At last, this blog has come to an end. This project has ended and I must say goodbye to the time dedicated to conducting this research. I was very fortunate to have met my professor and be considered to work with her on this project. I was given the chance to decide in which direction I wanted to take this research. My professor and I agreed that we didn’t want to read or write another paper. I don’t remember how we settled on building a blog but we stuck to the idea. I liked this idea because it would bring more traction to how diverse the Caribbean is. This was before I found out how limited the information I sought would be. I have always considered myself to be a curious person. I always like to ask questions beyond the scope of things which made me a good candidate for this project. Like many of us in this day and age, I find myself in rabbit holes simply by looking into something such as theories, diseases, or digging deeper into surface knowledge. This research allowed me to connect with my heritage a little more as well and learn to appreciate the research. Sometimes we don’t realize the information we have available is due to someone doing the work to record keep or expand the knowledge through data collecting and investigation. This is something I have taken for granted. I would google and read up on the information I am curious about and never truly appreciated those who made it available. This project has shown me that some people do more than just their homework but construct the objective themselves.

      Archival silence is a term that I now have in my arsenal. I have discovered a term that can be used to describe the lack of records and record-keeping on Chinese Haitians. The definition I appreciated to describe archival silence is:

Sometimes, what you discover, or don’t discover, in archives has less to do with digitization or description, and more to do with historical and internalized racism, classism, sexism, and ignorance of marginalized genders and sexualities. This enters both into what you find in a collection–archival silence–and what you read in the description, or archival neutrality.

 

The term stood out to me because it gave me an explanation to the reason behind why people weren’t interested in the presence of Chinese-Haitians as many sources outline Chinese-Jamaicans or Chinese-Cubans. However, I understand that natural disasters could contribute to the lack of records. The magnitude of archival silence is debatable because there are blogs and other sites that focus on this work. Are there gaps that need to be filled? Yes. But for now, progression is happening. When learning about the development and execution of the Belt and Road Initiative project, from a naive standpoint, seems beneficial for all parties involved. Who is to say it will do more good than harm? I think it is up to us to watch or take the time to understand the impact this can have. Overall, this experience was informative and I hope someone can one day call my blog a ‘gem’ for their research. 

Thank you. 

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