|
Introduction to Popular Culture, National Identity, and Migration
in the Caribbean.
Helen I. Safa
Charles V. Carnegie
Center for Latin American Studies
University of Florida
Revised
10/2/84
1
Introduction to Popular Culture, National Identity, and Migration in the
Caribbean
I
Identity Lost or Identity Found?
The idea that the cultural identity of Caribbean peoples is somehow
problematic has been around for so long and been upheld by such a variety
of writers that it has became almost an axiom. Certainly, at least some
of the apprehension about Caribbean identity is founded in an insiduous
racism that eventually came to justify the continued subjugation of an
African slave labor force in the New World. It is easy on this account to
dismiss the doubting remarks of observers like the historian of the
Jamaican Maroon wars, Dallas, who, in his book published in the early
nineteenth century, asserted: "the notion of a free, active, negro
republic does not seem to have any reasonable foundation."(1) On similar
grounds, one might disregard Froude's convinced assertion nearly a century
after: "Give them independence, and in a few generations they will peel
off such civilization as they have learnt as easily and as willingly as
their coats and trousers." (2)
It is less easy to dismiss the considered opinions of more recent
scholars who point to other peculiar features of Caribbean identity.
Anthropologist Michael Horowitz, for instance, in his introduction to the
widely used Peoples and Cultures of the Caribbean notes that: "West
Indian nationalism as it emerged after the Second World War differed from
the early nationalists of Ireland, India and the Arab lands, and the
2
contemporary nationalisms of Africa and other parts of Asia, in its
general avoidance of nativism and the evocation of its own past. The
metropolitan colonial country remains the model of intellectual excellence
in the Caribbean."(3) Such an observation is less easily dismissed
because it speaks to seemingly unarguable empirical observations: the
apparent reluctance to break the colonial connection in some parts of the
Caribbean-Puerto Rico and the French Antilles, for example-and the
continued cultural dependence on the metropolis even in those countries of
the region that have attained political independence.
An incident drawn from newspaper accounts in the Second World War
might help drive home the point Horowitz makes. The British Colonial
Office in 1940 invited a delegation of newspaper journalists from the West
Indian colonies to London to observe the war effort from the vantage point
of its camnand center; it was, presumably, a public relations effort to
garner further support for the war in the colonies. The delegation of
eleven travelled a circuitous route, via Canada, New York, and Bermuda, to
London. In one of those ironies of the colonial experience, the six
noticeably non-white editors in the group, who were in a few days to meet
Prime Minister Churchill himself, were refused accanodations in Bermuda in
a fourth class hotel while their 'white' colleagues were put up overnight
at the island's finest. Writing in the press to protest their treatment
one of the newspapermen declared: "I was profoundly shocked to find on
landing in Bermuda that there is one place in the Empire where the fight
for democracy and all it stands for is considered of secondary
importance."(4) The basis of his outrage was as a loyal subject to the
-1
3
Crown. The noted Caribbean author, V.S. Naipaul, holds that: "Nothing.
was generated locally; dependence became a habit," while David Lowenthal,
a careful student of the region, suggests that West Indians are lacking in
self-confidence. (5)
Indeed, not only is the collective consciousness of Caribbean peoples
held to be insecurely founded, some of the most influential models of
these societies (especially those colonized by the British, Dutch, and
French) posit that they are a patchwork of non-yet-sewn-together
fragments. Herskovits' fixation on an Afro-American cultural universe,
and M.G. Smith's description of distinct plural social segments, are cases
in point.
the creolization process through which a distinctive cultural and
national identity is forged has long been felt to be more advanced in the
Hispanophone Caribbean. Scholars point, for instance, to the ascendancy
of the Spanish language in marked contrast with the multi-lingual and
diglossic speech cannunities in other parts of the Caribbean. Yet even in
the Hispanophone areas the identity question has not been unproblematic.
As will be shown later, these societies continue to be uncomfortable about
the position of those of darker skin color and of African cultural
retentions within the wider national entity. It has been a thorny problem
as much for novelists and poets as it has been for the societies as a
whole, as Jose Alcantara shows in his review of Dcainican literature in
this volume.
Nor has the issue of race been the only factor seen as threatening to
cultural identity in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. In his portentously
1 6, 1
. 6
4
titled Requiem por una Cultura Eduardo Seda Bonilla laments that Puerto
Rican values of family and community life, the rich popular poetic and
philosophical tradition, and much else are in imminent danger of being
lost (much as Tasmanian and other cultures have perished) in the face of
Puerto Rico's incorporation into the United States imperial sphere.(6)
Given this pessimistic history of the identity idea in the Caribbean,
it is quite striking that the contributors to this volume, representing
several parts of the Caribbean and a variety of disciplines, write from
the perspective of an already assured cultural identity. With detachment,
Rex Nettleford treats the hyphenated notions of the Caribbean
("Anglophone-Caribbean," "Afro-Caribbean," etc.) as artifacts of
intellectual history. He goes on to posit that the underlying "African
presence" has stamped Caribbean culture with such fastness that it has
been able repeatedly to enrich music, dance, art, and much else in the.
