Culture / Caribbean connections
The Housewives Went to the BVI. The BVI Had Already Made It to New York.
RHONY’s island escape comes with a century-old New York connection, and a very Caribbean understanding of who looks out for whom.
A Housewives trip can make you want the holiday and feel grateful you weren’t invited. RHONY’s October 6 episode took the cast to Moskito Island in the British Virgin Islands. And the islands have a New York backstory that deserves a little airtime.
Long before the cast headed south, Virgin Islanders were building lives in the city. In January 1926, the British Virgin Islands Benevolent Association was founded, mainly serving Virgin Islanders in New York. According to the Schomburg Center’s collection guide, it helped sick members and contributed to burial expenses.
The name sounds formal. The impulse will feel familiar to anyone whose family has ever gathered money when somebody needed help. You move away; you still have people. The association gave that kind of looking out for one another a place in New York life.
That puts a different spin on a New York cast heading to the BVI. There was already a relationship here, with islanders doing the travelling, settling in and making sure somebody had their back. This year happens to mark a century since the association began.
Then comes the detail worth keeping for the post-episode conversation. Its records include a 1938 petition to the British Colonial Office supporting self-governance. Even from New York, the question of who got to make decisions back home was on the agenda. Moving abroad could mean starting a new life while staying thoroughly invested in the old address.
So yes, enjoy the Housewives in the BVI. Enjoy the scenery and having opinions about a trip you didn’t pay for. Just keep this little reversal in your pocket: a century before RHONY took New York to the islands, islanders were already helping make New York their own.
Watch the Bravo preview
RHONY arrives on Moskito Island. Watch on YouTube ↗