Dvance p raise for minding Their Own Business

particular journey.
Miss Gee shared thoughts about her life after running her business 
and volunteering with the floral arranging group that has provided 
her training, extensive opportunities to travel and compete on an inter-
national level, and the colleagues who have always been a source of 
support and inspiration over two decades. She confided the idea that
“I would hope I’ll be healthy just to keep doing it, if it is just doing [floral 
arranging] to give friends or for in the house, [it is] wonderful therapy. It 
has kept me alive for how many years now? Thirty-something years. It 
is just a part of my life now. Don’t think that I would like to do without 
it. It’s been wonderful!” The first year of her retirement from the busi-
ness with her partner, she still participated in the flower club’s Christmas 
show. She described her entry in the competition in this way:
I wrapped a big box in red tissue paper; I sprayed some [tropical] big leaf 
looking like a spider web. Sprayed it gold and stuck them on top of the box 
and …. I had bought an angel … made out [of corn] and I stuck it onto the box 
and then a big red and green bow …. I [added] ceramics … make pretty things 
with fruit, pommegranate, anything on it. It was very nice.

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Miss Gina shared her ideas about writing copy that will bring in clients 
and help to educate those who are considering employing her to plan 
their special events and cater to the people who are invited to share 
their celebrations. She mused in this selection about her dream adver-
tisement:
I would like to be able to write something that anybody who … is in need of 
my service can read and just know “oh, that’s what she does”, and I know 
that I can. One of the things in advertising [is that] you have to say a lot in a 
few words. Because sometimes the less words, the better. And that challenges 
your writing ability because now where you could have written what you 
wanted in 3 sentences you only have 6 words. And it challenges you because 
you have to get those 6 words, not only for one person but for 100’s of people 
reading it to get what you mean. And I want to be able to write that perfect 
copy. That perfect piece that somebody would just get it … as far as being the 
emotion around food.
The caterer knows that she has “to have pictures as well” in order to 
make her ideas understood. Since Gina knows “that is going to be a 
marketing tool” she is giving herself “creative time” knowing that “as 
everything else that happens to me it will just be there.” The perfect 
description of her services will appear on the web site when everything 
has come together in the language of the message and the images.
Miss Nadine believes that work is play. She is one of those beings 
who happily reminds people that “I don’t know who said it, but this 
business of doing what you love and you never work a day in your life, 
… that is profound.” This knowledge has come about after her experi-
ence as an employee. She explained how she “used to work before for 
other people. I used to work for companies and I worked for a paycheck 
and I worked for something.” It is a stark contrast to the statement she 
made: “Now I am being. It’s just that simple. I am being. I am doing 
what I should be doing and it feels so right. It is a wonderful place to be 
because there are people who live and die and never do what they were 
meant to do and I believe that I think I am doing what I was meant to 
do.” She is clear that this writing and publishing “it’s not a grand thing. 
I’m not going to climb Mount Everest, I’m afraid of heights, and I’m 
not going to the deepest [part] of the ocean, but I’m doing what I was 

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meant to do, I believe.” And this makes her efforts on behalf of herself 
and other writers who might otherwise not see their work published 
more precious to her.
The Future Is the Present
Since our interviews were completed Miss Gee has retired from doing 
floral arrangements and is enjoying her free time at the age of eighty-
nine. Sometimes she visits with the colleagues who continue the work 
in the floral arranging club that she helped to develop over her many 
years as a florist. When she is invited to judge floral arranging compe-
titions, she thinks hard about whether she wants to commit any more 
time to that arena of competition and all the pressures that it involves. 
She is much more willing to go to the shows and enjoy the displays put 
on by the new members who are younger and more enthusiastic about 
their ventures in the floral arranging world.
Miss Gina, now in business for fifteen years, has bought her own 
building, a truck that transports all of her equipment for an event, and 
has added several subsidiary businesses to her menu. She now includes 
events for President Obama as one of her achievements and continues 
to court projects involving such organizations as the Consulates and 
embassies of several nations in her state. Another staple of her business 
is the jazz festival in her town that includes such high-profile perform-
ers as Al Jarreau, Chaka Khan, and Michael Bolton. These events give 
her high visibility and help her to ensure that she maintains the stan-
dard that is expected of her company whenever the team participates 
in an outing.
Miss Nadine, last interviewed in 2010, has published her third 
novel and her company lists several publications by new authors. She 
is doing more public readings of her novels and travels extensively in 
the USA and Canada to promote her books and the services that her 
publishing house offers writers. Her debut in Trinidad, at the national 
library in the capital of the island, was well-received and she had a 
lot of press coverage and made many fans who have continued to 
follow the progress of her work. Nadine has also nurtured her son, 

