{"id":879,"date":"2014-07-15T11:41:15","date_gmt":"2014-07-15T18:41:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.talkinggrid.com\/dev\/?p=879"},"modified":"2014-07-15T11:45:47","modified_gmt":"2014-07-15T18:45:47","slug":"caribbean-roots-personal-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/talkinggrid.com\/dev\/caribbean-roots-personal-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Caribbean Roots & Personal History"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Museum of The New World\u00a0<\/span><\/em>El Museo de Las Am\u00e9ricas<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>deserves a visit and more funding for African Studies. I\u2019d love to see the understanding and scholarship focused on the countless valuable lost human lives. \u00a0I\u2019d like to see these missing histories recovered and restored, polished and displayed, full of their inherent glory. \u00a0For every human story is one of survival, strength, and fortitude. \u00a0You just have to cast reality in the bright light of romantic thinking.<\/p>\n

\"dsc00153_2_med\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWas hast du gesagt?”<\/h6>\n

I insisted we visit\u00a0El Museo de Nuestras Raices Africanas<\/em>\u00a0in Old\/Viego<\/em>\u00a0San Juan Puerto Rico.\u00a0 Unless we really aimed, we were not going get there.\u00a0 The target was an hour away via auto. \u00a0In order to visit the museum we had to escape from the manicured reality of vacation paradise.\u00a0 It was so glaringly comfortable, at the resort, we almost couldn\u2019t leave.\u00a0 Hot tubs, infinity pools, sunken bars… I was being extravagantly pampered, ensconced in pleasure, getting massages, downing Pi\u00f1a Coladas, making small water color paintings, and reading my beloved Judge Dee novels.<\/p>\n

Yet\u2026 we had to go to Old San Juan. \u00a0It turned out that the Museum was not a dedicated museum anymore, rather a mere suite of rooms or a\u00a0salas<\/em>, a devoted to the plight of a portion of the ancestors of our Caribbean forefathers, in the larger\u00a0museo<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The culmination of the trans-national flight was to be in\u00a0Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic<\/a>.\u00a0 We were planning to visit my father\u2019s grave, with the children. Thereby, creating indelible family memories. \u00a0 A sub-text to the trip was helping me to reconnect with myself.\u00a0 Any deep questioning of the self may prompt you to visit ancestral lands and places where you are instantly factored in as a vital part of the community.\u00a0 My\u00a0pueblo<\/em>, the people of Caribbean and I connect, click… being immediately familiar, yet appropriately formal, as we are… \u00a0 Therefore, there was no resistance, only the unwavering laser focus of my husband, propelling us toward leaving the staged comfort of our resort in Fajador, a sea-side marvel, made complete by its private beaches on Palomillo Island to visit the city of Old San Juan and specifically the museum where I hoped to learn more about the humans that were abducted and introduced to the Caribbean as chattel, the African slaves forcibly imported to the \u201cso called,\u201d NEW WORLD.<\/p>\n

My loving Big Scientist German husband worked his magic to execute this significant excursion out of the usual travel loop to Hawaii, which he loves and has kept us flying west and very rarely east, for several years…\u00a0 \u00a0 He knows exactly what I require to unwind: a private beach, a doting staff, fried plantains, watercolor tablet at the ready, a stack of\u00a0Judge Dee Murder Mysteries<\/a>, and plenty of rum,\u00a0to boo<\/em>t<\/em>! \u00a0Yet, this trip was about more than mere poolside decadence with a splash of creativity.\u00a0 It was a soul-healing journey into the facts around who I really am.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet, the hands of the\u00a0masseuse\u00a0were small and strong, covered in olive-oil gloves, reminded me, in her effective silence that everything is done differently in the Caribbean. \u00a0The caring touch connected me with memories of my mother, she used olive oil for skin treatments, too. \u00a0Then I had a bath in coconut milk and a rice-based scrub. \u00a0They washed my hair and put a berry-red stripe in the front. \u00a0My nails were polished and I was ready to take the shuttle to Old San Juan. \u00a0We paid for a private taxi, instead.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"dsc00205_2_med\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Post Spa Treatments: Frau Kolb is ready to visit Old San Juan<\/h6>\n

Police patrol the second oldest city in the New World, a statue of\u00a0Ponce de Leon<\/a>, seeker of the Fountain of Youth and first\u00a0governor\u00a0of Old San Juan, wearing\u00a0pantaloons\u00a0and armor, presides over a town square under renovation. \u00a0Hah! \u00a0The\u00a0field where\u00a0soldiers met with cannon balls is in\u00a0resplendent display, thronging with international tourists.<\/p>\n

