laughin’ with each other, you know? All one. Because of Red Thread. If it wasn’t for Red Thread I don’t think that, you know, that would have been like that.” “How do you think your life would have been different if not for Red Thread?” “Noooo. I don’t wanna think much on that. I just don’t want to t’ink much on that.” The tone in Lisa’s voice indicates that her life without Red Thread would have included far less adventure and fewer possibilities. Not only do I dread the long ride back into town, I am reluctant to leave Lisa and end our conversation. But the music in the distance signals the arrival of the minibus. I watch as it stops, kicking up dust in front of us. I thank Lisa for everything and get on. Lisa leans on the door frame and directs the driver to take me to the Stabroek Market. “Don’t overcharge she!” She admonishes him. “Yeah, I does look out for her,” the driver says smiling while motioning me onto the bus. I sit quietly on the minibus thinking about my time with Lisa. It was a comfortable interview. We seemed able to talk about things as girlfriends would. I reach into my bag searching around for the tape recorder. I think it might be a good idea to listen to it while riding back into Georgetown. We are already stopping at the next village, and several women get off the bus carrying baskets with greens and other produce. I notice that the bus is fairly empty, and I am now the only woman. The driver and the conductor are talking loudly with each other, and several young children in school uniforms laugh and talk in the back of the bus. I realize that two men—one Afro-Guyanese man sitting several rows behind me and one East Indian man sitting just ahead of me—are watching me closely. I avoid their eyes, and instead of the tape recorder, I pull out my notebook and write out a few ideas about the interview.

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“Pssssst,” the man behind me tries to get my attention. “Pssssst,” his tone a bit louder. I shift uncomfortably in my seat but don’t turn around. I remember how Lisa said she liked Jamaica because of all the attention she got from men on the street. I hated it. I’d wanted to stop riding the minibuses and walking around because of the constant harassment from Guyanese men. But, as Lisa said, I had to adjust. Riding minibuses and walking were the cheapest and most expedient ways to get around. He leans forward and lets out a longer “Psssssssssssssssssssssssst.” I debate my options, all tried and none of them successful at ending unwanted attention: saying “Hi” and turning back to what I’m working on; continuing to ignore; changing seats; feigning sleep. I opt for a new one: engaging in conversation. “Yes,” I say turning around. “You does live in Georgetown?” “Yes.” He looks at me closely. “You from the States?” “Yes.” “You does grow up there?” “Yes.” “But you come back to Guyana?” “I’m just visiting.” “You family?” “No. I am here for work.” “What kind of work is you doing?” “I am working with women in Guyana. Women who are part of a women’s group.” “You does teach them?” “Well, not really. I am learning about women’s lives here.” “The women here in Guyana different from women in the States?” This is really the question that I’m grappling with, and I think about how to answer. I respond: “Women here do have some different experiences than women do in the States. But I think that we may be more alike than different.” He sucks his teeth and says: “The women here they does benefit more than the men.” “Why?”

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“Women does have programs to help them. The government does provide money for women to get trainin’ and work. The men don’ see the same level of input.” “No?” “No. I been hustlin’ to find work, and it hard to get on in a trainin’ program if you not brought in by some big person. I try to go to the States. I does hear the work there is plenty plenty. But it hard to get money for passage.” I nod, but do not say anything. “You marry?” “Yes,” I reply while self-consciously twisting the silver wedding band I bought specifically for the trip. I had been advised that as a woman traveling alone, I might be safer if I assumed a non-single identity. “You husband does travel with you?” “Yes,” I say evenly, although too quickly. He leans back in his seat and looks at me through hooded eyes, smiling slyly. I turn back around in my seat. And continue writing in my notebook. I feel his eyes on the back of my head, but he doesn’t say anything more. After several stops, he exits the minibus. When he passes my row, he stops and blows me kiss. About an hour later, the driver looks back at me and shouts out “Stabroek Market!” I leave the bus and decide that I will walk to the Singhs’ house from there rather than take another minibus. “I could use the exercise,” I reason. As I walk down the road, I hear the usual calls to me, “Psssssst.” “Hey gal!” “Jus’ a moment.” But I walk quickly and purposefully along. When I arrive, I let myself into the side gate and walk past Mr. Singh’s car parked in the carport. He is often in town on business, so it’s unusual for him to be at home on a Saturday evening, I think. As I enter the kitchen through the back door, I hear unfamiliar voices in the living room. “There must be family visiting.” I had hoped to just slip quietly upstairs, have a shower, lie down, and read. But I knew I would have to be social. “You does finish your research in Met-en-Meerzorg?” Mrs. Singh asks me when I walk into the living room. “Yes. I had a good long interview with Lisa.” “It was successful?”

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“Yes, I think so.” Mrs. Singh is sitting at the dining room table to my left. Mr. Singh and another East Indian man are standing next to the large wooden breakfront used as a liquor cabinet next to the TV in the living room. They are drinking what appear to be glasses of rum and coke. At the front of the living room, a large, very dark-skinned black man is lounging on the sofa. He, too, is sipping from a glass with brownish liquid. Mr. Singh steps toward me and says to the men: “Kimberly is from the States. She is here to do research with a local women’s group.” Then to me: “Mr. Desai and Mr. Jones work with me. I thought you might like to meet Mr. Jones. He is from the States, too.” “Pleased to meet you.” I shake Mr. Desai’s hand and then turn to walk over to the sofa. Mr. Jones has gotten up from his seat on the sofa and is making his way over to me. We converge at the center of the living room. “So nice to meet you, my dear,” he says smiling broadly drawing my attention to his moustache and eyebrows—the first being highly sculpted and pencil thin in contrast to the latter, which are extremely bushy and unruly. Then my eyes are drawn up to his hair, also a study in contrasts: a stark, uniform hairline giving way to masses of tall kinky hair. As he takes my hand, I notice that he has three large gold rings on his massive hand. I smile, extricate my hand, and take a step back. “I’ve had a long day of travel on the road. Please excuse me while I freshen up.” “Most certainly,” Mr. Jones says while he licks his lips as if expecting to join me upstairs. “Excuse me,” I say to the Singhs and Mr. Desai. I walk past Mr. Jones and go up the stairs. Once upstairs and in my room, I turn on the ceiling fan and sit on the bed and let out a long sigh. I remove my backpack and put it on the floor by the bed. I lay back and look up letting the breezes filter over my face. After a few minutes, I take my toiletry kit and go to the bathroom to wash my face, brush my teeth, and rinse off some of the grit and dust from the road from my arms, face, and neck. I go back into my room, change my shirt, put on a pair of flip-flops, and feeling somewhat refreshed, head back downstairs. “Have a drink,” Mr. Singh says as I reenter the living room. “A glass of Coke would be great.”

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Mrs. Singh goes to the large china cabinet behind the dining room table and takes out a glass. “Do you want ice?” She asks. “Yes, that would be fine.” “Just Coke? Why not also a touch of rum?” Mr. Singh asks. “No, thanks.” Mrs. Singh returns with the ice and Coke in the glass. She hands it to me, and I go to sit with her at the dining room table. “Please join me,” says Mr. Jones from the living room sofa. I pause. I don’t want to sit with him, but I think it would be rude to refuse. So reluctantly, I walk across the room and sit on the sofa carefully leaving a significant space between us. “Where are you from in the States?” “I’m from California. And you?” “Well, there is always a story to tell. I was born in St. Kitts. When I was a young man, I relocated to London. Later, I moved to the U.S. Virgin Islands for my job. I was doing management training with a large corporation. I then got another job with a company that had offices in Miami, so I lived there for several years before coming here to Guyana.” “And will you stay in Guyana?” “For a time. But it is not a permanent place. I will probably go back to the States in a couple of years. Have you been to Miami?” “Yes, I have. I like it there. It reminds me a bit of California.” “Oh yes? I would like to visit California. Perhaps I can make a trip there. Are the women in California all beautiful like you?” He smiles and moves a little closer to me on the couch. “Um, well . . .” I stammer and look over to Mrs. Singh. “Such smooth, pretty skin,” he continues. “Thank you.” “No, thank you. It is not often that I manage to meet such as you. And, you are in college?” I nod my head. “Graduate school, actually.” As I try to shift the dynamics of this conversation to claim more authority. “Mmmh.” Again, I look across the room. Mrs. Singh is sitting at the table listening to Mr. Singh and Mr. Desai’s conversation. Mr. Desai catches my eye and raises his glass to me, mouthing “Cheers.” I nod my head and smile slightly, reluctantly turning my attention back to Mr. Jones. “How much longer will you be in Guyana?”

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“Not much longer; probably a couple of weeks. I just have a few more interviews to do.” “Ah, so your time is short. Perhaps you would do me the honor of accompanying me for dinner tonight?” “Thank you. But, it has been a long day, and I need to do some work tomorrow.” “On a Sunday?” “Yes, well, I did several interviews this week, and I need to go through my tapes.” “I will leave you with my number, and perhaps you can reach me when you are in town. I would love to show you around and such.” He shifts his considerable weight on the sofa and opens his coat jacket while reaching into his breast pocket. Once he has retrieved his card, he hands it to me brushing my fingers suggestively as I take it from his hand. Abruptly I stand and walk away from the sofa, taking my glass to the kitchen. When I return, everyone has joined Mr. Jones in the living room. As I head toward the stairs, I pause to say goodnight to my hosts. Mr. Desai looks me up and down and then comments: “Aaah, a ring on your toe. Does it have meaning in your culture?” “Not that I know of; I just like it.” “Yes, it does complement.” Both of Mr. Singh’s guests look at me appreciatively. I look over to Mrs. Singh, who is sitting on the sofa next to her husband. As if on cue, both of the men turn and look at Mrs. Singh. Mr. Desai says: “With such a beautiful wife, you should be taking her out and showing her off.” Mr. Singh smiles and nods. I stand awkwardly for a few moments, then announce that I am worn down from my day and will retire. “You are not hungry?” she asks, looking at me carefully. “No, thanks. I had a large and late lunch with Lisa and her family. I’m just ready for some sleep. Goodnight. It was a pleasure meeting you both.” I turn and walk up the stairs. Since the power is on, I decide to choose another romance novel to read for a while before going to sleep. I’m almost through the stack of books in the nearby cabinet. The simple narratives of passionate love, romantic conflict, and marital resolutions provide a welcome escape from the realities of seemingly endless negotiation that characterize the relationships within the women’s narratives I am collecting and the narrative I am living.

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About an hour later, I hear Mr. Singh’s car backing out of the driveway. I presume that he is going out for the evening, to socialize for work. I wonder if he is taking the advice of his workmates and taking Mrs. Singh out, too. But then, I hear Mrs. Singh going through the downstairs and turning off the lights and preparing the house for the night. Several moments later, she comes up the stairs and passes my room on her way to the washroom. Here we are, I think, women trying to build and maintain satisfying lives within the expectations of our social and cultural locations. I want to have some of Lisa’s boldness and enthusiasm in seeing the ways in which her life choices have brought her kind of freedom. I want to embrace her experiences of stepping outside what was expected of a young Indian girl, having a child on her own and relishing in the opportunity to travel as a member of Red Thread. At the same time, I want to honor Mrs. Singh, who makes a home and family squarely within the cultural expectations of her ethnicity and class. Is this not also another kind of freedom? Through her rather traditional relationship with Mr. Singh, she creates a stability that is hard won in a country struggling with the realities of improper management. As I snuggle into bed, I keep both of their stories in my mind and wonder about how to rewrite my own.

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CHAPTER 9 A Daughter Comes Home . . . to Self

Acting like an insider and feeling like an outsider, preserving our self-rejection as Black women at the same time as we’re getting over—we think. And political work will not save our souls, no matter how correct and necessary that work is. Yet it is true that without political work we cannot hope to survive long enough to effect change. And self-empowerment is the most deeply political work there is, and the most difficult. —Audre Lorde1

…  …  …  … 22 September 1996 10:00 A.M. “Come in,” Andaiye says as she motions me into her home. I walk across the threshold into the front parlor, carefully depositing my umbrella and wet shoes at the door. Inside it is comfortably cool and dim. 231

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“Thank you for agreeing to the interview.” I say to her as I stand a few feet from the front door. “It is not a problem, though I do not know what I could offer as it relates to Red Thread. Karen de Souza is the one who is most active in the present moment.” “Yes, I have really gotten a sense of that both in my conversations with the community women and in my talking with Karen earlier this week. But Karen and several of the resource women describe you as the intellectual founder of Red Thread. And so I particularly wanted to talk with you about the beginnings of the organization.” I pause for a moment then add: “I’m also interested in your life history, growing up in Guyana and so on.” “Mmmh,” she responds in a tone that seems affirmative as she turns and walks away. Although Andaiye’s perspective about the beginnings of Red Thread would be invaluable, I was actually more interested in the story of her life. As I follow her fully into the front parlor, I think about the essay I’d read about her in Guyana Review2 magazine and how something about her story just “clicked” for me. The author’s brief references to Andaiye’s personal struggles with racism, cancer, low-self esteem serve as a backdrop for the primary focus on her public political work. But I wanted to know more of that personal journey, how she worked through the process of becoming a feminist, antiracist activist. As she sits in the wooden chair/lounger I had come to associate with Guyana, Andaiye swings her bare feet onto the long leg rests and reclines back. The fluidity of her movements is accentuated by loose-fitting black pants and a long, rust-colored tunic. I sit on the low sofa just opposite the chair and put my bag next to me. By comparison, my blue jeans and t-shirt feel stiff and constricting—metaphoric of my feeling bound by the conventions of the interview process. I would much rather just talk to Andaiye woman to woman or, as I really feel, girl to woman. But instead I ask: “I would like to record our conversation. Is this o.k.?” “Fine.” I set up the recording equipment while I say: “Andaiye, I’d like to start by asking you some questions about your early memories of growing up in Guyana. What it was like here.” “I don’t have all day. You understand?” “Yes, yes. I know you have other things to do.” I nod my head and then continue: “You were born in Georgetown?”

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“Georgetown Hospital.” “And where did you go to school?” “I went to school first at St. Sidwell’s Primary School. And that’s in South Georgetown. When I was small I lived with my aunt and uncle, and they lived close to the school.” “Oh. Why did you live with your aunt and uncle?” “Well, it was fairly typical of the days, that people would have children and then go to study. And when I was born, both of my parents were nurses. And then my father went to study medicine, and my mother went to work as a nurse.” “Where did they go?” “They went to England. And my aunt was the kind of person who everybody left their children with. So there were a number of us who were raised together. And a lot of the time my grandmother lived there. So I’m a funny kind of only child. I’m an only child who only became an only child when my parents came back.” “Are you still close with your cousins?” Andaiye pauses and shifts in the chair. She pulls on one of the long dreadlocks framing her face, flips it back, and secures it into a makeshift knot before saying: “That’s a difficult question to answer. Because whenever we encounter each other, not just those from that household, but all my grandmother’s grandchildren, I think we comment on how disappointed my grandmother would be at the relative distance between us.” “Distance? Like physical distance, or something else?” I ask. “The distance is partly a function of what has happened to all of Guyana—migration and so on. I mean, I don’t have too many cousins who live in Guyana. So we don’t even see each other. But . . .” I nod my head and lean a bit forward in my seat. Andaiye continues: “The only other thing I was going to say is that.” She pauses again, and then adds: “This is pure speculation. But I think that some of the distance was caused by the difference in how our lives went. And that’s partly about politics.” “How so?” “I know in relation to some of my cousins that I felt distant from them because of their political choice and they from me because of mine. Although this is changing some as we are now getting older because we spend more time together. But there was a good 10 years when we did not see or speak much.”

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I recognized a bit of what Andaiye was saying, because I’d also felt this distance within my family. My parents left the small town in Alabama where they were born and raised to move to California in search of a better way of life and away from the intense racism of the 1950s American South. That movement also precipitated a severing of connection and common experience that is felt most strongly by me in the first generation born and raised in another place. While I have some good, but sketchy, memories of summers spent as a child running around with my cousins on the red clay roads, attending late evening church revivals, and eating butterbeans cooked by my paternal grandmother, the painfulness of all that separates us was felt when we recently reconvened as adults at our grandmother’s funeral. As I watched my father grieve the passing of his mother, I grieved what her death meant: the link that tenuously held us together was now gone. I wondered if distance also kept Andaiye separate from her family. I ask: “And where do your cousins live?” “Oh god,” Andaiye moans and leans her head back. “Probably North America would be the most. Um, yes, the United States actually is where most of them are. One is in Italy. I think one is in Toronto. The Caribbean.” Suddenly I find myself a bit confused. Andaiye referred to herself as an only child, but in the magazine essay there was reference to a brother. So I ask Andaiye: “But don’t you have a brother?” “I have a brother. But my brother is my cousin.” “Oh, I see. I didn’t realize.” “My brother is by blood my first cousin; the son of my mother’s brother. It’s a very peculiar relationship, because we have always referred to him as my brother, he and I. But I don’t think my parents referred to him as their son.” “Oh?” “They never adopted him, but he lived with us from when he was 4. And he and I have lived together so much; apart from growing up together as children.” “You lived together as adults, too?” “When I went to live in the States, which was about 1972, he came about a year later. And we lived together there for about six years. And then I came back to Guyana in 1978 and he came a year later, and we lived together here, too. So he is literally my brother. It’s very weird for outsiders to understand.”

