Senior stays true to Caribbean roots through Brandeis club
"I am very into my `Trinnie,' as we say," says Trinidad/Tobago-born Brandeis senior Genielle Salazar. "I try to keep my culture with me." She and a friend are co-presidents of the Brandeis student group, Caribbean Connexion. She grew up in the island nation off the northern coast of South America, then moved, at 16, to Brooklyn.
Caribbean Connexion recently hosted Caribbean Week, a festival that was part party, part cultural seminar. Activities included a reggae concert, an ice cream social, and a talk by African and Afro-American Studies Professor Faith Smith, an expert on the region. To further acquaint Brandeis students with the area, Salazar and her friends distributed maps of the Caribbean.
"It's too bad Americans aren't aware of the diversity of the Caribbean," she says. Some students at the festival were puzzled by the food being served, which included dishes from the Indian subcontinent. "So I had to tell them Guyana alone is probably 60 to 70 percent Indian," says Salazar. "And that curry is a part of our life in Trinidad/Tobago." Other influences on her homeland's culture come from France, Spain, Portugal, and Africa.
Which does she miss more: her tropical homeland or her adopted American metropolis? "Wow, that's a toughie!" she laughs. Both have equal pull because she has family in each location, and "home for me is where my family is." She calls Trinidad "gorgeous" and misses Tobago's beautiful beaches--and the friendliness of the people and the many festivals, and Hindu, Muslim, and Christian holidays.
A double major in English and American literature and anthropology, Salazar loves poetry, especially the work of Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman. After taking a course in Renaissance literature, she's become interested in John Donne.
Salazar heard about Brandeis through her high school in New York, and visited a University event at Brandeis House in Manhattan. When she toured the campus, she knew right away it was a match: "I loved it," she remembers.
Post-Brandeis, she plans to perform some sort of public service in New York, perhaps Teach for America. Though not yet a citizen of the United States, she hopes to become one eventually.