Caribbean itself and in the metropolitan world. Juan Flores demonstrates
the tenacity of Puerto Rican identity even under the bombardment of New
York City life, and suggests ways in which the Puerto Rican presence is
contributing to the emergence of new cultural configurations in the
metropolis itself.
The tenor of discussion has shifted fran musings over whether
Caribbean culture exists at all and what does it consist in if it does, to
a dialogue among Caribbean voices about how the region's culture might
assist in redefining the direction of national and regional development
strategies. Angel Quintero Rivera's examination of one aspect of the
Caribbean collective unconscious-the opposition between city and
5
countryside, and the veneration of the rural ideal-and Jean Casimir's
discussion of how Creole languages and family forms were inventions that
allowed Caribbean peoples to carve out same independent space for
themselves in a colonial context, have the effect of encouraging
indigenous reflection on things cultural and of having that reflection
lead to self-conscious transformation in social life. In a similar vein,
Aggrey Brown's paper initiates discussion on how the mass media might
either be abused or used effectively as organs for a two-way dialogue
between leaders and populace, and for giving expression to Caribbean
cultural forms.
Many of the contributors show very clearly the degree to which
scholars have came to appreciate in the last few years the strength of
Caribbean 'folk' cultural forms. Erna Brodber, for instance, points to
the wide national and international recognition that Jamaican popular
music has attained, while Juan Flores draws on the subtleties of
code-switching in Nuyorican poetry, a mode of expression long thought to
be impoverished, to tell of the dynamic of present-day Puerto Rican
culture, in the metropolis.
It is not so much that the problematic issues raised by earlier
writers are no longer present; rather, the perspective on them has
changed. Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria, for instance, in showing how debate
over a homogeneous versus a heterogeneous national culture has played
itself out in Cuban literature over the past three decades, removes
entirely the analytical presupposition that a viable national culture need
necessarily be monolithic. The papers by Casimir, Brodber, Brown and
I I A
Gonzalez Echevarria all suggest in various ways how the presumed
ambiguities of Caribbean cultural identity are less a reflection of an
ill-formed culture than an indication of multi-ethnic, class stratified
societies whose elites have either found it in their interest to adopt
aspects of the cultures of their colonizers, or to deny recognition to
their own "folk" culture.
On another level, the differences of interpretation have to do with
how the concept of culture is being used. In Seda Bonilla's Requiem ...,-
at least part of the author's despair comes from his not recognizing the
dynamic quality of culture. By contrast, Juan Flores and Rex Nettleford,
for example, perceive clearly that it is because of this dynamic quality
that Caribbean culture has been able to triumph and to make for viable
adjustment to new settings.
Indeed, precisely because they were primarily slave societies in
which the maintenance and establishment of public institutions
(government, forms of organization for production, etc.) was prevented,
and other overt forms of cultural expression discouraged, the cultural
system that did emerge in the Caribbean has a surreptitous quality that
challenges our skills of social observation and analysis.(7) With Flores'
and Nettleford's contributions that stress adaptability we have further
corroboration of a perspective that has been developing in the past few
years which identifies innovation in artistic form, option building and
flexibility in economic pursuits and social relations as pivotal cultural
principles in Caribbean life.(8) Anthropologist Lee Drummond(9) has even
gone so far as to suggest a theory of "intersystems" that would account
S1t
7
for the multiplicity of cultural symbols put together from seemingly
distinct cultural/ethnic groups which people in the Caribbean routinely
plug into. Drummond suggests that Caribbean culture works much like
creole languages do. He argues, based on Derek Bickerton's work on
Guyanese Creole, that the approach, borrowed from structural linguistics,
which sees cultures and languages as discrete, rule-governed systems is
inappropriate for understanding creole systems in which speakers
habitually employ different sets of grammatical rules from both the
standard and the creole language.
So, too, in Guyanese and Caribbean culture Drummond suggests that the
long history of interaction between various ethnic groups has led to a
continuum of physical features and a blurring of group boundaries. In
these societies what would otherwise be regarded as bounded systems are
all part of a larger cultural system in which transformations routinely
occur between one and another 'sub-system'. Adjustment and adaptability
are key elements of the system and people are accustomed to cultural
symbols that appear ambiguous to the outsider only because their meaning
shifts according to social context.
It is fitting, then, that we are now beginning to recognize more
clearly that one of the very features of Caribbean culture that seemingly
gives evidence of -its insecure foundation is in fact a root principle of
the system that has served the social needs of these oppressed peoples
most effectively.
8
II
Roots of Caribbean Identity
What, may we ask, are the reasons behind this new-found confidence in
the viability and validity of Caribbean culture? What has happened in the
post-war period to foster a new sense of Caribbean nationhood and cultural
self-awareness?
