I Come From Foreign

“Tying and Trying Again” ~ Old School Sesame Street

 

Trying Too Hard

It’s been a year and three months now in LA–enough time that it’s supposed to be close to feeling like home.

And it is. For the most part. Sometimes more than others.

One of those essential things for making a home in foreign–one of the things I have biggest problems with–is putting yourself (your real self, not the “oh isn’t that interesting, fake smile” self) out there.

Trying.

In my head:

Trying = Trying Too Hard

Trying Too Hard = Fate Worse Than Death

It’s like exposing your soul to the world, letting them know that you are actively and publicly trying to obtain something.

My equilibrium doh deal up in that kinna ting.

I’ll just be a wallflower and stick in my corner and wait for people to approach me, thankyouverymuch.

Right after Oscar Wao I read Prep by first-time novelist Curtis Sittenfeld. It’s about this young teen from a middle-class family in Indiana who gets accepted on scholarship to a ritzy boarding school in the North-east. She feels like she doesn’t fit in, but is so in awe of this new prep school life of wealth and glamour (to her) that even though she’s miserable, she’s exhilarated just to be there. Any time another student makes an attempt to bring her into the fold, she screws it up, because she’s made herself believe that she’s too different to ever really fit in. It kind of got to me how much I related to a 14-year-old girl…

This particular passage was like a chapter out of my own book:

This desperate aversion to seeming like you wanted anything. or worse, going after it, stayed with me for years after I left Ault. When I graduated from college, my father told me he was concerned that I didn’t express enough enthusiasm in job interviews, and the comment shocked me. Enthusiasm was a thing you were supposed to show? But wasn’t it a little disgusting, didn’t it seem the same as greed and neediness?

It’s my exact first reaction to actively putting yourself out there.

It’s vulgar. Base.

And self-defeatist…

 

Passion

I act stand-offish and I’m not the most socially ept, but what I like, I love (books, Broadway, dancing) and what I dislike, I loathe (Sundays, dusk, less than 90 degree angles). And when I’m passionate about something, I can wax on for hours.

But living in foreign, being around people who you don’t think “get” you is tough. And you don’t know… you don’t know if even after you explain yourself (and who can really explain themselves) that they’ll understand you any better. You don’t know if they’ll understand that everything that is normal to them is foreign to you. That you’re different from them and you want them to understand and accept that but not think of you as different in a bad way. Because you’re really not thaaat different. And it’s a bunch of circular, overlapping arguments that you use to torment yourself and in the end it’s just easier not to give anything a chance to and to pretend and to be generic and to just sit there and smile and nod.

See but that’s what makes LA so great.

 

The City of Dreams

A random after-hours conversation a few weeks ago with the bf and a couple of friends strayed to passions: Having a job versus doing your life’s work and fulfilling your dreams. Most of the people he knew in LA, the friend said, are doing just that.

Moving on their passion, working towards bigger and greater things than paychecks and 401Ks.

And he was kind of right.

Even for the people like me who are still figuring it out, we’re engaged, trying out different things, trying to keep up that forward motion.

Well, work-wise at least.

And none of these people have any qualms about putting it out there.

This is my passion. This is what I’m working towards. This is my dream and it’s a big part of who I am. Take it or leave it.

What I see in LA is that it’s so much easier here to dream. To go for it. To put your all into it.

And it’s because everybody else is doing it.

You know, start your vegan food service, become a director, build your dreamhouse.

It’s all good and it’s all attainable.

In Miami, it’s more like:

What is he thinking? That’s never going to happen. PIPE DREAM.

Or maybe I’m wrong and it’s all just in my head but I swear I never saw the world of opportunity in front of me until I moved to LA.

Passion begets passion. Dreams beget dreams.

Between reading Prep and being disgusted with myself for not having progressed past a self-defeatist teenage mentality and a random conversation about doing what you love I feel like I made a bit of a breakthrough.

Stickin in a corner… it’s a really easy, safe way to be when living in foreign feels too overwhelming.

But safe doesn’t get you anything and easy is no accomplishment.

