The Rum Diary

            The main character, Paul Kemp, is the epitome of the expatriate struggle. He finds himself in a strange land where people talk a different language, which hinders communication outwards from his little niche of similar people. There are basically two distinct groups on the Island: the expatriates and the native islanders. Herein lies his dilemma. It’s a classic example of in-group and out-grouping in a story because the main character stays close to his own and feels excluded from the rest, as do the native from the other perspective. This situation is mainly due to the character’s location in the story, which is the island of Puerto Rico.

            One of the major issues, if not the greatest, that Kemp faces is his alcoholism. An addiction that destroys the lives and families of people in the blink of an eye becomes Kemp’s biggest internal journey throughout the movie. It would be optimistic to think that he shall overcome this crippling disease by the end of the movie and earn the audience’s favor, but he later procures the use of drugs and worsens things. Maybe I’m being too judgmental since this story was set in the ‘60s and that was a time when drugs where incredibly popular and commonplace, but it’s hard not to want the protagonist to overcome their own self.

            Another obstacle that Kemp faces throughout the story is the reason he came down to the Island in the first place: journalism. At first, he was an aspiring author who was not able to sell a book, but he made the transition to journalism in the hopes of completing himself as a writer. His boss, Lotterman, would not publish any of the articles Kemp wanted to write about because they were about topics like poverty in San Juan, which would be bad for tourism. At the end of the movie, Kemp tries to write and publish the truth about Lotterman and another character, Sanderson, after the paper closes. Kemp goes to great lengths to try and publish his story, but by the time he gets the money he needed to do it, there were no printing machines left. Even though he didn’t reach his goal, that part of his internal journey had some sort of closure. By the very end of the story he is shown back in New York where he is now a successful journalist, bringing the story full circle.

Teaching and Helping: Jim Cooper’s Perspective

            In his book “Down on the Island”, author Jim Cooper recounts his experiences while teaching English in Puerto Rico as a continental professor. As a native speaker of the language, he finds that the level of English comprehension in the Island is very lacking. After seeing the English syllabus at the Colegio in Mayagüez first hand, Cooper realizes the root of the problem: the teachers. He is faced with a reality in which teachers aren’t trained well enough in the language to teach it and where they believe their students will learn by reading the assigned books even though most of them don’t know how to read English. To his bewilderment, English teachers prepared their classes on the assumption that their students would understand them, not knowing or blissful of the fact that they can’t continue learning something they don’t know.

            There are many issues with the way English is taught in Puerto Rico, many of which Cooper describes in his book. He mentions that politics holds a tight grip on language teaching in this country, which is completely true. Cooper goes on to explain how the election of the first Puerto Rican Governor influenced the country’s stance on language learning; how Spanish was established as the native language and English as secondary, which worsened the status of English comprehension. Although it is true that Spanish represents our culture and thus has great value to the nation, many if not all the books used as instruments for teaching in the Universities are written in English. Thus, not emphasizing the importance of English in Puerto Rico hampers the future of the country starting at the building blocks of it’s professional future: it’s students.

            The problem in Puerto Rico was not only English teaching, but also teaching itself. Cooper talks about how students are allowed to “help” each other even during examinations. It is obvious to a continental professor that this is considered cheating in the United States, but in this country it was seen as cooperation and building of camaraderie, which was encouraged at the time. As it turns out, and as Cooper finds out, it’s not so cut and dry. He recounts how one of the native teachers was criticizing this perspective on “helping” by saying that the continentals are too focused on “how” the students learn instead of whether the student learns anything or not. He may have a point in the sense that many teachers and professors seem to only care about following protocol and not on the student actually learning, but it is not fruitful for a student to be allowed to cheat since it encourages dependency and lessens the importance of self-reliance in the real world. Those who cheat throughout their lives and are taught that it’s ok will not be able to lead successful lives much like a parasite cannot survive long outside of it’s host.

Final Journal Reflection

            Never before have I done anything remotely similar to keeping a journey journal on a day-to-day basis. The experience of writing my unfiltered thoughts for ten minutes almost everyday truly helped me understand many of the underlying problems in my life. When I say problems, I am referring to every thought or situation that causes even the tiniest amount of stress and detracts from my peace of mind. I noticed that one of the biggest issues I have is the fact that I avoid potentially awkward situations and tend towards my comfort zone where I know nothing bad will happen. In essence, I avoid taking risks for the fear of ending up hurt. Thanks to writing this down everyday, I motivated myself to be more open to situations and people in general, which has helped me a lot in terms of building relationships and strengthening the ones I already have.

            In all honesty, at first, writing in the journal almost everyday felt like a chore that was only in the way of me completing more important and pressing work. Little by little, it started to grow on me like a puppy that destroys everything in it’s wake but later curls up next to you and makes you hate yourself for not being able to get mad at it. The more I became open to the idea of the journal not being a bore, the more my inner thoughts felt clearer and I could truly get a sense of what I needed to fix and how to fix them. Truth be told, towards the end of my entries in the journal I started to feel a sense of nostalgia because I had become sort of accustomed to using it every other day that the thought of leaving it behind seemed a bit sad. Maybe I will continue to write in it even though I don’t need to anymore. That would be interesting.