The papers in this volume give us a clue, but we need to go beyond
them to look at the historical determinants of the concept of cultural
identity in the Caribbean. This concept has evolved quite differently in
the Anglophone and Hispanophone Caribbean (although they share a common
history of colonialism and plantation slavery). In particular, race has
played a far more important role in the formation of cultural identity in
the Anglophone Caribbean, than in the Hispanophone islands. At the same
time, several post-war events have helped to stimulate the development of
cultural identity in both areas, such as migration, the Black Power
movement in the U.S. and the Cuban revolution. We shall discuss below the
impact of these and other factors on changing cultural identity in these
two areas of the Caribbean.
The Non-Hispanic Caribbean
In the Anglophone Caribbean, race is a cornerstone of national
identity. This is evident in both the papers by Nettleford and Brodber in
this volume, who address the issue of black consciousness in the Caribbean
and Jamaica in particular. They also note how this comparatively new
I I 'I
9
interest in Afro-Caribbean culture marks for the elite a decided shift
from the Eurocentric orientation of the past.
The roots of this Eurocentric orientation go back to a creole
colonial society which assigned all racial and ethnic groups a rank order
within a system of sharp status group differentiation. Creole society was
in turn based on the highly hierarchical and absolutist rule of slave
plantations, which strove to strip blacks (and later indentured laborers
from Asia) of their cultural heritage and impose European notions of white
racial superiority upon them. As R.T. Smith (10) has noted, creole
society was rooted in the political and economic dominance of the
metropolitan power, was color stratified, and was integrated around the
-concept of the moral and cultural superiority of things English.
The nature of race relations in the colonial society of the
Anglophone Caribbean has to be understood in terms of power. With the
full development of the plantation system, blacks far outstripped the
small white planter class on most of the islands. This planter class was
largely absentee, and never developed a strong Creole orientation.(11) In
order to maintain control under these conditions, the dominant planter
class excluded blacks from any form of political participation in the
society. Even freemen were denied basic rights such as
property-ownership, voting or office holding because of fear of any black
political base. An intermediate mulatto buffer group, as developed in
Hispanophone Caribbean, emerged very slowly, and like the planter class,
was thoroughly oriented toward European values and culture. Nevertheless,
this mulatto group was never really accepted into white colonial society,
I
with its strong racist bias, and only succeeded in alienating itself from
the black masses. This weakened the development of a sense of national
identity in the Anglophone Caribbean and led to a cultural split between
the brown elite and the black masses, who retained strong elements of
African identity and culture. This split formed the basis for the
continuing struggle today between official, elite culture and the popular
culture in the Anglophone Caribbean, described by Brodber and Casimir.
By denying their African heritage and emphasizing their cultural
whiteness over a nationalist image, the mulatto Creole elite lacked an
alternative ideology on which they could build .a separate style of life in
opposition to that of the colonial power. This elite was frightened by
figures like Marcus Garvey, who appealed to black nationalism, and they
resisted any appeal to racial solidarity as a basis for national identity.
The weak nationalist sentiment of this elite helps explain why the process
of independence of the Anglophone Caribbean did not begin until the
1960's.
Why, then, do we now see an apparent change in favor of racial
solidarity and black pride in the Anglophone Caribbean? Though political
independence has not led to economic or cultural autonomy, it has forced
the Creole elite to turn to the black masses as a political constituency
rather than sharply differentiating themselves as they did previously.
They must shed the old symbols of colonial rule and replace them with new
national symbols which incorporate the people. Although Brodber tells us
that some politicians in Jamaica preferred to downplay racial issues, they
could not continue to govern on the basis of their cultural whiteness.
11
Since colonial society was based on the superiority of white European
culture, these newly independent states had to reject this notion in favor
of the affirmation of black racial identity. In the Anglophone Caribbean,
blackness has come to symbolize nationhood, because there is no other
basis on which a new national or cultural identity could be built. This
is one of the reasons why Trinidad and Guyana, with important East Indian
populations, have had such difficulty coming to grips with their national
identity and continue to manifest sharp ethnic divisions.
Another reason for the renewed interest in Afro-Caribbean culture in
the Anglophone Caribbean is the political independence of many African
states in the post-war period. Brodber notes that as these African
countries shed their colonial ties and took part in Third World political
fora, they served increasingly as points of identification for Caribbean
peoples anxious to recover their African past. The civil rights and black
power movement in the U.S. had similar consequences. The new
self-confidence with which Black Americans viewed themselves and their
rejection of the superiority of white middle class values was reflected in
the Caribbean, particularly among migrants who had participated in these
movements.(12) As we shall see, the interest in civil rights and black
power in the U.S. is only one indication of the way migration has
increased the racial consciousness of the Caribbean population.
