Sugarcane
As Featured in scotiabank’s contact photography festival 2020
I grew up in Toronto, the daughter of a Jamaican immigrant. As a child, I loved sugarcane. A sweet plant that only seemed to be available at the Jamaican grocery store we frequented. We had a sugarcane code - my childhood friends and I - that whenever one of us came into a bounty of the sweet treat, we always sought the help of a neutral third party (preferably an adult who could wield a very sharp knife) to cut equal portions that we’d measure for fairness before ravaging. If memory serves, some stalks were drier than others, but sugarcane was reliably sweet. Yet the process of harvesting the tough 10-foot columns, as I’ve learned is anything but. One of the oldest cultivated plants in the world, sugarcane is a demanding crop. Unlike corn or wheat, sugarcane can’t be stored. Within 7 - 8 hours of it being chopped down, it must be processed or else it starts to rot. For such a hardy plant (on the outside), sugarcane is extremely vulnerable. It’s that delicate toughness that compelled me to make a connection between sugarcane and my mother. As you’ll discover in my photo essay chronicling my ongoing attempt to train my elderly mom on her new touchscreen tablet so that I can check in on her from a safe distance, she’s tough as nails. She’s endured a lot in her life, but the systemic inequities that predispose elderly Black Canadians to COVID-19’s devastating impacts have got me worried about her ability to thrive.
This is my mom Laurel Yvonne. She’d prefer that you didn’t know her age. She’s never had internet service. She loves watching Ellen’s Game of Games. She sang in her church choir for more than 35 years. She’s diabetic. She was born in Kingston, Jamaica and immigrated to Canada in 1969. She cooks a variety of healthy meals for herself. She prays for an hour every morning.
She administers her own insulin injections twice a day. She knows all her local bank tellers and pharmacists by first name and brings them individually wrapped pieces of Jamaican black cake every Christmas. I think she’s a soprano. I recently had to go into her apartment to set up her new modem and tablet that will help us check in on her. It’s her first touchscreen device. In the 90s she joined a senior’s tour to Scandinavia. Her bagpiper keychain was a gift from a friend.
She does not like peanut butter and thinks apples are overrated. Her two surviving siblings live in the U.S. as does her first born with his family. She refuses to throw out or donate her once-coveted 80s wardrobe. She still mends small tears by hand-drawn needle and thread. She hasn’t been on a plane since just before her stroke in the late 90s. Our goal is to video conference once she gets a hang of her tablet.
She had a beloved Shih Tzu named Kelsey who we had to put down after 15 years. She loves getting colourful drawings signed “To Nana” from her 11-year-old grandson. She can’t reach her back to apply lotion after a shower. She prides herself on always remembering family members’ birthdays and sending them hand-written cards through the mail. She likes Judge Judy but thinks she can be inappropriately rude to some of the plaintiffs.
Her phone was recently acting up and she was unable to get a hold of me. She panicked and concluded that her “monk-monk” had contracted the coronavirus. Chanaka let her use his phone to call one of my brothers. When I stopped by to drop off groceries, she said that if anything were to happen to me, she would “lose it”. I giggled because I had never heard her use that expression. I really wanted to hug her and tell her that if anything were to happen to her, I would lose it too. Instead, I washed my hands, held my breath behind my facemask and quickly lotioned the dry, chapped skin of her back. Driving home, I exhaled through tears because I knew I shouldn’t have touched her and I’m never sure if prayers work.
She lives on her own in the condo my brother bought for her in 2005. Her childhood nickname is Vonnie. Her father was a strict pastor. She hates that I’m posting images of her without her hair done (sorry mom!). She has high blood pressure and occasional gout flare ups. She loves doing crossword puzzles and considers dictionary use cheating. She wears a medical alert device that connects her landline phone to emergency personnel. She really likes the head concierge of her building, a kind man named Chanaka.
She had a minor stroke back in 1997. On Good Friday. It affected her left side. She did data entry at a major bank for 25 years. She loves cornmeal porridge, weak instant coffee and Jamaica’s national dish of ackee and saltfish. After my tech set-up visit, she prayed, asking that our precautions would keep the virus away. She just started using a top-of -the-line mobility walker. She is the second youngest of seven children.
She recently opened an email from me successfully. She has the sharpest memory. As a young girl in Jamaica, she yearned to take piano lessons but her father reserved that privilege for her younger brother - the family’s only son. She makes small talk easily with everyone. She loves kids and although it’s more difficult for her now, she always bends down to the eye level of a toddler to say hello.
She single-handedly raised me and my two brothers in Toronto public housing. Her stroke blinded her in her left eye. It took a good 5 years before she was ready to put Kelsey’s collar and food bowl into storage. Her email password is an iteration of the nickname she has for me. The first line of her favourite hymn is “Pray when the storm clouds gather overhead”. Yesterday, she successfully logged into Facebook to watch a streamed church service. She worries that I, her youngest, will get sick during this pandemic. She still uses the green felt pincushion my 54-year-old brother made for her in elementary school.
SUGARCANE
It’s that delicate toughness that compelled me to make a connection between sugarcane and my mother. My mom has been through a lot. She's a warrior. A strong-willed, daily-praying, Judge-Judy-watching, crossword-solving, Shih-Tzu-loving, grandchild-adoring, Jamaican-Canadian warrior who seems to have beaten every odd thrown at her and she's not alone. Her friends Leonora, Myrtle, and Norma are all over 75. Despite living and working in Canada for centuries collectively, when they talk of “back home” they are referring to places like Trinidad, St. Kitts, and Barbados. The immigrant experience in Canada is often conflated with a self-congratulatory nod to multiculturalism and equal opportunity. But for my Jamaican-born mom and her contemporaries the promise that migrating north held in their imaginations has long since frozen over.
My mom and her friends comprise a generation of Caribbean immigrant women who spent their working years precariously employed in domestic labour jobs, home businesses, data entry positions or in frontline healthcare. They endured immigration policies that threatened deportation and the separation of their families. The cumulative strain of raising children (often single-handedly) in underserved neighbourhoods, navigating food deserts, and confronting anti-Black racism in schools has contributed to poor health outcomes for generations of Black women. Because high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and other stress-related health issues can be directly linked to these systemic inequalities for Black women, it is clear that race and gender are determinants of health in Canada. As I care for my elderly mother during the COVID-19 pandemic, my concern is how age intersects with race and gender. A growing body of race-based data out of the U.S. (unfortunately Canada does not collect this type of vital information) shows that the above-mentioned disparities are being exacerbated by the scourge of COVID-19. Black seniors like my mom and her friends are at greater risk of falling through the cracks of an already broken system. I have never been more concerned for her safety. I have never been more determined to secure it.