11 Frictions in Paradise: Facing Facts

11 Frictions in Paradise: Facing Facts "Yes: if, owing to the work of oblivion, the returning memory can throw no bridge, form no connecting link between itself and the present minute, if it remains in the context of its own place and date, if it keeps its distance, its isolation in the hollow of a valley or upon the highest peak of a mountain summit, for this very reason it causes us suddenly to breathe a new air, an air which is new precisely because we have breathed it in the past, that purer air which the poets have vainly tried to situate in paradise and which could induce so profound a sensation of renewal only if it had been breathed before, since the true paradises are the paradises that we have lost" (Proust 1999(Proust [1927]]: 259-261, emphasis added).This chapter follows four interlocutors of this study as their imaginations and aspirations about Jamaica are confronted with local facts and experiences that result in unexpected boundaries.For these women, cultivating the dream of returning to their homeland, actual return migration and return visits become a reality check.Here, return aspirations are also intertwined with female desires for social mobility and living the 'good live' in Jamaica upon return.The return intentions that started from an inward wish and process to leave Montreal due to negative experiences will, for some women, be interrupted or shifted in the light of the emergence of new socio-cultural boundaries, differences that ground in being alienated from local social life and certain customs.While in Montreal, the interlocutors rarely feel a sense of belonging, they construct their identity around images of belonging to an ethnic homeland.However, upon return, some experience ethnic marginalization because they are seen as foreigners (see Kim 2009).Similar to Kim's study on Korean Americans, the women's returns result in the process of re-experiencing their "struggles with race, ethnicity, nationality, and culture" (ibid.306).Their 'otherness ' (cf.Spivak 1985) here is primarily based on cultural differences.Therefore, the study explores the frictions and adjustments made by the interlocutors under these circumstances.Several aspects hereby emphasise the 'in-between' positionality (Bhabha 1994) and 'special' status of these women.Thus, difficulties in making friends, problems regarding their accents, loneliness, feelings of being an

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