Im Your Father, Boy
by Ezra Griffith
Category: Biography & Autobiography

I'm Your Father, Boy is about the early years-the 1940s and 1950s-of a distinctive relationship between the author, Ezra Griffith, and his Barbadian father, Vincent Griffith. Father and son nurtured their first interactions in Alethaville, the family residence that was located in Station Hill, one of those villages in Barbados whose special culture is being eroded with time. It was in this colonial Caribbean island that the father's identity was rooted. Not surprisingly, therefore, it was an event of single proportions when the family moved to New York City in 1956. These transnational migrations always induce stress, as much as they create novel opportunities for the immigrants. In retrospective contemplation, the author celebrates his father's life and a relationship so powerfully linked to things Barbadian. He also laments the fact that the important memories attaching him to his father cannot survive the impact of time's passing and the newfangled adjustments forced on us all by modernization and globalization.