I remember really enjoying this reading last year and I think I’ve found an even greater appreciation for it this year since I’ve found myself drinking more teas. Also I found the writing to be much clearer.
I found Jegathesan’s early emphasis on language, from the notes of transliteration to her detailed deconstruction of the term [coolie] in the introduction. While reading about the term in this specific context, I found it helpful to also get a broader understanding of the term, because I thought it was considered a racial slur—and it is, but it has a lot more context than just “racial slur against specific workers from the Asian continent”.
source: [https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/11/25/247166284/a-history-of-indentured-labor-gives-coolie-its-sting]
Framing is always a powerful way of shifting the “narrative” and Jegathesan explains that chapter 2 is a look into “how the language of Hill Country Tamils came to shape their labor landscapes” (23). What does it mean then for her to spend the first half of the chapter breaking down historical Tamil guides? Is it not just enough to discuss that the guides were insufficient methods of communication between English speaking plantation supervisors and the Hill Tamil workers?