Photo by Felviper, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Poetry by Emiliana Bernard-Stephenson

Translated from the San Andrés–Providencia Creole by the author

Definitions

Kriol: Also known as “Creole,” this is a type of language that naturally forms through the mixing of several languages over many years. San Andrés–Providencia Creole, the original language of this poem, has roots in English and several West African languages. (For more information, see the Context and Playlist tabs.)

First published in English in Words Without Borders in August 2023.

for Kriol Soldier
https://wwb-campus.org/literature/kriol-soldier

Emiliana Bernard-Stephenson

Emiliana Bernard-Stephenson is a writer, educator, feminist, and the Colombian ambassador to Jamaica. Born in the San Andrés and Providencia islands, she is part of the Raizal community.

She holds a master's degree in Caribbean Studies and has worked as a TV journalist, editor, and columnist. She is a member of the National Network of Colombian Women and the Latin American Network of Afro-Descendant Women.

In 2019, she was named Afrocolombian Journalist of the Year by El Espectador and the Fundación Color Colombia for her work at the regional news network Teleislas. In the same year, she received the President's Award from the Caribbean Broadcasting Union.

Bernard-Stephenson writes in her mother tongue, the English-based San Andrés y Providencia Creole (or Kriol). In recent years, she has sought to promote and preserve the language, including by highlighting it in her journalistic work.

Krioul Souldia

Krioul dah mai winda an mai duo tugeda
Opin all die, open all nait, open all taim
No cluose nar sliip bicass them mait iradicate it laik a daim

Krioul da mai yeside an mai tude,
tumaroo we neva nuo
an afta tumarro da wan die plenty a wi guain juow

Krioul da uan sang plenty no uan sing now a dies
Some no nuo it, nar want jier it . . . an some se dem no laik it
A pail a dem shiem fi taak it bicass wait man no laik it

Bot Krioul stil gat fih him piplu duo
Me da uan a di lang tong Krioul souldia dem
Will tak it, baak it an maak it evy daie in mai waak

Krioul, sueet krioul, mai krioul . . .
mek an you tugeda to dih end af mai suol

Links available online only

Meet Emiliana Bernard-Stephenson

Watch a video interview with Emiliana Bernard-Stephenson from Teleislas, the regional TV channel for San Andrés and Providencia. The interview is conducted in English and Spanish. Around 0:40, the author speaks in English about moving to the Colombian city Barranquilla as a child, facing mockery from other children, and learning from an inspiring teacher.

At 3:54, Bernard-Stephenson speaks about advice she received from her grandmother, and what it’s like to be a woman today: “Normally, as a woman, society wants to trample you. . . . I don’t pay that no mind.” At 5:01, she describes her hobbies.

In addition to her work as a writer and journalist, Bernard-Stephenson is also the Colombian ambassador to Jamaica. You can see photos from her ambassadorial work on her Instagram page.

Hear the Original

Listen to author Emiliana Bernard-Stephenson read the poem in the original San Andrés–Providencia Creole.

(Listen to the audio on SoundCloud.)

A Scholar's Notes

Read what Évelyne Trouillot (translated by Paul Curtis Daw) says about Creole writing in the Caribbean introduction:

In each of these islands, in various ways and at differing momentums, writers and poets took the language that had been imposed on them and shaped and molded it to suit their own needs. Creole, a language born mainly from the confluence of African and European languages, has not developed at the same pace and with the same consistency throughout the region. Its literary use, official recognition, and internal status vary from island to island. . . . Whether it is in Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti, Guadeloupe, or the islands off the Colombian coast, to name only a few places, Creole-language writing reflects a desire to control the language of the colonizer, a recovery springing from a search for identity and self-affirmation.

Get to Know Raizal Culture

Emiliana Bernard-Stephenson is part of the Raizal community. Learn about the Raizales—the Afro-Caribbean people who first inhabited the San Andrés and Providencia archipelago—in a profile from Minority Rights Group.

Then, read about community efforts to preserve Raizal culture and the Kriol language, including Kriol-language literature and TV. A young Raizal man says: “‘We’re fighting so that Creole is in all the institutions. Previously it was considered a dialect because it didn’t have a written form or grammatical rules, but now it can be both written and spoken. There are even books.”

The article above mentions a Caribbean seafood stew called “rondon.” Find a recipe for rondon and see photos on this travel blog.

Finally, watch a video of traditional dance from San Andrés. (Speak Spanish? Learn more about the dance style in another video.)

Learn Some Kriol

San Andrés and Providencia declared February 21 as “Kriol Die” (Creole Day). Read Bernard-Stephenson’s official statement in Kriol on Teleislas. (You can change the page language from Spanish to English in the top left corner.)

Then, watch a video to learn some conversational Kriol from Students in San Andrés. Or, watch a Teleislas video to learn a few basic phrases and questions. While both videos are in Spanish, English speakers might still be able to understand the meanings of the Kriol phrases.