And I’m a goal junkie.

Done.

When you live in foreign for a while, it’s easy to forget the colloquialisms from your home country that you used to spout without thinking twice back home.

Whenever I remember one or I’m talking to a friend/ family member who says something uniquely Trini I can’t help but smile.

Like last week, I’m talking to my bro on the phone and he’s telling me about my baby goddaughter who had to go to the doctor.

Yes, so she had to go get her shots and apparently she scream like ten tarzan.

TEN TARZAN!

notice the T-T alliteration

notice the missing S on Tarzan so you get the full sound of teNnnnn tarzaNnnnn

not one, not two, but TEN TARZAN!

it’s like a symphony

I miss my old Trini talk because it doh come natural so again yuh know (you see I had to think really hard to write that properly)

Trinidadian English–with its French, English, Spanish, and whatever else influences–is so rich and colorful and expressive and musical and hilarious and of course I’m biased but it’s beautiful.

For anyone interested in learning more about Trinidian English I suggest reading Cote ce Cote la by John Mendes, which was published donkey years ago and has been revered by Trinis at home and in foreign ever since.

Also, here’s a link to the poem Trini Talk, written by a well-known local poet, Miguel Browne, in praise of our beautiful dialect.

Anyway, the reason for this post–besides ten tarzan (ten tarzan HAH!)–was to introduce this new category where I’ll be posting and explaining (if necessary) Trini colloquialisms as I remember or am reminded of them.

It makes me feel a little closer to home

So all yuh Trinis out there: Y’all know this list is exhaustive, and while I will be list-keeper, my knowledge of Trini dialect may be more limited than yours.

Go ahead and post any phrases, words, sayings, etc you want me to add to the section in the comments and I’ll make sure to get to them.

Or send me your stories to post under your name.

Just saw this!

An enlightening interview in my favourite online magazine, Slate.com, with Junot Diaz about writing the Pulitzer Prize-winning book,The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Read it here.

I was kind of predispositioned to like this book–Caribbean family living in foreign, writer protagonist, teenage/ college tales of angst and longing–and I did. See my post on Oscar Wao and stereotypes here.

 

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Update: I just realized this interview was actually from November 2007 and they just reposted since he won the Pulitzer last week. Just FYI.

I finished reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz one whole day before it won a Pulitzer last week.

Coincidence?

The main character is an overweight sci-fi geek and overall poor excuse for a Dominican male. For those who don’t know–and here I thank all my Latin American friends for informing me–the stereotype of the Latin lover applies one-million-fold to Dominican men. Cheaters, lovers, sex addicts–they just can’t get enough of women in any shape or form.

Poor Oscar.

He couldn’t get enough of women, too–but only in his head. His first kiss didn’t come until he was 23, right before the end of his brief and wondrous life. And it wasn’t for lack of trying. My boy got shot down more times than he read The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Did I mention he was a sci-fi geek?

Anyway, my point is that on top of desperately seeking love and having it avail him at every corner, Oscar had to deal with his absolute failure to live up to the legendary Cassanova skills supposedly bestowed upon all Dominican men. Not to mention the pity (and disgust) of his Dominican family in New Jersey who couldn’t figure out just what went wrong with this one.

So, here are the things that recommended me to Oscar Wao.

• Our chubby woebegone protagonist, Oscar, was a writer–prolific actually–but ultimately unsuccessful in ever getting his sci-fi published. That actually makes him a better man than me–I am deathly afraid to put pen to paper to write anything resembling fiction, my passion. One of my favourite themes in fiction, which you’ll be hearing a lot more about, is the writer and what goes into that torturous creative process.
• It’s about a Dominican family living in foreign (Disclaimer: their situation is a lot different from mine. They live in a Dominican enclave in Jersey where there are people just like them everywhere they turn. There’s a large enough population that they have an identity within the community. I, on the other hand, am probably one of less than 50 Trinis spread out over the greater Los Angeles area. Nonetheless, they are foreigners in a strange land having to deal with the pull of home and the opportunities only available in America and so I can relate. Also, I have a couple friends from DR and visited there three years ago so it’s always nice to read about places you’re already familiar with.)
• Our Oscar is the anti-stereotype. Whatever perception you had of a Dominican male, he was the opposite. No machismo. No game. No experience. No luck, whatsoever. He’s an anti-hero who ends up dying a real hero’s death. That intrigued me.

