"A Small Place" by Jamaica Kincaid

Questions that the author attempts to answer:

1. What was the experience like for a country under colonial rule?

2. What are the conditions living in a post-colonial era?

3. How are foreigners perceived by natives of impoverished countries?

Antigua, a tropical island in the Caribbean, has become a huge vacation spot for Westerners as they seek refuge and a break from the crazy lives they live back home. We get this feel that we are truly in paradise as we reside on an tropical island surrounded by white sandy beaches and pristine oceans. It may be a paradise for the tourists, but life on the island for the natives is not as great. In her piece "A Small Place", Jamaica Kincaid writes in an accusatory tone as she shows contempt for the individuals that have no idea of what Antigua is actually like. She dives into the history of colonialism that the natives had to endure under the control of the English empire and also the current state of this impoverished country. There is an empathy gap that Kincaid is trying to highlight in order to open the eyes of the Western world.

Citizens of this nation tend to lose sight of the privileges that come with living in this country. I know I do. I always expect there to be power and electricity--when the huge blackout occurred a few years ago I did not know what to do. I always take for granted that I can take a hot shower on a winter morning. These are luxuries that only a select few in the world can feel experience. Kincaid also points out that many of us get bored with life so we go on vacation, another privilege that only a select few can do as well. This is in stark contrast to the desolate living conditions of Antiguans and their inability to escape them. 

Kincaid uses Antigua as a symbol of all colonized nations under the colonial period of world history. The problems that Antigua faces are not exclusively to them, they are problems that all former colonized nations have been through. Just like Antigua was robbed of its own other language, countries in Africa and Latin America lost their languages to European powers. Language provides a national identity for a people. When that is lost to a foreign entity, nationalism is much weaker. European powers, as a means to exploit natural resources, used coerced labor to maximize output. Natives of these lands were dehumanized as they were viewed as commodities as opposed to human beings. The flow of money, more often than not, land into the hand of the foreign power, like in the case of the Barclays Brothers. 

Americans cannot relate to any of this because since this period of decolonization begun, after the end of World War II, our country has been the world's preeminent superpower. Kincaid wants to give us more context on why there is so much poverty into the world. She wants to open our eyes to what conditions most people in the world population are living in.