America’s Paradise

The project "America's Paradise," by St. Croix native and Brooklyn based artist Deja Aaliyah Belardo investigates modern colonialism in the U.S Virgin Islands. By using visual arts to examine the ways in which a long history of seven colonial rulers have shaped the culture of the islands, the research and visual art based project creates a unique visibility and critique of the current colonial governing of the U.S Virgin Islands. Interested in the dynamics of the daily lives of the people who call St. Croix home, especially those who have family ties to the island before U.S ownership, the goal of "America's Paradise" is to examine the ways the history of colonialism and current U.S ownership affects the culture and lives of Crucians. 

With a high debt to the U.S, as well as the possibility of U.S citizenship being revoked at any moment, it is crucial to engage the local community with the effects of modern colonialism. I would like to work with artists and community members on the island who have and continue to document the culture of the island through different mediums of visual arts.

Several factors have led to my interest in the project "America's Paradise," including my conflict with American and Caribbean identity when studying political science on the mainland. In pursuit of examining my own cultural identity, a large focus of my writing became about my home St. Croix, whose culture has been shaped by seven different colonial rulers. Following the 2017 Centennial celebration of U.S ownership of the Virgin Islands, "America's Paradise" formulated as an investigation into how America's control and influence in the territory has and will continue to affect the local culture. Originally used in context to drive tourism, my project title "America's Paradise" will draw both on the natural beauty of island life, but also power dynamics and regulatory systems that control the future state of the island.

America’s Paradise: Essay 1

Some people find a community in the school they’ve attended for years, or the club where they met their closest friends, but I think it is easy to say that in the current political environment, all of those things are irrelevant if you are not a citizen. In the United States, you can grow up in a community that shaped your self identity, and then suddenly have someone decide that you belong on the other side of the world. A different kind of feeling evokes in me when I hear the word citizenship, because in my experience, living in the contiguous United States for the last several years has made me feel less American than being a citizen for my whole life living in the US Virgin Islands. Second-hand citizenship in the heart of paradise, where the oceans provide barriers that are more than distance. 

So many people in this country are fighting to be a citizen of the United States, and yet I feel out of place with my status as a US citizen. Citizenship is defined by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy as having three dimensions: legal status, citizens as political agents, and citizens as members of a political community. Legally I am a citizen, but many have told me, including presidents, that it is a privilege, and not a right. As a political agent, I have no say in who becomes the leader of this country, but I must abide by its laws. As a member of a political community I must always carry my passport because businesses and government agencies consider a Virgin Islands identification card as international.  In school, Virgin Islanders learn an American law and history, only to discover that some laws and protections do not apply to them. There is limited Federal representation of the Virgin Islands in Congress, with a delegate who can speak on behalf of the territory, but has no vote.  So am I truly a member of this community?

In “What Does ‘Community' Mean?” by Megan Garber, she cites a definition of community from the Oxford English Dictionary, and follows with, “community…is not merely something that one fits into; it is also something one chooses for oneself, through a process of self-discovery.” When you think about the American dream, that is the perfect definition of community, but our reality is very different. With our current administration, there has been a strong emphasis on removing individuals who have chosen the United States as their community. A person must be a citizen of the United States to belong to the American community. With President Trump’s recent comment about speaking with the “president” of the US Virgin Islands about the disaster from hurricanes Irma and Maria, it seems as though he has verbally separated us from the community of the United States, even though the residents of the US Virgin Islands are US citizens. 

In regards to citizenship as a community, the residents of the US Virgin Islands have trouble identifying what community they belong to. In a PBS interview, poet Tiphanie Yanique states, “Are we Caribbean? Or are we American? In the Caribbean, Virgin Islanders are seen as outsiders because we are American. In America, we are seen as outsiders because we are Caribbean, so we end up feeling like we have no place to which we belong.” There are 107,268 citizens of the United States living in the Virgin Islands, as of 2017, who feel conflicted about the status of their community. U.S Code states, all former Danish citizens, all natives, and all persons born in the Virgin Islands of the United States on or after January 17th, 1917 are “declared to be citizens of the United States.” For families that have generational ties that span back before the United States owned the Virgin Islands, they are more deeply connected to a Caribbean heritage. For people who only know a set of American Islands, they feel American, especially when so many people from other Caribbean islands and countries migrate to the U.S Virgin Islands to build a new American life. 

When Virgin Islanders travel to the “mainland”, they often feel like they have to defend both their American and Caribbean identity. This questioning feeling of community and belonging is something that has become more important to most in the Virgin Islands due to recent natural disasters. Hurricanes Irma and Maria have forced many Virgin Islanders to comfort their “Americaness” when deciding if they would stay with their battered homes or take refuge in the United States. Many people have been disappointed with the relief aid and media coverage of the “American” disaster. Yanique states, “This year [2017] is the centennial of the Virgin Islands being American. But the same year we are celebrating our Americanness we are being forgotten.” Virgin Islanders must remember that the U.S bought the Virgin Islands for their military port advantages, so their concern has never been about the people. The Insular Cases prove the sentiment of our colonial rulers. 

Citizenship has become something required to belong to the American community, but it is not something that makes you included in that community. According to the Washington Post, there are more than 4 million Americans in all of the US territories. Those 4 million people can fight wars for the United States, pay its taxes, and follow its laws, but can feel and be treated like they are less than American. Do schools in the U.S teach about the territories like Virgin Islanders learn about the US? Residents and citizens of the U.S Virgin Islands sing the National Anthem, but feel little allegiance to a country that owns them, and maybe the problem is one of being owned.

Resources

Flock, Elizabeth. (2017) Why U.S  Virgin Islanders feel there’s no place they belong. PBS News Hour.  www.pbs.org 

Steckelberg, Aaron and Esteban, Chiqui. (2017) More than 4 million Americans don’t have anyone to vote for them in Congress. www.washingtonpost.com 

Leydet, Dominique. “Citizenship”. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (Fall 2017 Edition). Edward N. Zalta (ed.). http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2017/entries/citizenship/> .

“8 U.S Code 1406- Persons living in and born in the Virgin Islands” (1952) www.law.cornell.edu