Searching for Higher Ground: An Exploration of Caribbean Migration with George A. Glean Sr.

Get ready to embark on a captivating journey with George A. Glean Sr., a lifelong teacher, writer,  and avid student of West Indian history and culture. Born and raised on the island of Grenada, George opens up about his childhood, his migration to the United States, and the unanticipated joy found in the simplicity of island life.

In this episode we discuss how George's personal migration tale and expertise in Caribbean History inspired his first fiction novel, Searching for Higher Ground. It serves as a testament to the idea that migration is not always rooted in hardship, but can emerge from love and family.  We discuss the how migration impacted the main character Sinclair from his childhood in Grenada and the heartbreaking decision of his parents to leave him behind.

From the rhythms and history in Calypso music to the pulsating story of Caribbean migration, this episode has it all!

Buy Searching for Higher Ground

Calypso Song mentioned: "Jack" The Beach is Mine by Gabby

Bring home Bob Marley: One Love on Digital now! Celebrate the life and music of an icon who inspired generations through his message of love, peace, and unity.  Buy Bob Marley: One Love on Digital today and get over 50 minutes of behind-the-scenes footage and deleted scenes! Available at participating retailers. Rated PG-13. From Paramount Pictures.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:41

Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of the Styling Vibes podcast with yours truly, makayla. If you're new here, welcome to the family. If you're returning, welcome back family. Today we are joined by George A Glean Sr. I have to read the whole title, you know. Make sure, put some respect on him. He is a lifelong teacher and student of West Indian history and culture. He's also a writer and a producer. Born and raised on the island of Granada, george, like many Caribbean people before him, immigrated to the United States in search of a better life and greater opportunities. He's a father of three and grandfather of seven, but you can't tell and he currently resides in Long Island, new York. How are you, george? Welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 2: 1:31

Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1: 1:34

So you are here because you have done so many great things in your career, but you also have a book which we are going to talk about. But I think it would not do you justice to not talk about your personal migration story first. Tell me about growing up in Granada. What was that like for you?

Speaker 2: 1:52

Growing up in Granada was just spectacular. Granada is one of the most beautiful of all the islands. To begin with, there's a lot of beaches. One of the world famous is the Grand Dance White Sand Beach. So they're growing up frantic in the seas and just running about. Especially when you're young, it's very carefree, laissez-faire kind of attitude. The only difference was that you couldn't really appreciate the beauty of the island as much when you were there. In most instances you will see the white folks coming on and enjoying everything and you will just wonder when will the time come for you to be able to enjoy it as much as they. But in the meantime you'll still enjoy it as much as you can. So growing up was very ideal for me.

Speaker 1: 2:50

Now did. You come from a big family and I want to go back to your point about being able to enjoy the island, but tell me a little bit about your family life.

Speaker 2: 3:02

Well, I grew up in a family of six. My father was a businessman, my mother was a stay-at-home mother. We were kind of I usually call it middle class or whatever you want to call it. Then we were not like four, but we were not rich, but so we was just smack in the middle and that gave us you know, quote unquote good life back in the island. That was my upbringing.

Speaker 1: 3:35

Share one of your fondest memories from that your adolescent growing up.

Speaker 2: 3:41

Well, the memories are always close to sports, because I liked football and I used to run track also. So beating with the guys on a morning playing shirts against skins because it's 90 degrees, so some would have shirts, some would have, you know, topless, and after you play you would just jump into the sea and then go home and that was like almost every, almost like a daily exercise. So it was really just a fun time in growing up.

Speaker 1: 4:26

That sounds lovely. I think most of us here would love to just jump in somewhat after we have had some vigorous exercise, but you talk. You talked a little bit about the ability to enjoy the island. I think that that is a theme across the region. We are known for hospitality, but often those on the island are not able to experience the hospitality that we are essentially known for. What was the sentiment around that while you were growing up?