One could argue that there is greater convergence between official
and popular culture now than in the past in the Anglophone Caribbean, with
wider acceptance of Afro-Caribbean patterns of speech and dress, and a
renewed appreciation of Afro-Caribbean cultural forms in music, dance and
12
even religion. Brodber reminds us of the pivotal role played by
Rastafarianism in maintaining black consciousness in Jamaica during
periods of colonial censure, and of its importance in the revival that the
"Culture of Dread" is now undergoing throughout the Anglophone Caribbean.
As she notes, the popular recognition in Jamaica of the late singer and
composer, Bob Marley, as a national hero is one manifestation of this
important shift away from a European orientation of the elite toward an
Afro orientation of the folk.
In Jamaica, this resurgence of Afro-Caribbean culture is manifest in
a variety of art forms, ranging from the National Dance Theatre of Jamaica
directed by Rex Nettleford to the pop music described by Brodber. Many
writers like Nettleford note that the essence of Afro-Caribbean identity
is to be found in popular music and dance, and certainly these have long
been areas of significant diffusion and intermingling among the various
Caribbean islands. Music and dance could transcend boundaries erected by
language and state regulations. In his eloquent description of these
various art forms, Nettleford notes the influence of various neighboring
Caribbean countries like Haiti and Cuba on this resurgence of interest in
the Afro-Caribbean heritage.
Nettleford stresses that these Afro-Caribbean art forms are not
reproductions of Africa, but native innovations stemming from a "cammon
ancestral source." In a similar view, Casimir argues that neither Africa
nor Europe represent the source of Caribbean culture, which instead is to
be found in the indigenous Creole cultures developed under colonialism and
slavery symbolized by language. Casimir maintains, for example, that
Creole preceded French as the lingua franca in Haiti, while French has
only been maintained by the elite in order to separate themselves from the
Creole-speaking masses. Casimir's paper is a powerful indictment of the
Creole elite in the Caribbean for failing to recognize the validity of
tneir own culture in order to maintain their own class superiority.
The Hispanophone Caribbean
In the Hispanophone Caribbean, the sense of cultural identity is
based less on race, than on language, religion, and other aspects of
Spanish culture. As in the Anglophone Caribbean, cultural disengagement
from the mother country was never complete, despite the breaking of
political and economic ties. This Spanish heritage included the
superiority of white skin and culture, but in the Hispanic Caribbean,
racial divisions were never as strong as in the Commonwealth
Caribbean. (13) In part, this is due to the later development of sugar
plantations in the Hispanic Caribbean and the lesser numerical importance
of black slaves as a percentage of the total population. By the time
slaves were imported-in great numbers into Cuba and Puerto Rico in the
19th century, they could be incorporated into an already developing creole
culture, in which a free colored class played an important part. This
creole culture attempted to integrate blacks into a hierarchical social
order and did not exclude them on the basis of skin color as in the
Anglophone Caribbean. The possibilities for assimilation were thus much
greater.
The idea of racial and cultural synthesis as a basis for societal
14
integration in the Hispanic Caribbean emerged on the hacienda, which, as
Quintero Rivera describes, "fostered a paternalistic conception of the
fatherland ( patria ) as an all embracing family: a stratified family
under the control of the "padre de agrego" -the hacendado -but, family
nonetheless." Quintero Rivera's article in this volume notes how in
Puerto Rico this paternalistic social order of the hacienda tried to
incorporate artisan workers and slaves into this sense of family, thereby
weakening the development of class and racial solidarity. Contemporary
politicians like the late Governor of Puerto Rico, Luis Munoz Marin, have
continued to utilize the notion of "la gran familiar puertorriquena" to
great advantage in their effort to build multi-class coalitions on the
island.
It would seem that the anti-state, anti-urban ethos which Quintero
Rivera analyzes in Puerto Rico is present not only in the working class,
but among hacendados as well. In the-19th century they struggled against
onerous Spanish state regulations that hampered their commercial
development, which was symbolized in the struggle between Ponce, governed
by hacendados, and San Juan, the center of Spanish bureaucracy on the
island. Hacendados led the opposition to Spanish rule, but were seriously
weakened by the American occupation of 1898. In their defense against
this new and far more powerful form of colonialism, the Puerto Rican
elite-including many of the Puerto Rican intelligentsia-have sought
refuge in the evocation of a real or imagined rural past, based on the
19th century hacienda social order. Thus, the celebration of rural life,
through the jibaro or la isla in Puerto Rico not only represents freedom
.1 ((
15
from state control for the working class (embodied in the 18th century
concept of cimarronerIa or maronage) but nostalgia for the lost world of
the 19th century hacienda, in which a creole elite held local hegemony and
formed the basis of national identity. Today Puerto Rico's national
identity is severely threatened by United States' political and economic
domination and cultural penetration. This has led the Puerto Rican
intelligentsia to reaffirm their Spanish or Creole roots-often symbolized
by the rural world of the hacienda-as a defense against U.S. cultural
imperialism.