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“Does everyone in your family refer to him as your brother?” Andaiye nods her head affirmatively, “His blood sister, who is my cousin, called me the other day—he had an accident. So my cousin calls me and says to me: ‘Your brother had an accident.’ But the brother she is referring to is her blood brother.” I say at the same time: “Her brother.” “Right, right, right. That seems all normal to us.” “Is he o.k.? Your brother . . . after the accident?” “He’s o.k. He burnt his hand very badly. He burnt his hand down to the tendons. He’ll be alright. He’s lucky that he did it in the States rather than here.” I nod and think that many of the community women have told me stories of their struggles to get decent medical care for themselves and their children. I suppose that this problem cuts across class lines. I say to Andaiye: “You know almost everyone I’ve talked to has expressed in varying ways just complete frustration and stress about life in Guyana. This has nothing to do . . . well maybe it has everything to do with your life story. But . . .” “Well it would depend on where are the people you’ve talked to. I mean I hear that people in Georgetown are more stressed out than anywhere else. There are reasons for that: it’s the state of the electricity, and it’s the state of the Georgetown City Council. I mean those two together make life clearly intolerable. I think there would be a difference of perception based on race and party.” I’m nodding my head as Andaiye talks. “Yes, yes. When I asked the mother in my host family if she tires of the continuous, unscheduled black-outs, she said to me that it is better now than when Burnham was in power.” “Right, yes. It seems that if you’re pro the party in power, you will think differently. That first of all I think there’s a greater tendency to say, ‘O.k. These are the things that are improved, that two bridges have been built. And, you know, a school has been put up and so on.’ I think if you are not with the party in power, there’s a greater tendency to say, ‘You know, who cares about the bridge, my life hasn’t changed.’” “Right. Right,” I say still nodding my head. “And, in a curious way, I think both things are true. That the reality really should encompass both. Some things have been built. Some things have been repaired. But I think that in ways nobody wants to admit the IMF-World Bank thing is so destructive at a very

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fundamental level, that it’s possible to have bridges and schools built and a hospital opened and still have people talking the truth when they say that something has gone wrong with their lives. Right? There’s no necessary contradiction in that. Because the fact is that people’s lives, the quality of people’s lives is, I think to harsh degree, deteriorating. Even as these physical improvements in some parts of the country take place.” I nod my head up and down and think of Linden. The new very modern, very beautiful school building I saw contrasted sharply with the stories the women told me about their lives, particularly the struggle to find steady work as the mines have shut down. So the almost idyllic scene of the new school and the school children in their uniforms exists simultaneously with the realities of early child deaths in the local hospital and massive out-migration of men to find work in other places. “Andaiye, we’ve gotten a bit off track, and I want to return to your life story. O.k.? Andaiye nods her head and motions for me to continue. So I ask: “You lived with your aunt and uncle until what age?” “I think I was about 8 or 9. And then my parents came back, and after a while I went to live with them. I found it fairly mind blowin’ to move from a household which always had a minimum of eight or nine people and sometime more, to a household with three, you know. My brother hadn’t come yet.” “In what ways was it different?” “It’s strange to move from a household which is extremely traditional. My aunt’s house was very traditional. Her rules were perlucidly clear—as Mr. Burnham would say.” We laugh together, and then she continues: “You knew exactly what you were going to get in trouble for. Right? Even the moment in which you were going to get in trouble. You knew what time you had to go to bed. You knew what time you had to get up. You knew what time you had to make your bed. You knew in what order we went to the toilet.” I am giggling at the imagery painted by Andaiye’s memories. “And then here come these two. My parents were kind of modernish and apparently had read this stuff about raising children. I didn’t know what was going on. I mean when you woke up in the morning, they might be asleep. When you came home at mid-day, they would be out. You didn’t know what a rule was, what

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a regulation was. So it’s very interesting, because people always describe being an only child as being spoiled. I actually felt the opposite of spoiled. I felt extremely confused.” At this point the phone rings, and Andaiye’s mother calls out to her from upstairs. I remember then that Andaiye lives with her elderly mother. As they talk to each other, I think about how most people do automatically assume that only children are spoiled and indulged. And, like Andaiye, my experience of being an only child was really not that. While I did have lots of material comforts that some of my friends and extended family didn’t, I was always very aware that they were earned and that one had to do the work to reap the benefits. The work was about following the rules as they had been laid out, since veering from them was often met with corporal consequences. As Audre Lorde writes: Yet when I was a child whatever my mother thought would mean survival made her try to beat me whiter every day and even now the color of her bleached ambition still forks throughout my words but I survived and I didn’t survive.3

This is what I think really explains the story my mother loves to tell (and the hidden one she may not know) about my bald spot in kindergarten. The pressure to achieve within the rules, to be a “good girl,” was already manifest. Obedience, rather than whiteness or assimilation, seemed the explicit goal, and transgressions small or large were actively discouraged.4 For me, the confusion of childhood and adulthood has been about this tug of war between being the “good girl” and developing a truer self. I am still in battle. Finally Andaiye turns her attention back to me, and I sit wondering where we left off. I look through my notes and decide to ask: “So tell me more about this confusion you felt.” “Well, before Abyssinian came, the next confusion was that I was in secondary school for about two years when my father decided to go and study again, to go and specialize. And I think their minds were blown by how alienated I was.” “You mean when they came back from England the first time?” “Yeah, yeah. So they decided to take me with them this time. So that was the next confusion.”

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“How so?” “I went to Scotland with my parents. Another very strange experience. They didn’t have any black people there. Well, they had two other black children in the whole school, and they were like mixed and very light. So I was the spectacle of the school, of the street, of the whatever. You know that old time thing where people came and touched you on the street . . .” I start talking at the same time as Andaiye, “Right, touch your hair and . . .” Andaiye nods and continues: “I really hated it. I had two best friends, Isobel and Yvonne. But I wasn’t stupid. There was a school gang with Isobel and Yvonne, and I was inducted in the gang virtually on day two. And that was the other side of the coin of those who ignored.” “Right.” “In other words,” Andaiye explains, “because you were this exotic there were either those who embraced you very quickly or those who didn’t embrace you at all.” “Yes, yes.” “I never did particularly well in school when I was in primary school here in Guyana. But in Scotland they put me in a class and then they had to promote me and then they had to promote me again. And so this was another big stink. You know here she is black and she brighter than you children.” Andaiye pauses and then continues: “And I remember the worst day of my then life. There was this big thing. I don’t know if it was speech day, something like that. And the headmaster invited the assembled parents to applaud this little child from British Honduras. He was so contemptuous that he don’t even remember! You know it’s they who colonize you, and they don’t even know the difference of where you come from. British Honduras,5 British Guiana . . . they all the same thing. ” She goes on: “And I was dressed up in all these frills and ringlets and so. And, of course, nobody would dance with me,” Andaiye pauses as if for dramatic effect, “except the Headmaster and the teachers. So it was a fairly devastating thing if you’re, what, perhaps I was about 11 years old.” I am shaking my head back and forth imaging what it must have felt like for her to be misnamed. I recognize the schoolmaster’s slip as part and parcel of the colonial enterprise that rendered Andaiye and her homeland both hypervisible and invisible.

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Andaiye goes on to tell me that they stayed in Scotland for a year and a half, returning to Guyana when she was 12 years old. It was then that her “brother” Abyssinian came to live with them. I ask: “He was how old?” “Four. He was little and cute and so on.” We both laugh together as the phone rings. The phone has been ringing pretty consistently since I arrived, reminding me that Andaiye’s time with me is short. I want to keep the momentum going. “So after coming back to Guyana from Scotland, what else happened?” “Oh well, I went back into school.” “What school were you at?” “Bishops,” she says, adding, “Bishop’s High School for Girls. And those of us who went there thought we were the cat’s pajamas.” “Was there anything that sticks out for you while you were there?” “I really kick myself all over for my whole school thing. I mean,” Andaiye pauses and then sighs deeply before continuing. “I had an adolescence that from the outside seemed to people good. You know? My father was a doctor and that meant something in those days. There weren’t a lot. And that meant you were relatively well off. And, you know, I had a lot of clothes. And I had a lot of friends.” Andaiye is looking at me very intently. I sense that we are getting to the story that I’d read in the Guyana Review magazine, the story about her struggle. I lean forward to try to catch every word she’s saying. “There was this . . . I can’t remember what it was called, something like ‘Popular Teens’ thing with your picture in the newspaper on Sunday, and me and my two best friends were the first ones ever. You know? And I used to dance, and I used to model . . .” Andaiye says something in a low voice that I can’t hear, but then just as I am about to ask for clarification she completes the thought. She says: “I also made two or three or four efforts at suicide.” I jump back against the sofa, surprised at this revelation, and murmur “Mmmh.” Andaiye goes on recounting the incongruity of this time in her life. She says: “So it was a very strange adolescence, because I didn’t really feel very happy. And I really messed up school. By the time I came to the end of school, like I was runner-up for the Guyana Scholarship, but I can’t even feel satisfied with that. Because I didn’t do anything. I mean, the only thing that stopped me from feeling really bad was that the person who got it didn’t do much more than me.”

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Laughing out loud and leaning back against the seat, Andaiye says: “In fact, she was a friend of mine. And when she got it she said, ‘Oh my God, I feel so bad. Sandra, as I was called then, should have gotten it.’ And I said, ‘Why? Frankly, neither of us deserved it.’ And we agreed on this fact.” “What was the scholarship based on?” “It’s based on the ‘A’-Level exams. In our days, there was one for girls and for boys. And so among the girls in the country my friend came first and I came second.” “So why did you feel you didn’t deserve it?” I ask a bit confused. “I’m saying that I felt bad because it always feels bad . . . I mean you know I don’t mind coming last in anything. But to come second is a horrible place to come. Especially if you will never know whether you could have come first. But, as I said, what saved me was the thought that neither she nor I deserved it for one second. We were both in love, and we spent, I would say, from about six in the afternoon ‘till ten in the evening chatting about these boys. These calls were supposed to be about work, ‘cause we were doing the same subjects. About a month before the exam it was a desperate frenzy. And I was just like that at University.” It occurs to me that Andaiye’s perception of her behavior and her feelings of whether she deserved her placements on these exams is connected to my own struggles with the ideas of what makes a “good girl” and the deep feelings of being a fraud. Working toward “good girl” status seems to imply that once it is achieved there will be contentment and wholeness, rather than the anxiety of self I hear in Andaiye’s story and experience in my own life. Instead of probing this thought further, I ask a more mundane question: “Where did you go to college?” “Jamaica.” “You went to the University of the West Indies in Jamaica?” “UWI. Right.” Andaiye smiles and shakes her head from side to side. “A real ass boy. I mean, nuff clothes, nuff dress-up from early morning. I was about 18, I think. And women from Guyana were like the youngest, if not in age, then in clothes and in style and so on. This did not please us, right. So a good handful of us dedicated the first few months to, you know, updating . . .” “Updating your look,” I chime in. “Yeah. Learning how to put on gold eye shadow at 8 o’clock in the morning. You know the latest hairstyle. I mean real dumb. You know

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saying things to each other like ‘Excuse me, are they going to class? Is that what they think you come to University for?’ That kind of bull.” “You were having fun.” “I don’t know that I was having that much fun. But this was my mission. And so, it was a little gang from Guyana, some from Jamaica, from all over. We thought we were the hottest thing out. We went to all the parties, and it was very important to us that the male stars on campus were checking us out. Now the male stars on the campus somehow manage to do this nonsense and do their work. But we didn’t manage to put all these things together. And then you know exam time would come, and we would all get very frenzied.” “So what were you officially studying?” I ask. “Languages. I did French honors, Spanish subset. And got another second on it. You know? Fairly typical of my life, you know, upper-second, second.” I nod my head. Again there is a disjuncture in perception that I suspect may be gendered. Andaiye’s assumption that the male stars on campus weren’t also engaging in the kind of behavior she describes, including the scrambling to study for tests, leads me to believe that there were certain cultural expectations for middle-class, Afro-Caribbean women that did not include focusing on looks, clothes, make-up, and other seemingly trivial pursuits. I would expect that this would be especially felt for Andaiye as she looks back on those times, given her work as an adult in oppositional politics and with women in Red Thread.6 Having access to education beyond the primary levels, in a society in which this is not widely available, must bring with it a certain level of expectation to remain focused, to excel, and, ultimately, to serve and uplift: to whom much is given, much is expected.7 I certainly felt this pressure in my own life. And so I wondered how she coped. “You said that when you were in secondary school you attempted suicide several times,” I say. “Did you try again while you were in college? Or did that stop?” “I never tried while I was in college. I tried after. I think I must have been in my early 30s before.” Andaiye pauses to laugh ruefully and then resumes: “before life began to make sense to me. I really found the world a very confusing place in all kinds of ways. So I was busy engaging in what I described in the article as willed frivolity. Right? Where I was feeling just very confused about race, about sexuality, about everything, everything. Right? And having nowhere

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to go with this ‘cause everybody thought you were doing so great. I mean the few times I have said to people from my generation how bad I felt, they say, ‘You are lying.’ Well it’s not important for me to convince them. It’s just an indication of how good the show was.” “So what happened in your mid-30s to settle things down?” I ask, drawn into her story and looking for clues within it to help me reconcile the experience of feeling bad on the inside while looking good on the outside. Andaiye sighs deeply and says: “Actually, I had a breakdown. That was it. I didn’t want to realize it until this minute.” “So having the breakdown ended the period of willed frivolity?” “Well, I think what I said in the article was willed frivolity and angst. And I mention that only to say that the angst was always not only personal. It was partly personal, but it wasn’t only personal. So that means that from the very beginning there was always something there in relation to various issues outside oneself or connected to oneself, but larger than oneself.” “How so?” “Well, let me back up a bit. When I was at college I didn’t want to be around political people. I mean political people my age. I always checked out politics. But you know how people develop notions of who is a nerd and who is not a nerd?” I nod my head affirmatively. “Well, those notions always existed. So I didn’t want to be around who me and my friends thought of as nerds. But the nerds probably had more understanding of the world than me and my friend did. I would say that.” Andaiye pauses and then continues: “When I came back to Guyana from France, I probably was about 22 or 23, somewhere in my middle 20s I would say. I began to work with people in things like New World and RATOON.” “What kinds of organizations were these?” “New World was a regional thing that united people very politically active in various ways throughout the region. New World used to put out magazines. It was partly university based. The person who headed it was a man called Lloyd Best,8 who is from Trinidad. In Guyana, it would have a spectrum of people: Rashley Jackson,9 David DeCaires,10 Miles Fitzpatrick.11 So it’s a spectrum of people. And the only thing that unites these people has something to do with a broad nationalism, a kind of broad West Indian nationalism. RATOON12 must have meant a bigger focus on Guyana. It was university-based,

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and it was more left than New World. And so by the time I get to the next organization, which is Movement Against Oppression, it is getting more focused. MAO was a coming together of what we’ll call university types and people from Tiger Bay. It started in direct response to an incident of police brutality, but it definitely was trying to create not just a practical coming together of university and community, but something to do with a political coming together.” “And how did you get involved in these organizations and movements?” “So when I look back,” Andaiye begins, “although one’s institutional joining is often sometimes accidental, to some extent my institutional participation corresponds to the impetus of the thing that is fueling my concern. Right?” “Which is?” “So I would say that the thing that was fueling my concern in the beginning had something to do with this place called the Caribbean. I think that’s the first thing I felt concretely attached to. What would become of this place called the Caribbean? Given all of the things you know about its strengths and its weaknesses, what would be development in the Caribbean?” “Well it sounds like you found your place within this kind of political activity. But this was still while you were in your 20s, and you said that the world didn’t begin to make sense to you until your mid-30s after you’d had a breakdown. What happened?” “O.k. I’d been fired from my job here. I was an acting head teacher, a young acting head teacher at about age 28. And they accepted my resignation, but I never gave any resignation. It was about politics. Right? By then I was politically very active and doing much better at being disapproved of. I mean I, like, lived with a guy, an English guy. I wasn’t married. And everybody thought it was a disgrace and so on.” “Why were you forced to resign?” “At the end of my first year as the acting Head of a new secondary school in Georgetown, I was accused by the Minister of Education of something I had done. And it seemed to me a perfectly normal thing for me to do. Normal because I had always been like that in the time that the Minister knew me and appointed me. She’d never had a conversation with me about what should be my political activism or not.” “So what had you done?”

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“Um,” Andaiye sighs and smiles slightly, “she said that we put out a leaflet caricaturing the Prime Minister, who was then Burnham. Now, I vaguely remember this leaflet; it’s really very vague in my mind. But there was some occasion which called for a statement, which MAO did in the form of this kind of probably four-page kind of thing. And I mean the technology was so weak then, we probably had an old typewriter which wasn’t working. So the reason that she knew it was me was not just style of writing, it was that we ended up writing this in our handwriting and then copying it. So she actually pointed to places and said, ‘Bryan wrote that. You wrote that. Omawale wrote that.’ And I’m laughing because it’s true. It’s true.” Andaiye is laughing now at the memory of the situation. “Because none of us, no one of us wrote that. Because we were doing it at the last minute.” “How did you respond to the Minister’s accusation?” “All I said to the Minister was, ‘No it didn’t have a caricature of the Prime Minister. It had a drawing of the Prime Minister and a description of the Prime Minister, but it didn’t have a caricature. But yes, I did do it. Why?’ And that was it. She accepted my non-existent resignation.” “Oh, wow!” “But I was cool. Right? I no longer felt any necessity to conform, you know, from that kind of point of view. After my resignation was accepted, my first impulse was to stay and fight. But then, unfortunately, I got ill and had a hysterectomy.” “Oh!” I say while thinking this is injury on top of injury. Andaiye continues: “And nobody had enough in those days . . . I mean I was only 28, that’s very early to have a hysterectomy. That’s very difficult to take. And nobody had enough sense to work out that I needed counseling and stuff like that. Right?” “So is this what prompted the breakdown?” “No, not directly. What immediately happened is that somebody said to me, ‘Why don’t you come up to the States for three months?’ You know, to recover and such. So I went for three months and I stayed for six years.” “Mmmm!” “Well, I kind of straightened out my papers when I got in trouble. I got a job first, and then I got in trouble.” “In trouble?” “They summoned me to show cause why I shouldn’t be deported. I managed to show cause, and they straightened my papers out. So

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eventually I was there legally. But somewhere in the second year of that, when I must have been about 30 or 31, I don’t know what. The immediate thing that happened had, inevitably, to do with a man. But it was all the accumulation of whatever and so on. And I just blew. And me being a dramatist, I didn’t just break, I looked in the phone book and called this place and I told them that I thought I was mad.” Andaiye laughs at the thought of this and continues: “I had called a hospital, and they told me to come in. So I went and I booked myself. Now, most people don’t book themselves into psychiatric hospitals, but I did. And it was ab-so-lute-ly horrible.” “Really?” I respond, not really knowing what to say. “Well it was horrible, because those places are horrible. But I was very lucky. I was there for a while, and then I summoned something within me and then I came out. But I couldn’t make it when I came out. Part of the problem is by then you are put on drugs, and you can’t deal. I mean it’s just horrible. So I went back in.” “And how long were you there?” “I don’t remember,” Andaiye responds abruptly and then continues: “I had a little gang of friends who were the ones who weren’t totally mad. So we used to play cards all day. I’m trying to write a story about it, because the conversations would be so weird. Anyway, we would get up every morning and be, you know, Pavlov’s dog. ‘Cause you had to get up when the bell rang. And then you had to go and eat when the bell rang, and so on. And you went to your doctor, you didn’t go to your doctor. You had the counseling session, or you didn’t. Anyway, so we played cards—whatever is the game in which . . . it’s not bridge, it’s a lower form of bridge in which you bid?” “Oh, bid whist?” I ask thinking of the game that my parents and their friends would play during the parties they had when I was a young child. “Whatever the hell it’s called, whist or something,” Andaiye responds. “It was weird. Anyway, my mother came up at some stage. It was all so strange. And that same man that I was so madly in love with came to see me. And everybody came as much to say, as they’d been saying since I was a child, you know, ‘How could you do this horrible thing? There’s nothing wrong with you. You have this perfect life and so on.’ Right? I preferred my friends in the place because at least they didn’t ask me such stupid things.”

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At this moment there is a loud pounding noise outside on the street. I am distracted by it and wonder if the sound quality of the recording will be impaired. But Andaiye continues, undisturbed. “Then there was a crisis one day. There were two crises very close to each other. The first was that Kate got away. When we looked for her to play cards she wasn’t there. And we realized that she wasn’t on the floor. We weren’t allowed off the floor except if you had reached some stage where . . .” “They could trust you,” I interject. “Yes. And Kate certainly wasn’t there. So, I got away. And I ran on the road to look for her. But I got really scared, because I hadn’t been out for weeks. And everything looked so bad: sun looked too bright, and the people looked too plenty. And I saw some of the nurses from the hospital, and they said, ‘What could you be doing on the street?’ And I told them that Kate had gotten away. They reassured me as if I were a child and then took me back to the hospital.” “So what happened to Kate?” “She killed herself,” Andaiye says in a very matter-of-fact manner. “She was just around the corner, and she’d jumped off the roof. And that was a huge crisis for the entire card-playing contingent.” “Did the hospital people tell you she had killed herself?” “We knew. We kind of went in the corner and said to each other, ‘She dead, you know.’ Because we may have had breakdowns, but we weren’t mad.” “Right,” I say as I nod my head affirmatively while also frowning. What are the distinctions she’s making? “I mean I don’t mean ‘mad’ dismissively. What I mean is they think that mad people don’t know anything. Who there could be so stupid that people come and play music and dance with you and you don’t realize something very drastic has happened. So we kind of knew. And yet, you didn’t want to know. By the time we woke up the next morning we had heard something that perhaps she hurt herself, that sort of thing. Then they pull out this meeting, and they announced it. And all hell broke loose. I mean people just went berserk.” Andaiye pauses and I sit in anticipation, waiting for the story to unfold further. But I am intrigued by this parceling out of madness.13 There’s a level of consciousness that Andaiye draws as a sort of dividing line. On the one side are the “truly mad,” but who is on the other? Who is on the side that she claims for herself? In those long nights of nightmares and insomnia, which side am I on?

