You Have to Do the Work; Yelena Ramautar on Caribbean Identity, Black Detroit, & Community
About this episode
Yelena Ramautar discusses her journey of migration and community engagement in Detroit, emphasizing the importance of belonging and cultural connection.
“I came here from her love an spirit of Detroit”—that truth opens a powerful Detroit is Different conversation with Yelena Ramautar , Community Engager for the Caribbean Community Service Center, about migration, belonging, memory, and the work required to truly become part of a community. Yelena traces her journey from Guyana to the Bronx, then to Detroit in 2015 after her adoptive mother told her, “I got a home. Just come on. You can find your way and figure it out.” She reflects on New York gentrification, school closures, immigrant identity, and the shock of being “othered” at a predominantly white college after growing up among Black, Caribbean, Latino, and African communities. In Detroit, she learned that relationships may crack the door open, “but you have to do the work to show that you’re invested.” Her mother’s Detroit story—Cass Tech, Wayne State, teaching, and hearing Dr. King speak on Woodward—connects Black excellence, movement history, and family legacy. This episode asks what responsible cultural connection looks like as neighborhoods change and diasporic communities meet. Yelena’s story reminds us that Detroit’s future depends on honoring memory, resisting…
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