Speaker 2: 5:02

Well, the sentiment around that wasn't pronounced because, for example, the tourists would come and the little kids would throw money into the water and the little kids would dive to get it. So as far as they were concerned, it was just a sport. They didn't look at it beyond that. Young ladies would go to work in the hotels. They thought that was something good because they were not working serving the white folks. So the racism thing was not there. It was just a matter of doing your duty and you getting paid and you make it work. If you weren't working at all, then that was a problem. But as regards the other things, the sentiment wasn't that great. You just, as I said, you're dived. That was a sport, and then at the end of the day you'd have a dollar or $10 and you would make that work.

Speaker 2: 6:01

So, as I said, growing up in the islands, race wasn't there at all. You just looked up to the people coming in. So if they enjoy it, that's what they're supposed to do, because we, for example, we would go to the sea, but it's always I'm going to get a sea bath, I'm going to bathe. It was never. I'm going to enjoy the beach. Beach was a word left for these people coming in, or they're going to the beach, but I'm just going to. It was a daily thing. I'm just going to the sea to take a bath. So it didn't really mean that much to us. We thought they probably deserved it. We didn't know that they had to save for a whole year to come to our island to enjoy it. We just thought that they had money and they were rich and we didn't have it. So anything they gave to us, we accepted it. Later on, as we got more conscious and more aware, people started thinking differently. But initially, especially during my time as growing up, you just saw it as something to enjoy. You just enjoyed the life.

Speaker 1: 7:11

I totally understand that. So, even in growing up, what really led you to the path of becoming an educator and choosing specifically to focus on history?

Speaker 2: 7:23

Well, you always saw it as the serve, especially the less fortunate and the history part. It was more or less a lived experience. That's all it was. You saw things happening and you had questions and as you grow up you started to develop answers. So you started to put one together and you started reading more and you started to understand a little bit more. For example, the thing about that beach is mine.

Speaker 2: 7:59

The official music of the Caribbean is calypso music. Calypso started in Trinidad and Grenada is a stone's throw from Trinidad, so I was exposed to a lot of calypso and for those who don't know, calypso is like storytelling. Now, reggae came later on and reggae is more established and more known than the calypso, but calypso was always there and I look at the calypsoanians as the poets of the Caribbean. So there is a song, a calypso song that entitled that Beach is Mine.

Speaker 2: 8:41

At one time the politicians were trying to remove the locals from going on the beach because they started building the hotels on the beach and they wanted to make sure that the white people had easy access and all around access to it. And that is one time the locals told us no, that beach is mine, so we have access to that and they can build it. So this is where the history came in, and they're trying to teach people what is years, what isn't years. And that's where I started the history and always try to melt the history and the music together, because you could actually document the history of the islands by just listening to the calypsoes, based on the particular time that the calypso was made. So there's a distinct connection between the two.

Speaker 1: 9:37

I love that and I've never truly explored that as a historical outlet. You know, now we have access to all the information online, but I think if someone were to and I know I'm kind of putting you on the spot here if someone asked you to listen to maybe two or three songs that are represented of Grenada's history, which songs would you? I have that Beaches Mind, which I gotta go listen to now.

Speaker 2: 10:11

Well, as a matter of fact, that Beaches Mind is a Bayesian Calypso. You're going to see all the different islands and all the islands of different. You know different calypsos, but there are some which broaden it. For example, one that comes to mind is the one called Federation. In 1958, all the islands decided to have what you could call as the United States of the Caribbean, which Jamaica, trinidad, grenada, dominica, etc. And it was a brilliant idea but it failed. And there is a Calypso with the same name called Federation. I would encourage you and the listeners to give that a listen. As I wrote in the book, I mentioned that Calypso in the book and I said you could get a history book in one song this is one song that is very evident of that it told you how the Federation started, why it broke up, who caused it to break up. So, for example, jamaica was the one responsible for bringing it up. I don't know if you know too much about the Federation, but I don't.

Speaker 1: 11:29

So now I have to go learn and see why Jamaica is responsible.