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Andaiye continues: “And then, I may be putting these together and they don’t fit. But I think it was shortly after Kate’s death that it was my birthday. And all my friends from outside the hospital, who didn’t know what to do with the fact that I was in there, sent flowers. And that made the blasted place look like it was in a funeral parlor. I went crazy. So, what was the luck?” I am nodding my head wanting to hear the “luck” but also making note of her self-description of “crazy.” “The luck was that there was a man there called Clive. And he was studying to be a psychiatric nurse while he worked as a guard there. He called me over one day and he asked, ‘What did I think was wrong with me?’ And I said, ‘I don’t know.’ And he said he’d looked in my file and that it said I was suffering from schizophrenia unspecified. So I said, ‘What does that mean?’ And he said, ‘It means nothing. That’s what they write in all of the files when somebody is depressed. That’s what’s wrong with you. You’re depressed.’ So I said, ‘Oh?’ He said, ‘But if you stay in this hospital you will have schizophrenia, very specified. So I want you to go home.’ And I told him I wasn’t ready for that. And he said that he would visit with me every year until I told him to stop. That’s what he did.” “He had seen something in you, knew you shouldn’t have been in there.” “Right. I’m a lucky person,” she says. I nod my head in agreement and remember my own “luck” as a sophomore in college. I’d spent months trying to adjust to my new environment after transferring from a large, public university on the east coast to an equally large, private university on the west coast. The schools couldn’t have been more different: the east coast university was very diverse with students from various race and class backgrounds; the west coast university had a greater percentage of upper-middle-class students and far less racial diversity. Although I lived in the dorms at the east coast school, money was too tight for me to do so at the west coast university, where I was surviving on student loans, work-study, and my parents’ support. So I lived in my parents’ home and commuted up to two hours each day; it felt literally like going from one world to another. After one particularly grueling day standing in line for hours at the financial aid office and then having a heated disagreement with the woman there, I rushed to the building where I was supposed to meet with a professor. When I reached the hallway, I began to feel unable to breathe and to shake almost uncontrollably. Panic and rage welled

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up within me, and before too long I was screaming and throwing my books, backpack, purse and anything else on my person across the hall. The professor whom I was scheduled to see rushed out of his office and, quickly assessing the situation, ushered me back into it. He sat me down in a chair, put a tissue box on the table next to me, and left the room. The room was dim. A small lamp on his desk cast a warm, comforting glow. I sat in his chair trying to regulate my breathing, to stop the crying. I realized that I was ready to quit school and retreat. But retreat to what? My parents, especially my mother, expected me to do well. Indeed, I expected to do well. If I expect enough from myself, then maybe I can become different from what they say we are, different from you [black women]. [. . .] I will become strong, the best, excel in everything, become the very best because I don’t dare to be anything else. It is my only chance to become good enough, to become human.14

Eventually, Professor M. knocked quietly on the door and hearing my response came back into his office, carrying my books, backpack, and purse. He sat them down on the twin chair next to the one I was sitting in and said: “You left these outside.” I started to laugh both at the inanity of the statement and my growing embarrassment. “Thank you,” I finally managed to say. “I’m not sure what’s wrong with me.” “You’re overwhelmed,” he said as he sits in his desk chair. “Yes, I guess so.” “College can be a very stressful time. You’re in this liminal status, learning to deal with the world as a grown-up while simultaneously still feeling quite childlike.” I nod my head silently while thinking, “Yes, this is what it is; at least partially. But there’s more that I can’t quite name.” It would be another year before I take a women’s studies course and read bell hooks’s Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism and begin my journey with the critical black feminist thought that would eventually inform my research venture into Guyana. And it would be another year after that, as I claim a minor in Women’s Studies, that I leave a psychically and physically violent “love” relationship. On this day, however, Professor M. offered me a hand. He told me that I could come to him anytime I needed, that his door was always open. As I wrench myself away from my own thoughts, Andaiye is also recalling how Clive offered her a place of sanctuary.

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She says: “So that when I was at home and if I got scared or whatever, I always knew that he would be there at some point. And then after a few weeks, I just sort of, as my grandmother would say, planned to deal.” I laugh at this phrase. Andaiye laughs, too, and then says: “My grandmother had that kind of personality in those days. She would tell me, you know, basically to stop dragging around looking like that. But the interesting thing behind that is that her husband committed suicide when he was in his early 30s. So she wasn’t being cruel. I think it was very useful, because she would come to my rescue. She still comes to my rescue. I hear her voice saying things. I hear her voice tell me: ‘Excuse me, you playing the ass now, you know.’” Andaiye is laughing freely now. “She would say, ‘Either go jump off a roof or get up.’ So I got up.” I try again asking Andaiye “How long were you in the hospital?” She sighs and then says: “I don’t remember. There are some things that you put out of your mind. I don’t think it could have been more than two months between the two trips. But I can’t say. I know it was all over in a kind of summer . . . a period of the summer vacation.” It’s clear that the length of time spent in the hospital is not the key but rather that it had such a profound emotional impact on Andaiye’s life, such that it warrants thinking and rethinking—not unlike my own relatively brief time living and working in Guyana. I am curious, then, about what she did after her stay there. How did she reconcile the fissures that drew her to voluntarily check into the hospital in the first place? I ask: “What happened after you left the psychiatric hospital? Did you then return to Guyana?” “Then I became more politically active in a more general way. I mean it almost became a joke.” Andaiye laughs and then goes on: “The sight of us who knew each other from Saturday morning demonstrations. We demonstrated every Saturday morning. Where we began? I think it was Vietnam and Civil Rights, but eventually it became South Africa, it became Nicaragua, it became Salvador. We just marched, or sat-in, or whatever. And then I used to teach in this wonderful program, well, not wonderful. The program was not wonderful, but the people were. Something called the SEEK15 Program. It was part of the City University of New York. And we had a kind of elected board which I was on. And everybody in the SEEK Program would be either black, Hispanic, or real poor white. So we were always in these fights with the administration. And so we were

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always protesting that, when we weren’t protesting South Africa, Nicaragua . . .” Andaiye runs these together and then her voice trails off while she’s laughing. “But,” she continues in a more serious tone, “it was very clear to me why we had to go out there on Saturday mornings, or take over buildings at the administration, or protest in the streets for each of those things; because each of things was connected. And that’s why the same pack was there. I don’t talk about no 10 or 20 people. I mean we would be out there in, at least, the hundreds and sometimes thousands.” “And then what? Why did you leave? Why’d you come back to Guyana?” I ask thinking that she had found a community among the protestors and leftist activists in New York. The support network she had with this group seemed to give her something to hold onto, something that gave her life meaning and purpose.16 Organizing can serve as a way to effect change in the society, but it also can effect change within the individual. “Rupert Roopnaraine, whom I hadn’t seen since we were 18, came to New York when I was 37. He got my number from somewhere and called. He was there, I can’t remember for how long. But I remember he had a loft. So I started limin17 at the loft. I mean I was glad to hear from him and the other people that he was around—all of whom were old friends that I really hadn’t seen in so long. And that turned into a really pleasant lime. One of the men there, Clairmont Moore, is one of the world’s most superb cooks. So every night we had something magnificent, you know. A meal accompanied by a few bottles of cheap wine. ‘Cause nobody had any money. I had stopped working by then ‘cause I was trying to write. And then somewhere in that process Rupert told me that he was doing his film, his film on Guyana.” “His film The Terror and the Time?” I ask. Nigel and I had discussed this film, which explores the period of British colonialism and imperialism prior to Guyana’s independence and lays the foundation for a discussion of the situation of neocolonialism within which the country has been locked since independence. “Yes. And in the course of working on that film he had reencountered Walter Rodney, who would have been in his form at school. Walter, Rupert, and I had the same age . . . about 10 months apart. So he had come here minding his own business to do this film intending to go back to live wherever. And Walter had said to him,

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‘Nonsense, that it was time he came back home.’ And I said to Rupert, ‘So?’ And Rupert said, ‘So, I am saying to you: Nonsense it’s time to come back home.’ I thought about it for a while, and I said o.k. I used to send money to the Working People’s Alliance, and I had seen Walter a few times he had come up to New York. So I always liked the work he was doing. So basically Walter told Rupert come and then Rupert came and told me that Walter said I must come home.” “So you left the life you were building in New York to return home. Were you excited?” Shaking her head back and forth, Andaiye’s long dreadlocks are dislodged from their makeshift knot. As she reaches up to resecure them she says: “I was quite terrified of the thought. But I went and I packed. I never owned anything much. But I owned books that were very precious to me, and records. So I packed my books and my records, and I posted them. So I would have to follow them. So I came in, I think it was December 1977 ‘cause my first WPA meeting was January 1978.” “When you got back to Guyana, had the WPA become a party already? Did you join it immediately?” “No. Rupert and I had decided that we were not going to join the WPA, that there were some other things we were going to do in Guyana. He was going to make his film, and I was going to write. And we were going to put out a magazine of poetry. We actually put out Volume 1, Number 1. We were going to oppose the then government and we would support the WPA. But we were not going to join any party.” Andaiye stops for a moment and shifts in her seat. Continuing on, she says: “So, in those days the pre-party WPA used to meet once every two weeks. It was a very open meeting. But they had a kind of Executive Committee. And at the end of the meeting both of us, Rupert and I, got elected to the Executive Committee. And we looked at each other and said, ‘What just happened here?!’” “So you joined sort of by mistake or design or something.” “It wasn’t really a mistake. It was bound to happen sooner or later. It was fantasy of ours that we could get away without.” “So how did you live? How did you make a living?” “God knows. In my case, God knows, because I worked full-time in the WPA for several years. I didn’t have any time to do anything else. Other people worked for the University. People taught. And so on. I was actually WPA Coordinator from 1978 to 1982; both its

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Coordinator and its Editor. So, people gave me money. Karen and my brother and I shared a flat and tried hard not to pay rent, ah, and ate very badly. No question, ate very badly.” “Sounds quite intense.” “1978 and 1979 were fun. And there is no point pretending otherwise. I mean you would be walking around talking and depressed about whatever, and somebody would say, ‘They just pick up Karen!’” Andaiye claps her hands together and continues: “And that would invigorate you immediately, and so on. It’s always easier to live when you’re clear on what you’re doing. It’s these na-na periods in which you don’t know what to do that are depressing.” Again, Andaiye is making the link between sustained, public political action and the mental health and well-being of the activist. I wonder to myself if I can attribute my unease as a field researcher to a feeling of not being clear about what I’m doing—even with my expansive interview schedules and lists of hypotheses rendered from my reading of the theoretical social movement literatures in concert with the usually male-identified recorded histories of Guyana. Being in the field has led me to reflect more on myself and the process of the work. Andaiye continues, interrupting my internal dialogue: “But it became very disheartening with all the losses and the difficulties. You know three people were killed eventually, including Walter. And that was really hard. So I don’t think any of us could say that we enjoyed late 1981 and 1982. I think by the time we got to the Food Struggles of 1983 we were beginning to recoup. But I think for all of us 1981 was hard.” “I gather from my reading and talking with other Red Thread members that the Food Struggles were really a pivotal moment in terms of organizing women. Is that when you started organizing women?” “Yeah. Well we were organizing women against the shortages. Although I’d heard about the concept of unwaged work in the 1970s, I hadn’t taken it seriously. But I certainly did take seriously in 1983 what was happening in women’s lives here in Guyana. Even though I didn’t use the phrase unwaged work to describe it then. Because we hadn’t done the analysis that eventually came out of this region about the way in which these various economic policies that governments adopt, including finally structural adjustment, actually are predicated on an assumption that you can further exploit women’s labor. I mean we didn’t know to say that in words, but that’s what we were seeing.”

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“Right, right.” “We were seeing women, some of them for the first time, doing work for money because they needed money so desperately. And others doing two, three, four, five, six things for money, and, at the same time, having to do extra work just to find food, just to find water.” Right, the experiences of Joan, Nati, and Berta are evidence of Andaiye’s assertion: Joan having to do domestic work for three different employers in order to clothe, feed, and house her family. Also, too, Nati’s bucking the tradition of her Indo-Guyanese upbringing to put herself into the world of work outside of the home. And, Berta’s experience of being sent to become a live-in domestic worker at 9 years old; all their stories speak to this reality. “So, you all, the women of the WPA, came together to organize ways for women in the communities to earn money?” “I don’t even know if it was all of us, because Karen was very hostile. There’s nothing about me or Karen de Souza or any of us that you’ve met that if you gave us a first choice of what to do in life it would be an income-generating project. I mean it would be more disorderly than that. I don’t think we thought anything was wrong with income-generating projects, it’s just not what we wanted to do. But you can’t go to people and say, ‘What do you want?’ and get an answer and then say, ‘Excuse me, well we don’t do that.’ Right? So we did it. But what we said to them was that it didn’t make any sense to us except if it went along with things like education. And they said o.k. At the same time, we were coming to the view that we didn’t want to be no arm of no political party. And those things came together in what became Red Thread.” That Red Thread is an organization built on enacting reciprocity and generosity even when resources are minimal is significant. As I sit and listen to Andaiye and think about my coming to work with the women, I am concerned with the ways in which I have not lived up to those principles. What is my activist component?18 Is it enough, I wonder, to focus on telling their life stories? Maybe, I answer myself. The stories of these women and the contributions they have made to Guyanese society are important to document. But even more than that, I think that their stories can teach me and other women about this process of becoming our truer selves. I am particularly intrigued by the necessary back-and-forth nature of personal pain, self-discovery, public political action, clarity of vision, and confusion.

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These women’s stories teach us that there is no linearity to change, whether at the level of the individual, the family, the community, or the nation. But I try to stay true to my stated research goals to document the evolution of their collective political work. So I ask: “How did you meet the other founding women of Red Thread: Danuta Radzik, Vanda Radzik, Jocelyn Dow, Karen de Souza, Diana Matthews, and Bonita Harris? Were they all WPA?” “We all met in the WPA, although that’s not where we met for the first time. Bonita and I went to the same school. She’s four years younger than me, but Georgetown is small. I knew her. Jocelyn used to visit my house when she was a child and I was a young adult. She’s eight years younger than me. You have to ask her about this yourself, but my understanding of what they were coming about is that I used to share a flat with a friend named Monica. And we were the first, they said, the first two middle-class females to do anything so disgraceful as to leave your mother’s houses when you weren’t married. I mean, you know, it was as dreadful as that.” Andaiye laughs, and I join in with her recalling how Joan had struggled with a similar situation when her daughter left home without being married. It was clear that these traditional ideas about proper female behavior transgressed class lines.19 Andaiye continues: “So that there was a tendency for younger women, who themselves thought vaguely that something was wrong, to gravitate to checkin’ me and Monica out. And that’s how we met. Jocelyn’s family and my family have known each other, but I specifically met Jocelyn along with her two best friends in that way. When she was probably about 14 and I was 22, something like that. Diana Matthews I’d always known. I’ve known her so long I don’t even know where I know her from. The Radziks I met in the WPA, and Karen I met through them.” I am struck by the way in which Andaiye’s recounting of her coming to a certain political consciousness and activism is shaped by a deep relationality. Her engagement with various ideas of resistance is linked to relationships with people forged in the movement from one place to another, and then ultimately back to Guyana. There are many parallels with the other Red Thread resource women, especially Danuta and Vanda Radzik—their experiences of being in boarding schools outside the country for a good portion of their lives before purposefully making a return to Guyana as young adults burning

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with the fervor of nationalism in the late 1970s. The Radzik sisters’ connections to the movement are rooted in networks of friends and intimate others. How I would have loved to get them together in a room to record their memories of those times of immense hopefulness that they could and would make a change. Perhaps this is something that these women will do someday, although I suspect that their energies and commitments will remain focused on the continued struggle for change within Guyana and the region. But now I can see that Andaiye is winding down a bit. The interview has gone on for much longer than I expected she would allow. So I say: “Andaiye, I just have a couple more questions. Is that o.k.?” “Fine.” “O.k. At this point, do you remain an active participant in the WPA or not?” “At this point in time, I really am not a very active person in Guyana. I’ve done far more regional work in the last two and a half years than I have done work here. So I belong to a lot of things here, but I can’t say that they have received a great deal of my energy. And that is as true of the WPA as it is of Red Thread.” “Do you think that’s a function of having to work for money?” I ask thinking about her comment that much of her work with the WPA had been on a volunteer basis. “Yes. Yes. It is totally a function of that; because none of those things has anything to do with money. And I simply cannot go on anymore not earning money—and earning as much money as I can, because I mean I don’t have insurance. I don’t have savings. I don’t own anything except for this flat with my mother. You know?” I nod my head. “I’m 54 years old, my mother is 80 . . . hello, hello! One of my pills cost like $6,000 a month. I think I spend about 12 to 15,000 dollars a month on medication, which is about the salary people get for working here. You know? I will always have to have check-ups. I’ve had one chronic illness and I have another chronic illness. I mean these are just the facts.” Again I am reminded of the parallels between Andaiye’s life and those of the community women I’ve talked with during my journey. I think about the precariousness of existence in Guyana. Of course, Andaiye has resources that many of the community don’t have, particularly education and the ability, if not always the means, to

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travel and to find work in other places. But the lack of opportunities to do economically sustaining and meaningful work in the country of one’s birth is striking. I want to probe more into this dilemma, but Andaiye shifts again in her chair, and I realize that I need to wrap up the interview. “Now, one more question. When did you change your name? And why?” “I think it was in 1971.” Andaiye sits for a while pondering this. “I say ‘I think’ because it’s between ’71 and ’72. I think it was late ’71. Anyway, that’s a good question, because that was kind of like the culmination of something. I feel, and have for a long time, a very strong sense of being Afro, Afro something; although that for me has always been Afro-Guyanese. It’s not that I mind referring to myself as an African. I’m simply saying that I have always known that I am not an African in the way that I would be if I was born somewhere on the continent of Africa. I’m very much an African shaped by these Americas, and particularly by the West Indies.” “Yes, yes.” I say in a low, rushed voice. This is part of what I’d been mulling over during my time in Guyana; thinking about how I had been shaped by the North, by the other America. Being here, in Guyana, has been revelatory, because it has made me rethink myself. Unlike Andaiye, I first thought of myself as black. Racial identity took precedence over nation and even, to some extent, class. This primacy of race allowed me to make connections with others who understood themselves as raced within an American sociocultural framework. But it also allowed me to consider that my race, my blackness, would be the point of connection with the women of Red Thread. But living in this space and feeling myself as an American reorients my politics in ways that I am just beginning to grapple with. Like Andaiye, I am coming to a place where I want to embrace more fully my situatedness—as black, as American, as part of the class of the educated—and to use that as the critical stance from which my political work, my scholarship, my writing, and my daily life emanates. Andaiye leans her head back in the chair and closes her eyes. After a bit of time she looks at me again. She articulates some of what I’m thinking: “The change in name came out of an acknowledgment to myself that part of the willed frivolity and angst came from an acceptance of what other people thought about being black. That while I gather there’s a book that somebody has written about

