Monthly Archives: February 2014

In Pursuit of a Husband

23 Sunday Feb 2014

Posted by in Brazil, Family Life, Human Behavior, People

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Wedding Camila Alves and Matthew McConaugheyWedding Brazilian Model Camila Alves & American Actor Matthew McConaughey
Photo Credit: Essa Minha Vida de Noiva Blogspot

When I met Gabriela,* she was in pursuit of a husband. Still single at thirty one, all of her close friends had already married and had at least one kid. To make matters worse, she faced constant pressure from her mother and three brothers to get married.

In 1999 when my hours at Ceará Importers* had been cut in half, I had to make up the shortfall. Through referral from a friend, I spent an hour one evening weekly at Gabriela’s house for an English class. An accountant at an American financial company, she saw fluency in English as a means of moving up in the company.

Gabriela lived at her parents’ house with her mother, an aunt, and younger, single brother. Her two older brothers, both married with children, had homes of their own. Her father’s older and widowed sister had moved in with them, following his death twelve years ago.

Whenever Gabriela was late for our sessions, I enjoyed chatting with her mother and aunt. Both expressed pride in Gabriela’s achievements, her independent spirit, and love of adventure. But, like many older Brazilian women of their generation, they believed that a woman’s place was at home raising a family.

“Time’s running out if she wants children,” her mother told me.

“She expects too much of men,” her aunt said.

During our classes, it became clear that Gabriela had other motives for perfecting her conversational skills in English. She had her sights on an American husband.

“Brazilian men are safados (shameless),” she told me. “They don’t respect their women; they think we’re here only to serve them.”

As a divorcee and sole-provider for two sons, then fourteen and sixteen, I didn’t appreciate Gabriela’s dilemma of being single at thirty-one years old. Earning well as an accountant, she was already investing in a unit of an apartment complex under construction. When would I be able to afford to buy an apartment? I also envied Gabriela’s freedom to spend weekends with her friends at the beach and her long-weekend holidays out-of-state.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my sons. They are my treasure. But being a wife and working mother come with lots of responsibilities and sacrifices. I was not one of those women who could juggle well these disparate roles.

When I started working at Italbras Leather,* I could no longer have English-speaking sessions with Gabriela. We lost touch. Before I left Brazil, I learned that her pursuit for an American husband had paid off. She had migrated to the United States with her American husband. Radiating with joy, her mother showed off photos of Gabriela with her husband and kids, a boy and baby-girl. Gabriela had embraced motherhood and given up her career to raise her kids.

“When the children are grown, she’ll return to work,” her mother told me.

Husband. Children. Career. As women, we must decide if we can have them all.

* Fictitious name

Part One: The Legacy of Walter Rodney

16 Sunday Feb 2014

Posted by in Guyana, People, Social Injustice

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Walter Rodney - Guyanese historian and political activistWalter Rodney (1942-1980)
Photo Credit: The Walter Rodney Foundation

 

Some individuals are born to change the way we see ourselves and the world we live in. Walter Rodney was such a person. A Guyanese historian, political activist, and author of How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972), he brought a new consciousness of self-emancipation across the Caribbean Region.

The following quotes are taken from The Groundings with my Brothers by Walter Rodney, first published in 1969. It covers the year he spent in Jamaica working among the masses and the Rastafari community. In Guyana, where the working poor still face oppression and struggle for survival, Rodney’s teachings remain relevant.

_________________________

The West Indies have always been a part of white capitalist society. We have been the most suppressed section because we were a slave society and the legacy of slavery still rests heavily upon the West Indian black man.

Indeed, the basic explanation of the tragedy of African/Indian confrontation in Guyana and Trinidad is the fact that both groups are held captive by the European way of seeing things. When an African abuses an Indian he repeats all that the white man said about Indian indentured ‘coolies’; and in turn the Indian has borrowed from the whites the stereotype of the ‘lazy (black man)’ to apply to the African beside him.

Africa is the home of mankind. The human being came into existence on the African continent nearly two million years ago; and human society and culture reached great heights in Africa before the white men arrived.

