17 Feb NiteCap Journal: The Unbreakable Virgin Islanders Head to Notre Dame, Colleges add Film Series to Curriculum
I know we’re pass the month of January, but I’d still like to wish everyone a Happy New Year and I hope your goals for this next chapter is beginning to take shape. When I began the “Paradise Discovered: The Unbreakable Virgin Islanders” film screening tour on my birthday September 16, 2018 my vision was to educate the larger public on who we are in the US Virgin Islands and larger Caribbean beyond a postcard. “We’re more than beaches and booze,” has been my mantra at the many colleges we’ve visited. I’m still amazed at how little most of our fellow countrymen and countrywomen on the US mainland know about us. We the people of these magical islands have played solely a supporting role to our natural physical beauty on the world stage. Imagine if the world came to know the soul of we are? I’d argue that they can learn a lot from us who came to define the Caribbean as we now know it, a place where “love is at the center” of all things as I described in our first “Paradise Discovered” film, “The Anguilla Connection.”
Having said this, we decided to focus on colleges and universities because as the saying goes – however seemingly redundant – “the youth are the future.” They will decide our fate in what I like to call this new “Information Age.” Thus far it’s been a life changing experience to introduce “The Unbreakable Virgin Islanders” to some of the nation’s brightest minds at the iconic institutions we’ve visited like Brown University, College of Charleston and University of Southern California which culminated into our story being awarded “best documentary feature” at Toronto’s Caribbean Tales International Film Festival, the 17th stop on our ongoing tour. In light of this I’ve set an ambitious goal of having “Paradise Discovered” added to at least 1,000 college libraries for use in classes by the end of the year. Thus far educators at the University of Houston, the College of William & Mary and my alma the University of Delaware are currently using the films in their curriculum.
Now we head to the University of Notre Dame next week where we’ll be screening “The Unbreakable Virgin Islanders” on February 19 and I’ll be hosting two lectures on the topic of “Covering Marginalized Communities” for the journalism program’s new innovative course “Issues In Contemporary Newsrooms.” I made a promise to my father before he died that what we overcame as a community devasted by both hurricanes Irma and Maria will be celebrated by historians for generations to come. I plan on making good on this promise and I thank all of you who’ve supported my unwavering belief in this movement to amplify the voice of the Caribbean within the global political and cultural landscape.
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