Speaker 2: 11:33

Now Because Jamaica was the biggest island and they assumed that the smaller islands were going to take everything from them. So there were two ministers, buster Manty and Manly Manly was in charge of the time as the Prime Minister and Buster Manty came up and he had a referendum and he told the people that if they joined the Federation, the smaller islands would just leech from them. So therefore, when the referendum came, the people voted for Jamaica to become independent. There were ten islands. The next biggest island was Trinidad. Trinidad had all the oil, jamaica had all the bauxite. So once Jamaica pulled out of the ten, the then Prime Minister of Trinidad had a fuzzy math and he said one from ten equals zero. You know the one and the zero. Once you take the one off, he left it zero. So that was his math and that was the breakup of the Federation. One from ten equals zero.

Speaker 1: 12:48

I love that I'm getting history lessons on a Sunday. I love it. I love it. History is my favorite thing to kind of explore, so this is like right up my alley.

Speaker 2: 12:59

Right. So yeah, there's a lot of stuff you could have, you could look at.

Speaker 1: 13:03

Yeah, I'm definitely going to look at those calypsoes.

Speaker 2: 13:06

Because, you see, prior to that, in 1958, as I said, that was when the Federation came up and everything was intact the Canadian government gave two ships to the West Indian Federation. It was called the Federal Maple and the Federal Palm. They would island hop. They would leave from Trinidad to Grenada, to St Vincent, to Barbados, to St Lucia and then to make the whole around, and you wouldn't hop on from any island. You live in Grenada, so it leaves Trinidad. When it gets to Grenada you hop on, Then you see all the other islands and then you come back to Grenada and you hop off. They also had a governor general was in place and he was based in Trinidad. So everything was ready to go until Bustamante came with that referendum and then that just spoiled everything and from then on that was it.

Speaker 1: 14:09

Yes, definitely divide and conquer kind of ideals. Do you personally, do you think that that could potentially be revisited, if not in the near future, in the future at all?

Speaker 2: 14:25

Well, it is being revisited as we speak. There's something called the caracom.

Speaker 1: 14:29

Caracom okay.

Speaker 2: 14:30

Right, so they still have at least freedom of movement. You could move from any island to the other island without a passport or anything like that. So they're working on it, but at the level that it was done before. I don't think it would ever get back to that, because the leaders are very selfish and once your island is bigger and have a little bit more than the smaller islands, that's it as a matter of fact, there was even something attempted with the smaller islands.

Speaker 1: 15:05

Yes, I remember that.

Speaker 2: 15:06

After Jamaica pulled out and it was called the Little Eight. Barbados was no, at the head of the Little Eight, but that didn't work either, thank you. And then we. So we, back to square one. So we hoping that the Khayyikam could do something. How much they could do. We have to just wait and see. So something is in the work.

Speaker 1: 15:29

So tell me a little bit about your personal migration story. How did you come to the States, and was this US the first place that you came when you immigrated?

Speaker 2: 15:42

Yes, it was, but my migration story is a little bit different. For most people, I never wanted to come to the States. I didn't have any reason to come to the States. As I told you before, I was from like a middle class family, so I didn't have any urge to leave. So the only reason why I left Grenada is because my girlfriend then came to the States.

Speaker 1: 16:07

You came for love and that was the only reason. Nothing wrong with that. No, no, no, no.

Speaker 2: 16:15

So that is my personal migration story. It wasn't a hard luck story, it was not an economic story, it was just a love story.

Speaker 1: 16:24

That's beautiful. I think we need to hear those. Quite often, I feel like we all assume that the migration story has to be one rooted in hardship.

Speaker 2: 16:35

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 16:37

That to me, I think, is exciting to even hear about. So you probably have a book in the love story, but we're not going to talk about that.

Speaker 2: 16:46

No, you see, the only difference is that the majority of people that migrate, that is their story. So, although there are other reasons, most times these are new because nobody wants to hear about it. It doesn't. The story is not as tantalizing of. You can come from way down and you came up here and you did a little better and you might find your higher ground, as the book suggests.

