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| Restaurant owner Vincent Douglas talks to UAlbany student Al Masino about his experiences as an illegal immigrant. |
It's a different view than the one he grew up with in Jamaica. There, the poverty was extreme, and it wasn't unusual to see children with no shoes on their feet, their clothing worn through.
"When you come from a family that's poor and has nothing, and you want to make sure you stand up strong, you have to make sure you do all the right things," says Douglas.
He told his story to University at Albany student Al Masino Monday, as part of a project for Masino's global reporting class. The course, Global Perspectives in the News, seeks to give journalism students a larger world view when it comes to news production. It offers students readings and in-class speakers, plus the opportunity to do individual and team reporting on local immigrant populations.
The course is taught by Rosemary Armao, Associate Professor of Journalism and panelist for WAMC's "The Roundtable." Armao is an award-winning journalist, who created this course to serve as an "entry point into cross-cultural news gathering" Armao writes in her CV. "By looking at case studies of various countries, students compared and contrasted news values, topic coverage and bias. They explored how new technology and demographics have changed the presentation and perception of news."
Douglas, whose family business has expanded to two locations since 2010, was happy to talk about his experiences.
He first arrived in this country illegally in 2003. He paid a huge sum for an illegal visa, and then, stayed on past its expiration. "I came her illegal, and it was troubling, but I told myself, that day, the 13th of April, that I would not go back to Jamaica, so I lived in a reasonable, responsible way," says Douglas.
Afraid that he would get picked up by police and be deported if he lived a life of excess, Douglas shied away from clubs and parties, preferring instead to work hard and keep his head down, he says. He accepted a job as a landscaper, an unlikely position for him. "In Jamaica, you call it cutting the grass, and if anybody heard of me doing that in Jamaica, they'd say, 'No, no, not Mr. Douglas.' Everyone addressed me at home as Mr. Douglas," he says. "But that's where I started, because that's what I had to do."
When he arrived, he faced a lot of discrimination. However, he says, he quickly realized that prejudice didn't discriminate, and that both white and black people held misconceptions about one another. "You have bad experience everywhere, but you should not look for the bad experience. What you should do is use the bad to gain good experiences," says Douglas.
He took a number of different positions over the years, including auto mechanic, truck driving, before his "sweet hands" finally got him a job cooking at Kenneth's Tastebud, a popular Jamaican restaurant on Henry Johnson Blvd. He worked for years in the kitchen there, honing his craft, and even though he developed a real following, he kept a number of things back, knowing that one day, he'd open his own restaurant. "I was cooking, but there are things that I have that I didn't want to give to them, so I kind of hold back what I have. I was cooking but I wouldn't share my recipes, and there are certain seasonings I would use that he don't know about," Douglas says.
In 2010, he opened Hot Spot Jamaican American Cuisine and finally got the chance to trot out his own recipes and run a business the way he wanted. Two years later, he opened another restaurant in Troy. He took his earnings and invested in real estate. Today, he is investigating the purchase of another business, a store that specializes in Caribbean goods and products, including a line of homemade healthy juices.
He arrived in this country in 2003 with $700 in his pocket; today, he has properties and assets totaling $1 M. Each restaurant he owns employs 7-8 people.
"Anything is possible. In America, anything you want to be, you can be," says Douglas.
Hot Spot is located at 228 Washington Avenue in Albany. For more information, please contact the restaurant (518) 426-2938 or visit the website at www.hotspotcuisine.com
