Repeating Islands is 5 and we have received this lovely post from Peter Jordens. Thank you, Peter, for all your contributions to the blog. And heartfelt thanks to all our readers for their support.

Congratulations to Lisa and Ivette on the fifth anniversary of the launch of RepeatingIslands.com! It all started with two simple posts on February 27, 2009. Now, five years and over 14,370 posts later, RepeatingIslands.com is a (re)source that its faithful readers have described as:

“One of my favorite blogs to read […]. At Repeating Islands, Ivette Romero-Cesareo and Lisa Paravisini-Gebert present news, politics, and commentary from across the Caribbean and from across the world as it relates to the region.  There the Caribbean is centered, without apology or fanfare.” — Jessica Marie Johnson, Assistant Professor of History at Michigan State University, formerly at Bowdoin College, http://learn.bowdoin.edu/courses/afs265 (February 2010)

“Superblog di altissima qualità dedicato alla vita e alla cultura delle comunità caraibiche” [superblog of the highest quality devoted to the life and culture of the Caribbean community] — Marina Petrillo, Italian radio reporter and blogger, director of Radio Popolare, http://blogs.radiopopolare.it/alaska (March 2010)

“A broad, bubbling stream of information about new books, exhibitions, films, and scholarly conferences, with particularly strong coverage of the Spanish and French Caribbean” and “an essential resource for keeping up with cultural developments in the Caribbean and its wide international diaspora. Thanks to the backgrounds, research interests, and multilingual fluency of its authors, the blog transcends the linguistic barriers that can make it difficult to engage with the whole region” — Nicholas Laughlin, editor of The Caribbean Review of Books and program director for the Bocas Lit Fest, http://globalvoicesonline.org (March 2010), http://caribbeanreviewofbooks.com (April 2010)

“An incredibly informative, comprehensive daily overview of cultural life around the Caribbean” — ‘Petchary’, a blogger from Kingston, Jamaica, http://petchary.wordpress.com (June 2012).

“My one-stop shop for all things Caribbean, high and low brow all bundled up nicely by two great Caribbeanists” — Alex Gil, digital scholarship coordinator at Columbia University for the Humanities and History division, http://www.elotroalex.com (February 2013)

“[A] trail-blazing Caribbean cultural blog which has become an invaluable research resource for anyone interested in all aspects of the Caribbean” — Alessandro Corio, Italian blogger, http://caribiolit.wordpress.com (May 2013)

“An avenue through which the modern scholar can reread the Caribbean from many angles so that it is seen for more than what history books have defined it to be. […] I feel a greater sense of comfort knowing that websites like Repeating Islands exist.” — Jamal George, a student of The Digital Caribbean, a Spring 2014 graduate seminar at CUNY taught by Professor Kelly Baker Josephs, http://digitalcaribbean.commons.gc.cuny.edu (February 2014).

Thank you Lisa and Ivette for, post by post, connecting the repeating island, (re)constructing Caribbeanness, and nurturing a poetics of Relation. Wishing you the best on this memorable day and for many more blogaversaries to come.

Peter Jordens

Curaçao