With a cup of Starbucks and a book at hand she went upstairs to sit in her usual seat at Barnes and Nobles. The third chair away from the stairs by the window. She cracks open a new book and begins to enter into a new world of imaginations. While she was in her seat reading a man sat across from her. As she raised her head to observe the man she stopped, she was shocked, and a little startled to see that it was Fredrick Douglass. She said hello and asked him if he had time to talk. And he kindly accepted her request.
Alvarez: It is such an honor to meet you. I appreciate your essay “The Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass” I read your story I admire your motivation and desire for education. It is very inspiring. Thank you again for taking time to talk with me.
As you probably already know i went through a lot to even learn how to read. I had to sneak around; asking little white boys to teach me how to read, in exchange for bread. As i said in my book, "I strongly tempted to give the names of the two or three of those little boys, as a testimonial of the gratitude and affection i bear them..." I was the happiest slave alive.
J: I also read that you had some difficulties after learning how to read
D: I did, I started to question my being a slave and not having the freedom the little white boys had. I used to talk to them about it and i would say to them, “You will be free as soon as you re twenty-one, but i am a slave for life! Have not i as good a right to be free as you have? The little boys used to look at me with sympathy and they would tell me that someday i would be free just as they would be.
J: they were right. You were able to become free and became one of the most famous writers in history. Although if i remember it correctly you only knew how to read. How were you able to find that strength in you, to not only learning to read but, to write as well?
D: At first all i really wanted to do was to be free. I wanted to be free so badly that i started to think of killing myself. I was eager to hear any one speak of slavery. There was a time when i went to Mr. Waters and saw two Irish men unloading a scow of stone. Without asking i went to help them and they asked me if i was a slave. I told them I was and they asked if I was a slave for life, and I told them i was. They then told me it was a shame that a fellow like me had to be a slave for life and told me i should run away to the north and find friends there so i could be free. I pretended i could not understand them because white men were known to trick slaves like this many of the times.
J: trick slaves? What do you mean by trick the slaves?
D: They would encourage the slaves to run away and then catch them and get a reward for catching them. I wanted to learn how to write at that point. I wanted to tell the world what i went through, i wanted the world to know my story. I still wanted to be free of course but i thought until that day i would learn how to write.
J: I understand.
D: Do you really understand?
J: Excuse me?
D: i also read your work. I read your essay "Dona Aida, With Your Permission." I could not understand why you did not want to continue to learn. you wrote in your essay, "I am not a Dominican writer. I have no business writing in a language that i can speak but have not studied deeply enough to craft."
J: I felt that i could not be Dominican writer because i was not a traditional Dominican. "I don't live on the island breathing its daily smells, enduring its particular burdens, speaking its special Dominicano." I was raised with Dominican parents which is the reason i can speak the language, but that did not make me a true Dominican.
D: I could not read and write and yet i managed to do both. You have the resources to learn and become a Dominican writer.
J: It’s not the same as growing up knowing the culture as it is learning it when you are older.
D: Yet, it is not impossible. When i was learning how to write my copy-book was the board fence, brick wall, and the pavement. My pen and ink to write with was a lump of chalk. "with these, I learned mainly how to write."
D: Why have you not embraced freeing yourself in order to become a Dominican /Latina writer
J: I have both cultures…I am an American Dominican. “To know who I am I have to know where I come from” and that is why I always come back to the island. - Ashley I just put this you can take it out if it’s unnecessary
J: Mr. Douglass I have really learned a lot today about you, more than I could have known through just reading; you are a man of intellect and high motivation. Thank you for sitting and talking to me today.
D: You are welcome and I appreciate the way you have handled the conflicts you have been faced with within your culture. You certainly turned out to be very intellectual, well rounded individual. This conversation with you today has been very great. Hope to see you around. Have a wonderful day.
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