Author: luo.1020

Week 13 Context Research Presentation

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By Junyuan Luo

This week we read the book A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid. Jamaica Kincaid is Caribbean American writer focus on family relationships and her native Antigua. She mainly wrote about life experience in Antigua in the book A Small Place, which is a realistic portrait of the colony of Antigua. In my presentation, I focus on the history and impact of Antigua colony and the slavery.

In 1493, Christopher Columbus visit Antigua on his second voyage and named it Antigua for the church of Santa Maria de la Antigua in Seville, Spain. English settlers colonized the island in 1632 to seek wealth. They started plantations of tobacco but failed and then they found plantation of sugarcane was profitable. Antigua became known as the “gateway to the Caribbean” to English for its great location in the Caribbean. The spread of sugar plantations in the Caribbean created a huge demand for workers. The increasingly large demand for workers turned planters to buy enslaved men, women and children from Africa. Approximately 5 million African slaves were taken to the Caribbean, and nearly half of them were taken to the British Caribbean (2.3 million). Due to the slavery, the population of the Caribbean colonies changed. People born in Africa and their descendants became the majority in the place. The discrimination against their inferior “race” made their lives harsh. These slaves live in a miserable and overcrowded environment and may be abused or even killed by their masters without punishment.

Finally, the slavery was abolished and the enslaved people were freed or “emancipated” in the British Caribbean in 1834. However, the sugar price dropped dramatically than what it was in years past due to the increased use of cheaper and easier-sourced sugar beet in Europe. The economic conditions failed to improve because the best time of profitable sugar plantation has passed and no other cash crop can replace sugar.

 

Sources:

“Antigua.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antigua.

Gaspar, David. “Antigua Colony.” The BritishEmpire, 2013, www.britishempire.co.uk/maproom/antigua.htm.

“An Introduction to the Caribbean, Empire and Slavery.” The British Library, The BritishLibrary, 7 Aug. 2017, www.bl.uk/west-india-regiment/articles/an-introduction-to-the-caribbean-empire-and-slavery.

Diary of Systemic Injustices

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Sex discrimination has always been a big social problem. In my hometown, a small and comparatively backward city in mountain area in China, many women are still regarded as men’s property and fertility tools. Female is regarded inferior and less important than male.

By Song Chen https://images.app.goo.gl/oasALaPUYgrKhuK86

The phenomenon of patriarchy in rural areas is clearly demonstrated under some government policy. China started family planning in 1980s, stipulating that each couple can only have one child under normal circumstances. Until 2016, two child policy was opened. The essential purpose of family planning is to reduce population growth to maintain social stability and resource allocation. But many people in rural areas evade their social responsibility and pay large penalties to keep giving birth in order to have a son. If their first child is a girl, they will continue to have children until they give birth to a boy. The mothers in the families have less power of speaking and can not make big decisions for their families. They are blamed by their husbands and parents in-law if they did not give birth to a boy. Women are subaltern that lack of power to speak and their opinions are not valued by the families. Girls are regarded as money-losing goods because they will cause big expenses to the family from childhood, but they end up marrying with others, doing housework and making money for her new family. There is a Chinese saying, bring up sons for the purpose of being looked after in old age. Typically, parents live with their sons who are the hope for them when they get old. According to Karen Hardee, Zhenming Xie and Baochang Gu, “China’s one-child policy, however, places women—particularly those in rural areas—in a situation where they are pressured by the government’s childbearing requirements on one side and by society’s preference for sons on the other.”

One of my classmate in middle high school, a nice and kind girl who has two younger sisters and one younger brother, told me that her parents were nice to her and love her but her brother is definitely the favorite child of her parents. Her parents are not wealthy, but they tried they best to raise four children just because they want a son. Even if society is progressing and gender equity has made great progress, the patriarchal consciousness left over for thousands of years still affects many people subconsciously.

 

Work Cited:

https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/pubs/journals/3006804.pd