This museum visit came on the heals of my trip to the\u00a0Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles California<\/a>.\u00a0 My intention was to take-in for the first time, really, the “African heritage,” which is evident in my fine tighter curls and milk chocolate good-looks.\u00a0 People keep telling me, I\u2019m a \u201cblack person,\u201d yet the darkest man I ever knew was my father and he never mentioned this obvious \u201cfact,\u201d to me.\u00a0 His own sense of identity had little to do with the his onyx hue of skin.\u00a0 He had no concerns about his own racial identity. \u00a0 I received little instruction in what it meant to be \u201cNegro,\u201d my father\u2019s policy, was to assimilate, to blend in with the machine, erasing all traits that might make him appear foreign.\u00a0 Thus, he wore suits and polo shirts… however, never able to fully blend in, he favored his polos in bright yellow, which looked great on him,\u00a0…<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Afro-Latinos<\/span>\u00a0of Santo Domingo… Old San Juan, and… I hope to visit soon: Havana… are my people in that they recognize me. My real name, is common in the Spanish speaking Caribbean. \u00a0(Upon re-entry to the United States, I return to the land where people mispronounce my name with impunity.) I open my mouth and speak my Spanish and immediately doors fly open.\u00a0 My voice is familiar and without meaning to be, commanding in a trust-worthy, generational sound of inherited privilege, which humans trust\u2026\u00a0just think how American women swoon for posh sounding\u00a0British actors, take Hugh Grant, for example\u2026 my voice is reassuring to the locals, because, thanks to the fact of my wayward, unwanted, mother\u2019s origin, I come from the social elite of our island nation(s).\u00a0 Thus, my voice\u00a0 is a sonic key to trust and immediate higher status in the Caribbean, the land(s) of my parents and grandparents. \u00a0 It even works, sometimes outside the Caribbean.\u00a0 Yet, in Los Angeles, so close to Mexico, my Caribbean Spanish is met with questioning.<\/p>\n

I saw my grandfather\u2019s\u00a0photo\u00a0for the first time, last week.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

My father was ambitious.\u00a0 He married my mother because he firmly believed she was his ticket into the upper echelon of Dominican Society. One of a large family, a group of mostly Africans from the English speaking Isle of St. Croix, he saw the Dominicans as a dashing\u00a0and heroic\u00a0people. \u00a0Known in the Caribbean for their fabulous leader, El Jefe, their great infrastructure, and Spanish pizzazz\u2026 He idealized them. \u00a0 He had read about the dazzling members of my mother\u2019s extended family his whole life, growing up in the slums, shoe shining for needed family sustenance, his mother a domestic in a fine home, where she learned table manners… and brought these \u201cbetter,\u201d customs to her shack-home, in pieces.\u00a0 Shards smuggled out from under her patron\u2019s noses, she learned that eating was to be done on many plates and slowly… no rushing, she urged my father.\u00a0 He listened with one ear and ran out the door to his next adventure until he fell in my mother\u2019s carelessly laid, yet effective, net of beauty and welcoming gestures, knit by her fine last-name, and her descendant from the ultra-glamourous playboy and socialite\u2019s darling, Ricart, son of the Ricart that was the brother of\u2026\u00a0\u00a0Ah! \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Spanish Conquistadors<\/em>… addicted to gambling and the beauty of the native women and the importance they were vested with in the Caribbean\u2026\u00a0Who cared about them back in Europe? \u00a0<\/span>
\nMother was looking to get out of Dominican Republic and my father\u2019s status a young attorney, a graduate of the local University, the first University in the New World,\u00a0\u00a0The opportunity presented itself, which\u00a0made him a welcome immigrant to the United States, when professionals from everywhere were invited to uproot and come earn in the land of milk and honey.\u00a0His education\u00a0made him a welcome immigrant to the United States, in the early seventies. His legal degree was a shining neon sign saying,\u00a0\u201cEXIT,\u201d \u00a0to my mother, who was fed-up being a piece of meat in a country where sexism makes virtual slaves many women. \u00a0 My mother was the singular secretary assigned to the thirteen recently graduated attorneys.\u00a0 She has a gift for organizing. \u00a0She became a treasure to the department. \u00a0Men were vying for her attention. \u00a0Yet, was welcome and loved by my father\u2019s mother, my namesake, upon a chance meeting. \u00a0Besides, my mother had more than her fair share of baggage. \u00a0She had had four children, who were living with her at her Aunt\u2019s home.<\/p>\n

