"Grandmother, A Caribbean Indian, Described By My Father" By Yvonne V. Sapia

In “Grandmother, A Caribbean Indian Described by my Father” by Yvonne Sapia, the grandson talked about his grandmother being strong-willed in the opening of the poem. “Her hands were never young.  They broke jars” (Sapia, 8-9).  Throughout the poem, Sapia listed events that his grandmother encountered in her life which made her a very strong person.  The majority of her pain came from the loss of her two children.  “But after the first baby died, she disappeared in the middle of days of worship, her black saint, after the second, to sleep with a hand towel across her eyes” (Sapia, 20-25).  She was not ruined until she experienced the pain of the loss of her children when she turned her back against God and worshiped the Devil. 

The grandson proceeds to talk about the grandmother as a little girl when she was living in a fairly nice place, but did not have the freedom or money to go beyond her dreams.  “She was given the island but no wings” (Sapia, 13-15).  It seems as though her life was once happy before her marriage. “Though she bruised like a persimmon, she was not ruined” (Sapia, 16-19).  The significance of the persimmon is that it can easily be “bruised” as it is a juicy smooth-skinned orange-red fruit that is sweet only when fully ripe.  After her marriage, she became easily bruised with pain and sorrow but did not let the traumatic events in her life ruin her as a person so that she could be a strong mindset for her grandson.

“By the time I was sixteen, I lost my place in her thatched house” (Sapia, 37-39).  “Thatched house” is specifically implying that the house had a plant material used as the roofing.  As he got older, the grandson lost the sense of belonging in his grandmother’s house because he felt he had the potential to be something more.  The grandson took care of his grandmother because she is described as “mi viejita” in the beginning of the poem which means “my old lady” in English.  The grandson felt the need to fill the emptiness his grandmother had lived through when she lost her children.

Sapia uses the similes “watering holes, like bones, like darts” (Sapia, 10-11), and “like a persimmon” (Sapia, 17) so the audience can get a better description of the grandmother.  The tone throughout the play is of darkness and loneliness as it describes the grandmother’s life.  The poem ends on a somber note.  The ending is marked by strict seriousness combined with sadness and a trouble state of mind as the grandmother lets her grandson go.

We come to know this is a family of immigrants trying to reach their destination of Nueva York.  “She let me go, and she did not come to the pier the day the banana boat pushed away from her towards Nueva New York” (Sapia, 40-44).  Even though the grandson had been there for sixteen years, she finally got the courage to let her him go, even after she lost her children.  As she got older, she wanted her grandson to leave for Nueva York without her because she wanted the best for him and believed he could experience the freedom more than she could at an old age.