Island

Tourists visit islands all the time; travel brochures show them as wonderful places that manufacture drinks served with umbrellas. Beaches with views. A place to escape to. For a slice of time, they plan to come and relax - indulge themselves.

The last time I shared that perspective, I was 9 years old in Dayton, Ohio with my father asking me about moving to Trinidad and Tobago. That was very exciting at the time. An Adventure. Little did I know that it would be a few years before I swore to get off the island. I did. Then I came back after traveling more than most people do in their lives - but this isn't about my traveling. It's about an island.

Take the Caribbean, an island chain made up of many islands. On these islands there are people that do not exist in tourist brochures; the vast majority may never see the inside of a tourist resort. The vast majority see the world through the looking glass of television - and if they can afford it, cable television piped in with all manner of advertising that is almost always designed to get people to buy things that are not available on the island. Newspapers echo Associated Press articles about the rest of the world; on an island the circulation of a newspaper does not support international reporting. Magazines cater to the people who can afford them and show what the demographic wants, thus catering for the upper class of the Caribbean - or blissfully showing off what the tourist demographic wants to see.