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Bishops High School in which a person darker than me talks about me as I looked to her as her ideal of what you should look like; I certainly thought of myself as ugly—as who black does not. I mean it’s interesting to me that she thought I was an ideal, but I never looked at her because she was blacker than me. I looked at who was lighter than me, and I knew I was ugly. People apparently don’t believe these things because of whatever image they had of me. But I don’t know why people don’t know that virtually every black person walks around feeling all of these things. Whether it’s the nose, the mouth, the hair, the whatever.” I nod fervently. We are born into a society of entrenched loathing and contempt for whatever is Black and female. We are strong and enduring. We are also deeply scarred.20 “So a lot of the anxiety, therefore, to be popular, and to be in the gang, and to dress up pretty and so forth, came from entering into that competition on other people’s terms. And that is the meaning of Andaiye—She Was Returned Home. It is, you know, screw that. I don’t feel that any longer. And I don’t mean by that that you can ever completely get over that, but I reject the notion that I would live the rest of my life . . .” she pauses for a minute and then completes the thought “ . . . so defined by other people.” We sit in silence for a long moment. “Bazzzzziiiiiiiing.” My heart leaps, but Andaiye calmly undrapes her legs from the chair and motions me over to unhook the microphone. She stands and goes to another part of the house presumably to answer the phone. I hear muffled conversation as I pack up the recording equipment. Andaiye returns to the room. “We have finished?” “Yes.” “Good.” “Is there anything else you might want to add?” “No. I may think of 200 things when you send . . . when you type up the t’ing and send it back.” “I will. I plan on it.” I collect my belongings and leave. Andaiye’s story is both powerful and complicated. I feel such a connection with her rendering of her personal struggle. It seems to resonate in many ways with my experiences as an African American girl growing up and going to school in places far away from the community that I lived in. But her link to community and to country as defining elements of self

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are ideas with which I am grappling. Is the “home” that she refers to in her name change representative of the space of Guyana, her West Indian identity, or something else? Does she carry this sense of “home” with her wherever she finds her self? for the embattled there is no place that cannot be home nor is.21

CHAPTER 10 Leaving Guyana

19 October 1996 1:30 A.M. The early morning is dark and clear as we speed along the highway from Georgetown to Timehri Airport.1 The small taxi is weighed down by my luggage—two oversized suitcases of clothes and rum, and two boxes with books, photocopies, Demerara sugar, and the equipment I don’t mind putting in my checked baggage. “You got all you needed?” Nigel asks. “Yes, you know by the end each of the resource women consented to interviews!” “Yes?” I nod my head. “As you know, I was worried about this. And I interviewed almost 20 community women,” I say feeling I need to give an account of myself. “So I think it worked out fine.” “Good, good.” “But I must admit that I am glad to be going back home.” 259

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Nigel smiles slightly, his sleepy brown eyes meeting mine. I look away immediately, shy and embarrassed. We ride the rest of the way in silence. My thoughts shift across the ocean—eager to return, but knowing that the life I left in California no longer exists; that the relationship with Antonio that I was struggling to hold on to while here was already over. I am jerked back into the present as the taxi comes to an abrupt halt. I look out the window and see the low-lying structure of the Guyana airport. “We have arrived,” says the taxi driver as he jumps out and opens the trunk. I gather up my belongings—my backpack and another smaller carry-on bag with my laptop computer, notebooks, and cassette tapes containing hours of interviews from two months of field research. Nigel slides out of the car and I follow suit. We stand together at the entrance to the airport as the taxi driver hurls the large bags and boxes out of the car and onto the sidewalk. Once finished he stands impatiently by the driver side door. I turn to Nigel. “Thank you for all your help and for being such a good friend. You were like my living library and sanctuary.” Nigel laughs deeply and shakes his head back and forth. “It was nothing, man.” Crossing the chasm of propriety we had so scrupulously maintained, I impulsively reach up and hug him tightly. “Thanks! I’ll miss you.” “Yeah man. I will miss you, too,” Nigel says into my ear before taking a step back. “Call me when you arrive and let me know you are safe.” “Yes, I will.” He then presses a small package in my hands. It is wrapped in plain brown paper. It feels like a book or a small journal for writing. “For your collection,” he says simply. “Open it on the plane.” “Thank you,” I say as I put the package in my bag. I am curious about it, but know I need to get going. I walk over to the taxi driver to give him money for the passage to the airport and back to Georgetown. In a matter of minutes, I am walking toward the airport with the skycap pushing the cart with my two suitcases and two boxes of books and papers. I look back and wave at Nigel. But I cannot see if he is waving back or even looking in my direction. Once inside the airport, I go to the British West Indies Airlines counter to begin the process of checking in. The line is longer than

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I anticipated so early in the morning. It takes over an hour to check my bags and boxes and make my way toward Customs. Just as I reach it, two women in uniform approach. “Excuse, miss,” says one woman, who seems to be about my age, in her early 30s. “Come with us.” “Why, what’s wrong?” I ask. “Are you travelin’ alone?” The second woman asks. She’s older than the other woman and seems less friendly. “Yes,” I respond. Then I add: “I am returning the States.” At that moment, two uniformed men arrive. One of them motions for everyone to follow him, and we fall into a semibox formation—the two men walking side by side in front, I in the middle, and the two women behind me. I realize that my heart is beginning to thump heavily. We pass the line of folks waiting at Customs and head toward a row of rooms at the back, about three of them with windows blacked out. One of the men opens the door to a room on the corner while the other stands by and directs me to go inside. The two women guards follow me in. As I’m standing there, shifting my heavy backpack around, the younger woman walks closer and says: “I am to take your bags and search them.” I nod silently. The older woman asks me questions: Why was I in Guyana? How long was I here? Where did I go while I was here? I explain that I am a graduate student and that I was here doing research on Red Thread. The younger woman who is searching my bags says: “Oh I does hear of them. They do the work with the women.” I nod my head, relieved. “Yes. I was here to interview them and to learn about their work.” The older woman looks at me with slightly narrowed eyes, but she seems to be warming up a bit. She motions for me to stand with my arms stretched and my feet far apart. But she pats me down only in a cursory fashion. When she’s finished she says: “O.k. Na!” The younger woman zips up the bags and says to me: “I does see your equipment and nothing else. You are free to go.” She walks over to me, hands me the bags, and then raps her knuckles hard several times on the door. It is opened by one of the men, and I am told to follow him. He leads me to the line for Customs.

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“Travel safe,” he says while bowing slightly, as if we had just been having tea. I watch as he walks away and wonder why I had been chosen to be searched. I look around; no one else is being ushered into the rooms at the back. But the rest of my processing goes smoothly, and I am soon in the large waiting area, excited to board my plane home. “Kimberly! Kimberly!” I hear someone calling out. Then I see the Asian woman I’d met at Julie’s house the first week I was in Guyana. I had seen her only briefly a couple of times during my stay since that first meeting, and I couldn’t remember her name. I am hoping it will come to me before she crosses the divide between us. “Hi!” she says when she reaches me. “Remember me? Elizabeth?” “Yes, of course, Elizabeth,” I say also smiling while shaking her hand. “How are you?” “Great, going back to the States for a bit.” “Oh. I thought you were from Canada like Julie.” “No, Texas.” “Oh. I’m from California.” “Oh yeah? We’re neighbors, sort of.” She smiles, then asks in a hushed voice: “Hey, were you searched?” “Yes! Were you?” “Yes. I heard that they were searching all American women who appear to be younger than 40 or something like that.” “Why?” “Well, according to the woman who searched me, there have been a number of American girls caught trying to leave the country with drugs.” “Really? I hadn’t heard that.” “Yes,” she says as she settles down into a seat. “How many American girls can there be here in Guyana?” I ask as I sit down next to her. “Well, it’s probably not just American girls but young non-Guyanese women leaving the area and heading North. You know maybe also coming over from Venezuela. But it’s odd though, because as much as I’ve traveled in and out of the Caribbean in the past two years, I’ve never been searched before.” “Me neither.” “It must be a new trend,2” she says. Our conversation shifts, and we talk about the work we’ve done while in Guyana. Elizabeth tells me that she is simply going home for

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a short break. Her mother is having surgery, and she wants to be there for it. But she expects to return to Guyana and stay for another year. She and Bertram, her boyfriend, have contracted to stay for a year working in the village. I tell her that my work is finished, and I am going to go home and write, to finish the dissertation. …  …  …  … Three hours later I board the small British West Indies plane. As it taxis down the runway and we take off, I fall asleep almost immediately. “Please return your seats to an upright position. A flight attendant will collect any remaining trash as we prepare for landing. Make sure to have filled out the Customs Declaration form. Welcome to Miami.” I wake up slowly and turn my head to look out of the window. It is a beautifully bright morning. Below us Miami stretches out from the coast as if from a dream. “I am almost home,” I think to myself, as I take account of what items I need to declare: one dozen bottles of rum, several pounds of Demerara sugar . . . clearly I had been both researcher and tourist.3 Finally, we file off the plane as instructed and head for Customs. The Miami airport is a stark contrast to the one in Guyana. Miami, I remember as we shuffle from one line to the next, is an exceedingly large port of entry, and I am surrounded by people from all over the world. Conversations in Spanish, French, German, Caribbean Creole, British English, and American slang swirl around me. “I am back in the U.S.,” I sigh with contentment. Leaving Customs, I enter the airport terminal trying to maneuver the cart loaded with my luggage and boxes. The boxes are now barely held together with the tape I used to close them the night before at the Singh’s. “You should take the tape with you,” Mrs. Singh had said as I finished packing the papers and books. “You know how they does mistreat.” I had replied: “Yes, that’s a good idea. I’ll put the tape in my backpack when I’m done.” But as I stand here in the middle of the Miami airport, I remember that the tape is on the small desk in my room; forgotten in my haste. “If I can just make it to the Continental counter, I’m sure they’ll be able to tape it up again,” I think as I stand looking at the large screen above and search for my flight number and departure location.

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“You will have to tape the box yourself, miss. We will not be responsible if it does not hold,” the clerk at the Continental counter says as she hands me a large roll of packing tape. “O.k. That’s o.k.,” I say taking the tape. “Step to the side and return to my counter when you are finished.” “O.k.” When I return, she completes my check-in process. “We allow only three checked bags with your ticket, miss. And each should weigh no more than 50 pounds. You will be charged a shipping fee for the extra box.” She looks at me as I struggle to put one of the boxes on the scale; 60.5 the digital display reads. “And . . . overweight luggage is one dollar per pound over.” I shrug my shoulders. “Oh well, I can’t leave anything. I’m returning from two months doing research out of the country.” I offer these details as if she will give me a break. But all she does is slap a large “HEAVY” sticker on the box and motion for one of the guys behind the counter to remove it from the scale. We repeat this process with the next box and each of the two suitcases. “That will be $135. We take cash or credit card only.” I hand her my credit card, and she processes it. A receipt prints out while she continues to tag my luggage for my final destination—LAX, Los Angeles International Airport. With receipts in hand, I head toward my gate. I feel like a kid traveling for the first time by myself. The airport is full of colors and sounds and textures. It is noisy in a way I had forgotten about: piped-in music, talking, the whir of machines, and the slight almost imperceptible hum of the fluorescent overhead lights. I walk into the nearest newsstand. I know exactly what I want, what I had been promising myself for weeks, a stack of my favorite cooking magazines—Gourmet, Bon Appétit, Saveur—and a large bar of Lindt dark chocolate. These luxuries had been either unavailable or too expensive to obtain in Guyana. When I get to the gate and settle into a chair closest to the ticket counter, I open the chocolate bar, break off the top row, and begin nibbling on the first square. It is as I remembered, slightly bitter at first bite but then blossoming into a rich and creamy confection with undertones of coffee and tobacco. I sit savoring the chocolate for several minutes. Then I open Gourmet and begin turning the glossy pages. It is the “Restaurant Issue,” fat with articles about restaurants in major food cities throughout the

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United States, such as New York, New Orleans, and San Francisco, and the world—Paris, Hong Kong, and Italy. Although the stories and the images in the magazine are compelling, I am not drawn into them, and my mind wanders. Suddenly, I remember the package that Nigel gave me outside the airport in Guyana. I’d almost forgotten about it in the drama of being searched. I close the magazine and put it beside me on the chair. Then I unzip my backpack and see the package from Nigel lodged into the bottom of the bag. It is somehow slightly damp, and when I turn it around and around in my hands the smells of Guyana drift toward me. In the icily air-conditioned space of the airport, I am pulled back into the warm duskiness of the place I was so eager to leave. I tear open the package; as I suspected, a small book is enclosed. I read the title, On Call: Political Essays, and the author’s name, June Jordan. I open it and begin reading. I am so engrossed in the stories that she tells and the truths I feel with each word. I seem to devour the first five essays of the slim volume. Indeed, I almost miss the boarding call for my flight to Houston. I reluctantly close the book and take my place in line behind the other passengers waiting to get on the plane. Once I locate my seat, I store my carry-on in the overhead compartment and my backpack under the seat in front of me. I am eager to sit down and reopen On Call. I turn to Chapter six, “Report from the Bahamas.” This essay is one that I’ve read before and, in fact, used in teaching a “Women of Color in the U.S.” course just the year before. But I hadn’t read it in the context of Jordan’s other autobiographical writings or in the context of my own travel to and from the Caribbean. I had read and taught it as illustrative of the concept “intersectionality” that had become the mainstay of our thinking through race, gender, and class as elements of identity and bases for both feminist theorizing and collective political action. But here today, on the plane from Miami to Houston and after living and working in Guyana for over two months, Jordan’s writing takes on a different significance. But I am hastening to leave. Neither turtle soup nor kidney pie nor conch shell delight shall delay my departure. I have rested, here, in the Bahamas, and I’m ready to return to my usual job, my usual work. But the skin on my body has changed and so has my mind. On the Delta flight home I realize I am burning up, indeed. (Jordan 1985:46)

She writes of the complicated relationship between her, a West Indian daughter visiting the Bahamas for a vacation, and the black woman

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“Olive,” assigned to clean her hotel room each day. Do they recognize each other across the chasm of class and privilege? Can they unite within the belief that they share each other’s struggles? What does solidarity look like? I think, as I sit on the Continental flight on my way home, that Jordan would say: It doesn’t matter. She did say, in fact: “The ultimate connection must be the need we find between us. It is not only who you are . . . but what we can do for each other that will determine the connection (47).” It starts small, just a catch in my throat. I close the book, set it in my lap, and look out of the window. Planes are lined up on the runway, readying for take off. We are next in line and begin taxiing down the runway. My vision begins to blur as my eyes well up with tears that begin spilling down my cheeks. I wipe them away with the back of my right hand and pray for them to stop. Then my nose starts to run, and I am sniffling frantically. “Are you o.k.?” the 40-something-year-old white woman sitting next to me asks. Her voice is low but insistent. “Do you need some help?” I shake my head, indicating that I am fine. “Do you need some water or something?” The flight attendant has suddenly appeared in the aisle and is leaning toward me. She pushes the “call attendant” button above our heads. Both women’s faces show concern. “Water,” I respond through the tears as I put the book into the seat pocket in front of me. I lean down and take my backpack from under the seat and look for my small toiletry bag. I find the small white melatonin pills and shake two of them into my hand. The flight attendant returns with a small clear plastic cup of water and hands it to me. I continue to cry, and my nose is still running. I put the pills under my tongue and they start to dissolve. A slightly bitter taste floods my mouth, and I take a large swallow of water. I use the napkin to blow my nose. Both women continue to watch me. “I’m o.k.,” I manage to squeak out between sobs. “It’s just been a really long journey.” The flight attendant nods her head and returns to the back of the plane. The woman next to me settles into her seat but continues to look at me surreptitiously out of the corner of her eye. I sit back in my own seat, close my eyes, and let the tears flow down my face. I think to myself within the tears: How will I make the connection with the women whose stories I recorded and now carry away with me?

CHAPTER 11 Epilogue

Looking relations are never innocent. They are always determined by the cultural systems people travelling bring with them. (E. Kaplan 1997:6) Everything depends on the emotional and intellectual baggage the anthropologist takes on the voyage. (Behar 1996:8) And I began to realize why Kevin [Dana’s white husband] and I had fitted so easily into this time. We weren’t really in. We were observers watching a show. We were watching history happen around us. And we were actors. While we waited to go home, we humored people around us by pretending to be like them. But we were poor actors. We never really got into our roles. We never forgot we were acting. (Butler 1988:98)

When my plane touched down at the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), I felt as though I had returned from a trip back in time (Cesareo 2001:105). As I rode down the highways of the city looking up at the too-tall buildings, I felt as I imagined Dana did when she 267

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reemerged in contemporary Los Angeles from her time travels to the antebellum South in Octavia Butler’s novel Kindred. In the novel, Edana Franklin (“Dana”), an African American woman writer living in Los Angeles circa 1976, is repeatedly drawn back to 1815 Virginia to intervene in the lives of her black (slave) and white (slave-owning) ancestors. Her movement in and out of the past evokes a sense of destabilization. I had been home to 1976, to this house, and it hadn’t felt that homelike. [. . .] The time, the year, was right, but the house just wasn’t familiar enough. I felt as though I were losing my place here in my own time. Rufus’s time was a sharper, stronger reality. The work was harder, the smells and tastes were stronger, the danger was greater, the pain was worse . . . Rufus’s time demanded things of me that had never been demanded before, and it could easily kill me if I did not meet its demands. That was a stark, powerful reality that the gentle conveniences and luxuries of this house, of now, could not touch. (Butler 1988:191, emphasis in original)

Dana’s knowledge of her people’s slave past is made more immediate by her experience of it first hand; the learning is emotional and visceral. What I find compelling in Butler’s fictional narrative1 is the way in which the meanings of home2 and of self shift for the central character. Thinking through Dana’s experience of time travel and the process of redefinition that occurred in its wake helps me to frame my own experiences of travel in and out of Guyana. A little less than halfway through Kindred, Dana makes the choice to enter into an illegal relationship with one of the slave children; she agrees to teach him how to read. This is a pivotal moment in the narrative, because Dana moves from being a “visitor” to the past toward becoming a full-fledged participant. In agreeing to secretly tutor the child, Dana puts her life on the line and recognizes her fate as intimately connected to those around her. She also uses her skills and knowledge from the future to do something that might change the situation that she and the others are trapped within. It is in this moment that her status shifts, I would argue, from outsider to insider.3 Her insider status is built not simply on the fact that she shares in the racial oppression within the system of human bondage as do the other slaves, but also on her choosing to be an ally with the slaves and to struggle with them. I am reminded of the passage in June Jordan’s essay that sparked my tears on my plane ride home. “The ultimate connection must be the need we find between us. It is