Daniel Branagan was the best father.\u00a0 He talked to me all the time, lecturing on ethics, body language, street smarts, safety, and critical thinking skills.\u00a0 He taught me to think like a stray cat, assessing danger in a wild New York City of the early eighties.\u00a0 He taught me to defend my positions.\u00a0 He taught me to read the signs in the sky and the writing on the wall. \u00a0 I\u2019ve always had a library, because my father always had lots and lots of books.\u00a0 He demanded that I \u201calways carry a book with me,\u201d to this day, I do. Falling into the American work forced he earned a decent living selling furniture at a store on 14th Street near Union Square, in my native isle, of Manhattan.<\/p>\n

\"dsc00732_2_med\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Christopher Columbus\/ Christobal Colon, statue in Santo Domingo, Capital of Dominican Republic. \u00a0He was the first to lay claim to the treasure isle of lovely, old Santo Domingo, thereby \u201cdiscovering,\u201d America.<\/h6>\n

So… we hit the\u00a0Museo de Nuestras Raices Africanas.\u00a0 I was looking for answers, deeper understanding, roots… not Hollywood made but real and indelible.\u00a0 Sadly, there was only one, rather shabby, room devoted to the African diaspora, in the Museum of Latin American, which was very well conceived and gave me the opportunity to learn more about Puerto Rico\u2019s and Dominican Republic\u2019s native people, the\u00a0Taino<\/em>.\u00a0 Sadly, the exhibit that was meant to be so enlightening, it was supposed to show what the living conditions on a slave ship were like and to really instill pride in the many descendants of the erased people, stolen from Africa… there was one image… I found haunting.<\/p>\n

The video instillation which was supposed to show us HOW it felt to transported as cargo in a slave-ship felt, literally, failed to turn-on.\u00a0 It was broken.\u00a0 I wanted to see it and I was crushed because the halls\/salas<\/em>\u00a0devoted to the native people of the Latin American jungles were particularly vivid and did enhance my understand of a part of my ethnic, physical, cultural being.\u00a0 They hired a European master realist sculptor to cast members in vanishing tribes as models of the vibrant culture which is being erased by the \u201cNOW or flowering of… But there were no bronzes of the lost Africans. \u00a0None. \u00a0No record. \u00a0We have the proof of them in us, in our blood, our music, language, and dance.<\/p>\n

We are\u00a0partially all African. \u00a0We are Jewish. \u00a0We are Chinese. \u00a0We are Caucasians. \u00a0We are.<\/p>\n

I was ready for another dip into the abyss.\u00a0 I had endured \u201cthe horror, the horror!\u201d<\/p>\n

I had visited the\u00a0Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles<\/a>.\u00a0 I\u2019d witnessed the monuments, read books on The Holocaust, but… finding proof, respect, honor, of the people, kidnapped and sold… this was \u201ccuriously absent.\u201d\u00a0 I am becoming ravenously hungry for a history of my father\u2019s ancestors, the once enslaved people, descendants of the stolen human loot of Africa.\u00a0 It looks like I will have to continue searching for poignant records and moving museum exhibitions focused on the Caribbean people\u2019s African roots, origins because I did not find all the answers I was looking for at\u00a0El Museo de Las Am\u00e9ricas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I demand to know more about ALL my ancestors.\u00a0 I learned more about my mother\u2019s father on this trip, than I expected.\u00a0 My grandfather grew up attending cock-fights, horrific gambling matches, with his father an heir to several family fortunes, writing eloquent poetry and political ballads, he died young.\u00a0 I knew that his father was born to a well-off Spanish family and that he visited Dominican Republic to attend a cock-fight (how despicable!) \u00a0 I knew he had blond hair and blue eyes because that fact had so impressed my dark-brown Daddy. \u00a0My father, Daniel, the Black Knight, so rushed to believe the Dominican propaganda machine\u2019s messages, he embraced a love for his nation’s unique beauty, the warm and inviting water, the delicious fresh food.\u00a0Ah! \u00a0My beautiful black marble sculpted father, loved the air, the water, the land of his memory so much that he returned to Dominican Republic, time and again until he returned to die there, only to be taken for the last ride of his life… but that\u00a0is another story\u2026.\u00a0<\/em>by his adopted \u201cson,\u201d and chauffeur, his final caregiver\u2026betrayed his trust by never paying a cent of the promised money, my financial\u00a0inheritance, a contract he signed, \u00a0in\u00a0illiterate haste, which released me from guilt and duty in that he was false in his dealings with my father\u2019s will. \u00a0(Thank goodness I wasn\u2019t sitting around waiting for\u00a0that\u00a0pocket money! \u00a0I forgive the traitor. \u00a0Yet, I think\u2026 what a silly move!)<\/p>\n

