Invisible Ink

• Published in: Caribbean Quilt
• Main Author: Ralph, Abigail
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Caribbean Studies Program and Students' Union at the University of Toronto 2022
• Subjects: Canadian-Carribbean; Undocumented; Poverty; Northwest Territories; Canada
• Online Access: https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/cquilt/article/view/36927

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.