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Samuel, to begin his own journey as a performing artist and is enjoy-
ing his strides as he makes his way in the professional music industry. 
It gives her deep pleasure to see how he has taken many lessons from 
his mother’s work as an independent publisher, and his father’s very 
practical approach to life, and applied both perspectives to his own 
career.
Maria, continually on the move from one country to another as a 
public relations professional, has been awarded for her work in the 
public relations field by her colleagues in an international organization. 
She considers this one of the highlights of her career since she is now 
recognized for her contribution to the promotion of the Caribbean’s 
positive image overseas. As someone who has been building her career 
in a country that she adopted many years before she began her busi-
ness, or had her children, it is a sign that she has always let her feelings 
for her mother country, Trinidad and Tobago, color the way that she 
depicts all the islands of the Caribbean. Her goal to make a good life 
for her two children, one that was better than the reality that she and 
her spouse, Malcolm, created for themselves, has been realized. Both 
children have professional careers and remain close to their parents as 
they continue to prosper in their individual paths.
Finally, Fona has retired to Trinidad where she runs a private school 
for young children. With her husband, she prepares the children for 
a national exam that allows them to enter public schools where they 
continue their formal education. The couple is making plans to start 
another bookshop in their community. According to Fona, they have 
found such a dire need for a wide variety of Afrocentric literature and 
research material that they are determined to develop a community- 
centered bookshop to which they can commit their talent and creativ-
ity. The last report from Fona included the glowing description of the 
successful matriculation of her first cohort of children who passed the 
national exam so that they could begin their journey in the government 
school that serves their community.
In June 2016, President Barack Obama declared Caribbean-American 
Heritage Month formally open. In his proclamation found at The Insti-
tute of Caribbean Studies (ICS), the nation’s leading Caribbean American 

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advocacy and development organization, http://www.icsdc.org/, he 
encouraged “all Americans to celebrate the history and culture of Carib-
bean Americans with appropriate ceremonies and activities.” Citing the 
dynamism and diversity of those people of Caribbean heritage, the pres-
ident went on to describe the outstanding ways in which this particular 
group of citizens has contributed to the development of the USA. The 
ties that business and family traditions have created among Americans 
and these Caribbean descendants were also highlighted by the leader of 
the nation, and citing the Jamaican poet Claude McKay’s (1999) exhor-
tation to “strive on to gain the height although it may not be in sight,” 
the president listed the ways in which the “boldness” and “creativity” 
of Caribbean youth would be bolstered through education and other 
opportunities to experience a productive life in the USA.
Even though Gee and Maria are not working in the USA, it is fit-
ting that the president’s remarks be associated with their journey in 
their adopted country, Jamaica. Certainly the struggle of black, female 
Caribbean entrepreneurs can be looked at with the same lens that leads 
to an appreciation of their boldness and willingness to be a solution 
rather than a problem in their new home overseas. It is the determina-
tion and self-confidence that carries over from the Caribbean islands 
to one or another domicile. Therefore, the line from another of McK-
ay’s poems, “let us not die with our backs against the wall”, is the true 
descriptor of the attitude that colors all efforts by these five women in 
their determination to improve their lives.
Taulbert, in the book about his Uncle Cleve cited earlier in the chap-
ter, exhorts business leaders and the business minded to mine their 
lives for the “endless” array of challenges that need to be met with pas-
sion and creative solutions. In the same chapter in the book, Shoeniger 
states that some of the great advances that are achieved in our lives 
come from the change of perspective that brings about new approaches 
to ourselves and the situations that we meet. With this call to arms, as 
it were, it is clear that the businesswomen featured in this story have 
met the challenge with creativity, passion, and a positive attitude that 
has led them beyond their expectations to new heights of achievement. 
It is left to be seen how their strides in each field of endeavor lead to 

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further developments among those who have been touched by their 
efforts to find solutions and to make the best of their circumstances by 
serving others in the best possible way that their inner wisdom leads 
them to perform.
References
McKay, C. (1999). Selected poems. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications.
Taulbert, C., & Schoeniger, G. (2010). Who owns the ice house? Eight life lessons from an