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not only who you are . . . but what we can do for each other that will determine the connection” (1985:47). Dana allows herself to become vulnerable “in the field of the past” even as she recognizes that her actions may do little to change the course of history.4 But her move toward resistance does serve to bring her and the slave child a sense of hope. This is what they do for each other. The ability to imagine a different future and to work toward creating it together and in the face of great obstacles shapes Butler’s narrative. It is this kind of imagining that also shapes the stories told to me by the women of Red Thread. The founding members (represented in this text by Andaiye and Karen de Souza), having already become activists within Guyana against the oppressive regime of President Burnham, entered into a relationship with the community women (Lisa, Berta, Nati, Joan, Michelle, and Christine, most poignantly) to affect change that was/is at once individual, institutional, and structural. The community women, already acting against the strictures of their prescribed places in the society based on their gender, race/ethnicity, and class among other variables (for example, religious/cultural upbringing), invested their energies in Red Thread to facilitate a widening of their life choices. Bringing the women together across the divides endemic within the country, Red Thread was/is engaged in a multilayered struggle—making a space for the possibility of resistance (Gibson-Graham 2006:xxiv; Smith 2006:156). In writing auto/ethnographically, I am able to see the ways in which my work with the women of Red Thread had been shaped by epistemologies and methodologies that threatened to keep me at a distance. There is a profound sense of ambivalence in my self-narrative that I believe stems from my attempts to negotiate competing world views.5 It is in this writing, the process of looking back on the field in connection with my own life journey, that I recognize this ambivalence as merely reflected in my relationships to the academy and traditional social science. In other words, like many of the Red Thread women I interviewed, my efforts to find voice, place, and a sense of stability have deep roots. Like Berta, whose “one error in life” was to be sent at age 9 by her mother and grandmother to be “adopted” by a Chinese Guyanese family where she entered into a semi-indentured-servant status and longed to be reunited with her sisters, mother, and grandmother. Like Lisa, who laments the loss of a close relationship with her father, whom she describes as a “drunkard,” yet maintains a visiting

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relationship with the father of her son whose family forced him to marry a girl they found more suitable. Like Joan, who had to hold down “three works” in order to support her children when her husband leaves to begin a new family with her niece. A niece Joan had trusted to care for her small children while she recuperated in the hospital after surgery. Like Christine, whose first pregnancy at 15 set her on the path toward giving birth to 10 babies, having a “series of abortions,” and ultimately raising 5 children on her own. She admits going through a “struggle in life.” Within Red Thread these women found a space to express themselves, to earn an income, and to become more fully present in their own lives. Through Red Thread these women have been able to understand their seemingly personal plight as institutional and structural. In varying degrees, each of the Red Thread community women had been searching for and was able to recognize the possibilities when the resource women ventured into the villages and communities outside Georgetown to solicit participants for the educational workshops and the development of small-scale enterprises. I, too, ventured into Guyana and to make a connection with Red Thread, because I was in search of something. Obviously, I was there to engage in a research project that, if successfully completed, would certify my receipt of the doctorate. But, like that of other black researchers who choose to do their work among African-descendant populations, my research was also a political act.6 The ways in which the work was political, however, unfolded differently over time. At its conception, I understood my research with the women of Red Thread to be a part of the feminist project to illuminate how women’s stories and experiences are fundamental to our understandings of the world. I believed that women’s efforts to effect change in our society needs to be documented. And this was especially so in the case of Guyana, where women from all social strata had been intimately involved in movements for sovereignty and for a participatory democracy, but their participation had not been widely researched. While in the process of doing the work and being “in the field,” I confronted my own sense of displacement and began to see the work as part of a personal politic—a search for a sense of home and community. Like Dana, whose final return to the present in Kindred leaves her with one arm amputated, a reminder of her journey/struggle, I left Guyana with a sense of heaviness that

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I carried with me for years. And, like Dana, who must, in her present life, travel back to the place where her ancestors had been both slaves and owners to “try to understand,”7 I, too, felt compelled to return. As I reconstructed my field experience drawing on my diaries, memory, ethnographic field notes, letters, photos, and other documents (material and emotional) of my travels to and from Guyana, I was struck by the ways in which my narratives of missed connections to home, exhaustion, fear, anxiety, and sadness permeate the process of being and interacting with the women of Red Thread and within the terrain of Guyana. Although I had constructed myself as a scholar who was actively “choosing the margins”8 in my decision to do research among the women in Guyana, I was simultaneously resistant to becoming vulnerable in the field. And so I began this writing wanting to understand why I had this experience. But starting and stopping at the autobiographical would have rendered an injustice. As Andaiye wrote to me: “There has to be some point to their knowing this, other than just getting it off my chest.” It is in the going back, the rereading and retelling of the women’s stories and my own, that I was able to recognize the ways in which our lives both intersect and diverge. It is also in the going back that I understand that my role as friend and supporter of the work of Red Thread and of the ideals within which they organize means that I must present as honest a rendering of myself and the stories they entrusted to me as possible. Searching for solutions is very much a part of a struggle to survive, it is represented within our [Maori] own traditions, for example, through creation stories, values, and practices. The concept of “searching” is embedded in our worldviews. Researching in this sense, then, is not something owned by the West, or by an institution or discipline. Research begins as a social, intellectual, and imaginative activity. It has become disciplined and institutionalized with certain approaches empowered over others and accorded a legitimacy but it begins with human curiosity and a desire to solve problems. It is, at its core, an activity of hope. (Smith 2006:157)

…  …  …  … September 2005 I pull into the driveway of my parents’ house in Compton, a neighborhood just south of Los Angeles. It’s been over nine months since I’ve been home. Excuses of too much work always seem to

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keep me in Davis. But after a summer spent intensively writing, I allow myself to put the work aside and make the trip south. I am drawn home to participate in the ceremony that will name me as a godmother for my best friend’s daughter. As I sit in the car and look around, I think that everything seems the same, except that the big sycamore tree that used to be in front of the house has been cut down. In fact, more and more of the neighborhood is bare, overrun with chain-link fences, concrete, and graffiti. When my mother tried to find out why the tree had been cut down, she was told that the city needed to cut the trees down because they are diseased. We all suspect that the real reason is that the Police Department wants to be able to see more clearly into the neighborhoods with their helicopters flying overhead.9 But my father compensated for the missing tree at the curb in front of the house with his copious plantings of rose bushes along the driveway, and in the courtyard by the front door a pine tree from a past Christmas and an overgrown fig tree battle for space. As I turn off the engine and get out of the car, my mother opens the side door of the house and walks down the steps. “You made it,” she says. “Yep. I made it.” “I was worried because you didn’t call, and you didn’t answer your cell phone.” “Oh, I must have had it turned off,” I say as I bend down to kiss her on the cheek. I think: “She seems to be getting shorter each time I see her.” “How was your drive?” She asks as I take my bag out of the car and follow her into the house. “It was fine. No major traffic, so that was nice.” I can smell the food cooking as soon as I step into the hallway. “It smells good in here,” I say. “Your father’s cooking the dinner for the christening tomorrow. I think he’s almost finished.” “Oh great!” I put my bag down in the hallway, and we go through the dining room and into the kitchen. There are at least a dozen extra-large foil pans lined up along the breakfast bar. Some are filled with baked chicken, his famous rice dish, or string beans, and others are empty, waiting to be filled. Huge aluminum commercial-sized pots are on the stove with steam rising from them, the oven is propped open, and he is basting what looks like a ham. The television is blaring some luxury car commercial.

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I walk over to the TV and turn it down. My father looks up and says: “Hey, how you be?” O.k,” I respond as I walk over and kiss him hello. “Did you fly or drive?” “I drove down.” My father nods his head. We stand together in the kitchen of the house where I grew up; the house that he and my mother bought and moved into when I was about 5 years old. The once tiny house with the very large lot had become a sort-of compound with rooms added on here and there over the years. As usual, we don’t say much more. My mother has gone into cleaning mode, irritated that my father cooks but doesn’t “wipe as he goes along.” I smile as I leave the kitchen to call my cousin. We spend the rest of the evening transporting the food to her house, doing the last-minute decorations, and generally getting ready for the next day. …  …  …  … “I take as my text today, the book of Numbers, Chapter 11,” Pastor Johnson says as he stands before us in the pulpit of the Upper Room Baptist Church. As if on cue, several people open their bibles, and a few others with small notebooks and pens sit poised to make notes on the lesson. “Moses is leading the Israelites out of Egypt,” he continues, “and they have been beset by longing. A longing for the place they are fleeing.” Pastor Johnson moves away from the podium and reads out to the congregation from the large bible in his hands: And the mixt multitude that was among them fell a lusting: and the children of Israel also wept again, and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick. But now our soul is dried away: there is nothing at all, beside this manna, before our eyes.10

Pastor Johnson pauses for effect, and we sit expectant, many of us leaning forward from our seats on the upright wooden pews, softened with deep purple velvet cushions. “But those who are of a discontented spirit will always find something to quarrel or fret about,” he says after several moments.

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“And what does this disquietness of spirit bring us? What do we gain when we sit down and offer only judgment and complaint?” Again he pauses and looks around the church as if waiting for our responses to these questions. “Tell us, brother!” A woman in the front pew calls out. The pianist strikes a cord as Pastor Johnson rocks back slightly on his heels, his long grey robe swaying rhythmically about his legs. “What happens,” he continues in cadence to the music, “when we falter in our journey?” Several women in the choir accompany the pianist as he strikes another chord, holding it longer and mingling with the voices of the singers. “What happens when we forget that change is never easy . . . that God did not promise us . . .” The drama and tension mount. My attention, however, is divided. It has been a long time since I have been in church; in a real, honest-to-goodness black church. My mother has a deep connection to her church, but she never required the same of me—perhaps in defiance of her own too-strict upbringing in Alabama by a Southern Methodist minister father. And so, since my mid-teens I had chosen not to attend church; chosen not to be a part of any church family. My decision was not founded on strong feelings against organized religion or Christianity. It was based, paradoxically, on a lack of strong beliefs in either direction. But here as I sit in this small church in South Central Los Angeles, I am drawn to Pastor Johnson’ sermon. It resonates with me in ways that are both spiritual and secular. Today, after all, is a special day. We are gathered to celebrate the christening of my best friend’s daughter. I am here as visitor and participant, having been asked to be a godmother for the child who had weathered so much in her short life—premature birth, multiple operations to insert a shunt in her brain and a gastrointestinal tube in her stomach, partial deafness, and a myriad of developmental challenges. I imagine we all recognize the gift of the day, the gift of her survival. Surrounding us is her family: her aunt and uncle, Pastor Johnson, her maternal grandmother, first and second cousins, and so on. I feel like family, as though her mother is the sister I never had. But I am also outside the event, looking on, evaluating and analyzing. The inspiration for the sermon, I learn from my friend after church while we are setting up for the reception, is that there has been some internal strife among the congregation. There have been a few

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“growing pains” as the members struggle with their roles and their direction as a group; hence, the metaphor of the Israelites’ litany of complaints. I drew from Pastor Johnson’s words, from his choice of scripture a slightly different message: one about the meaning of community and of seeking a home place. The longing, the desire that the Israelites expressed for Egypt was, in fact, a nostalgic remembering. The difficulty of their journey forward, through the hardships of life in the desert, led them to recast their bondage in Egypt as a place of comfort and ease. Furthermore, their complaints removed them from engaging deeply in the present moment or to move forward to build a new life in a different place. I think about all this as we reconvene at the home of my cousin and cogodmother to prepare for the dinner. Being here, at home, makes me think about the separateness of my life. I think about my attempts to negotiate the betwixt-and-between-ness11 of my self-identity as a middle-class, black, American, post-Civil Rights woman. How I conceptualized an academic career of writing and theorizing about the realities of black women’s lives within and across difference. And, in so doing, I imagined creating for myself a unified identity and a place to call home. I continue to believe that this desire to link my work to a larger struggle is necessary. It is the reason I am in the academy, and it must structure my own activist stance within it. But, as I discovered in the process of doing and writing about my research with the Red Thread women and my travels in and out of Guyana, the work is a political act that can be useful, sustaining, and empowering—in different ways for the researcher/writer and the researched/collaborator. It cannot, however, supplant or become a home. I am coming to see, not just intellectually but also emotionally and spiritually, that home is not a singular location. It is a set of negotiated places, sometimes more metaphor than physical, but always requiring commitment, engagement, and a sense of hope. As we prepare to eat, Pastor Johnson motions us forward, and we hold hands with bowed heads as he leads the blessing of the meal. “We come together to ask for your blessings, Lord, upon this food and upon this child who depends on us for her physical and spiritual sustenance. We take the challenges of her life knowing that, through you, all things are possible.” There are a few “amens” and other murmurs of assent. I am surprised that my voice joins the others. “Thank you for this meal and for the gift of one another.”

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As I completed the second draft of this manuscript, I received an e-mail from Andaiye on behalf of Red Thread. Although I had been trying to keep up with the current activities of the group,12 I had admittedly been mostly engaged in the solitary endeavor of writing. So I was encouraged to be included on their list of “friends,” and I was eager to respond to the request. Indeed, I was reminded of Karen de Souza’s gently and not so gently educating me on my responsibility to give the community women who provided living space, food, research assistance, and other support while I was in Guyana “money, not gifts.” I include Red Thread’s call for support here for two reasons. First, to document the ways in which the work of Red Thread is ongoing. The organization continues to engage the need for social change at home, within Guyana, by connecting with women transnationally.13 And the scope of what is considered a woman’s issue is broadened to include activist stewardship of the environment. Second, although this call for support is specific, the need is not. I hope that readers take it upon themselves to do what they can to facilitate the work of this group or another whose work they find ideologically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually necessary. …  …  …  … 16 January 2006 Dear Friend, We are writing to ask you to contribute toward the costs of five of us in Red Thread attending the World Social Forum in Caracas from 24–29 January 2006 and to remain for several days after it to meet organizers in different communities in Venezuela who are working on land reform, establishing co-operatives, literacy and training programmes, and community media, food and health projects, and defending their oil industry from sabotage; and for meetings with other women from the Global Women Strike network in Uganda, India, The Philippines, Indigenous communities in Latin America, Trinidad and Tobago, the US and Europe, all of whom we are expecting to be there with us so we can together strengthen our network’s mutual support. As you know, Red Thread is not an NGO in the usual sense; we are also anti-sexist, anti-racist organisers working full-time for change. The biggest obstacles we face are the sense of isolation and defeat pervasive in Guyana and a perennial shortage of money to do the organising work which we see as desperately needed and which we have made ourselves increasingly skilled in doing. Making this journey

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to Venezuela could transform Red Thread. Two of us are working class women in our early thirties who grew up at a time when the movement for change in Guyana seemed to be overwhelmed by the country’s racial and political divides. While we have a wealth of knowledge from experience (ours and others), we have not had the chance to exchange experiences with grassroots women engaged in similar and similarly difficult struggles in other countries. Few women in Red Thread have. The context of that exchange is that we will be at the heart of this continent which is rapidly being transformed by massive movements in a number of countries. The trip will enable the five of us to see first hand how so-called “ordinary” people are working to transform Venezuela, with grassroots women of colour in the leadership, and the work they are doing in their communities which is bringing health and education services to the poorest people. We will experience the strength of the global movement for economic and social justice and the leadership of grassroots women of colour in that movement. We will be able to make stronger regional connections and be better informed of what women are winning elsewhere. All this will inform our initiatives, strategies and demands at home. We can and must work with women’s organisations in other countries suffering and addressing the consequences of climate change so that we are no longer isolated in our struggle against the endless cycles of catastrophic flooding in Guyana. This request is late because we had been hoping to receive funding for the trip from two small agencies which have previously funded this kind of work. Unfortunately, one has just refused, explaining that its funds are stretched, while the other has not yet responded. Even if the second one comes through we will not have enough for the costs of travel, transport to and from airports, and (inexpensive) food and shelter in Venezuela. Although we border Venezuela, the biggest cost is air travel at US$657 each, or $3,285 for all 5 of us. This is not too huge an amount for us to raise with your help to enable us to experience what will be a major opportunity for Red Thread as an organisation and for the five of us. Red Thread gets a lot of verbal approval—who else around is concentrating on multiracial anti-sexist, anti-racist organizing?—but little financial approval, for the crucial work all of us are forced to do voluntarily. We know that you have other calls on your income but we need your practical support on this and look forward to receiving it. Thank you very much. We hope to invite you to an exciting reportback on our return. Andaiye Halima Khan Joycelyn Bacchus Joy Marcus (Nicola) Karen de Souza Invest in Caring Not Killing.

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Notes

Chapter 1 1. I use the idea of “narrative snapshots” in remembering and retelling my life history. I draw on the work of Gurney (1997) for his use of “episodic ethnographies” in his analysis of life history narratives. He asserts that one might reflect on the significance of climactic events in personal biography as “defining moments or turning points” (376). 2. See Jordan (1985) and Kincaid (1989) for excellent discussions of this dynamic; see also the film Life and Debt by Stephanie Black. 3. Because there were so few students of color in our program or on the campus at large, with each year the arrival of a new cohort of graduate students brought with it the possibilities for personal connections with others who shared one’s racial cultural and/or economic background. Young, single women of color were, in many ways, a premium in this kind of marketplace where women are often subject to a particular kind of sexualized experience. The erotic experiences of women in graduate school are explored in Rushing (2006) and Ellis (1995a). 4. The search for home and for community is a universal one that, nonetheless, takes on a particular poignancy for educated, “successful,” black Americans (Bell 1990). We have learned to play the game of dominant society: adopting the language and cultural elements of mainstream America, becoming “outsiders within” (Collins 1986). In so doing, we have often become “other” to our own communities. We exist in a world of both/and and neither/nor. And, unlike what earlier generations of black American feminist researchers and theorists have written—for example, Harrison 1991, hooks 1996, Hurston 1996 [1942], Jordan 2001, and McClaurin 2001, 1996—my experience of my racial identity in the United States is framed not by segregation in all-black towns or neighborhoods but rather by a particular post-Civil Rights era of “integration.” Having grown up in Southern California

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6.

7.

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during the late 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, I developed a support and friendship network that was multicultural and multiethnic, though minimally black. Although my parents primarily socialized with other African American southern migrants in California, increasingly I interacted with nonblack people of color. This was particularly so as I reached school age and attended parochial and private schools in neighborhoods outside our residence in Compton. So, even though I remain connected with my black girlfriends from my childhood and teenage years and with my family of origin, who continue to live mostly in Alabama, most of my friendship network consists of people who are bi- or multiracial, Latina, and Asian. The only times I find myself in predominately black spaces is when I attend parties and gatherings with my parents and their friends. These events are sporadic and do not constitute a daily sense of community or home. And, indeed, often seem outside of the identity I have forged. For many, like my father, serving in the U.S. military was a conduit through which migration to California occurred; see Rhomberg (2004), Sides (2004), and Stack (1996). My partner was born in Barbados and later migrated with his parents to the United States, where he grew up. Indeed, I believe my partner’s seeming ease of movement from one context to the other masked his own feelings of inauthenticity in the Caribbean context. His affectation of a strong pan-Caribbean accent signifies his attempts to claim an identity to which he may have felt tenuously connected. See Hintzen and Rahier (2003) and Hintzen (2001). Hintzen and Rahier’s text illuminates the complicated identities of black immigrants in the United States, especially the sometimes uneasy relationship to black Americans and the process of racial formation specific to the United States. See also Omi and Winant (1986) and McCarthy (2006). As an undergraduate I had been profoundly affected by the writings of bell hooks. hooks’s work, especially Feminist Theory: from Margin to Center (1984) and Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism (1981), was at the forefront of my critical consciousness and fueled my desire to pursue graduate study. In retrospect, it is significant that hooks’s writings drew me into academia and not toward activist practice. What was compelling for me was the process of uncovering and documenting black women’s activist histories. During our first year of graduate school, a course on “Feminist Theory” was offered. Several of the women of color in my cohort took the class but were dismayed with the list of reading materials. Out of the 10 weeks of the class, only during week 10 were we assigned three articles by black women. Three of us—a biracial Latina, a Chicana, and I, a black American—went to the professor to ask why there were not more women of color represented on the list of readings. The professor told us that to her knowledge women of color were not “doing theory” and asked us for suggestions. We then took it upon ourselves to lead that class meeting. We drew on Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa’s volume This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (1981) and played Tracy Chapman’s song “Talking About a Revolution” to illustrate the ways in which women of color were “doing theory.” We had a similar experience in a subsequent feminist sociology course where Patricia Hill Collins’s Black Feminist Thought (1990) was the only text by a woman of color on the reading list. By this time, however, my fellow women-of-color graduate students had chosen to emphasize race/ethnicity (rather than gender) in their exams and coursework and so refused to remain in the class. However, we were able to perform an intersectional analysis of race, gender, and class when we proposed and were given the opportunity to team teach “Women of Color in the U.S.” for the Women’s Studies

Notes

9. 10. 11. 12.

