Saturday, November 27, 2010

Letters from Port-of-Spain

I have twice had discussions with personnel at airports about whether the place of my birth, Trinidad, so named by Christopher Columbus more than 500 years ago, exists or ever existed. These were serious discussions as my being allowed to board  planes depended on my credibility. 
The first such discussion was with an airline representative at the check in counter in Los Angeles who thought the destination on my ticket, Port of Spain, Trinidad, was a mistake. He could accept my transit point, Miami, but  he was incredulous when I insisted that Port of Spain was an actual city and that Trinidad was a country. Eventually  with a “That must be a new place” shrug he completed my check in.
The second discussion fortunately took place many years before the paranoia that followed the hijackings of September 11, 2001, as I was about to enter a plane in Amsterdam for the flight back to the USA of which I had already been a citizen for most of my life. In those days there were occasional hijackings, usually to divert a plane from Cuba to the USA from its scheduled destination. The hijacker usually didn’t have any further interest in the passengers or plane once it landed. Violence was rare.

Whenever a hijacking occurred there would be some increased security procedures at airports in the area. Such was the situation in Amsterdam, and in this case the procedure was stationing two or three US security agents at podiums at the entrance to the jetway to planes bound for this country. The job of these agents was to form a psychological profile of each passenger depending on the kind of answers they gave to apparently random questions. My last question was where was I born? So I said “Trinidad”. My inquisitor shot back : “I mean the  country where you were born.” He repeatedly just would not accept “Trinidad”, until it occurred to me to direct him to the information printed on my wellworn US passport. I know how I silently profiled his knowledge. I don’t how he profiled me, but I am thankful that those were the days before people got put on “No Fly” lists. Who knows, I might still be languishing in some holding facility in Amsterdam, a man without a country. Nice melodramatic thought, no?

A recently published book Letters From Port of Spain by Ric (Ricardo) Hernandez will help convince any post-Google skeptics in a most gentlemany, erudite way that Trinidad, or to give it its present full political name: The Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, does actually exist and has existed for some time. Expats like Ric and myself remember it as a delightful island with a highly educated, ambitious and courteous population. As another Trinidad expat put it in an e-mail recently, it was an island where “being nice” was appreciated and where people responded to “niceness”  “like flowers turning towards the sun”.
The content and style of Ric’s writing reflect that, “niceness” being not syrupy triviality but a preference for sincere family and social ties, beauty, refinement, kindness, wisdom and knowledge.
I came across Ric Hernandez’ writing by chance when I read one of his weekly columns in the online edition of the newspaper, The Trinidad Express. His style stood head and shoulders above the usual fare. I enjoyed them as essays, in form and content erudite, articulate, with the sophistication of a writer who was well read, well educated, well traveled and had a very wide knowledge and understanding of the world.
I was very disappointed when he stopped writing those columns and I wrote to the Editor of the newspaper to say so. I copied that e-mail to Ricardo and so began our cyber correspondence. In September of this year I had the pleasure of actually meeting him and his wife Janice in person here in Seattle. At that time he showed me the proof copy of his book Letters from Port-of-Spain in which he has collated those columns. The book was just published and I am happily reading the copy I received from Barnes and Noble.
Many of the “letters” are recollections of life in the Trinidad of Ric’s and my childhood, adolescence and early adulthood. Others reflect his profound interest in literature. My reading will be interrupted for a few days while I am away from home but I look forward to continuing to read Letters from Port-of-Spain especially on those Winter days by my fireside that are made for nostalgia.
A week has elapsed since I wrote the above paragraph and as if to encourage me to delve right in again to Letters from Port-of-Spain, Nature greeted me with the residue of a snow storm as my plane landed in Seattle from sunny Hawaii. 

10 comments:

Pat said...

You wanna know how I know that it is actually 'Trinidad and Tobago' and not just 'Trinidad'? From all the Ms Universe and Ms World specials I used to watch.

About that guy thinking Port of Spain is 'new' - let me just say that I am not surprised. In general, Americans seem to know very little about the world outside their own country. They fought in Vietnam, and to this day, refer to it being 'in China'; they invaded Iraq, and still persist in calling it 'Ai-raq'; even Ikea is not spared, and by the I-have-no-faults Ms Oprah Winfrey, no less, who says 'Ai-kea'.

All this seems to prove is that they are not willing to make the slightest effort to find out about things outside their own world. Port of Spain, at least, is not in their faces all the time - so the guy has an 'excuse' - for want of a better word. But, he works in an airport, for heck's sake, if anyone should know this, it should be him!

Pak Zawi said...

Louis,
I came to know about Trinidad and Tobago very early in my life when I was collecting stamps.
A female rock climber who happened to stop by in my town of Gua Musang, Kelantan for some rock climbing was surprised when I added the name of "and Tobago" after she mentioned that she was from Trinidad. She said not many people know about the other half of Trinidad.
I guess beside our own country we need to know about other countries too. Trinidad and Tobago had been producing world class athletes for ages.

ric hernandez said...

Dear Louis,
Very "nice" and thoughtful of you to mention "Letters from Port-of-Spain." in your blog. I surprised myself, re-reading excerpts, at how echoes of home, our home, set up swirls of memory, some of them happy. Hope this experience can, and will, be replicated by ex-pat Trinis who manage to get hold of my "Letters." Thanks, again, Louis.

~CovertOperations78~ said...

Dear Louis,
I learned about T&T through football! I have always imagined it to be a country full of fruiting tropical trees, calypso music, loud Hawaiian print shirts (don't ask!) and fishing vessels.
As for Americans not wanting to learn about other countries....
"monkey say cool breeze!"

louis said...

Pat,

I must admit to not adding "Tobago" to "Trinidad" most of the time. When I was growing up we were all aware of course of our "sister island" Tobago but left it out of most communication.

One of the most glaring illustrations of that US ignorance about the rest of the world you mention is that of the recent unsuccessful candidate for vice-President who is being promoted strongly by our Right Wing as a candidate for the 2012 Presidential election. Staggers the imagination.

louis said...

Zawi,

Malaysia always strongly reminds me of Trinidad (and Tobago). There are very close geographical and demographic similarities between the two countries, and recently some economic ties.

I have run into a Trinidadian on the beach in Penang. You find us living all over the world:)

Several of those athletes came from my high school, although the school took far greater pride in its academic excellence. The students who went overseas to study used to do very well at their universities.

louis said...

Ric,

I wish Letters from Port-of-Spain much success. It deserves to be widely read.

louis said...

CO'78,

No need to imagine what TnT is like...just go into any kampong, beach, or city in Malaysia and you are in TnT, except for that calypso music which is now called soca. We used to call those shirts "hot shirts" and they usually appeared around Carnival time. Trinidadians up to and including my generation were actually very conservative. Helping the fishermen pull in their nets at the beaches was a part of any seaside vacation.

Your very astute use of that local saying is going to have my kids accusing me of corrupting your language. They probably won't stop laughing at me until the Spring.

Guanaguanare said...

Thanks for posting this good news, Louis, and congratulations to you, Ric! I've already looked at the book on Barnes & Noble and I intend to get a copy.
Hope all is well with you.
Blessings

louis said...

Guanaguanare,

You are very supportive. Ric will no doubt be delighted to read your comment.

About Me

My photo
Seattle, United States

Blog Archive