Gonzlez Echevarria in his article, also refers to the concept of a
rural patriarchal order as a basis for racial and cultural synthesis in
his analysis of the idea of identity in contemporary Cuban poetry. The
rural patriarchal order is present in Vitier, a member of the Origenes
group of pre-revolutionary Cuban poets, but is replaced in the
post-revolutionary poetry of Sarduy by a more egalitarian, pluralist view
of culture into which enter the various groups that make up Cuban culture,
including, of course, the Afro-Cuban. According to Gonzalez Echevarria,
Sarduy's vision of culture is modeled, not on the Christian patriarchal.
family, but on Afro-Cuban religions that had to rebuild themselves under
the most adverse circumstances. There is no master text nor hierarchical
social order in which all characters (African slaves, Antillean blacks
from the other Caribbean islands, Chinese coolies), assume their appointed
role, but a form of "religious bricolage" of heterogeneous elements whose
cohesiveness depends on constant adjustment and flexibility.
Sarduy's vision of culture is strikingly similar to what Drummond
I
16
proposes with his theory of intersystems, drawn from Creole linguistics.
It abandons the notion of racial and cultural synthesis in favor of a
cultural system based on heterogeneous elements "that will never
relinquish their quilt-like relationship to each other."(14) Drummond
suggests a Creole metaphor of culture that "replaces invariance with
transformation, boundedness with internal variation, and centre with
periphery." (15) But what is the basis of integration in such a
heterogeneous, free floating culture? It is quite different frame M.G.
Smith's model of cultural pluralism, in which distinct plural social
segments are held together by force. That force in the Caribbean was
colonialism, which embodied the myth of white European superiority. In
-the Hispanophone Caribbean, it took the form of racial and cultural
synthesis, which permitted the assimilation of black and other
non-European groups into the Creole framework. If we reject the notion of
synthesis, on the grounds that it is still based on Hispanic domination,
are we not negating the notion of a unitary culture with a canmon cultural
identity? How can Afro-Caribbean culture assume its rightful place as an
important element of cultural identity in the-Hispanic Caribbean without
being subsumed in the notion of synthesis?
Cuba presents an interesting case in this regard, because of its
political as well as cultural uniqueness. Many Caribbean scholars(16)
maintain that Cuba had the most developed sense of cultural identity and
nationhood in the area, in part due to its protracted and bloody struggle
against Spain from 1868-1878. It also has a strong Afro-Caribbean
culture, replenished by the importation of antillanos from Jamaica and
~I r
17
other Anglophone islands during the latter part of the 19th century and
Haitians in the early 20th century. Now, how is Cuba dealing with the
question of cultural identity under socialism?
Fidel Castro has publicly pronounced that Cuba is an Afro-Latin
country. Critics claim this is only rhetoric that Castro is using to
promote his ties with African nations and his legitimacy as a Third World
leader. They claim that Afro-Cuban culture is repressed in Cuba, and no
longer enjoys cultural vitality.(17) Others maintain that
Afro-Caribbean culture is thriving in Cuba, that it is no longer a culture
of defense or rebellion, but a symbol of national pride.(18) Surely a
socialist revolution such as Cuba has experienced can no longer seek its
cultural identity in a patriarchal social order of the past. Socialism
does permit it to repudiate colonialism and the superiority of white
culture without raising the question of race on its own and directly. But
it must find another basis for social unity, one in which Afro-Caribbean
culture will hopefully not be subsumed under a new form of domination as
in the past.
The Cuban revolution gave new impetus to the search for national
identity in other areas of the Caribbean, because it demonstrated the
extent of U.S. domination, in cultural as well as economic terms. (19)
The ability of Cuba to stand up to the U.S. superpower strengthened the
hand of the Caribbean intelligentsia who sought to reaffirm national
values in opposition to U.S. cultural and economic domination. This can
be seen clearly in Alcantara's analysis of black images in Dominican
literature. Because of its proximity to Haiti and bitter memory of
Haitian occupation, racist attitudes in the Dominican Republic have been
particularly strong. In fact, the Dominican sense of nationhood has been
formed in opposition to the black republic of Haiti, and it has
historically defined itself as white, Catholic and Spanish. (20) The
Dominican dictator, Rafael Trujillo, could even attempt to deny his
blackness with the slaughter of 30,000 Haitians in 1937. During those
years, the Dominican Republic had to defend itself against dictatorship,
bitter civil strife and American occupation. The fall of Trujillo in 1961
signalled a cultural renaissance in which, according to Alcantara,
sociopolitical questions dominate, but the old thesis of the black's
inferiority was also debated and revised. One of the most significant
results is a new generation of black Dominican writers depicting
Afro-Caribbean culture as they see it, as opposed to the largely white
perspective of the past.
We do not mean to imply that the search for national identity and the
interest in the Afro-Caribbean heritage started with the Cuban revolution.