13.

14. 15.

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Program. See Nettles et al. (1999). It is important to keep in mind that although frustrating and painful, our experiences were not unique. They parallel many other women-of-color undergraduate and graduate student experiences in academia. See Romero (2000), Tusmith and Reddy (2002). This section is drawn, in part, from Nettles 2007, 2004, and 1998. All personal names, with the exception of the Red Thread resource women and other public activists, are pseudonyms. See Nettles 1995. In 1994, after receiving funding from the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), I traveled to Jamaica, Barbados, and Guyana. This was a predissertation research junket in which I spent a good deal of time in Sistren’s documentation center, the University of the West Indies’ library in Jamaica, the Women and Development (WAND) Center at the University of the West Indies in Barbados, the library at the University of Guyana, and the archives of the Working People’s Alliance. In Guyana I also made connections with the women of Red Thread. The work done was the basis of my dissertation proposal, which I defended in 1995; then returned to Guyana in 1996 to gather the life histories of the Red Thread women. Guyana, sometimes referred to as “the land of six peoples,” is populated by people of East Indian (Indian), African, Portuguese, Amerindian (Indigenous), Chinese, and Anglo-European descent. In addition to these racial/ethnic categories, Williams (1991) identifies at least seven additional named and recognized racial mixtures. Politics in Guyana has revolved largely, however, around the two dominant populations: Africans and East Indians. Guyana’s proximity—geographically and ideologically—to Cuba was of key concern here. However, Robinson (2003) argues that, although women are granted equal rights under the Guyana Constitution, there is “no inevitability about full citizenship for women arising from such constitutional provisions” (235). She goes on to argue that, although the Constitution of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana “has in article 29 the most definitive language guaranteeing gender equality that can be found in a Commonwealth Caribbean constitution,” it has nonetheless failed to usurp the primacy of men’s citizenship claims over and above women’s. In her analysis of the Nielson v. Barker case heard in 1982 Guyana Court of Appeal, she finds that Guyanese women are defined, constitutionally, as lesser citizens who, as mothers, produce true citizens and, as dependent wives, receive citizenship through their relations to men. Women are not “naturally” citizens. See Slocum and Shields (forthcoming) and Parsad and Andaiye (1994). Many have argued that another response to the precarious situation in Guyana during this period was migration out of the country. According to the U.S. Library of Congress, emigration averaged about 6,000 people annually from the late 1960s through the mid 1970s. By the late 1970s, the average more than doubled, and by the late 1980s, unofficial estimates put the numbers of Guyanese leaving the county at between 10,000 to 30,000 persons per year (Daniels 1995; Latin American Bureau 1984; U.S. Library of Congress 2002). Although the political and economic situation in Guyana certainly increased the numbers of people seeking to live in the United States, Canada, England, and other Caribbean countries, one should not lose sight of the cultural role migration has always played within the Caribbean. Chamberlain (1997) writes that recent studies by feminist geographers and anthropologists explain migration “as a response not just to local ‘push’ factors of overpopulation, un- or underemployment, or even political repression, and the ‘pull’ factors of employment elsewhere, but as an individual choice informed by cultural values and social pressures which encourage and enable migration” (6).

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18.

19. 20. 21.

22.

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Indeed, migration (both temporary and permanent) is a central feature of many of the Red Thread women’s histories. See also Olwig (2007). In the early 1970s, Burnham instituted a plan to “feed, clothe, and house the nation” by adopting a national policy of import substitution. Imported food items, such as wheat flour, cow’s milk, split peas, cooking oil, and cheese, were banned (Latin American Bureau 1984). However, attempts to produce substitutes for them within Guyana failed. When the economic crisis deepened, Guyana turned to the International Monetary Fund for assistance. But the structural adjustment policies instituted in the early 1980s served only to increase the widespread shortages of basic foods. By 1983, the WPA began a multifronted assault against the legitimacy of the food policy. See Nettles (2007). In 1982, Andaiye was acting as International Secretary for the WPA. She raised money for a women’s project, a project to make and market corn flour to replace the imported wheat flour banned by Burnham. The WPA women’s experience with the corn flour project led to the formation of the Women’s Development Committee. By 1986, members of the Women’s Development Committee began traveling to several villages outside Georgetown to recruit women for participation in their development projects. By the fall of that year, more than 100 women from four communities (Cotton Tree, Met-en-Meerzorg, Victoria, and Wismar) were organized in the production of embroidered pillowcases, wall hangings, and greeting cards. See Nettles (2007). See Peake 1993, Peake and Trotz 1999, and Nettles 2003. See Nettles 2007. Bonita Harris, one of the founding resource women, recalls the significance of their change of name: “During the time when we were doing embroidery, threads in pretty, vibrant colors were difficult to get, and most embroiders wanted red thread, not the browns or tans or light pastel colors that were more readily available. This often took us on a big search for threads. We would purchase threads from traders bringing them in from Surinam and so on. But we often ran into a big problem, because the threads were often hand-dyed with non-color-fast dye. And so while it started off vibrant, if the embroidered piece was washed, the colors would fade. So when we were searching for a name when doing our first publication we thought about our search for something that we desired, but society doesn’t offer—reminded us of where we came from. And so red had immense symbolic connotations for us. We wanted to make the point that even though we were accepting money from the poverty alleviation projects that came through after structural adjustment and the IMF, we recognized that these were only band-aid solutions to impoverishment and that the projects were pacification measures. Potential funders were very uncomfortable with our chosen nomenclature because of the implications of communism. And at that time WPA was seen as a threat (that they were coming out of the tradition of the Sandinistas)—and the women of Red Thread were seen as WPA. We wanted to make it clear that we knew these agencies were the arms of the very governments that were impoverishing us; that these so-called liberalization efforts are really designed to shore up the work of the national machinery, not really adjustment. But Red Thread took the money offered by the agencies to really do development—human development. We wanted women to understand the economy and their roles in it. We wanted them to see that much of the work that they did was unpaid and uncounted.” (Interview, 9/20/1996) See Red Thread (1999). This essay, based on original research conducted by the women of Red Thread, is an example of the type of training received by the community women.

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23. Collins 1990, 2000; Gluck and Patai 1991 (especially Patai’s contribution); Reinharz 1992; Cannon, Higgenbotham, and Leung 1991; Zavella 1996 Zinn 1979. 24. Walker 1983. 25. Community women: Faye Abrahams (“mixed” of African and East Indian descent), Marcy Ball (African), Joan Ball (African), Laraine Benjamin (“mixed” of Indian and African descent), Margaret Chancy (African), Donna Carter (“dougla”—“mixed” of African and East Indian descent), Irene Champs (“mixed”), Brenda Crump (African), Leslie Goodhew (“madras”—East Indian and African descent), Christine Harper (African), Janice Masters (African), Nati Ramphal (East Indian), Berta Roscoe (“dougla”—“mixed” of African and East Indian descent), Lisa Sadeek (East Indian), Dorothy St. James (“mixed” of African and East Indian descent), Sylvia Winston (“mixed” of African and East Indian descent), and Michelle Williams (African). All the women’s names are pseudonyms. Racial designations are those offered by the women themselves. 26. Resource women: Andaiye (African), Karen de Souza (“mixed” of African descent), Jocelyn Dow (“mixed” of African descent), Bonita Harris (African), Danuta Radzik (“mixed” of European descent), and Vanda Radzik (“mixed” of European descent). 27. Collins (1990) outlines these critiques and offers compelling reasons for a black feminist epistemology that privileges other ways of knowing. Other feminist sociologists are also significant in this movement. See especially Gorelick (1991), Harding (1987), Kirsch (1999), Naples (2003), Wolf (1996), and Wolf (1992). 28. I had four years of funding from the University of California’s Project 88 fellowship. In the UCLA General Catalog 1995–1997, the fellowship program is described: “Funded jointly by the UCLA Office of the Chancellor, the Graduate Division, and participating departments and schools, this program awards four-year fellowships on a competitive basis to historically underrepresented students (American Indian/Alaskan native, black/African American, Chicano/ Mexican American, Pilipino, and Puerto Rican) pursuing doctoral degrees. Asian American students pursuing doctoral degrees in the arts, humanities, and social sciences are also eligible.” www.registrar.ucla.edu/archive/catalog/1995_97/ GraduateFeesandFinancialSupport.html (Last accessed June 18, 2007). 29. For example, in the introduction to Irma McClaurin’s Women of Belize (1996), she writes: “I experienced a great sense of sisterhood during the six months I lived in Belize. It was a feeling produced by a combination of personal emotions and social bonds that occurred as part of the field experience, and my own personal and intellectual questions about women’s status. . . . My greatest personal benefit came from a sense of belonging, a sense of place. People often insisted that I must have a Belizean ancestor somewhere in my past; when I denied this, they settled upon the idea that our ancestors must have come from the same area in Africa but ended up on ships with different destinations. Most ethnographers yearn for some degree of acceptance by those they study. Like them I too had hoped to become well regarded by my consultants, but I experienced more. I found an extension of solidarity based on color, common roots of oppression, and often gender. . . . In Belize there was no real need for double-consciousness: the veil was lifted. Finally, I could be at peace in the world for a brief spell—Belize became for me a place of sanctuary.” (16–17) For me, McClaurin’s narrative of acceptance and kinship among the women in Belize illustrates the investment we may have as black American researchers to both claim and desire a particular connection with others in the African Diaspora. Indeed, McClaurin’s assertion of kinship based on an imagined connection with the homeland, with an African past, surpasses the ordinary desire for good researcher-informant relations. I believe it taps into our collective longing for a

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unified sense of self. For other explorations into this topic see McClaurin (2001), especially the pieces by Slocum and Simmons. See also Dillard and Dixon (2006), Harrison (1991), and Williams (1996a). Indeed, Collins (2001) describes the requirements typical of positivist methodological approaches: (1) distancing the researcher from her object of study; (2) absence of emotions from the research process; (3) lack of focus on ethics or values as imbedded within or motivation for research; (4) reliance on “adversarial debates” as the best manner to attain truth (255). Kleinman and Copp (1993) find that most field researchers keep quite extensive field notes of their interactions with their “subjects” but spend little time recording their own feelings and reactions to the work they are doing. When personal reflections are recorded, they are often separate from the field notes; the researcher’s feelings are seen as more “subjective,” whereas the field notes are “objective.” Journal writing as a form of self-expression has a long history among literate women in Western societies (Schiwy 1994). Feminist academics have studied the private writings of prominent and everyday women for clues about their interior lives during periods of oppression and denial of women’s public voices (Bowles 1994). My personal diary has not always been a “safe place.” When I was a preteen, my diary was found and read by my parents, who then confronted me with its contents. The short story I had written in diary form was considered “too racy,” and I was told that I shouldn’t write such things. As an adult looking back on this episode, I can understand my parents’ initial concern that the story I was telling in the pages of the notebook was true and their relief when they reached the end and realized that it was false. Their confrontation was probably also an effort to verify the story’s falsity. What I remember feeling, however, was that it was not o.k. to think or to write things that were inappropriate. See also Michelle Cliff’s recounting a similar childhood experience (Raiskin 1993:61) and Myriam J. A. Chancy’s Searching for Safe Spaces: Afro-Caribbean Women Writers in Exile (1997). For cultural anthropologists, intensive field research in a distant location is often the recognized activity that marks practitioners of the discipline as distinct from sociology and cultural studies. Traveling to and dwelling in another place for at least one year is a rite of passage that is then documented in the ethnographic tale produced (Clifford 1997). The field work component of my research as a sociologist carried less weight as a disciplinary marker than did the write-up and analysis of the data I collected. However, thinking through my experience of “traveling-in-dwelling” and “dwelling-in-traveling” (Clifford 1997:36) in and out of the Caribbean has been shaped by my reading of critical anthropological texts—for example, Behar (1993, 1996); Behar and Gordon (1995); Clifford (1986, 1997); Clifford and Marcus (1986); Rosaldo (1989); Visweswaran (1994, 1997). I had initially conceptualized my project as a comparative analysis of Sistren’s Theatre Collective in Jamaica, Red Thread Women’s Development Organisation in Guyana, and the National Welfare Rights Organization in the United States. Alsup (2004) writes that “certain authorities are connected with certain subjective positions in academia” (230). Within the academic hierarchy, graduate students, as professors-in-training, must “earn the right to speak” from their own subject positions (231). As such, the authority I possessed as a graduate student vis-à-vis the academy at some level dictated the necessity of keeping my personal narrative separate from my intellectual one. According to Kleinman and Copp (1993) sociologists have historically put very little effort into exploring the interconnections among the researcher’s experiences, reactions, and either pleasure or discomfort and the substance of the observations, interviews, or analyses produced.

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38. I am using contact here in ways informed by Pratt’s (1999) argument that contact zones “refer to social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power, such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they are lived out in many parts of the world today” (2). I would argue that field research is one of those contexts. 39. Like Tsing (2005), I understand my interactions with the women of Red Thread, Guyana and the Caribbean, academia, and my everyday life as a kind of friction. Tsing writes that “[t]he effects of encounters across difference can be compromising or empowering. Friction is not a synonym for resistance. Hegemony is made as well as unmade with friction” (6). 40. Some feminist researchers argue that using qualitative methods (especially life history, oral history, and in-depth interviews) in their work with women from subjugated subject positions (along the axes of race, class, sexuality, nation, and so on) can be empowering and “give voice” to their research subjects. Recently, however, this claim has been questioned by women of color, queer, and “third world” feminist researchers. See Wolf’s (1996:25–26) review of this debate. See also Lal (1996), K. Narayan (1997), U. Narayan (1997), and Visweswaran (1994). And see Collins (2000) for a discussion of finding voice as a political act–particularly Chapters 5 and 6. 41. I interviewed six of the seven Red Thread resource women during my stay in Guyana. Only Andaiye’s life story is included. Bonita Harris did not consent to a tape recorded interview, and Jocelyn Dow asked that her life story not be written about for the general public. Out of respect for their privacy, I do not include their personal narratives in this account. The narratives of Karen de Souza, Danuta, and Vanda Radzik are alluded to here and in Chapter 9. I also interviewed 17 Red Thread community women, and the life stories of about 10 women are included in this work. 42. All events recounted are actual events reconstructed from memory, field notes, personal diaries, and so on Although they all occurred, they did not necessarily occur in the time or order in which I present them here. See Ellis 2007 for a discussion of this methodological approach. 43. I am using fiction here in ways that echo Visweswaran, who writes: “Ethnography, like fiction, constructs existing or possible worlds, all the while retaining the idea of an alternate ‘made’ world. Ethnography, like fiction, no matter its pretense to present a self-contained narrative or cultural whole, remains incomplete and detached from the realms to which it points” (1994:1). 44. In my use of “home” as an organizing principle for thinking through our narratives I recognize that this may imply a reliance on a notion of safety and comfort. But as my narrative and the women’s illustrate, our relationships to home spaces (family, nation, workplace, and so forth) are sometimes comforting and other times stifling or even potentially violent—a space where struggle is an everyday occurrence. Even so, I think we all maintain a desire for that imagined space of connection and belonging. See Abdelhadi and Abdelhadi 2002, Anderson 1991, Case 1996, Chancy 1997, Espin 1997, hooks 1990, Kauanui 1998, Lamming 1960, Martin and Mohanty 1986, Mishra 1996, Morrison 1998, Rodriguez 2005, Rubenstein 2001, Said 1992, Wiley and Barnes 1996.

Chapter 2 1. Proposition 209, referred to as the Civil Rights Initiative, passed in 1996. It effectively ended all state-sponsored affirmative action programs in an increasingly

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more conservative political environment in California. The year before Proposition 209 passed, the UC Regents, the governing body of the University of California System, enacted resolution SP-1, which eliminated the use of race and ethnicity in admissions criteria for undergraduates. The impact of SP-1 and Proposition 209 was felt immediately in undergraduate applications, admissions, and enrollments of underrepresented students—African Americans, Chicanos/Latinos, and Native Americans. (Asian Americans are not considered an underrepresented group in California.) See UC Student Academic Services, “Undergraduate Access to the University of California after the Elimination of Race-Conscious Policies” (March 2003). This was not the first time I gave a talk based on this material. In 2000, I co-organized a panel with Professor Margaret Hunter for the Association of Black Sociologists on racial identity in the field, and in 2001 I presented on a panel organized by Professor Shanaz Kahn at the National Women’s Studies Association’s annual conference. Hintzen (2001) explores the complicated and sometimes antagonistic relationships between Afro-Caribbean immigrants in the United States and African Americans. See also Nwankwo’s (2003) analysis of Zora Neale Hurston’s Tell My Horse. In November 1978, 913 persons (men, women, and children) who had fled San Francisco to build a utopian society in Guyana’s interior, died in a mass suicide/murder in Jonestown, Guyana. Also murdered, in an ambush as they were preparing to depart, were Rep. Leo J. Ryan (D-Calif.), who was there leading a Congressional fact-finding mission into the cult/religious sect, three American journalists, and a Peoples Temple defector. In 2007, a documentary, Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple, aired on PBS’s American Experience. See www.pbs. org/wgbh/amex/jonestown/index.html. I am referring here to my essay “Becoming Red Thread Women: Alternative Visions of Gendered Politics in Post-Independence Guyana,” which had been accepted for publication in the volume Transnational Transgressions: African Women, Struggle, and Transformation in Global Perspective, edited by M. Bahati Kuumba and Monica M. White. Owing to unforeseen circumstances, the volume did not go to press. A revised version of this essay was published in the journal Social Movement Studies (see Nettles 2003 and 2007). She is referring to Karen de Souza, a founding resource member of Red Thread, and D. Alissa Trotz, a feminist researcher who has published extensively on (and with) Red Thread. The name of the journal has been fictionalized. To date there is no scholarly journal titled Caribbean. See Nettles (2003 and 2007) for examples of my analysis of Red Thread within the contexts of social movement theory and women-and-development theory, respectively. See Nettles (2004) for an example of my preliminary effort to engage self-reflexivity within my analysis. See Kuhn 1996. See Newton (2001) for documentation and analysis of the collective action of faculty of color to create a space on campus, both physically and metaphorically, for these programs. Naples 2003. All students’ names are pseudonyms. Denzin (2002) writes that “critical inquiry must be focused [on] a clear set of moral and political goals that are connected to a clearly defined set of interpretative practices” (488) and that researchers must see their work intimately tied to activism and advocacy. In other words, “the researcher learns to take on the identities of

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public advocate and cultural critic” (485). See also Denzin and Giardiana (2007, 2006). In the late 1960s and into the 1970s, social scientists began to argue that research conducted in marginalized communities of color should be carried out by researchers who are “members” of these communities (Blauner and Wellman 1973, Merton 1972, Zinn 1979). The call for “racial matching” was made in response both to the outrage expressed by communities of color and scholars of color of inappropriate exploitative research practices and inaccurate findings. There exists a fairly substantial body of literature that examines the insider/ outsider status of the researcher and the pros and cons of “racial matching” of interviewers with interview subjects. See Winddance Twine’s (2000:6–14) excellent summary “Racial Insiders and Racial Matching” and also Wolf’s (1996) review of the feminist literature, which grapples with this issue (especially pages 15–19). Williams 1996a. See also Winddance Twine and Warren’s edited volume (2000). In their exploration of black women’s mental health, Jones and Shorter-Gooden (2003) write: “Black women in our country have had to perfect what we call ‘shifting,’ a sort of subterfuge that African Americans have long practiced to ensure their survival in our society. . . . Shifting is often internal, invisible. It’s the chipping away at her sense of self, at her feelings of wholeness and centeredness” (6–7). See also hooks’ Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery (1993) and Rock My Soul: Black People and Self Esteem (2003). Donald Green, a.k.a. Dojoge, is a certified life path consultant (www.dojoge.com).

