She watched them half with derision and half wanting to be one of them, to get caught up in the Carnival spirit. She, like them, had been grown for export, like sugar cane and arrowroot, to go away, to have distaste for staying. She had been taught that there was nothing worthwhile about staying; you should "go away and make something of yourself," her family had said. It was everyone's dream to leave. Leaving was supposed to change class and station. "You could be something," they'd said. This something was based on the exceptions who had returned, M.D.s or LL.B.s in hand, and had been elevated to brown-skin status; not like the rest of them "nigger people." To be something meant that, no matter what else. The majority of those who had gone away worked hard all their lives, without letters behind their names, without changes in the texture and colour of their skins, and had not returned, but had sent messages in letters and parcels and money, enriching the myth of easiness and prosperity in the metropole. On the other occasions, on which Ayo had returned, she had found the myth alive and kicking and had made enemies trying to dispel it. No one back home believed that things were not better out here and no one could be convinced of it. People home would look rather nastily and accuse her of liking good things for herself and not for others.

— Sans Souci by Dionne Brand (Page 179)