Although the revolution undoubtedly gave new strength to these movements,
their historical roots go back much earlier in the century, to the
Afro-Antillean movement.in Cuba, the negritude movement in the
French-speaking Caribbean and the Garvey movement in Jamaica and other
parts of the Anglophone Caribbean (and Cuba, where the Garvey movement
had many followers). Then, as now, the Caribbean was reacting to U.S.
influence and control, which ranged from the mass media to direct military
occupation. Then, as now, interest in the Afro-Caribbean heritage was
stimulated by the development of socialist and social democratic movements
-t
19
championing the popular classes.
Migration and Cultural Identity
The article by Jose del Castillo and Martin Murphy points to the
importance of migration for the formation of cultural identity in the
Dominican Republic, and by extension, to the rest of the Caribbean.
Though most attention is now given to Caribbean emigration to the U.S.,
they also document the importance of immigration from Europe, the Middle
East and the other Caribbean islands to the Dominican Republic,
particularly during the 19th and early 20th century. The apparent ease
with which these various immigrant groups were absorbed into Dominican
society reaffirms the strength of the "assimilation model" in the Hispanic
Caribbean, rooted in the vitality of the local Creole culture.(21) The
assimilation model provided a framework for racial and cultural synthesis
incorporating not only Afro-Caribbean elements but various other ethnic
groups as well.
The greatest challenge to this assimilation model now canes from two
sources: massive Haitian immigration to the Dominican Republic, primarily
as sugarcane laborers, and large-scale Dominican emigration to the U.S.,
again chiefly as unskilled labor. Given the traditional hostility toward
Haitians and the fear of being overrun by blacks, Haitian immigration may
be contributing to the heightened emphasis on Spanish ideology in the
official culture and among the intellectual elite, noted in the article by
Del Castillo and Murphy. On the other hand, Dominicans who have emigrated
to the U.S. are experiencing a new form of black racial consciousness
resulting from their discrimination in the U.S. as a group for the first
time.(22) It will be interesting to see whether the assimilation model
can withstand these challenges, which pull it in opposite directions, or
whether the concept of racial and cultural synthesis will be questioned in
the Dominican Republic as well.
Increased racial consciousness is also evident in Flores' analysis of
Puerto Rican identity in the U.S. Puerto Ricans have identified with
blacks more than other Hispanic migrants in the U.S., perhaps because they
now share a common history of ghetto culture and exploitation, which other
minority groups are only beginning to undergo. This is more evident in
the music, dance and poetry coming out of this shared experience, than in
-political struggles, which still tend to be quite divisive despite efforts
to unify these important minority groups. In Flores' terms, Puerto Rican
identity in the U.S. signifies a rejection of assimilation into the
dominant core culture, and a thrust "toward self-affirmation and
association with other cultures caught up in comparable processes of
historical recovery and strategic resistance."
The reasons behind this ethnic revitalization movement among
Caribbean migrants to the U.S. have been analyzed by Safa elsewhere(23).
Undoubtedly the barriers to assimilation, particularly race, led these
ethnic groups to reject cultural assimilation into a society from which
they had always been structurally excluded as equals. Flores posits a new
formulation of cultural integration, one which even rejects cultural
pluralism as a model since it still implies fitting into a given ethnic
mosaic. While the basis for his rejection of the dominant culture is
largely political, Flores appears to share a concept of culture close to
that of Sarduy, with its emphasis on the maintenance of distinct cultural
elements which relate to each other in the form of a bricolage. But the
questions raised earlier regarding the basis for social integration
remain, and become more acute in the U.S. setting. Can ethnic minorities
in the U.S. maintain a notion of cultural and racial separatism in the
face of the powerful and pervasive pressures toward assimilation?
Certainly the history of the Black Power movement in the U.S. suggests
eventual accanodation, although on the basis of greater self-respect and
self-esteem. Perhaps separatism is a necessary stage in the formation of
a positive self image among racial and ethnic minorities who have long
been-noppressed and debased by the dominant culture.
While one can understand the political need for Flores' call for
ethnic separatism and revitalization, there are several questions arising
from his analysis. First, how does Flores' image of amalgamation among
Third World ethnic groups in the U.S. take into account the bitter
conflict now existing among these groups, even among Hispanics like Puerto
Ricans and Dominicans, and of course Cubans, who see themselves as largely
middle class and still resist identification as an ethnic minority?
Undoubtedly migration has stimulated the emergence of a wider
pan-Caribbean identity, as migrants lose their island particularism and
are subjected to similar racial and ethnic stigmas and processes of
proletarianization in the U.S. Again, the sense of unity and
intermingling may be more evident in the arts (which Flores emphasizes)
than in political or economic terms, where competition between groups is
22
still the norm.
