Searching for Ethnic Roots

Just under two years ago, RiseUp magazine commissioned me to do a story on family. After a minor wrangle with its publisher for outstanding payments, I assumed it would never see the light of day. I was wrong.

Here it is, published March 31, 2010:

Searching for Ethnic Roots

"I’ve always been a floater adrift, a sharp-tongued, curly-haired imp in an extended family where children are seen, not heard, and recriminations were silent, not felt.

"My father was an ambitious black man from the wrong side of the Port-of-Spain train tracks, prone to education and bouts of the travel bug. My mother’s people, the Indo-Trinidadians, journeyed from India to rural Trinidad more than a century ago. I am the product of dreamers and indentured laborers. I am the product of defiant love."

Venture forth and read the rest.

And check out Bukka Rennie's review of my grandfather's book.