What we need is confidence in ourselves, so that as blacks and Africans we can be conscious, united, independent and creative. A knowledge of African achievements in art, education, religion, politics, agriculture and the mining of metals can help us gain the necessary confidence which has been removed by slavery and colonialism.

(T)he black educated man in the West Indies is as much a part of the system of oppression as the bank managers and the plantation overseers.

(T)he black intellectual, the black academic must attach himself to the activity of the black masses… Black brothers must talk to each other…

The system says they (Rastafarians) have nothing, they are the illiterate, they are the dark people of Jamaica. Our conception of the whole world is that white is good and black is bad, so when you are talking about the man is dark, you mean he is stupid. He has a dark mind. So that is what the system says. But you learn humility after you get into contact with these brothers. And it is really great.

_________________________

In October 1980, four months after Walter Rodney’s assassination, Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” was released as a single in the United Kingdom. It soon made it to Guyana’s top hit parade. Considered one of Bob Marley’s best works, the song reflects Rodney’s teaching:

Emancipate yourself from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our minds.
Have no fear for atomic energy,
‘cause none of them can stop the time.

We Shall Overcome

09 Sunday Feb 2014

Posted by in Social Injustice, United States

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March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom - 28 August 1963We’ll walk hand in hand.
Martin Luther King Jr. and other Civil Rights Leaders
March on Washington D.C. for Jobs and Freedom – 28 August 1963
Photo Credit: Parade Magazine (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

In the United States, we observe the month of February as Black History Month. Officially begun in 1976 as part of America’s Bicentennial commemorations, it’s a time set aside each year to honor the accomplishments and contributions of black Americans in diverse areas throughout America’s history.

As a Caribbean immigrant, I celebrate the progress African Americans have made since the abolition of slavery and their long struggle to end racial segregation. In the 1960s, the rallying song of the African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968), “We Shall Overcome,” spread across the United States to the Caribbean Region and around the world.

In my homeland, then known as British Guiana, the song became part of our struggle to free ourselves from the oppression of the British colonial government. After years of racial unrest and violence between the majority black and East Indian populations, we gained our independence in May 1966. But, as so often happens in our imperfect world, we freed ourselves from one master only to gain another.

The struggle continues.

This Black History Month, inspired by the lyrics of “We Shall Overcome,” I dedicate this poem to my black, brown, and white brothers and sisters who face adversity and social injustice across our great and rich nation.

Food taken from the mouths
of hungry children
is given to wealthy farmers.
We shall overcome, some day.

Jailed for petty crimes, families broken
Bankers go free
for gambling with our homes.
We shall overcome, some day.

The elite grab the giant share
of the fruits of our labor
and throw us the crumbs.
We shall overcome, some day.

Our air, water & food
poisoned for profit
setting the course for our extinction.
We shall overcome, someday.

We are traitors & terrorists
for exposing crimes against humanity
and tortured in jail.
We are not afraid, today.

Our sons & daughters
wage wars in distant lands
spreading democracy & freedom.
We shall live in peace, some day.

I do believe
with all shades of the human race
united as one
We shall overcome, some day.

“Making Quiltwork” – Poem by Simon J. Ortiz

05 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by in Poetry

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Native American Star QuiltNative American Star Quilt
Photo Credit: History of Quilts

 

Since starting my Poetry Corner in May 2011, with the exception of one poet from Chicago, I have featured only American poets I have met here in Los Angeles. Some of them have become close friends. This year, I will explore the poetry of diverse poets across the United States.

In my Poetry Corner this month, I feature the poem “Making Quiltwork” by Simon J. Ortiz, a Native American poet. Born in 1941 near Albuquerque, New Mexico, Simon Ortiz is an Acoma Pueblo Indian who grew up in an Acoma village speaking his native language. In an interview, he said that in sixth grade (11-12 years of age) the library opened a new world to him. In 1969, after attending Fort Lewis College and the University of New Mexico, he earned a Master of Fine Arts in Writing from the University of Iowa.

