A Small Place

1) Should we made to feel bad and responsible for the face that the people of Antigua feel cheated out of their culture?

2) Since the "tourists" are helping the people of Antigua out financially by spending their "tourist" money there, shouldn't the native people be a little more grateful rather than angry towards them?

3) Do the people of Antigua need to be compensated for the "damage" that was done to their culture?

Question 2#

     I live in Laguna Beach, home of the hit MTV show, "Laguna Beach: The Real OC". I was in 8th grade when the show aired on MTV. It was strange that my little, humble town was now being broadcasted on television for the whole world to see and know about. Growing up in a small town was wonderful. It was safe, quaint, and everyone knew you and you knew everyone. You can walk or ride your bike almost anywhere in town and not have to go very far. Laguna has a lot of history dating back to the 1920's. My house is a 1920's historic Laguna Beach cottage. Many generations of Laguna Beach locals were born and died here and a lot of them still live here today, just adding to the unique and humbleness of the town.

   My freshman year of high school I saw Laguna change, fast. Summer's used to be magical. Beaches were quiet, clean, and inhabited with familiar faces. Getting to the north end of town took 10 minutes maximum. Now....Summers are still magical, but much different. Aside from local spot beaches, the others are absolutely covered with people from out of town (or as Kincaid would call them "tourists"), traffic can only be described as gridlock hell, and you can't go to eat anywhere without waiting in line foe at least 15 minutes. SO needless to say, it's been heavily altered since the airing of the Laguna Beach show.

Now, in Kincaid's book, her tone is very sarcastic and passive aggressive at times. I admit that when I was stuck in traffic in my little beach town, I was pissed off to be blunt. I was honk on my horn and say exasperated in my car to my friends, "Ugh can these tourists just go home!". Although i was never done a terrible injustice, I feel I can still relate to Kincaid when I feel like my culture that I was born into has been changed because of outside influence.

Although, I can relate I realized that I've been a tourist in another place too and so I've seen from the other perspective the fact that it brings people joy and happiness to travel place with loved ones or by themselves. And when someone chooses the place that you call home as a place to vacation, that should tell you something. It should tell you that you are blessed to live in a place like that. Now, I understand that Kincaid probably doesn't go on vacations or have been a tourist a lot but she lives in a place that people flock to for vacations.

So to answer the question, yes. I think that you need to have perspective see that when people come to your home to vacation, although it may clog up your town and be filled up with unfamiliar faces, you still need to see that there is something good in that. I saw that even though these changed have happened my town is still here and it's always going to be my home. If Kincaid realized that then maybe she could be a little less angry and resentful. Knowing that Antigua will always be her home.