Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2002. Vol. 8. Eger Journal of American Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 28)

Studies - Judit Molnár: The Spatio-Temporal Dimension of Diasporic Discourse from the Carrebian on the Canadian Literary Scene

In "Photograph"' the most loveable and strong grandmother brings up her children while their mother is in England trying to gain money. By the time she goes home she has become a stranger not to her children's surprise, though. To tell the truth, we were expecting a white woman to come through the door, the way my grandmother had described my mother and the way the whole street that we lived on treated the news of my mother's return, as if we were about to ascend in their respect. (69) Having spent so much time away, the mother has acquired a "splitplace

" personality. As Yi Fu Tuan says, "Hometown is an intimate place" (144). What is her hometown? Cultural streams flow in different directions between the grandmother, mother, and the children. The unnamed mother figure, who has spent some time abroad trying to support her children back at home also appears in "NoRInsed Blue Sky, No Red Flowe Fences". The split between "self and other" is a painful experience in her everyday life. She was always uncomfortable under the passing gazes, muttering to herself that she knew, they didn't have to tell her that she was out of place here. But there was no other place to be right on. The little money fed her sometimes, fed her children back home, no matter the stark scene which she created on the corners of the street. She, black, silent and unsmiling; the child, white, tugging and laughing, or whining. (87) Her sense of belonging elsewhere, both to a different place and space, is unambiguously articulated here. The narrator in "I Used To Like the Dallas Cowboys" is back on an unnamed island to join the revolution there. The story shows that racism is present in every area of life. The sports-fan narrator "used to like the Dallas Cowboys" in Canada because they had black players. Her viewchanges, "Four days ago the island was invaded by America. ... [wjhen they're not playing, the Cowboys can be deadly. For the political climate on the island, as Monika Kaup observes, "Brand blames contemporary American hegemony and, by implication, ongoing imperialism." Ayo in "Sketches in Transit ... Going Home" flies home to join the revolution in Grenada, where Brand actually worked during the invasion. The plane is full of expatriots who go back to Trinidad for a short while because of the carnival that is held there. Ayo is 215