Approximately 20,000-30,000 people speak Kriol today, and while most of them live in San Andrés and Providencia, you can also find Kriol speakers in mainland Colombia, Panama, around the Caribbean, and in the United States (Source: APiCS Online).

Background on San Andrés and Providencia Islands

Read a profile of San Andrés and Providencia, which is a department of Colombia. Then, read a BBC travel article about Providencia.

Next, listen to Dr. Sharika Crawford discuss the history of San Andrés and Providencia on the Colombia Calling podcast. (Start at 1:23 to find out who first settled San Andrés and Providencia—the answer might surprise you! Then, skip ahead to 25:15 to hear her explanation of the relationship between mainland Colombia and San Andrés.)

For decades, Colombia and Nicaragua have fought for ownership of the islands, as well as the ocean around it. Read about a recent ruling from the UN’s International Court of Justice.

Links available online only

More from Emiliana Bernard-Stephenson

Watch a 2019 news report of Emiliana Bernard-Stephenson winning an “Afro-Colombian of the Year” award for her work on Teleislas. In her speech, she says, “To women opening doors and windows to make themselves visible: it is not easy to arrive and stay. So I send a voice of encouragement to all Afro-Colombian women: all the women of Palenque, Raizal women, and the Black women of this country.”

Then, read a 2011 article from Bernard-Stephenson on JSTOR, in which she describes the Afro-Colombian population’s fight against racism and sexism in Colombia and discusses her own advocacy work: “I have been active in the struggle against racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, and against the widespread culture of injustice, discrimination, and exclusion.”

Take a Tour of San Andrés

Tourism is a large industry in San Andrés. Watch a video that follows Carlos, a local guide, as he leads tourists on a boat trip (the segment on San Andrés ends at 05:45).

For an alternate perspective on tourism on the islands, hear what Sharika D. Crawford has to say about its impact on the community (starting around 26:45).

More Writing from San Andrés

Cristina Bendek, author of "Salt Crystals." By Karen Bendek, courtesy of the author.

For a more subjective look at San Andrés from another Raizal writer, read an interview with author Cristina Bendek in the magazine Words Without Borders.

Bendek’s book, Salt Crystals, translated by Robin Myers, follows a young Raizal woman who returns to a changing San Andrés after many years away.

More Affirming Writing*

On WWB Campus:

Two indigenous-language poems affirming marginalized cultures: “Nothing Remains Empty,” from Mexico, and “Serpent" (discussed in a blog post) from Paraguay
"Purépecha Mother," a poem celebrating an indigenous woman’s resilience

Elsewhere:

Two celebrations of resilience: Maya Angelou’s poem “Still I Rise,” available in a video reading with the poet’s introduction; and Erykah Badu’s song “Ode to Hip-Hop”
The contemporary anthology Rotten English, edited by Dohra Ahmad, which collects stories and poems that were written in a version of English influenced by other languages
Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street, which incorporates “Spanglish” in depicting the lives of Spanish-speaking immigrants in the US

*For Teaching Idea 1

More Writing about Language and Marginalization*

On WWB Campus:

The rap/poem “Affirm,” in South African Kaaps, a Creole language that also developed as a result of colonization and the meeting of several different languages (which, in this case, included Dutch and indigenous languages like Khoikhoi and San). The poem references civil rights history in South African and US history and is posted with resources on our blog (part one, part two).
Indigenous poems affirming marginalized indigenous cultures, such as “Nothing Remains Empty” from Mexico, and the other indigenous poems listed above in the Playlist box above

Elsewhere:

Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera: an essay on the connections between language, culture, and identity at the US–Mexico border
Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, written in an African American English used in the South in the early 20th century
“Mother Tongue” (PDF) and The Joy Luck Club, an essay and a novel by Amy Tan that both explore the connection between immigration, language, and Chinese American heritage

*For Teaching Idea 2

Reading Grade Level(s): 3, 4, 5 and up

Key Points
Launching the Poem
1. Language That Won’t Be Wiped Out
2. Language as History

To access these Teaching Ideas, please register or login to WWB-Campus.

Kriol Soldier

Kriol is both my window and my door
Open all day, open all night, open all the time
Never closed nor asleep because they might wipe it out, just like a dime

Kriol is my yesterday and my today,
Tomorrow is unknown, and the day after tomorrow is one
many of us will owe

These days Kriol is a song many people do not want to sing
Some do not know it . . . and some do not like it.
Many are ashamed to talk it, because the white man does not like it

Kriol still has its people though,
I am one of those long-tongue Kriol soldiers
I will talk it and bark it every day on my walks

Kriol, sweet Kriol, my Kriol,
You and I will always be together until the end of my soul.

Related Reading

Nothing Remains Empty - Poetry

Purépecha Mother - Poetry