My father\u2019s investment in time, love, and energy pays off in my life daily and in that I know how to manage, how to observe the law, and how to float and swim toward goals, yet not against the current, with it, in flow\u2026\u00a0how to align myself with prevailing benevolent powers, seeking protection in the authority of my accomplished husband, for example\u2026. \u00a0that I am able to move forward despite\u00a0challenging circumstances\u00a0which befall us all. \u00a0My sense of honor demands that I keep my father\u2019s memory\u00a0alive because I am grateful that as his daughter I\u00a0received\u00a0a tremendous dose of intelligent attention from the moment I was born until I showed that I would be falling in love with some other male and leaving him, someday. \u00a0Thank goodness, in a wave of clarity toward the end of his life my father woke-up from the dream of empty ambition. \u00a0He forgave me on his death bed for being me. \u00a0He died blessing me and telling me that his birth family had failed him. \u00a0He said he had adopted a new son, a man, his driver\u2026a man with not one but two wives\u2026\u00a0looking identical\u2026\u00a0like twins and yet one was the dried up virgin and the other a wet valley of seductive corruption.<\/p>\n

My father showed bad judgement in his choice of\u00a0chauffeur. \u00a0Hah!<\/p>\n

I\u2019m so glad that my Papa gave me his blessing before dying. \u00a0I wear his good wishes with pride. \u00a0 It is somehow linked in my mind that I\u2019ve developed an\u00a0obsession\u00a0with\u00a0Judge Dee<\/a>, mystery novels by\u00a0Robert Van Gulick<\/a>, a 1950\u2019s Dutch Diplomat Chinese studies school and\u00a0\u2026\u00a0they… well they… sound like Daddy and the rough yet organized world he faithfully described; he taught me about the unchanging universe. \u00a0He taught me the law the justice of the universe. \u00a0The righteous truth that there is more than enough for every person within themselves to create abundance for others. \u00a0I read Judge Dee and I hear my father in the solving of simple mysteries with a handful of clues\u2026\u00a0I also LOVE my\u00a0Big MONKEY, my sweet German Husband\u00a0that underwrites my explorations of the past and supports my ongoing investigation on Talkinggrid because he is the father of our family and trustworthy and kind, like my Daddy was when I was his baby Monkey.<\/p>\n

\"883552_646726755347581_1633_med\"<\/a>Next year<\/strong>: we will be traveling to Europe and covering more Muse News abroad. \u00a0So\u2026\u00a0get ready and donate NOW, why don\u2019t you buy yourself a freakin\u2019\u00a0ad, or donate some cash like artists, independent art collectors, musicians, and holistic healers, and other supporters of The Talkinggrid do. \u00a0Thank YOU again to all those that contribute with encouragement and by reading. \u00a0Please, let me know IF I made too many offensive errors. \u00a0I\u2019m OPEN to donations and suggestions. \u00a0Thank you!<\/p>\n

Ah! \u00a0I unlock myself before YOU, lucky regular readers of the Talkinggrid!<\/p>\n

YOU Loyal supporters! \u00a0I thank YOU! \u00a0This site is getting more and longer visits, daily.<\/p>\n

I upload more and take responsibility for all\u00a0its errors and mistakes, many are on purpose\u2026 others are happy accidents, which prove this site to be what it is: the work of one, artist, woman.<\/p>\n

Yours truly,<\/p>\n

Frau Kolb<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Museum of The New World\u00a0El Museo de Las Am\u00e9ricas\u00a0deserves a visit and more funding for African Studies. I\u2019d love to see the understanding and scholarship focused on the countless valuable lost human lives. \u00a0I\u2019d like to see these missing histories recovered and restored, polished and displayed, full of their inherent glory. \u00a0For every human […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":882,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,28,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cultural-commentary","category-museum-visits","category-travel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/talkinggrid.com\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/dsc00205_2_LARGE.jpg?fit=800%2C876&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkinggrid.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkinggrid.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkinggrid.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkinggrid.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkinggrid.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=879"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/talkinggrid.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":889,"href":"https:\/\/talkinggrid.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879\/revisions\/889"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkinggrid.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkinggrid.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkinggrid.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkinggrid.com\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}