Dr Glenvile Ash­by

The True Nan­ny Di­aries is a com­pelling nov­el cloaked in the naked re­al­i­ty of im­mi­grant life in New York. The Di­aries, writ­ten by Lon­don born, (but Trinida­di­anised) Nan­di Keyi, is a lit­er­ary mile­stone-colour­ful and imag­i­na­tive - blend­ing ver­nac­u­lar and prose with stun­ning ease and poignan­cy.Nan­di's cas­cad­ing and re­lent­less style be­fits the mer­cu­r­ial tem­pera­ment of her trou­bled pro­tag­o­nist, Val­di, who wres­tles with her lot in life-be­ing a ba­by sit­ter for a rich and dys­func­tion­al white fam­i­ly. Val­di's pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al ob­ses­sion is turned in­ward. Her once promis­ing life as an Ivy league grad­u­ate stu­dent comes to a per­func­to­ry end and she is forced to work in a po­si­tion she de­spis­es. She is one of count­less Caribbean women who are part of an ever bur­geon­ing do­mes­tic work­force.

But Val­di is dif­fer­ent. She is bit­ter, brash, in­tel­lec­tu­al­ly bit­ing, and provoca­tive with a dash of fa­tal­ism. She dis­plays flash­es of Win­nie Man­dela and Paul Robe­son-a rebel and thought­ful Con­trar­i­an.Sad­ly, she can find lit­tle sup­port for her per­son­al cause. Her friends are no pushover, but are thank­ful for their white bene­fac­tors.Along­side Val­di's bat­tered world, are the bril­liant­ly cap­tured cul­ture of New York's sub­ways, and the chaot­ic and not so come­ly life of the West In­di­an Di­as­po­ra in Brook­lyn. While Nan­di's main char­ac­ter spews pan African­ism, in a skewed and para­dox­i­cal way, she itch­es to lib­er­ate her­self from the mad­ness that be­dev­ils black folks."Peo­ple like Green, Pi­rate and all the oth­er ass-ketch­ers on Uti­ca Av­enue made me yearn for a de­cent place to live among lit­tle white shoe mak­ers, shop keep­ers and phar­ma­cists."The kind of place that Ernie and Bert and all the oth­er Sesame Street pup­pets will be proud to sing about," she ad­mits.

And on the sub­way her re­vul­sion nev­er abates (un­til the train ap­proach­es Wall street sta­tion) as "a reek­ing, hulk­ing va­grant, smelling like fresh vom­it en­tered the car­riage..."Even­tu­al­ly Val­di's sis­ters-in-arms melt away-some to bet­ter cir­cum­stances, an­oth­er to the har­row­ing niche un­der­ground. In the end she is left to pon­der "what if?" Twen­ty years in a for­eign land, un­doc­u­ment­ed, dreams un­ful­filled.In a life-al­ter­at­ing choice, Val­di and friends had trad­ed the fa­mil­ial pro­tec­tion of the trop­ics for the im­per­son­al char­ac­ter of New York. Adapt and sur­vive they must.With strollers in tow, they con­gre­gate in­for­mal­ly, com­fort­ing and egging each oth­er on, as they for­mu­late new strate­gies to deal with their em­ploy­ers.But the "El Do­ra­do" sto­ries told back home of life in Amer­i­ca are just that-sto­ries. They are forced to swal­low their pride and shelve their dig­ni­ty. The im­pru­dence and scream­ing con­tempt of kids, they are some­times forced to bear.

The un­for­giv­ing de­mands of the job are al­ways com­pound­ed by their il­le­gal sta­tus. In fact, no one could bet­ter ex­plain it than Val­di her­self."Re­mem­ber you do not live in New York or Wash­ing­ton or Ida­ho or Ve­gas," she tells her friend, "you live in il­le­gal, the fifty-first state."In­deed "il­le­gal" is the lev­el­er of all peo­ples. A UWI grad­u­ate, Val­di learns this tru­ism, the hard way.De­spite the hur­dles, some, like Mon­i­ca, Ava and Madam Lu­cien wear a straight face. Val­di's mates are good at it. Val­di-her aca­d­e­m­ic de­rail­ment feed­ing on her, erupts, re­peat­ed­ly-chal­leng­ing oth­ers to see the bru­tal­i­ty of the sys­tem.Di­aries is a depth analy­sis of much more than the plight of il­le­gal im­mi­grants and "Nan­ny­ism." It tells a sor­did tale of racism, sex­ism, and class.Even among ba­by sit­ters there is a cu­ri­ous hi­er­ar­chy-with those who are on the East Side of Man­hat­tan, like Val­di and friends - en­joy­ing a self pro­claimed high­er rank than their West Side coun­ter­parts.

And in a nasty cuss out on the streets of Harlem, the trite West In­di­an-Black Amer­i­can ri­val­ry rears its ug­ly head. Val­di, the re­cip­i­ent of a soul shak­ing in­sult-"You so and so West In­di­ans cane cut­ting nig­gas!" painful­ly re­frains from tak­ing a per­fid­i­ous swipe at Black Amer­i­cans-"I was about to call her a cot­ton-pick­ing nig­ga..."In the end, Di­aries may not put an end to the ex­o­dus of young bright women to the US, but it should trig­ger a can­did dis­cus­sion on an oc­cu­pa­tion that on­ly re­cent­ly re­quired the in­ter­ven­tion of the state to pro­tect work­ers. Still it re­mains an oc­cu­pa­tion mired in com­plex­i­ties and wrought with per­ils.

Dr Glenvile Ash­by, for­eign

cor­re­spon­dent for Guardian Me­dia Ltd

BOOK IN­FO:

• The True Nan­ny Di­aries by Nan­di Keyi, 2009

• Bread for Brick, Brook­lyn, New York

• IS­BN: 978-0-615-220060-4

• Avail­able at www.bread­for­brick­pub­lish­ing.com