Behind the "Paradise"

In this book  “A Small Place” by Jamaica Kincaid, we can experience different point of view of the island Antigua located at the Caribbean. This story is about the history, social status and the reality that lies in there. Once you’re reading the first chapter you can see the point of view of Jamaica as a tourist and how the people from the outside perceive the island. It describes how beautiful Antigua is, the side of the perfect place to vacation in the middle of the Caribbean sea but ignoring the reality of those who lives in there.

 Everyone (including myself) plan their vacations without caring about the place that we are about to choose. We try to pick that perfect place, with an awesome view, beautiful beaches and also that immaculate hotel where everything you want to experience is going to spend the whole days resting to trying to escape from our  life routine. But there’s a big difference from perceiving a place from the eyes of a tourist as being an insider. We know that those who comes to Puerto Rico and stay at the expensive hotels doesn’t know what it’s really on the inside, our culture or what we really are. Tourists just see what they want; that image that they create based on the magazines or perfect images that they have seen. But there’s so much more inside of our island. That “much more” is the point that Jamaica Kincaid wants to remark on us. There’s a culture behind those magnificent hotels, there is people who work as hard as you can’t imagine giving a good impression. Also everything that we see it’s just for our convenience because the reality is far from what we receive from them.

Once you get through that tourist experience you get to the second chapter where Jamaica wants to give the perspective of Antigua as a colonial island. The truth behind that Paradise, their roots, the things that they have to get through to be what they really are right now. A cruel reality for an island full of “black” people, or the majority were subordinated by the minority, the white people who came from England and those White people are the  ones that has been preparing that “fake” Paradise or trying to make every part of that island a part of England, their roots, to make a Paradise for their own, invading the peace and lives of others.

 Finally, by reading this all I can think is our situation or I can say I dare to compare the reality of Puerto Rico with Antigua. For me every island on the Caribbean has some similarities on their realities or history, they seem to be the perfect getaway, the perfect Paradise to spend a vacation but they have been through the same oppression or same margination of black people, the natural habitats of that “paradise”.  Reality that Jamaica Kincaid wants to make sure we see, and maybe take conscience that, our perfect getaway has another reality, a hard one for the people who lives there.