Family Background.

My cultural heritage is a blend of two cultures under the same umbrella (race).  My father was born on the Caribbean Island of Trinidad and Tobago in the British West Indies, off the Venezuelan coast.  He was raised in the city of Port of Spain. My father spoke a little about his life when he was growing up, but what I really do remember him telling me was about the people of his homeland.  The many ethnic groups of Trinidad and Tobago my father spoke of living there on the same island.   There were the Africans, Indians, Venezuelans, Spaniards, French Creoles, Portuguese, Chinese, Britons, Lebanese (I remember the Lebanese because of Danny Thomas), Syrians, Caribs, and Italians.  I can see him pointing on the globe (giving us history lessons) showing which country each group came from.  I recall the stories about the fun he and his brothers had after school, swimming in the Caribbean Sea.  As a young man he worked in the Sugar Cane field cutting down the sugar canes with a machete (the same machete he brought with him to this country).   At that time, agricultural products such as sugar and cocoa influenced the economy.  My father came to this country in 1928, applied and received his Naturalized Certificate of Citizenship on July 5, 1932 (nice date to become a citizen of your new country July 5).  My father was a hard working man.  He worked as a taxi driver and part-time radio and television repairman. My father learned how to repair radios and televisions from a mail order course (the on-line course of the 1950s), he even build a television set which we watched in the kitchen on the worktable he also build.  As a taxi driver, he worked long hours, 6 days a week. I remember him leaving early in the morning before I awoke for school and coming home in the evening after the family (My mother and brother and I) ate dinner, which was at 6:00 everyday.  Sunday was his day off, which made it the best day for the family, not only was Daddy home and we started the day with breakfast and all the fixings fresh orange juice, toast with butter, we did things as a family.  We did Sunday day trips to Manhattan or one of the five boroughs.  We went to the museums, parks, Coney Island and if it was a holiday we went to see the parade for that holiday.

Now let me speak to you of the wonderful woman who give birth to my older brother and me.  My mother was born in Sumter, South Carolina in 1912 was the daughter of a well-known Baptist minister.  She graduated from Morris College with a Bachelor of Arts Degree and had a professional state certificate for teaching the First Grade.   My grandfather had acres of land in two counties.  I remember going south during summer school vacation and picking cotton and other crops that was grown on his farm.  I also remember seeing the WHITES ONLY and COLORED ONLY

water fountains and going to the COLORED SECTION of the only movie house.  I don’t know when my mother came to New York and I don’t know when my father and mother meet and fall in love but I was told that my father went to my mother's home. Hometown and asked her father for her hand in marriage.   My parents cared for my brother and myself very well, I did not know how poor we were, my brother and I didn’t want for anything.   I had all the latest fashions, from the poodle skirt to pleated shirt, I even had cashmere sweater sets, but this was because both my mother and her sister (who also graduated from Morris College) worked as domestic help, cleaning homes of those who could afford to paid for such help.  This was because there weren’t a lot of one room schoolhouse for colored children in the North.  My father and mother wanted both of their children to have a trade; my father wanted me to go to nursing school and my bother to go into the electronic field.  I can’t remember them ever speaking to us about going to college.  Maybe this was because they can’t afford to send us.  But the encouragement and education we received from them was more valuable than anything I received anywhere.  Those

history lessons my father gave me, broadened my perspectives about life.  The lessons about the WHITES ONLY signs from my mother taught me how to tolerate ignorance.  

 When I look at my family history I see   (nothing but) Strong Bloodlines.  African and American Indian, I can’t help to be so very proud of my Heritage.