Secondly, what are the importance of class and generational
differences in the formation of Puerto Rican identity in the U.S.? Flores
speaks primarily for the Nuyorican, born and bred in the barrios of New
York City, for whom Puerto Rican popular culture is as much an expression
of increasing class consciousness as of national identity. He does not
speak for the island-born Puerto Ricans who continue to see return to the
island as the solution to their problems. Nor does he speak for the
significant proportion of middle-class Puerto Ricans in the U.S., who can
more easily assimilate into the dominant culture and do not, as Flores,
reject this as a goal. Their primary emphasis on upward mobility forces
them to accomodate to U.S. values.
Thirdly, how can ethnic separatism persist in the face of the
increasing xenophobia now gripping the U.S. as a result, in part, of the
influx of migrants and refugees from the Caribbean, Latin American and
Asia.? The 1980 Cuban refugees from Mariel along with the Haitian boat
people and the continued influx of undocumented aliens from Mexico and
Central America has made many people in the U.S. feel that the country has
lost control of its borders, and by extension, its very identity. This
identity was predicated for a long time on the superiority of white
Anglo-Saxon culture, which writers such as Flores and others are now
challenging by calls for resistance to assimilation and ethnic
revitalization.
While the racist implications of the myth of Anglo-Saxon superiority
need to be challenged, there is a danger that increasingly polarization
r
- 4 I
23
will lead to a backlash against all immigration, as well as attacks on
bilingual education and other programs designed to benefit Puerto Ricans
and other migrant groups. Immigrant groups are changing the nature of
U.S. society, but we need to find a new basis for social unity and
cultural identity in which these diverse groups can be accomodated.
Conclusion: Cultural Policy and Cultural Identity in the Caribbean
Undoubtedly, the search for cultural identity in the Caribbean is
made more acute by the massive exposure to the U.S. in the current period.
This exposure is facilitated by Caribbean migration to the U.S.,
particularly the circulatory type which is increasingly the norm in most
areas. Some scholars feel migration will only result in deculturation and
a loss of cultural identity, while others argue that it may be
contributing to the cultural revitalization and increased recognition of
the Afro-Caribbean heritage in the region. The intense debate among
Puerto Rican scholars on the validity of a "separate" Nuyorican culture is
illustrative of the problem. For Flores and others, Nuyorican culture is
no longer regarded as a mere offshoot of the island, but as a new cultural.
expression with its roots on the island.
With the exception of Puerto Rico and possibly Cuba, Caribbean
governments have tended to ignore the impact of migration on the cultural
identity and even socio-economic structure of the sending society. In the
Dominican Republic, for example, the official view tends to regard most
migrants as poor rural folk, whose loss does not represent a great drain
to the society. Their only value is seen in the large-scale remittances
in-U.S. dollars which help to bolster the nation's faltering economy.
This view is obstinately upheld, despite an increasing number of studies
documenting the urban, middle class nature of the migration, not only from
the Dominican Republic, but also other Caribbean areas.(24)
The other threat to cultural identity in the contemporary Caribbean
is the massive influence of the U.S. mass media, analyzed in the paper by
Aggrey Brown. While the influence of the U.S. mass media is not new to
the region, it has grown with the increasing technical sophistication of
these media manifest in satellite broadcasting, home video viewing, cable
TV and other electronic devices. The cost of this new technology has put
it beyond the reach of most small producers, including local governments
-in-the Commonwealth Caribbean who are increasingly forced to rely on relay
transmissions, with the result that 85 percent of all programming
originates outside the area.
There is a real danger that the massive cultural penetration which
the mass media represents will suffocate the resurgent forms of
Afro-Caribbean culture described by Nettleford and others. Yet Brown
notes that political leaders in the Commonwealth Caribbean seem
unconcerned with this threat to their cultural identity, and have tended
to utilize the media for their own partisan political concerns. The same
is true of the Hispanic Caribbean, with the exception of Cuba, where
government control of the mass media is carefully exercised. In fact,
there is probably a longer history of exposure to the U.S. mass media in
the Hispanic Caribbean, since the ties to Britain somewhat shielded the
Anglophone islands in the pre-independence period. (25)
25
Till now, the Caribbean has managed to retain a sense of cultural
identity despite centuries of colonialism and foreign domination. In
fact, we have argued that the sense of cultural identity is stronger than
ever, as manifest in the fluorescence of Afro-Caribbean popular culture,
and the resilience of Creole identity. But, increasingly, as the paper by
Del Castillo and Murphy points out, Caribbean nations are being asked to
define what is meant by criollo, to define the nature of creole culture
and to determine its historical origins. The definition of criollo can no
longer be subsumed under notions like la gran familiar puertorriquena based
on a rural patriarchal order of the past. The Caribbean can no longer
turn exclusively to Europe (or the United States) for its cultural models.
It must look to its own Afro-Caribbean roots to nourish indigenous forms.
In this search, cultural policy can play a critical role in encouraging
the development of indigenous forms of popular culture and in revealing
the racist and Eurocentric bias in the models of the past.
