(Speech for the 43rd Anniversary of the Guyana Cultural Association of Montreal)
When I first received the invitation to speak here tonight, I thought to myself, what do I really have to contribute to this event? I can't imagine what I could have to say that people would want to hear as part of a celebration for this organization.
I sat with the idea some more and it came to me. I'm going to talk to you about How I Became Guyanese.
I am the granddaughter of Cyril and Evelyn de Jonge and Randolph and Sarah Joyce Coddett. I am the first born daughter of Randolph Coddett and Yvonne de Jonge, All of New Amsterdam, Guyana. I didn't know my maternal grandparents well, and my paternal Grandfather died before I was born. My paternal grandmother, Joyce Coddett, was the matiarch of our family and the Guyana I knew came in the form of food and arts and crafts. Childhood Saturdays were spent at craft sales all over the city. I remember her saying once that she had made over 1000 black cakes for weddings. The Guyana I knew would become a collection of colourful characters, stories and experiences. That's how I learned to be Guyanese.
My being born here has been said by my friends to only be an accident. I am born out of the greatest generation to have ever left the shores of the Caribbean at a time of Black Power and Black consciousness. A promised land that seduced its dreamers into thinking all would be wonderful for them and their children. All they would have to do is work hard! After all, we know about working hard!
My parent's move to Canada didn't necessarily make it easy for their children to grow up Canadian. I was joking with some American friends just 2 weeks ago about how crazy growing up in Canada really is.
My first challenge growing up in the 1970s was trying to figure out who the hell I was. It was really obvious growing up on a street with only 2 black families that I was black. I was the first black student at my elementary school and I'm sure I still hold the record for the most number of ass whoopin's given in a single recess!
This is the first phase of growing up in Canada as the child of parents from Guyana. And my growing up Canadian of Guyanese parents had some challenges.
3 months before my birth, my parents moved to Ottawa. I guess the Federal govt came knocking and my dad answered. My mother was still a student in those days so my early years were spent between our Jamaican neighbours babysitting and the other foreign students at the university. By the time I was about 10 years old, my parents opened a business in Ottawa. In the early years, that business was a central gathering place - an unofficial community centre. When I think about it, it became my earliest school of Caribbean Understandings!
When I'd return to school on Mondays I was immediately aware that my weekends weren't like other kids. In my house, men cooked unlike the conversations my white friends had about their father's. In my house, anyone over 18 was referred to as Auntie or Uncle and they didn't have to be a brother or sister of your mother or father. In fact, I wouldn't learn the "real" names of some of my father's friends until I was grown so Uncle Snowbees, Uncle Salty, Uncle Jamesy and Aunt Pinkie seemed normal.
This is how I developed the "It was fine" response to the "How was your weekend?" question at work. I knew it wasn't normal to have all of those brothers and sisters!
I was a master of the Guyanese understanding of children are seen and not heard. I learned by watching my sister getting kicked out of the room for "being people mouth", that observation was key. Even the Gibberish my grandmother and mother use to speak could not hold me back from unlocking the secrets of Guyanese Ole Talk! In fact, once I figured out the "whoopon dupon" of Gibberish, they both stopped speaking it.
I was still very young when, in my mind, I had decided that I wanted to have the ability to sit for hours while consuming large amounts alcohol to talk as much nonsense as I had experienced my parents and their friends talking!
That after all has got to be what it means to be Guyanese! Stories about Common entrance exams, Queens College, station masters, backdamn trenches, kite flying, school sports, Mashramani, Christmas time, the Sea Wall, Anti men, Dig and Sniff, Jumbie, marabonta, egg and spoon races, running on grass barefoot, and some of de best cussin' I have ever heard, started dancing in my head!!!!!!!!
I want to be like that! Quote from Shakespeare while at the same as I giving dem Love in a game in dominos.
By the time I was in high school, I had proper fuel for the fire. For the first time, there were other black students at school. I still was different though. Most of those students had come to Canada to rejoin a parent or family they hadn't grown up with. Breaking into that group was going to be tricky. I was a spy though. Born in Canada with the wits of a West Indian!
There were very few Guyanese children at school but what all Caribbean students at Gloucester High school shared with me was how we balanced our worlds. We are supposed to be Canadian but nothing in our day told us what that looked like. Being like the other Caribbean students was a challenge because I didn't have the same experience. My parents would say, "You're Canadian." And I would reply, "No, I'm Guyanese." Then they would say, "You were born here, so you're Canadian!" WHAT A PIECE OF CONFUSION!
On Friday afternoons, when you got home from school, you would hit the door and there would be that all familiar sound <<<shhshshshsh>>> Pressure Cooker! Cook up rice, black puddin, pepper pot, Meta Gee, salt fish, chow mein, sows, rollie pollie. These are things you could not describe to white people.
"Last night we had salfish and bora!"
After 16, I became the designated driver for Friday night adventures with my dad. Those experiences would serve me well later in life when trying to figure out the male psyche.
Slightly more mature, I started a new phase of my understanding - the politics of being Guyanese. I learned about Walter Rodney, Ivan Van Sertima, the Essequibo having 150 islands, the Kaieteur Falls, Cuffy, E.R Braithwaite, Eddy Grant, CCH Pounder, Grace Nichols, Cheddi Jagan and Forbes Burnham, gold and bauxite. I wanted to go to see the place for myself. I had gone before but not as a teenager.
By the time I was a 21 yr old Freshman at Howard University, I was perfectly trained. I was living with my Guyanese cousin, I was a card carrying member of the Caribbean Students Association, and I was honing my skills as a master of Ole Talk!(By the big tree on main campus) I was known to my track and field teammates as the person most likely to find a West Indian and Rice and peas no matter where we traveled.
In my adulthood I have traveled to many parts of the Caribbean and I fashion myself into whatever local behaviour is appropriate. I have yet to explore the country of my parents' birth. I guess I'm not quite ready yet. When I do go, I look forward to helping my parents reconnect to the Guyana of today. The Guyana where 2 of my classmates from Howard returned to start a system of pay phones for Georgetown. A Guyana described on the Discovery Channel as one of the last untouched places for echo-tourism. A Guyana I experienced through my niece who lived there for 5 years. A Guyana that one of my former students traveled to during Carifesta in 2008. She shared nearly 700 pictures of one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen in the world and I have traveled the world. A Guyana that has many challenges but still can generate a proud people who have bent but never been broken. A Guyana that can be held nostalgically but needs to tap into the thinking of another generation.
The Guyana we celebrate this evening.
The Guyana that is in each of US!
Raise your glass! Repeat after me - I AM GUYANESE!
My name is Adrienne Coddett and I am Guyanese!!
Action > Apathy, I am Greater Than Aids
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