The Ties that Bind: Exploring Family and Kinship

-

For my last assignment for Anthropology class, I interviewed an external source, who I will call Kora. My interview was based on our class discussions of family and kin to “make the familiar strange and the strange familiar.” Kora comes from a family of four, which includes her mother, father, and older brother, with whom she lived in Massachusetts, USA for most of her life. Like Kora, I am the youngest in my family. Kora now has a family of her own which also resembles this nuclear family structure. We shared similar ideas of family. For Kora, family is more of a feeling than a physical place—she had moved to many places before, but these were short-lived because they not make her feel happy or ‘homey.’ I can relate to this perspective as it was a major determinant in deciding where I wanted to pursue tertiary education. I opted to stay in Trinidad because I feared being too homesick. Outside of her immediate family, Kora expressed that she considers her fiancé’s parents and childhood friends as family because of their loving nature and the strong bonds they share, much like the Trinbagonian and by extension the Caribbean ideal that “all ah we is one famalay.” 

Kora refers to her parents as ‘mom’ and ‘dad,’ and her older brother as ‘bro’ or ‘big bro.’ She also has a half-sister whom she refers to as ‘sister.’ Kora sees her mother as the caregiver, her father as the provider and breadwinner, her older brother as the protector, and her half-sister as her guide in womanhood. The only difference for me, is that I call my older brother by his name or ‘brotha;’ otherwise, our family roles are similar. Reflecting on her family, Kora shared that she realized how much her family has influenced her own family life today and that family is everything. It is something everyone should appreciate while they have it. While I do not have a family of my own as yet, my family plays a crucial role in the way I live. Talking with another university student thousands of miles away, showed me how similar family life can be despite the cultural and geographic differences that set us apart. 

By Kyesi Hutson

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Racial Stereotypes Replicated in Fantastical Animations

-
When I was younger and anime came on the cartoon channels, I knew it was time to go to bed. One night, during the vacation, I sat down and watched an episode of a fantasy program of Japanese origin. I was enchanted with the magic, monsters, and overarching storyline I had never seen in an animated show before. As the years went by, and I watched more anime, first on t.v. and then on streaming platforms, I noticed a pattern in the skin color of the anime characters. I realized that this magical world was infused with the prejudices of the world in which I lived. For my mini-ethnographic project, I sought to understand the attitudes Caribbean youths have toward the profiting of racial and cultural stereotyping in some of their favorite anime shows. In the anime programs that I watched, I had made two casual observations that I wanted to explore for my mini-ethnographic project. The first, there were only a few dark-skinned characters and, the second was that the darker-skinned characters...
Read more

Plastic Straws: A Small Convenience with Big Consequences

-
When I was ten years old, I visited Matura Beach in northeast Trinidad with my family for turtle watching. While seeing the turtles up close was surreal, the experience stands out for another, more devastating reason. Our tour guide shared a story I remembered for years to come. She had rescued a turtle that had a plastic straw stuck inside its nose. The idea that one tiny plastic straw could cause so much harm to an animal gutted me. At the time, I found it disturbing, but I didn’t fully understand the severity of the situation. So, I continued using plastic straws, unaware of the larger impact. Now, at twenty, I understand the complex and troubling interconnections between plastic straws, human health, and marine ecosystems. This realisation motivated me to focus my anthropology project on the use of plastic straws, and their environmental and health impacts. My goal was to explore why, despite widespread awareness of their harmful effects, people still choose to use them. In my mini...
Read more

Wheels and Warming: The Climate Costs of Transportation in Small Islands

-
What are the linkages between human behaviors, transportation infrastructure, and climate change? What is black carbon? These are some of the questions that guided my mini-ethnographic project in Caribbean Anthropology. “Black carbon is formed by the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels, wood, and other fuels” (Climate & Clean Air Coalition 2020). Also known as soot, emissions of black carbon can contribute to climate warming, decrease of crop yields, and death of living organisms. Because I’m constantly on the road in Trinidad, driving my own vehicle, I had casually observed lots of exhaust from vehicles. I learned this exhaust can contain carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, among other greenhouse gases that can be damaging to the environment. I decided to do participant-observation with fellow drivers in Trinidad and Tobago (in person) as well as (virtually) in the neighboring island of Saint Lucia to consider how peak hour traffic contributed to emissions. Although thes...
Read more