On the Borders of Belonging

Althea Romeo Mark is an educator and writer born in English Harbour, Antigua, West Indies. English Harbour was formerly a British Royal Naval base in the 1800s. She grew up in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands which was formerly a Danish colony until it was bought by the US in 1914. Her parents moved to the US Virgin Islands in the 1950s after a series of hurricanes and droughts devastated Antigua. She comes from families of immigrants and emigrants and West African slaves brought to the Caribbean by slave traders. Her paternal great grandfather was a British sailor who settled in Antigua. Her paternal grandfather was a descendant of French immigrants who settled in St. Martin and St. Barts. Her maternal great grandfather was a Nigerian sailor who settled in Antigua in the mid-1800s. Her family history reflects that of many Caribbean people . . . people from European colonies and subjects of its imperial history; people influenced by the African culture handed down to them by slave ancesto