Scholars of Native American literature consider Simon Ortiz one of the most accomplished writers of the Native American Renaissance of the 1960s and 1970s. His 1982 poetry collection, From Sand Creek, won a Pushcart Prize, bringing him to national attention. Eleven years later, based on his body of work, the Returning the Gift Festival 1993 of indigenous writers recognized Ortiz with a Lifetime Achievement Award for literature.

Simon Ortiz sees himself more as a “storyteller” than a “poet.” In his poetry, essays, and short fiction, he shares stories of his peoples’ struggles and joys of everyday life. He doesn’t shy away from raising thorny issues of their historic encounters with the early colonialists and loss of their ancestral lands.

“Making Quiltwork” is one of thirteen poems by Simon Ortiz published on the University of Toronto Libraries website. This poem speaks to the struggle of piecing together the lives of a people marginalized by society:

Indian people who have been scattered, sundered
into odds and bits, determined to remake whole cloth.

Their triumph over adversity and continuance as a people are woven into their quilts. Perhaps this is the reason why this poem resonated with me.

High unemployment, homelessness, and low wages have also marginalized millions of working class Americans. Inspired by Ortiz’s poem, I call attention to this other America in my Haiku poem “Odds & Bits.”

Read the complete poem, “Making Quiltwork,” and learn more about Simon Ortiz’s life and work at my Poetry Corner February 2014.

Brazil: Working with Import/Export Agents

02 Sunday Feb 2014

Posted by in Brazil, Working Life

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Port of Mucuripe - Fortaleza - Ceara - BrazilPort of Mucuripe – Fortaleza – Ceará – Brazil
Photo Credit: Skyscraper City

Strategic partnerships in potential overseas markets can help producers and manufacturers, lacking the size and might of multinational corporations, to sell their products on the international market. The import/export agent is one such partnership.

At Italbras Leather Producer & Exporter Ltd.,* I had the opportunity of working with five competent and reliable import/export agents. All were specialized in working in the leather industry.

When I joined the company, Italbras had partnered with an agent in the United States who represented its finished upholstery leather across the nation. Based on the number of American clients represented, he was our top agent. An expert in leather production, he worked closely with our Production Manager on matters relating to our American clients’ quality control requirements.

For the most part, since our American agent traveled a lot across the United States visiting clients, I maintained direct daily contact with his female office assistant. She handled orders, clearance of shipments, returned goods, and payments. We worked well together. When resolving issues that arose from time to time, I could always count on her quick action.

Later, through partnerships with import/export agents in England and Australia, Italbras expanded its exports of upholstery leather and cut-and-sewn leather covers to England, Wales, Australia, and New Zealand. An Italian agent provided entrance to more markets for our leather in Europe: Denmark, Finland, Italy, Norway, and The Netherlands. Another Italian agent negotiated orders with new clients in Asia: Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand.

Each agent brought their own expertise and knowledge to dealing with the challenges of their market. For example, after finding several shipping pallets with bark, the Australian sanitary inspectors impounded our two 20-foot containers for two weeks for fumigation treatment. Our Australian agent took care of the fumigation and ensured the release of our goods as soon as possible. Delays cost money and garner client dissatisfaction.

Thenceforth, not only was the export department required to inspect all pallets before palletization, we also had to arrange fumigation of all containers destined for Australia. This also entailed coordinating Brazilian customs inspection of goods at our factory before fumigation and sealing of containers.

The Asian market required payment terms by Irrevocable Letter of Credit. While Letters of Credit offer more security for both parties, they require extra care when preparing the shipping documents. A simple error can cause delays in clearance and receipt of payment.

By expanding our exports overseas, our import/export agents added value to our company. For their part, import/export agents earn a commission, usually varying between 12 and 15 percent over the FOB value (excluding cost of freight) of every shipment. Money well spent. Money well earned.

Where there’s mutual trust, confidence, and integrity, it’s a partnership that works well for both parties.

* Fictitious name