Description: Define Your Own Urbane Lifestyle
I was born in Trinidad and Tobago, in the Caribbean. My mother immigrated to the U.S. when I was about five or six years old. My mother left my brother and I behind for two years to find us a better life. She was running away from poverty and abuse. Not a week would go by that I would not hear from my mother. As a father, I can now fully appreciate how much of a sacrifice that was for her.
One day, in 1992, my mother reappeared. I did not know if she was real. In the life of an eight-year-old, two years was a very long period of time and I had dreamt or thought of this reunion almost every night. A few weeks later, we were landing at JFK airport and heading to our new home in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
We drove under a massive building complex on Bedford Avenue called Ebbets Field. It was the first time that I would take an elevator. It would be the beginning of many firsts. First winter. First snow. First subway ride. My mother was a nanny, like many women who came from my country and had to work long hours. However, she knew that she would have to keep my brother and I by her side during those early years. That fall she enrolled us at P.S. 151 on the Upper East Side. We would get up at 6am, be on the tr