Speaker 2: 17:16

Some people find the higher ground, some people don't, and then everybody's higher ground is different. What is higher ground for you would be different for me. So, as I said, everybody has a different story. But the majority of the reasons is a push and pull. You're pushed on because of the economic and you're being pulled because you promised things would be better on the other side. So my story is completely different, but it is one of the stories. That's a lot, because in most instances most of the friends that I knew at the same time lost their love because one went to America, the other one went to England, or one went away and one stayed, and, just like here in high school, you have a relationship. Then one goes to college in Alabama, one goes to somewhere else and after two years that's the end of that, so my story is not as tantalized as others.

Speaker 1: 18:27

That's what you think. That's what you think, but I think it might be different. The ladies love a good love story.

Speaker 2: 18:36

So probably am I looking to that, so the next story would be my migration story. Yes, yes. That's the story.

Speaker 1: 18:46

Yes, so you started talking about the book, at least the title, anyway. So tell me about your first book, searching for Higher Ground.

Speaker 2: 18:57

Well, as I said, it's lived experiences. As I told you, I am a basic West Indian Always have children belonging to the marriage or the family and there's always children outside of the family. We had five brothers and one sister with my mother and father and he had like about five boys on the outside and at one time I had like seven brothers in England at one time. So I knew about going away, what that phrase meant. It was a very sad time and it was a very exciting time. It is sad once somebody is leaving, either through death or whatever the case might be. Once you're leaving people it's sad, but then you tell yourself he or she is going to better themselves, and better themselves mean they'll be sending back money to you at home. So there's nothing more as exciting as that, and if you're younger they will know it's barrels. But before it was sending back boxes, those big boxes. Especially when they open up at Christmas time, I mean you know, wow, all the toys, the tricycles and bicycles. You know just the works. So going away was very traumatic. It was very, very sad Because when you are going away before the whole family came with you, and especially when you're going to England, you're required to dress.

Speaker 2: 20:40

You have to be in your jacket and your tie. You see the picture on there on the book the jacket and the tie. Some instances the women had to wear the gloves and the elbow length and stuff like that. So because you're going into this new man's country, you had no idea where you were going. You knew nothing about cold. When I talk about snow, you have no idea what this snow thing is about. And once you go away, you were the right, but during that time the letters will take forever. If you compare then and now, I mean you know it's like it moved from that to your writing, the email, the envelopes and stuff like that. That's what it is to the mountain too.

Speaker 2: 21:25

As I said, the book was inspired by lived experiences. These are things that I saw and other things I heard about. But, for example, people have been to Panama. I knew some of them when they came back and they told me stories. People went to a rover and they came back and once they came back, these were the rich people in the society. They would build the big house. So we would point out this isn't a rover house, this is a panama house. They would again come back and build the businesses in whatever part they came back. So they're going away.

Speaker 2: 22:01

It proved well. So some people came back and there's some people who never came back because they were not able to reach that high ground. So that's what gave me the reason to share that information, because what I'm realizing, a lot of people went through. They went to England and they came back, but they still don't even understand all the ramifications. You know, they went through it and they came back but they don't know. And that's why I decided to write it in the form that I wrote it in Just a regular novel with just stories.

Speaker 2: 22:37

So you're reading and then it's seeping in, because I didn't want it to be a history textbook. That's too heavy with 400 pages and 500 pages. You pick it up and you put it back down. My book is an easy read but there's a lot of history in there. You ask him, but you're wondering at the same time and at the same time, I think the book could be used as a teaching tool, because there's a lot of questions that could be answered and you have to go out and find it. But you could use this as a base and then you could move on from there, so I hope this platform could use it.

Speaker 1: 23:19

Yeah, I really love that and would. Also, I've read a number of like migration stories and the protagonist is usually a woman, so I was drawn to your book because it's from a man's perspective. So quite often we hear about the migration experience either from the mother, the daughter and that kind of relationship. But tell me a little bit about the protagonist in the books in Claire and how he evolves, or how did you come up with him as the protagonist and how his story progresses throughout the book.

