Family Across The Sea Essay

Relationships play an important role in one's life. They are formed on the basis of love and understanding. Relationship helps various people in every aspect of life and assists them in being a better person. Such a relationship was found in the novel

Within this review of Gomez’s work is a comparison of the “truth” I knew and the “truth” I now know. Upon completing Reversing Sail, I argued with my own thoughts regarding Africans and their status prior, and post, enslavement.

The video titled Africans in America: The Terrible Transformation thoroughly reassesses the history of slavery. The documentary tells of how slavery was brought to America, and of the conditions under which these slaves were forced to live. The trade that began in Africa was not initially focused on trading humans, but rather on gold. Gradually, the British took control and started trafficking Africans to their colonies in America. The conditions slaves lived under changed drastically from the original conditions when they first arrived to America compared to years after the slave trade had been functioning. This documentary re-examines the appalling social injustice

The slave narratives also gave Northerners a glimpse into the life of slave communities: the love between family members, the respect for elders, the bonds between friends. They described an enduring, truly African American culture, which was expressed through music, folktales, and religion. Then, as now, the narratives of ex-slaves provided the world with the closest look at the lives of enslaved African American men, women and children. (in incheiere)

Africans have, since the early settlement of America, has had a great influence in the nation’s growth. These contributions to the United States from enslaved Africans have been greatly portrayed in American culture. Varying from cuisine, to song and dance are not only portrayed today but it has a deep-rooted impact throughout the United States. During the middle passage, enslaved Africans were forced to abandon their everyday lives, their families and their homes and forced to adapt to a new lifestyle they knew nothing of. However, upon arrival into the New World, due to their prior knowledge and wisdom from back home, they were able to quickly adapt and custom themselves to this new lifestyle in order to survive with the hope of potentially one day returning back to Africa. Unfortunately, African contributions to the culture of the United States has received little to no recognition and it has been taken credit for by Europeans and Whites since the early establishment of the United States.

Gomez examines both the African communities from which these people came and the specific places in North America to which they were taken. The ethnicity of Africans brought to Virginia, to South Carolina, or to Louisiana shaped the African American communities on those areas much more than did the nature of their work or other factors. The Bambara and Malinke people from the Senegambia region who were transported to colonial South Carolina and French Louisiana brought with them their technological skill in growing rice. The first slave ships to reach Louisiana, in 1719, brought both African slaves and African rice seeds. By the end of the century, however a greater proportion of African brought to Louisiana were Yoruba, Fon, or Ewe. These people Gomez argues, synthesized the complex Yoruba region into "hoodoo," which Gomez neither romanticizes nor belittles.

The perspectives of African slave merchants, the female slaves, and the plantation workers in the Americans which are missing in this collection might add other dimensions to our understanding of this commerce in people. Knowing the perspective of the African slave merchants who were present during the slave trade in Africa would have

Cuisine in Southern literature has become a character in itself that exposes the secrets of the cultured south. “Conversations about food have offered paths to grasp bigger truths about race and identity, gender and ethnicity, subjugation and creativity” (Edge, 2). The historical past of food presents the truth of a South that is often forgotten when discussing the evolution of food. Southern food stems from slavery, agriculture, and traditions of southerners over the centuries. Ralph Ellison uses southern food in the “Invisible Man” to represent the elements of southern food exemplifying its true meanings and associations from history’s past. John T. Edge in “Potlikker Papers: A Food History of the Modern South” shares the hardships of the past that have become embedded into the culture of southern cuisine.

