685: We Come From Small Places
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From WBZ Chicago, it's this American life. I'm Neil Drumming, sitting in fire a glass. Every so often I'll be talking to another black person, usually someone with an accent, and they'll stop mid-conversation and ask me where my family's from, or if I'm from the islands. And I'll say something like, "I'm not sure, I think I'm West Indian on my dad's side. I've said this a hundred times without any actual proof. I don't know where I got it from, and there's no evidence that I can find." I asked my dad recently, and he wasn't sure, he said maybe. Going back generations, someone stopped at some island between Africa and South Carolina. My cousin Yvonne, though, her dad was definitely born in Panama. A few years back, she invited me to come stand on the road with her and watch the big party Caribbean people throw here in New York every year, the West Indian Day Parade, technically the West Indian American Day Parade. I still remember how excited she got when a group of Panamanians came marching down each and parkway. My cousin is tall, over six feet and loud, and she really made a show of jumping and shouting and waving her flag. I envied her in that moment. This is uncomfortable for me to say, but I've sometimes felt a sense of vagueness just being black in America. That's the thing about the West Indian Day Parade. There's all these black people who seem to know exactly specifically where they're from, and on this one day they tell everyone. Like this guy, for example, it's not just where he's from, but it's how he says it. Where are you from? Jamaica. You live in this neighborhood? No, I'm going to live in this neighborhood. I'm living out of Bronx. Okay. So you came all the way down here? Yes, one big girl, one big girl, bring up white, please. We got the world too. He and his friend came down from the Bronx and had been partying nearby. I ran into them on Eastern Parkway early that morning. The parade hadn't even started yet, but they were already repping their country. So, Jamaica's control, the control of the parkway. I don't know why I go out like I say, Jamaica's our own things, but we have the best artists, we have the best food, we have the best culture. And we have the best. We have the best. We have the same little more. Is it me? These guys, they don't even talk like this all the time. So, later on around 10 o'clock, the parade will actually start, and that's, you know, the big, big thing. You'll see a lot more people flood in the streets. A few years ago, I moved just a few blocks from the parade route on Eastern Parkway. The broad treeline corridor that passes through the neighborhood of Crown Heights.
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