Speaker 2: 23:58

Well, there are many stories. I think everybody knows something similar to Sinclair, because the parents always have to leave and most times they have to leave the children behind Because, as I said, you're going into an unknown place, an unknown situation, so you might be able to handle it, but you're not ready for your children to handle the unknown. After you settle for a while, then you send back for the children. In this particular case, the family left, everybody left, and they left Sinclair behind. Sinclair was left behind because Sinclair was very intelligent by uprooting him, although, as he said in the book that you go into the seat of civilization, the seat of learning, why are you leaving me back here? But they thought they would be disrupting his learning, so they decided to leave him there with his uncle. And sometimes I refer to it as fake because the uncle and the aunt were not blood related. But it is an African thing which we have adopted to call close friends of the families uncle and aunt. With the Haitians you call them Nenem and Tanti and these people are very, very close. You see them after time as family and there's no question mark. That is a family. When I was growing up they could scold you. You can't go and tell your parents auntie's scolding outside no, she has a right to. That's who he was left with. So as far as the parents were concerned, he was left in the best of hands.

Speaker 2: 25:47

And the other reason again why I decided to use Sinclair I wanted to show that, although the thinking was that you had to leave the island to go away to get better, he stayed and he was able to achieve. Now he did move, but he moved into island. He didn't have to move like the England or to America or anywhere else. So he stayed in Grenada. He did studies in Jamaica. He came back, he taught in Barbados. He met his wife there. She was from Barbados, guyana, and then he was able to get married to her. So he stayed and he made it, as opposed to some people who left and didn't make it. And that's why I used Sinclair in that vein in the story.

Speaker 1: 26:43

I think it's interesting that you have the inter region migration, inter island migration story and I would love if you would read a excerpt of your book for my listeners. There are a lot of great passages, but I think there's one in particular talking about some of the migration. So one to give you a chance to kind of read a little bit, a little snippet for the Stylen vibes family.

Speaker 2: 27:12

Okay, hold on a minute. Should I go down, bring it up. Okay, I am reading from the words of Sinclair Sinclair was, as I read. We just said he was left behind and his parents left and he was going through very traumatic because he couldn't understand why he was left behind out of all these children. And once he left they kind of like abandoned him. So he says, and I read I was 11 years old when my family left for England, 11 years old and sent to live with relative strangers.

Speaker 2: 27:58

My parents and siblings missed all my growing up. They missed every major accomplishment in my life, and there were many accomplishments. My aunt and uncle were always there for me, but they couldn't replace my family. When I was kicked down, something was always missing. As I write, I'm still having trouble trying to articulate the void I felt at the time. I used to be haunted by a never-ending nightmare. Out of four children, sintler was the albatross. I had to have done my parents some injurious harm that they couldn't erase from their collective memories. In many households the father might make a bad decision, but the mother would step in as a counterbalance. But in my case, no one had a good word on my behalf. I was furious. I was seething in my mind. That's the end of the excerpt.

Speaker 1: 29:18

Whoo, that sounds like a good story I can cuddle up and read. So tell the people where they can buy this book and how they can get in touch with you.

Speaker 2: 29:27

Okay, you could get the book from searchingforhiredgrowncom, or you could get it from Amazon or you could contact me email georggleancom.

Speaker 1: 29:43

Awesome. Thank you so much, george. I really enjoyed our conversation today and if you guys definitely please get the book, I will put the link in our show notes. Searchingforhiredground by George Glean Sr. Thank you so much, sir. I appreciate you being on the podcast. You're always welcome to come back and I'm looking forward to reading the book myself.

Speaker 2: 30:06

Thank you very much. Thank you for having me and I hope I could come back again some other time to share some more thoughts with you, Absolutely Especially more on the West Indian history aspects of it. Oh yes, for sure we touched on the Federation today. There was some other things that we could touch on in the future.

Speaker 1: 30:28

I'm also going to link the Calypso in the show notes.

Speaker 2: 30:31

I'll give you a little bit more of the Calypso aspect of it also.

Speaker 1: 30:35

Absolutely Well, until next time, Lea Tommie Peeps.