“The Slave Ship: A Human History” written by Marcus Rediker describes the horrifying experiences of Africans, and captains, and ship crewmen on their journey through the Middle Passage, the water way in the Atlantic Ocean between Africa and the Americas. The use of slaves to cultivate crops in the Caribbean and America offered a great economy for the European countries by providing “free” labor and provided immense wealth for the Europeans. Rediker describes the slave migration by saying, “There exists no account of the mechanism for history’s greatest forced migration, which was in many ways the key to an entire phase of globalization” (10). African enslavement to the Americas is the most prominent reason for a complete shift in the

In the film Sugar Cane Alley, the journey of a young orphan boy is illustrated in the island of Martinique located right outside France in the 1930s. The protagonist, Jose, must reside with his grandmother who must do the jobs of poor black’s which includes washing clothes and working the sugar cane plantations for the rich white’s in town. Jose manages to see the significant social and economic gaps through the multiple characters around him even after the abolition of slavery. This gap is further supported through the visits to the capital, Fort-de-France, where Jose gains the opportunity to further his education through a scholarship offer. As this educational journey progresses, the audience is able to see comparisons to Van Onselen’s article, traditional African roles, and the social tensions experienced by the mulattos in a predominantly black and white population.

Despite what is commonly assumed, specific African traditions and beliefs were not merely transferred from the continent to the Americas. Rather, African American communities took on African customs and incorporated them into their own distinct worldview, and these new African American customs were even transferred back to the Continent. The Atlantic served as a passageway that did moved more than human bodies, but also the traditions that those bodies carried with them. Evidence for this phenomenon is found through both anecdotal stories from the Lowcountry as well as through anthropological findings on the way material objects were understood and used.

“She forbade boys like Grace and Bien from speaking to each other in Swahili and required them instead to speak english--the team’s lingua franca” (76). By speaking different languages, the boys were separating themselves into their individual ethnicities, not working as a team. However, by forcing everybody to speak english, a foreign language to many players, it took them away from their original cultures and allowed them to be a part of a new culture, the Fugees, which helped them to work together as equals. In order to keep his traditional “American” grocery store, Thriftown, in business, Bill Mehlinger was forced to accept the changing demands of the people and start selling traditional African foods. “‘If it wasn’t for the refugees knowing us and knowing we go out of our way for them, we’d be gone,’ Mehlinger said. ‘I’d be working at Publix’” (175). Mehlinger was forced to embrace the new diversity of Clarkston by changing what foods his store carried. Although he may not have wanted to change at first, he now realizes that this change not only benefitted his business, but also the African people of Clarkston by providing them with cheap African

Modern family is an American TV show that started in 2009 on ABC channel. Since then, this comedy show is one of the most watched shows in TV nowadays; so far it has won 22 Emmy awards from 75 nominations. Personally, this is one of my favorites TV shows ever because it is extremely funny but also it portrays its tittle, you actually see a modern family: its diversity, its struggles, its attachment, and so on. I really love this show because it is for any type of audience, children will laugh as hard as a grandpa. I think that through this show our young generations can actually learn a little bit more about family and its diversity and at the same time having fun. I personally know few families that will watch it every Wednesday at 9:00pm

Michael Halloran (2004) proposes that culture as a diverse and complex system of shared and interrelated knowledge, practices and signifiers of a society, provides structure and significance to groups within that society which subsequently impact the individual’s experience of their personal, social, physical and metaphysical worlds (p.5). Halloran (2004) theorizes that cultural maintenance is key to increasing the health and well-being of Aboriginal Australians whereby he suggests that culture provides collectively validated ways to think of and value oneself, further arguing that culture helps to suppress fundamental human existential anxieties about social isolation produced by our mortality awareness. Emile Durkheim (Marks, 1974) identifies anomie as being without law or norms, similarly, D.J Spencer (2000)

Spending quality time with family is one of my favorite childhood memories, whether it was spending time outdoors, playing ping pong, or watching a movie. My most meaningful family memory came from our vacation to Colorado back in 2004; yes, 2004. Although I don’t remember all of the events that transpired, I’m able to recall most of the memorable events that took place. It was a cool, misty morning in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, and I could distinctly hear the unmistakable elk calls that echoed through the mountains. The breeze gently scraped my face as I got into the car to begin the first day of our family vacation in Colorado. I could hear the car tires gently humming on the road during this cool, foggy, Colorado morning. As I looked past the lanky pine trees, glistening drops of dew formed on the tall grass, dancing with the wind. As we moved further down the road, I could see the tip of the sun barely begin to peek over the steep, snowy mountain peaks; however, the sun was soon covered by the misty Colorado clouds. This was it: our family vacation!