Reaction to "A Small Place" by Jamaica Kincaid

Jamaica Kincaid reveals her experience under the English colonialism and her thoughts about the tourists who visit Antigua. I notices her voice as one mix of feelings: sadness, nostalgia, contempt, and so on. Kincaid talks as an insider of her country; as an expert of it. But from her expert point of view, she classifies the tourists as "an ugly human being". Are the tourists "ugly human beings" just for being tourists? Here is when the author expresses contempt from the tourists.

"An ugly thing, that is what you are when you become a tourist, an ugly, empty thing, a stupid thing, a piece of rubbish pausing here to gaze at this and taste that, and it will never occur to you that the people who inhabit the place in which you have just paused cannot stand you [...]"

Roberts (2008) states that the notion of identity in human society is based on two fundamental factors: the perception of sameness/ difference and instinctiveness of man to be a social being. The perception of sameness/difference implies that those who are perceived as different are treated different. Kincaid expresses Roberts statement of this sameness/difference perception when she says:

"[...] that behind their closed doors they laugh at your strangeness (you do not look the way they look); the physical sight of you does not please them; you have bad manners (it is their custom to eat their food with their hands; you try eating their way, you look silly; you try eating the way you always eat, you look silly); they do not like the way you speak (you have an accent); they collapse helpless from laughter, mimicking the way they imagine you must look as you carry out some everyday bodily function."

It's all about culture. As I stated in one of my last posts, culture is "that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society." (Tylor, 1871). But culture can be also modify throughout the years and be in constant changes since there are countries which are actually colonies from other countries. Kincaid expresses how she felt living under the English colonialism and how the racism and poverty were noticeable.

That political state Kincaid is narrating us from Antigua let me think and compare it with our Puerto Rican history and political state. Puerto Rico have been since under the power of Spain through the American power nowadays. We have been in constant changes and adaptations since the Spanish until the American colonialism. We have incorporated to our culture many American aspects or festivities. We celebrate their holidays as if it were ours. We introduce a lot of English language to our vocabulary as well as we wrongly translate many English words to Spanish...we have created a 'Spanglish' vocabulary. However, instead we can talk English we have an accent. As Peter Roberts says, "language can sharply distinguish between insider and outsider through difference in accent, idiom structure and word". Therefore, we will always be outsiders in another country with a little knowledge of an insider.