How Does The Indo-Caribbean Population Fit in America?
In 1829, the first boat sailed from India to Mauritius, beginning decades of Indian indentureship. Up until the 1930s, indentured workers from India spanned across Guyana, Trinidad, Suriname, Mauritius, Jamaica, and Fiji. These indentured workers were manipulated or forced onto these boats, forever estranged from their homeland. Little did the know they would transform and birth a new culture, a culture of Indo-Caribbeans.
When forced into indentureship, many workers had nothing but their culture to bring with them. The loss of their homeland also resulted in the loss of their language. Through the decades of indentureship, the common language that was spoken, Bhojpuri, soon faded into different dialects. Bhojpuri is a common language spoken in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, areas of India where workers stemmed from. The loss of our mother tongue evolved into different dialects such as Guyanese-creole or Trinidadian-creole.
While carrying many losses, the population resulting from Indian indentureship, created new foods and music. While still retaining some language from their homeland, a genre of music known as Chutney was produced. This music involved influences from Indian, Caribbean, and Western sounds. Another popular genre of music, soca, runs through the veins of every Indo-Caribbean. Overall, this population soon found its home in the Caribbeans, only to migrate once more, to America.
As a country known for the land of the free, the generation coming from indentureship found its way to America. In Richmond Hill, New York, this population soon multiplied, dominating parts of Queens. As a population coming from indentureship and mass migration, the Indo-Caribbean population has faced difficulty in formulating an identity. We were once robbed of our homes, on to find our new one, Guyana or Trinidad, to be faced with political unrest.
As a small but growing population in America, our identity fails to be represented in many ways. When filling out legal forms, our race is never an option, but choose Asian as the closest. In our new homeland of America, we owe it to our Indian and Caribbean ancestors to be represented.