Chapter 3 1. Ms. M. is a pseudonym for a North American researcher and activist. 2. Although the overall fertility rate for women in Guyana has been declining since the 1980s, the trend of Guyanese women between the ages of 20 and 24 having the highest fertility rate continues. See Parsad (1994) for statistics and Ellis (1986), Parsad and Andaiye (1994), and Peake and Trotz (1999) for sociohistorical and political background. 3. The exchange rate at this time was $1 US = $138 Guyanese. In-town taxi rides ranged between $160 and $200 Guyanese. 4. Known as “steups” or “stupse” in Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, and Trinidad. To “suck-teeth” is to register one’s “disgust, impatience, or contempt” for a person, a situation, or just life in general. See Allsopp, 1996:538. 5. See “The October 1992 Elections: The Restoration of Democracy in Guyana,” http://guyana.org/features/postindependence/chapter2.html [last accessed August 13, 2007]. 6. “A mixture of pieces of green mango and other fruit with peppers, ground massala, vinegar, and salt in mustard oil; it is an East Indian preserved condiment” (Allsopp 1996:8). 7. Karen de Souza is one of the founding members of Red Thread Women’s Development Organisation. 8. Nigel Westmaas is a Guyanese activist with the Working People’s Alliance. At the time of my visit in Guyana he was also a graduate student studying politics. He and I had become friends during my first trip to Guyana. 9. Guyana’s coastline is just below sea level and, as such, has been under the constant threat of flooding. The Dutch colonial officials are credited with relocating the capital city to its current location, at the mouth of the Demerara River, and building

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a fairly effective sea defense system (sea wall) that extends for most of the coastline. With the addition of a bandstand in recent years, the Georgetown Seawall is also a place of public entertainment and recreation. However, in 2005 a massive and devastating flood illuminated the degree to which the country remains vulnerable (Westmaas 2005). In preparing to write this section, I did some background research on The Young and the Restless. UCLA’s Arts Library Special Collections holds original transcripts for the show in its archives. They were donated to the school by the producers of the program, William and Lee Bell. The set up for the scenes in the Caribbean read: “Open tight on Chris, standing at the quay in St. Kitts. She’s looking out to sea, letting the sunlit breeze caress her face. If possible, we hear the strings of a local steel band playing nearby. [Note #1: In this and subsequent shows, we’ll want to take every opportunity to emphasize the island ambiance and flavor—as much “atmosphere” as we can afford. Note #2: All scripted material herein has been written without benefit of a visit to St. Kitts or Nevis. Thus we’re only trying to give a feeling here, an idea of what we’d like to see. Production is obviously free to eliminate elements that aren’t available and substitute others of a similar nature.]” She is referring to the Guyana National Consultation in preparation for the Hemispheric Summit on Sustainable Development, which took place on August 22, 1996. See hooks 1992. My discomfort here is felt both in my interactions with Julie, Melinda, Betram, and Elizabeth, and in my internal dialogue. Although I am critical of what I perceive to be their commodification and consumption of the “other” and their seeming lack of awareness of the power differentials between them and those they are consuming (hooks, 1999), I also wonder why I cannot be more like them. It seems that Western whites could add touches of their Guyana experiences to their every widening cultural repertoire and exploit the “other” for their own cultural growth. They could display the “artifacts” they collected on their journey and become, in some sense, honorary Guyanese . . . but their privileged positions as white Americans would remain. Did they ever ask themselves, as I did: Why am I here? Did they ever experience the discomfort of being simultaneously “different” yet “similar,” “privileged” and “other” in relation to the Guyanese? I would assert that the disjuncture between our experiences and approaches is a function of how Western “white” and “black” identities might operate differently in transnational contexts (Winndance Twine and Warren 2000). For the white researchers and volunteers, being in Guyana and among the Guyanese as helpers solidified their identities as liberal or progressive individuals deeply concerned with the plight of the world’s poor and disenfranchised. Although many are critical of the colonial history and may even see themselves as implicated in that past, their ability to recognize the continuance of the colonial impulse within contemporary development and international aid machinery is less pronounced (Charlés 2007). As a black Westerner, I exist in Guyana as both a “victim” of colonialism and the historic trafficking in black people globally and a “recipient” of the United States’ attempt to alleviate the wrongs perpetuated by its slave past, which place me in a precarious situation.

Chapter 4 1. The women I interviewed lived in separate, neighboring villages in the county of Berbice, located about 75 miles east of Georgetown (see Map, page 70).

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2. Plural for shimmy: chemise. Used in Guyana and Trinidad; see Allsopp 1996:504. 3. A fatal disease, causing sores about the head, that attacks domestic hens; see Allsopp 1996:618. 4. See Slocum’s (2006, 93-97) analysis of the discourse of “freedom” amongst banana farmers in St. Lucia. 5. Here Berta is referring to the General Election in 1992, widely believed to be the first “free and fair” election since Guyana’s independence in 1966. Although there were many international observers present in Guyana during this election period, violence often erupted. 6. The 80-Day Strike, which began on 18 April 1963, was called by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) to protest the PPP government’s introduction of the Labour Relations Bill in the House of Assembly. The TUC charged that the Bill gave the government too much authority over the right of labor to recognize a union of its choice, thereby labeling the PPP as “communist.” The action, now regarded as rooted in the racialized politics of the time, has been understood as an effort to uproot the government led by East Indian Jeddi Jagan. See Ishmael 2005a. 7. Nichols (1983:13), “We the Women.”

Chapter 5 1. This title pays homage to Williams 1996b. 2. From Nichols (1983:8), “One Continent/To Another.” Copyright (c) Grace Nichols 1983; reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown Group Ltd., London. 3. I am drawing here on DuBois’s (1990) concept of “double-consciousness” and Deleuze and Guattari’s (1988, 1989) “schizophrenia.” Also Jones and Shorter-Gooden’s (2003) concept of “shifting,” a practice widely engaged in by the black American women who participated in their study. “Shifting” means performing (e.g., through talk or dress) different ways of being dependent on the location (e.g., work or with family/friends). Although this practice can be seen as a survival mechanism, it often involves the loss of self-esteem, increased anxiety to “act right,” and depression; see also West (1998). 4. Caribbean word for the vegetable okra; see Allsopp 1996, 413–414. 5. Allsopp (1996: 412) defines obeah as “a set or system of secret beliefs in the use of supernatural forces to attain or defend against evil ends; it is African in origin and varies greatly in kind, requirements, and practice, ranging from the simple, such as the use of items like oils, herbs, bones, grave-dirt, and fresh animal blood, to the criminal (though rare), such as the sacrifice of a child’s life; it is carried on or worked by hidden practitioners in order to gain for their clients success, protection, or cures for mysterious illnesses, as well as cause trouble for, or the death of, an enemy.” Merrill (1992) reports that in Guyana, obeah practitioners may be either Afro- or Indo-Guyanese and that people from all ethnic groups consult them to help resolve problems. 6. Section 8 is a U.S. federally subsidized housing program that grew out of the Great Society programs following the Depression, particularly the U.S. Housing Act of 1937. In the 1960s and 1970s, it became apparent that low-income families (particularly ethnic minorities) were spending a large percentage of their income on housing and would benefit from a subsidy program. Under Section 8, tenants pay 30% of their income for rent, and the rest is paid by federal dollars. Theoretically, the program allows low-income families to rent from private landlords in neighborhoods not segregated by race and/or class. The private landlords are required to maintain the rental units in a good condition. Many landlords prefer not to participate in the program because of commonly held biases against families

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who make use of Section 8 and the reality that in some housing markets much higher rental rates can be netted on the open market. Source: National Housing Law Project. www.nhlp.org [last accessed September 13, 2006].

Chapter 6 1. Linden is located about 100 miles south of Georgetown and is situated along both banks of the Demerara River (see map, page 70). The area, formerly known as Wismar-MacKenzie-Christianburg, was unified as a township in 1970. Then president, Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham, renamed it after himself. It is now the second largest city in Guyana. See Peake and Trotz (1999). 2. See Nettles 2005. 3. Puri here refers to daal puri, a snack made by filling roti dough with a mixture of cooked split peas (or daal) spiced with ground cumin and garlic; see Grant 1988. Allsopp (1996:186) defines it as “a type of roti with a filling of daal—a paste or powder made from yellow split peas, often fried in ghee [clarified butter]. It is a standard part of the meal at Hindu weddings.” The degree to which there is a pan-Guyanese culture—crossing the divisions of race, geography, and religion—is evidenced by the foods consumed by the women I interviewed. 4. Common Entrance here refers to the exam administered by the CXC; which is the Caribbean Exchange Council—“the official body responsible for organizing secondary school-leavers’ examinations in most of the English-speaking Caribbean territories” (Allsopp 1996:184). 5. The University of Guyana. 6. An expression that means “to grimace with displeasure, disapproval, scorn, etc.” (Allsopp 1996:512). 7. My reflections here are informed by a rich literature on women and development in “third world” spaces. Some of the works that have been foundational for me are Deere et al. 1990, Harcourt 1994, Karl 1995, Momsen 1991, Moser 1993, Sen and Grown 1987, Vickers 1991, and Townsend et al. 1999. 8. Miss. M. is a pseudonym for a North American researcher and activist. 9. See Sen and Grown’s (1987) discussion of women’s empowerment through participation in organizations (especially pages 89–96). 10. Refers to soda-bakes—a small, round piece of flattened dough (with a touch of baking soda) about 2 to 3 inches in diameter, fried brown in very hot oil, several being served with a meal; see Allsopp 1996:72. 11. During my stay in Guyana the currency exchange rate was G$138 = US$1. 12. See Trotz 2002. 13. Women and Development Unit at the University of the West Indies, Barbados. 14. In her discussion of research among the Maori peoples in New Zealand, Smith (2006) argues that research “on the margins” is “at its core, an activity of hope” (157).

Chapter 7 1. There is a rich literature on the Caribbean family. See Barrow 2001 for a review; see also Nettles 1995. 2. The Women’s Revolutionary Socialist Movement (WRSM) is the women’s auxiliary unit of the People’s National Congress (PNC). 3. Trotz (2002) writes: “While outward migration is an integral aspect of Caribbean societies in general, none has witnessed such a hemorrhaging of its human

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resources as Guyana” (page 255). Trotz argues that the post-1970s economic crisis precipitated a “virtual explosion in the scale of emigration” (page 255). See also Chamberlain 1997, Chancy 1997, and Nettles 2004 for studies on Caribbean experiences of exile and return. 4. As in other Caribbean countries, there is a culture of migration in Guyana that permeates at all class levels. Among middle- and upper-class peoples, migration outside the Caribbean for secondary and higher education and employment is not uncommon and is often expected. Migration out of the country for lower-class peoples is often understood as directly tied to the lack of adequate employment within the country. There remains among many migrants a feeling of temporariness, which is often held only in the imagination as subsequent generations of Caribbean peoples are born in places outside the Caribbean. See Chamberlain (1997) for a description of these processes. 5. The Seventh-day Adventist Church has maintained a missionary presence throughout Latin America and the Caribbean since 1890. For a detailed history of this phenomenon see Greenleaf (1992). It is reported that in 1996 there were 115 Seventh-day Adventist Churches in Guyana, with about 31,000 members; see www.adventiststatistics.org (last accessed June 28, 2007). 6. My use of “black” here is not wholly accurate. Although many of the women did readily identify as being of African descent, sometimes using the word “negro,” a good number of the women—e.g., Miss Irene, Miss Sylvia, and Miss Dorothy—claim a mixed racial background. Indeed, in spite of the dominant political wrangling around the dichotomized racial-ethnic identities African and East Indian, multiracial identifications at the individual level are common; see Williams (1991).

Chapter 8 1. Met-en-Meerzorg is a village located on the left bank (west coast) of the Demerara River (see Map, page 70). 2. Under President Forbes Burnham, Guyana’s education system shifted from the private to the public sector. Since 1976, schooling up to age 14½ has been both compulsory and subsidized by the government. However, with the increasing economic crises and the cultural proscriptions against girls pursuing higher education, there remain distinct gendered limits. See Ellis 1986, National Development Strategy Secretariat 1996, and Peake and Trotz 1999. 3. A reference to the possibility of being beaten by one’s husband. 4. “Canadian Crossroads International works to create a more equitable and sustainable world by engaging and strengthening individuals, organizations, and communities through mutual learning, solidarity, and collective action”; www cciorg.ca/welcome.html. 5. See Clifford 1997, especially pages 244–277. 6. See Trotz 2002, 259. 7. Rowley’s study (2002) shows that for many women in the Caribbean, marriage is a contradictory institution; it is both “desirable and achievable” and a potential threat to women’s autonomy and agency (p. 35). 8. See Reagon 1998.

Chapter 9 1. From Audre Lorde, “Eye to Eye: Black Women, Hatred, and Anger” in her collection Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984:170).

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2. See Skeete (1996). 3. From Audre Lorde, “Prologue” in her collection Undersong: Chosen Poems Old and New (1992:111). “Prologue” copyright (c) 1992, 1973 by Audre Lorde, from Undersong: Chosen Poems Old and New by Audre Lorde. Used by permission of W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. 4. Spanking, even beating a child is often considered completely acceptable within black families/communities where the concept “save the rod, spoil the child” prevails. And, as both Bochner (2007) and hooks (1997 and 1996) write about their own childhoods, these kinds of approaches were thought to prepare children (black, working-class, immigrant) for the harshness that they will encounter in the world. I see the punishments designed to teach obedience are also part of another set of behaviors designed to allow the child to rise up, to soar, and to make the family (and the people) proud—for example, emphasizing formal education, creating access to extracurricular activities, and/or providing a home environment conducive for upward mobility. I think this is part of the “confusion” that Andaiye expresses . . . and my own. I also see this as a uniquely gendered experience in that many of these life lessons, opportunities, and punishments are meted out by the mother—a mother who wants more for her daughter than she was able to claim for herself but who is also fearful that her daughter will be hurt, exploited, and ridiculed by the world. So the pushing forward while simultaneously holding back is part of the dance in which mothers and daughters engage. (See Friday 1997, hooks 1996, and Lorde 1982 for complex renderings of mother/daughter relationships.) 5. Although the histories of British Honduras (now Belize) and British Guiana (now Guyana) contain similar aspects—both were British colonies with economies based on African slave labor in primarily large-scale agriculture—there are distinct differences in culture, foods eaten, and languages spoken (outside of the British English). 6. As Bochner (2007) writes: “It is better to think of memory as a perspective or point of view” (205). In Andaiye’s looking back there may be an element of what Bochner describes as semantic contagion, to “imbue past experiences with meanings and intentions not available to the participants at that time” (202). 7. Dillard and Dixon (2006) write provocatively of the responsibility to home and community embedded in researcher practice within an African cosmology; see especially pages 235–236. 8. Lloyd Best, political activist and economist, founded the New World Group (NWG). NWG brought together folks from the throughout the Caribbean Diaspora to contemplate how change should occur at all levels of West Indian society—economic, social, and cultural. The publication of its New World Quarterly began in 1963 with an Economic Plan for Guyana. Interestingly, although references are made to NWG drawing on a diverse membership of men and women, no women are mentioned in synopses of the organization. See the special issue of Trinidad and Tobago Review, “Tribute to Lloyd Best,” www tntreview.com (last accessed February 19, 2007). 9. Former Foreign Minister, People’s National Congress (Guyana). 10. Lawyer and later founder (in 1986) and publisher of the Stabroek News in Guyana; see Andrew Graham-Yooll, “Press & Politics in Guyana,” Caribbean Voice: The Voice of the Caribbean at Home & Abroad. Reprinted from Round Table, Oct 1994, Issue 332: 447–455, www.caribvoice.org/CaribbeanDocuments/guyanapress.html (last accessed February 19, 2007). 11. Lawyer in practice with David DeCaires. 12. RATOON was a leftist radical organization based at the University of Guyana and led by economist Clive Thomas; see David Hinds, “Brief History of the Working

Notes

13.

14. 15. 16.

17.

18.

19. 20. 21.

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People’s Alliance,” www.guyanacaribbeanpolitics.com/wpa/history/html, posted April 7, 2000 (last accessed February 19, 2007). Caribbean women’s “madness” is explored in the fictional/semi-autobiographical writing of Rhys 1999 [1966] and Cliff 1995 [1984] and 1989 [1987]. In Cliff’s work, women’s “madness” is often linked to childlessness or the loss of a child. From Audre Lorde, “Eye to Eye: Black Women, Hatred, and Anger” in her collection Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984:170). Search for Education, Elevation, and Knowledge—City University of New York. Indeed, what seemed missing from much of the social movement theory literatures I read to prepare for my research is this emotional component. But recent studies have worked to bring the study of emotions back into mainstream research on social movements. See, for example, Gibson-Graham (2006); Goodwin and Jasper (2003); Goodwin, Jasper, and Polletta (2001); Summers-Effler (2002). From lime(n), “an unorganized social gathering (usually of young people) to pass the time away in chat and banter”; used throughout the Caribbean but originating in the Eastern Caribbean, especially Trinidad. See Allsopp 1996:348. See Denzin and Giardina (2006) for engaging discussions on decolonizing the academy, especially essays by Dillard and Dixon, Gonzalez and Lincoln, and Smith in this volume. See Ellis (1986), Peake and Trotz (1999), Trotz (2002) for discussions of gendered expectations within Caribbean societies. From Audre Lorde, “Eye to Eye: Black Women Hatred and Anger” in her collection Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984:151). From Audre Lorde, “School Note” in her collection The Black Unicorn: Poems by Audre Lorde (1978:55). “School Note,” from The Black Unicorn by Audre Lorde. Copyright (c) 1978 by Audre Lorde. Used by permission of W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Chapter 10 1. In 1997, after President Cheddi Jagan’s death, Timehri International Airport was renamed Cheddi Jagan International Airport. 2. The practice of using women as “drug mules” to transport cocaine and heroin out of Caribbean, South American, Latin American countries did, in fact, increase in prevalence over the following decade. It has been reported that many of the women arrested as “drug mules” are single women struggling to raise children in an increasingly desperate economic climate (Hyland 2002); see also CARICOM 2002, Figueira 2004, and U.S. Embassy 2007. 3. There is an uneasy slippage (for the researcher) between the experience of the tourist and that of the researcher. In her auto/ethnographic film Adio Kerida (2002), Ruth Behar suggests: “Anthropologist and tourists always arrive together to what they consider to be the outback. Both want to catch the native in their pristine state, to salvage their culture before it’s lost. Not realizing that they themselves are the messengers of the changes that have already taken place.”