In this brief essay, we have tried to point out some of the major
issues with which such a cultural policy must deal. It must pay more
attention to the historical roots of cultural identity in the Caribbean,
with particular emphasis on the Afro-Caribbean contribution which has been
so long neglected in both the Anglophone and Hispanophone areas. It must
examine the impact of major events such as the Cuban revolution (and
conversely the Grenada invasion) on Caribbean people's sense of self-worth
and self-awareness. And it must look at the changes which migration is
bringing about in the Caribbean concept of nationhood and national
identity.
r
Notes
1. Cited in Gordon K. Lewis, Main Currents in Caribbean Thought.
Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1983, p. 106.
2. James Anthony Froude, The English in the West Indies. New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1888, p. 287.
3. Michael Horowitz, ed., People and Cultures of the Caribbean.
4. The Voice of St. Lucia, for example, carried several items about
the incident. The citation is from a letter published in The
Voice of November 13, 1941 from the editor of the Barbados
Advocate newspaper.
5. V.S. Naipual, "Power to the Caribbean People." In, David
Lowenthal and Lambros Comitas editors, The Aftermath of
Sovereignty: West Indian Perspectives. Garden City, New York,
Anchor Books, 1973, and David Lowenthal, West Indian Societies.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1972.
6. Eduardo Seda Bonilla, Requiem por una Cultura. Rio Piedras,
Puerto Rico: Editorial Edil, 1970.
7 See, for example, Sidney W. Mintz and Richard Price, An
Anthropological Approach to the Afro-American Past: A
Caribbean Perspective. Occasional Papers in Social Change 2.
Philadelphia: ISHI, 1976.
8. Charles V. Carnegie, "Strategic Flexibility in the West Indies:
A Social Psychology of Caribbean Migration." Caribbean Review
II, (1), 1982.
9. Lee Drummond "The Cultural Continuum: A Theory of Intersystems."
Ian. Vol. 15, June 1980, pp. 352-274.
10. R.T. Smith, "Social Stratification, Cultural-Pluralism, and
Integration in West Indian Societies," in Caribbean Integration:
Papers on Social, Political and Economic Integration. Rio
Piedras, Puerto Rico: Institute of Caribbean Studies, University
of Puerto Rico, 1967. pp. 226-258.
11. Franklin W. Knight, The Caribbean. New York: Oxford University
Press.
12. Constance Sutton and Susan Makiesky, "1iigration and liest Indian
Racial and Ethnic Consciousness," in Migration and Development,
H. Safa, ed. Chicago: Aldine, pp. 113-145.
& 4 W* ,
2
13. Franklin Knight, op. cit.
14. Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria, this volume "Literature and Cuban
Cultural Identity: Sarduy reads Vitier."
15. Lee Drummond, op. cit.. p. 370.
16. See for example, Franklin Knight, op. cit. Sidney Mintz,
op. cit.. Gordon Lewis, op. cit.
17. For a scathing attack'on Castro's policies toward Afro-Cuban
culture, see Antonio lenitez Rojo, "La Cultura CaribeiTa en Cuba:
Continuidad versus Ruptura." Cuban Studies, Vol. 14, (1),
Winter 1984.
13. The pro-Castro viewpoint is.presented by the well-known Cuoan
writer and ethnographer, 'iiguel Barnet, "The Culture that Sugar
Created." Hispanic American Literary Review, Vol. VIII, ;Io. 16,
Spring-Summer 1980, pp. 33-46.
19. Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria, "Literature of the Hispanic
Caribbean." Hispanic American Literary Review, Vol. VIII,
No. 16, Sprin--Suamer 1980, pp. 1-20.
w .' -
3
20. Frank Moya Pons, "Dominican National Identity and Return
Migration," Occasional Paper No. 1. Caribbean Higration
Program, Center for Latin American Studies, University of
Florida. Gainesville, Florida, October 1981, pp. 23-33.
21. Sidney Hintz, "Caribbean Nationhood: An Anthropological
Perspective," in Caribbean Transformations. Baltimore: The
Johns Hopkins University Press, paperback edition 1984.
22. Frank Iloya Pons, op. cit.
23. Helen I. Safa, "Caribbean iligration to the United States," in
Different People: Studies in Ethnicity and Education. E.'Gumbert,
ed., Atlanta: Center for Cross-Cultural Education, Georgia State
University, 1983.
24. David Bray, "Strategies of Industrialization and International
Labor Migration: A Comparison of Puerto Rico, Jamaica and the
Dominican Republic, 1945-75." Paper presented at the IX annual
meeting of the Caribbean Studies Association, June 1984.
25. Franklin W. Knight, "United States Cultural Influences on the
English-speaking Caribbean during the Twentieth Century."
4
Working paper #11, Centro de Investigaciones del Caribe y America
Latina (CISCLA), Universidad de Puerto Rico, San German, Puerto
Rico..
|
RSS
HIDE