So let’s talk stereotypes.

When you’re living in foreign, you have to deal with breaking down stereotypes on a daily basis.

I, for one, in no way fit the typical Trinidadian (or Caribbean, for that matter) stereotype.

First of all, I’m Chinese (for the most part–another post for another time), an ethnic group that represents less than one percent of the population. (Trinidad is about 40 percent Indian, 40 percent black, 18 percent mixed, and two percent white, Syrian/Lebanese, and Chinese)

The number one question I get when meeting a new person here in foreign is:

You’re Asian? But how can that be? You’re from Trinidad.

or

You’re not black. You can’t be from Trinidad.

Uh derrrrrrrrrr….

I guess it kind of figures.

In my experience, most Americans who aren’t white or black aren’t considered “American” anyway.

I try not to be snippy though. Try. But I don’t apologize about not living up to the afro-caribbean, dreadlock wearing, spliff-smoking, barefoot, beach-living stereotype.

No way, “mon.”

Usually I try to put it in context:

You know how America has immigrants from all different places all around the world?

Well, Trinidad is kind of like that.

They still look at me quizzically but at least I’ve given them something to ponder.

On top of that, I’ve about 3/4 way lost my accent.

I can pick it back up like that when I’m around my fellow West Indians (or when I’m vex) but somehow when I’m in a room full of Americans all of a sudden I’m pronouncing my Rs (WAH-derrr, not woh-TUH) losing my Ts (FIF-dy, not fif-TAY) and rounding out my vowels (Dehn-YELL, not DAAHN-yelI) and I kinda want to kick myself.

So I look Asian and I speak American. I couldn’t possibly be foreign.

(I also don’t drink so there goes another one but I’ve already discussed that here.)

I wonder what’s worse. Feeling like an outsider or being one and having people mistaken for you for a local?

Therein lies the rub.

Sometimes I actually enjoy it, though. It makes me feel all exotic and different–definitely a departure from my regular self perception.

And it’s a story to tell.

Now, I am a terrible storyteller. I can write but speaking is an entirely different skill.

I’ve gotten better about it, though.

When you’ve been telling the same story (or variations thereof) every time you meet a new person for the past eight years, you do improve.

So there is a lot of fun you can have with it.

I mean, I’m from this tiny little island in the Caribbean, that nobody should really know about except that there are so many talented people there accomplishing so many impressive things, from inventing new instruments, to pioneering new music genres, to winning Tony awards on Broadway (hmmm… see a pattern here?)

Not to mention two Nobel-Prize winning authors whom I will definitely be posting about soon. (see here and here and I’m also going to add him to the list because I want to post about The Lonely Londoners soon)

And if you don’t know about it then I have tons of fodder for conversation so it’s a win-win situation.

But then again, everybody’s country is famous for something.

So no matter where you’re from there’s a story to tell. You just have to find it.

When I first moved to the U.S. I definitely thought of myself as an ambassador, spreading the Trini doctrine to places far and wide.

Now that I’m in LA, where fewer people have reason to know about my country (geography is a bitch), I guess I should pick that back up.

I’m by no means the most knowledgeable about Trinidadian history and culture–I pretty much know what was around me growing up and I grew up pretty sheltered. Really sheltered, actually.

On top of that, my memories have gotten cloudy with time. (Like I had to look up to make sure I was getting my percentages on the ethnic breakdown of T’dad correct–I actually thought there would be more of me than that)

So maybe I should bone up.

Maybe I’ll make that a goal.

Danielle, Trini Ambassador for the West Coast, widening perspectives and breaking down stereotypes one conversation at a time…

Are you a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Latin American? A Jew from Kentucky? How do you deal with people’s misperceptions of who you are and where you’re from?

Share your stories!