Chapter 11 1. In Crossley’s (1988, 2004) critical essay on the novel, Butler’s “hybrid of memoir and fantasy” is understood within the genre of the “neo-colonial slave narrative [. . .] a fictional mutation of the autobiographies of nineteenth-century Americans

294

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

| Notes

who lived as slaves” (2004:265). Other works in this genre include Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987) and Margaret Walker’s Jubilee (1966). Butler’s contribution to this genre is “distinctive” in that she uses the fictional conventions of time travel to transport a present-day black woman into her ancestor’s slave past. Crossley writes: “Butler’s greatest achievement in the novel is her collapsing of the genres of fantastic travelogue and the slave narrative” (1988:xxi). As Crossley argues: “It is the paradoxes of kinship, of family, of history, of home that engage Butler’s imagination, not the paradoxes of time travel. In particular, the novel has much to say about the paradoxical nature of ‘home’ that magnet for American sentiment and homilies: ‘There’s no place like home’; ‘Home is where the heart is’; ‘You can’t go home again.’ To all of those simplicities Kindred offers a challenge” (2004:267). Here I am using insider/outsider in a dichotomous fashion for effect. See Beoku-Betts (1994), Collins (1986); McClaurin (2001, especially Simmons, Slocum, and Rodriguez in this volume; Nwankwo (2003); and Winddance Twine and Warren (2000) for complex renderings of the negotiated nature of the insider/outsider standpoints in the production of ethnography. Paradoxically, the purpose of Dana’s travel back in time is to secure her future. She is called on to protect Rufus Weylin, the incorrigible son of the slave owner whose Maryland plantation she inhabits on her forceful/involuntary returns to the past. Dana’s family line is initiated by Rufus and the slave woman Alice Greenwood, who conceive a child. Dana must facilitate not only Rufus’s survival but also the sexual relationship between he and Alice. In many ways, Dana returns “home” to the place of her ancestors, and although she detests the practice of slavery, she must also be complicit in some of the degradation of the system in order to ensure that she survives in the present. As Nwankwo (2003) writes in her analysis of Zora Neale Hurston’s Caribbean ethnography Tell My Horse, there can be a particular minefield of interaction between African American researchers and black Caribbean research subjects. She argues: “Despite her [Hurston’s] desire to embrace Caribbean blacks as her kin, her connection to the United States and its particular American-ness prevents her from articulating a transnational kinship free of nation-based hierarchization (binaristic blackness)” (73). Although I find that Nwankwo’s critical analysis of Hurston’s Caribbean ethnography fails to grasp the trickster nature of Hurston’s writings and too easily characterizes her work as ethnocentric, understanding Hurston’s American identity and her relationship to anthropology and the U.S. academy as fundamental components of her worldview that render her simultaneously kin (insider) and foreigner (outsider) resonates with my own efforts to write about my Guyanese research. I am drawing here, specifically, on black anthropologist Faye Harrison’s (1991) “Ethnography as Politics”; see also McClaurin (2000) and Winddance Twine and Warren (2000). In the final chapter of Kindred, Dana and Kevin journey to present-day Maryland to see the place where her ancestors had been. They look for evidence in the historical records and the physical landscape of the people and places they encountered in the past. While touching the scar on her face made by the boot heel of Rufus’s father and her empty left sleeve, Dana asks Kevin: “Why did I even want to come here. You’d think I would have had enough of the past.” He responds: “You probably needed to come for the same reason I did.” He shrugged. “To try to understand. To touch solid evidence that those people existed. To reassure yourself that you’re sane” (Butler 1988:264).

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8. “Feminists and minority scholars [. . .] have worked the metaphor of the margin, the hyphen, or the border into social theories of oppression and marginalization and of resistance and possibility (Fine 1992; hooks 1984). Gloria Anzaldúa (1999), for example, writes of the border where she grew up literally at the border between the United States and Mexico and figuratively at the border between home and school, between having and not having, and as a site for positive identity formation. African American writer bell hooks (1984) wrote of the radical possibility of ‘choosing the margins’ as a site of belonging as much as a site of struggle and resistance” (Smith 2006:159). 9. Most immediately, I see this greater surveillance of Compton and other communities of color as a direct effect of the Los Angeles Uprisings of 1992, sparked by the verdict in the Rodney King trial (see Anna Deveare Smith’s Twilight: Los Angeles 1992. New York: Doubleday, 1994). But Compton has long been marked as a dangerous place in the collective imaginary. I am reminded of an uncomfortable exchange. While I was still in graduate school and living with my parents, I interviewed for an academic job in another state. The white woman assistant professor who picked me up at the airport asked eagerly as we left the baggage claim area and headed toward her car: “I see from your application that you live in Compton. Wow! What is that like? Is it like what I hear in the rap music?” 10. Numbers 11, verses 4–6. Taken from The Holy Bible, King James Version. Cleveland and New York: The World Publishing Company, pages 140–141. See also Bible, New International Version. www.ibs.org//niv; “Matthew Henry’s Commentary,” The Unbound Bible. http://unbound.biola.edu. 11. hooks 1997, 1999. 12. Red Thread coordinates the Global Women’s Strike in Guyana; see www. globalwomenstrike.net/GuyanaIndex.htm. In conjunction with Dr. Linda Peake, Red Thread conducted a research project on women issues in Guyana in 1998; see www.sdnp.org.gy/hands/wom_surv.htm. 13. See Trotz (2007).

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Index

Bochner, Arthur P., 32, 33, 291n4, 292n6 Borland, Jennifer, 27 Bowles, Gloria, 283n32 Brettell, Caroline B., 33 British Guiana Labor Union (BGLU), 23 Brotherson, F., 24 Burnham, Forbes, 22, 23–24, 25, 34, 83, 175, 204, 269, 281n17, n18, 291n2 Burrowes, R., 23 Butler, Octavia, 267, 268, 293n1, 294n7

Abdelhadi, Reem, 285n44 Abdulhadi, Rabab, 285n44 Abu-Lughod, Lila, 33 activism, black women’s, 19, 252, 280n7 Allsopp, Richard, 287n4, n6, 288n2, n3, 289n3, n4, n5, 290n4, n6, n10, 292n17 Alsup, Janet, 49, 284n36 Andaiye, 24, 25, 35, 231ff, 281n15, n18, 285n41, 287n2, 291n4, 292n6 Anderson, Benedict, 285n44 Anzaldúa, Gloria E., 21, 280n8, 294n8 autoethnography, 32–33, 293n3

Canadian Crossroad International, 216, 291n4 Cannon, Lynn Weber, 282n23 Caribbean Association of Feminist Research and Action (CAFRA), 144 CARICOM, 293n2 Case, Duncan, 285n44 Cesareo, Mario, 267 Chamberlain, Mary, 281n16, 290n3, n4

Bailey, Barbara, 25 Barnes, Fiona R., 285n44 Barrow, Christine, 290n1 beating: of children, 237, 291n4; of women, 123, 211, 291n3 Behar, Ruth, 49, 267, 284n34, 293n3 Bell, Ella Louise, 279n4 Beoku-Betts, Josephine, 293n3 Best, Lloyd, 242, 292n8 Blauner, Robert, 286n14

309

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Chancy, Myriam J. A., 284n33, 285n44, 290n3 Charlés, Laurie L., 288n13 Church, Kathryn, 49 Civil Rights movement, 18, 249 Cliff, Michelle, 48, 292n13 Clifford, James, 49, 284n34, 291n5 Collins, Patricia Hill, 21, 27, 279n4, 280n8, 282n23, n27, 283n30, 284n40, 293n3 community women, 26, 34, 35, 92, 100, 114, 144, 158, 232, 255, 259 Copp, Martha A., 28, 283n31, n37 Crenshaw, Kimberlé, 21 Crossley, Robert, 293n1, n2 D’Amico-Samuels, Deborah, 49 Daniels, L. S., 24, 281n16 De Souza, Karen, 24, 27, 282n26, 285n41, 286n6, 287n7 Deere, Carmen Diane, 290n7 Deleuze, Gilles, 289n3 Denzin, Norman K., 49, 286n13, 292n18 DeVault, Marjorie L., 27 diary, 30, 33, 68, 97, 136, 200, 283n32, n33 Dillard, Cynthia B., 283n29, 292n7, n18 division of labor, in Guyana, 21, 101, 209, 210, 213. See also women’s work Dixon, Adrienne, 283n29, 292n7 Dow, Jocelyn, 24, 282n26, 285n41 DuBois, W. E. B., 289n3 Dunham, Katherine, 33 Dutch West Indian Company, 22 economic development of women, 25, 100, 148, 172, 189, 208, 211, 269, 270, 281n18. See also Red Thread economic struggles, 171, 174, 187, 193, 200–201, 220, 236, 256, 281n16 education of women, 109, 110, 125, 156, 270. See also Red Thread

education workshops. See education of women, Red Thread Ellis, Carolyn, 32, 33, 34, 49, 279n3, 285n42 Ellis, Pat, 28, 287n2, 291n2, 293n19 empowerment of women. See women’s empowerment Espin, Olivia M., 285n44 ethnicity. See race/ethnicity Fabian, Johannes, 49 feminist thought, 19, 248, 280n8, 283n27 Figueira, Daurius, 293n2 Fine, Michelle, 294n8 Fischer, Michael, 49 Fish, Stanley, 49 Flaherty, Michael G., 49 Food Struggles, 252 Ford-Smith, Honor, 19–20, 26, 214, 284n35 freedom, 212–213, 229. See also women’s empowerment Friday, Nancy, 291n4 Giardina, Michael D., 286n13, 292n18 Gibson-Graham, J. K., 269, 292n16 Gluck, Sherner Berger, 27, 282n23 Goodwin, Jeff, 292n16 Gordon, Deborah, 49, 284n34 Gorelick, Sherry, 283n27 Grant, Rosamund, 289n3 Greenleaf, Floyd, 290n5 Grown, 290n7, n9 Guattari, Felix, 289n3 Guiana. See Guyana Gurney, C. M., 279n1 Guyana: history of, 22, 287n9; slave trade in, 22–23, 288n13, 292n5. See also health issues, race/ ethnicity issues Hanson, Susan S., 33 Harcourt, Wendy, 290n7 Harding, Sandra, 283n27 Harris, Bonita, 24, 25, 282n21, n26

Index Harrison, Faye V., 279n4, 283n29, 294n6 health issues, in Guyana, 122, 160, 172, 235 Higgenbotham, Elizabeth, 282n23 Hintzen, Percy, 279n6, 285n3 home: constructing, 50, 120, 181, 183, 201, 258, 270, 275, 285n44; perceptions of, 45, 48, 62, 268, 279n4; returning, 48, 62, 83, 187, 188, 251, 294n4 hooks, bell, 21, 248, 279n4, 280n7, 285n44, 286n16, 288n12, n13, 291n4, 294n8, 295n11 Hull, Gloria T., 21 Hurston, Zora Neale, 279n4, 285n3, 294n5 Hyland, Julie, 293n2 identity: gendered, 29, 82, 120, 280n13; racial, 29, 31, 56, 82, 100, 136. See also division of labor, race/ethnicity issues, women’s work International Monetary Fund (IMF), 281n17, n21 Ishmael, Odeen, 288n6 Jagan, Cheddi, 204, 288n6, 293n1 Jasper, James M., 292n16 Jones, Charisse, 286n16, 289n3 Jordan, June, 265–266, 268–269, 279n2, n4, journal. See diary Kaplan, E. Ann, 267 Karl, Marilee, 290n7 Kauanui, J. Kehaulani, 285n44 Kincaid, Jamaica, 84, 187, 279n2 Kirsch, Gesa, 283n27 Kleinman, Sheryl, 28, 283n31, n37 Kuhn, Thomas, 286n9 Kwayana, Eusi, 24 Lal, Jayati, 284n40 Lamming, George, 285n44

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Latin American Bureau (Research and Action) Ltd., 23, 24, 281n16, n17 Leung, Marianne L. A., 282n23 Lewis, Rupert C., 24 Lorde, Audre, 231, 237, 291n1, n3, n4, 292n14, 293n20, n21 Lyotard, Jean-François, 49 Mair, Lucille Mathurin, 19 Manning, Peter K., 49 Marcus, George E., 49, 284n34 Martin, Biddy, 285n44 Matthews, Diana, 24, 25 McCarthy, Cameron, 279n6 McClaurin, Irma, 36, 279n4, 283n29, 293n3, 294n6 McIntosh, Peggy, 29 Merrill, Tim, 289n5 Merton, Robert, 286n14 Mishra, Vijay, 285n44 Mohanty, Chandra, 285n44 Momsen, Janet Henshall, 290n7 Moraga, Cherrie, 21, 280n8 Morrison, Toni, 285n44, 293n1 Moser, Caroline O. N., 290n7 Movement Against Oppression, 243 Naples, Nancy, 49, 52, 55, 56, 283n27, 286n11 Narayan, Kirin, 284n40 Narayan, Uma, 42, 284n40 narratives, 31, 32, 33, 228, 265, 279n1; Red Thread, 32, 36, 44, 48, 156, 254, 269–270, 281n16 Nascimento, K., 23 National Development Strategy Secretariat, 291n2 National Welfare Rights Organization, 284n35 Nettles, Kimberly D., 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 280n8, n9, n11, 281n17, n18, 282n19, n20, 286n5, n8, 289n2, 290n1, n3 Neumann, Mark, 32 New World Group, 242, 243, 292n8 Newton, Judith, 286n10

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| Index

Nichols, Grace, 288n7, 289n2 Nwankwo, Ifeoma C. K., 285n3, 293n3, 294n5 Olwig, Karen Fog, 281n16 Omi, Michael, 279n6 Parsad, Basmat Shiw, 281n15, 287n2 Patai, Daphne, 27, 282n23 Patton, Venetria, 33 Peacocke, Nan, 26, 34 Peake, Linda, 24, 282n19, 287n2, 289n1, 291n2, 293n19, 295n12 People’s National Congress (PNC), 23, 83, 290n2 People’s Progressive Party (PPP), 23, 288n6 Perreault, Jeanne, 27 Phillips, Eric, 62 Pietilä, H., 25 Polletta, Francesca, 292n16 positivist methodological approaches, 283n30 Pratt, Mary Louise, 284n38 Proposition, 37, 209, 285n1 Rabinow, Paul, 49 race/ethnicity issues, 22, 217, 218, 234, 238, 256, 280n8; in Guyana, 42, 100, 136, 211, 214, 218, 223, 256, 291n6; in research, 286n14, 288n13 Radzik, Danuta, 24, 35, 282n26, 285n41 Radzik, Vanda, 24, 35, 282n26, 285n41 Rahier, Jean Muteba, 279n6 Raiskin, Judith, 284n33 RATOON, 242, 292n12 Reagon, Bernice Johnson, 291n8 Red Thread Women’s Development Organisation, 10, 11, 22, 24–25, 26, 34, 35, 73, 88, 100, 113, 159, 222–223, 269, 282n22, 284n35; beginnings, 253–254, 282n21; and education, 106, 109, 110, 125, 156, 169, 174, 179, 189, 208, 214, 219

Reddy, Maureen T., 280n8 Reed-Danahay, Deborah E., 32, 49 reflexivity, 55, 286n8 Reinharz, Shulamit, 27, 282n23 research, 27; interviewing, 27–28, 29, 33, 103, 112, 144, 162, 166, 178, 192, 195, 207, 232; participatory, 28, 52; subjectivity in, 52, 54, 57, 283n31, n36, n37 researcher vs. researched, 49, 216, 217, 234, 247–248, 256, 275, 286n14 resource women, 26, 34, 35, 45, 158, 232, 259 Rhomberg, Chris, 279n5 Rhys, Jean, 292n13 Richardson, Laurel, 33, 34, 49 Robinson, Tracy, 281n15 Rodney, Walter, 24 Rodríguez, María Cristina, 285n44, 293n3 Romero, Mary, 280n8 Rosaldo, Renato, 49, 284n34 Rowley, Michelle, 291n7 Rubenstein, Roberta, 285n44 Rushing, Janice Hocker, 279n3 Said, Edward, 285n44 Schiwy, Marlene A., 283n32 Scott, Patricia Bell, 21 SEEK Program, 249 self empowerment, 37. See also women’s empowerment Sen, 290n7, n9 Shields, Tanya L., 281n15 Shorter-Gooden, Kumea, 286n16, 289n3 Sides, Josh, 279n5 Simmons, Kimberly Eison, 293n3 Sistren Theatre Collective, 19–20, 26, 214, 284n35 Skeete, Améra, 291n2 Slocum, Karla, 281n15, 288n4, 293n3 Smith, Barbara, 21 Smith, Linda Tuhiwai, 269, 271, 290n14, 294n8

Index Snow, David A., 49 Sparkes, Andrew C., 33 Stack, Carol, 279n5 Summers-Effler, Erika, 292n16 third world women, 28, 213, 280n13, 284n40, 290n7 Townsend, Janet, 290n7 Trotz, Alissa, 221, 282n19, 286n6, 287n2, 289n1, 290n3, n12, 291n2, n6, 293n19 Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt, 284n39 Tusmith, Bonnie, 280n8 U.S. Embassy, 293n2 U.S. Library of Congress, 281n16 United Nations Decade for Women, 24, 25 Van Maanen, John, 49 Vickers, Jeanne, 25, 290n7 Visweswaran, Kamala, 34, 49, 284n34, n40, n43 Walker, Alice, 282n24 Walker, Margaret, 293n1 Warren, Jonathan, 36, 286n15, 288n13, 293n3, 294n6 Wellman, David, 286n14 West, 289n3

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Westmaas, Nigel, 287n8, n9 Wiley, Catherine, 285n44 Williams, Brackette F., 283n29, 286n15, 289n1, 291n6 Winant, Howard, 279n6 Winddance Twine, France, 36, 286n14, n15, 288n13, 293n3, 294n6 Wolf, Diane L., 283n27, 284n40, 286n14 Wolf, Margery, 49, 283n27 women’s empowerment, 21, 26, 100, 185, 200, 211, 213, 225, 231, 282n21, 290n9 women’s issues, 122, 152, 156, 159, 172 Women’s Revolutionary Socialist Movement, 185, 290n2 women’s work, 108–111, 113, 120, 147, 173, 229. See also division of labor Working People’s Alliance (WPA), 24, 35, 251, 253, 255, 280n12, 281n17, n18, 287n8 workshops. See education of women, Red Thread Zavella, Patricia, 282n23 Zinn, Maxine Baca, 282n23, 286n14

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About the Author

The author with her beloved Fudge

Kimberly D. Nettles is assistant professor in Women and Gender Studies at the University of California, Davis. She received a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a B.A. in Broadcast Journalism with a minor in Women’s Studies from the University of Southern California. She also held a Carolina Minority Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Nettles is the author of several articles on the Red Thread women activists in Guyana and feminist pedagogy. Nettles’s current research and writing interests emanate from her passion for food and cooking. She has published essays in Slow: International Herald of Taste and Culture and Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture. Nettles was a residential faculty fellow at the University of California’s Humanities Research Institute, in the seminar “Eating Cultures: Race and Food.” She is interested in engaging the ideas of food, race, and identity within the context of historic and contemporary black American culture and politics. 315

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| About the Author

When not writing or teaching, Nettles can be found roaming through farmer’s markets, specialty food emporiums, and her neighbors’ gardens for goodies that she brings home to cook using her extensive collection of cookbooks.