My Family: Guadeloupe, And World War II

Family is a network of lives consisting of one’s ancestors and their children. Thus families are rooted deep in the past and span over large amounts of land. Therefore, the historory of people’s families are rich with stories that span across time and land. Through the ages, many historical events have taken place that have affected my family such as the French Revolution, cultural and educational revolution in Guadeloupe, and World War II. However, even though my ancestors are separated by decades and thousands of miles, they are intrepid fearless men who are not afraid to do what they feel needs to be done.
Guadeloupe is an Island in the French Caribbean which has a long history of plantations and colonization. Europeans colonized Guadeloupe
for the natural resources and for the agriculture of banana, coffee, sugar cane, and spices. In 1802 Napoleon reinstated slavery in the French Caribbean. Henceforth, the Guadeloupe saw the migration of two groups of people, the slaves from Africa and the French nobles. The reasons for migration of nobles was either the King had bought a plot of land and asked someone to take care of it, or if one is a noble who needs to pay off debt. De Paris de Castiglione, my ancestor, moved for the second reason. However, due to all the nobles coming in to start plantations, competition rose quickly and there were those who prospered by creating industries and partook in commerce with Europe, and there were those who could not reach that level. De Paris de Castiglion became part of what is known as “Les Blanc Matignon”. Les Blanc Matignon are the white nobles who failed to achieve monetary success by exploiting slave labor on plantations who then formed tight knit communities. This can be contrasted against Les Becquet which is the tight knit community of the nobles who managed to prosper and who now control most of the Caribbean industries today. After the French Revolution, Nobles had to drop their noble articles in their names to prevent persecution from France. After being forced to drop his Noble titles and lack of possibility to return to France, his children married out of the blue bloods and married other white families without royal blood.
One of De Paris De Castiglione’s descendants was my great grandfather Gerard Lauriette who helped work in a cultural and educational revolution in Guadeloupe. Before Gerard Lauriette, France imposed everything onto Guadeloupe, even education. The curriculum was comprised of textbooks made in France and sought to fully assimilate the people by erasing their heritage. The students were taught that they descended from the Gaules even though they were multi ethnic people whose ancestors immigrated from Africa during the period of slavery. Geobby Lauriette, my grandfather said “the textbooks imposed onto the schools by France would say ‘His skin is white, his eyes are blue, his hair is blonde, oh how beautiful it is. Oh how French he is.’" Gerard Lauriette, or Papa Yaya as the people call him, was an educator. When Gerard heard that he had to impose these views onto his students, he quickly revolted and was told that he was insane because "he refused to teach his students something they were not." However, he stole a small amount of land, saying "the land is the land of everyone" and opened his own school called l'Ecole Gerard Lauriette. There my great grandfather made a cabin by hand and furnished it with from everything in his house and my grandfather told me "I remember every day I would do my work on the floor because all our chairs had been taken for the school." He took in the poor and taught them "he himself came from a poor village and it was the village who sent him to school. He became very successful and he would always give back to the people." He wrote his own textbooks and taught in Creole how to speak French. In fact, he was the first person to actually teach Creole, which dubbed him the name "father of Creole". He created the method the method de bras balant or "method of free arms" where students came to school with nothing in their hands. Since the children he taught were poor and couldn't speak French well, to make a text he would have a student write it and as a class they would correct and it would then be used as an example text. His classes were discussion based and it was an open classroom. Geobby said "I like to say he was before anything a philosopher, for me a philosopher that knew to valorize the identity of Guadeloupean... Often Avant-garde… All the time he talked, thought, and wrote philosophy, wrote theories and Marx, Calculus, and religion." The government saw him as a threat and he was thrown in jail multiple times in Paris for "blasphemous" conduct. After the school became highly successful, he was eventually recognized by France because of the fact that by himself, he was becoming more successful than the rest of the schools and "it was not a revolt, it was a small revolution. A revolution of identity." The school produced many successful figures in Guadeloupe and Gerard moved on to politics. In politics, he became mayor of Guadeloupe and fought for the people so they could feel proud of their identity and not to fully assimilate into being Gaul. Without Gerard Lauriette the French education system and cultural diversity of the French Caribbean would not be the same as it is today.
World War II was the first global war, involving not only the Americas and Europe, but also Asia.
When Japan entered the war, they tried to establish a control over South East Asia creating what they called the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Japan not only tried to conquer China, but also went after many small Islands in South Asia. One of these Islands was the English colony and strategic stronghold Singapore. Kim Mong, my great great grandfather, worked in the biggest British Company based in Singapore. He was English educated and was relatively prosperous in his work. However, this all changed on February 8th, 1942 when 5,000 Japanese troops landed on Singapore Island. In the beginning, there were many bombings. My grandma said "There were sirens. The sirens meant there was a bomb coming. The first few months were terrible. You had to hide in your house, underneath the beds and hope the bombs don’t land on your house. I heard of whole families gone because a bomb landed on their house.” Four days after the Japanese landed, all the men have to go and register with the Japanese. Soon after that, the military started to patrol the areas around the Island. They would knock on doors randomly and perform searches, and if they saw young women they would take them and rape them. These women were called comfort women. Because of this, Lim Kim Mong would cut his wife's hair short and also his girl's hair and had them dress up as boys so they would not be taken. Then, the rations started. This made life very tough and starvation was a real issue. Each adult was allowed to eat only 11 pounds of rice a month with no meat of fish available. Because of this lack food, Lim's granddaughter, my grandmother's older sister, died at a very young age from starvation. Every day, Lim was forced to bow to the Japanese flag. The Japanese felt the need to enforce their culture onto Singapore and all the schools became controlled by Japan, where they taught in Japanese. However,
because of their urge to enforce their culture, they soon got rid of all opposing forces, potential threats, and any signs of British culture. This is when the Japanese came by and had all the men registered again with their names and occupations. The Japanese eventually arrived at where Chinatown in Singapore is today, and knock on Lim Kim Mong's door. Lim opened the door and stood in front while his son in law hid in the house. He was driven in a lorry to a headquarters on the Island. He never came back. There was a mass execution held in what is known as the Bedok. This became known as the Massacre on Bedok Hill. His daughter told my grandmother that he was killed because he used to work for an English company, looked prosperous and was English Educated. In life, Lim was able to prevent his daughters from being taken away and raped, and handed himself to the Japanese so his son in law could hid and raise my grandmother and her siblings. Lim's body was never found and is probably one of the many bodies of men who lie under Bedok Hill. De Paris de Castiglione, faced with debt moved thousands of miles to start a plantation in Guadeloupe, Gerard Lauriette saw the oppression of government in the education system and took matters in his own hands to do what he thought was right, and Lim Kim Mong sacrificed himself to save his family. These intrepid and fearless people in my family have helped to shape the morals and values that I have today. Even though I will not be creating a new school tomorrow or be handing myself to the Japanese, I have realized that you can affect the lives of those around you and that no matter what the circumstances, you must do what you believe is right without fear and with selflessness. These are the moral codes that I will live by and these values are the family values I will carry with me from now on.