Invisible Ink

• Published in: Caribbean Quilt
• Main Author: Abigail Ralph
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Caribbean Studies Students' Union 2022
• Subjects: Canadian-Carribbean; Undocumented; Poverty; History of scholarship and learning. The humanities; AZ20-999; Social Sciences; H; Education; L; Canada; Northwest Territories
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.33137/cq.v6i2.36927; https://doaj.org/article/3651f080d7464fc1af2697ceacfc1de0

There is a gap in academic literature that highlights the perspectives of Canadian-Caribbean individuals that navigate both poverty and the stigma of limited access to resources necessary for livelihood in Canada. By employing the intersecting identities of Low-Income and (un)documentation, this poem aims to deconstruct the stereotypical expectations of Canadian-Caribbean immigrants. What does an impoverished Canadian-Caribbean immigrant look like once we’ve disregarded our representativeness heuristic? They now may be the straight-A student in your class or that lady that never seems to wear an uncoordinated outfit – or perhaps your lecturer or community organizer who has an undying passion for 19th-century opera. By mobilizing this idea, this poem seeks to encourage the reader to reconsider our pre-conceived notions of an (un)documented, impoverished Canadian-Caribbean individual. Similarly, this poem challenges the notion that to exist, is contingent on external perceptions. A tree in the Northwest Territories may exist unknowingly to us and still be able to blow gracefully in the wind.