What Does it Mean to be "Indigenous" Today in the Caribbean?

A new forum discussion has been started on the Indigenous Caribbean Network. Depending on the level of interest, we might take this into the new chat room on the ICN. The outline of the intent of the discussion is as follows:

Indigenous can be read in many different ways. Some link the idea of indigenous to notions of race, to being "Amerindian", to ideas of ancient ancestry that predates that of all other groups resident in a given territory. Others see indigenous as being local, as belonging here, as being native in a broad sense.

Sometimes the differences in these ideas of indigenous can occasion real struggles, for example, the way the Guyanese Organisation of Indigenous People wants the Guyanese Government to stop using the term Amerindian (as in Minister of Amerindian Affairs) and to use the term indigenous when speaking only of those who have been called Amerindian. The government refuses, thus far, saying that all Guyanese are indigenous, as in native, as in born in Guyana and belonging in Guyana.

There doesn't appear to be a "correct" answer here that everyone will agree with, let alone a simple solution. I think the best we can do is to fully air all possible sides on this issue. Can "indigenous" in the Caribbean today really be a matter of "race"? Is indigenous rooted in DNA percentages? What do you think?

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INDIGENOUS POLITICS: FROM NATIVE NEW ENGLAND AND BEYOND

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"INDIGENOUS POLITICS: FROM NATIVE NEW ENGLAND AND BEYOND"
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On Tuesday, October 23rd, join your host, Dr. J. Kehaulani Kauanui for a look at the politics of Taino identity. The Tainos are the indigenous inhabitants of the Caribbean Islands. When Columbus landed at Hispaniola while trying to find an alternative route to India, he named the inhabitants "Indians." Today, many Taino-identified Caribbean people are challenging the official doctrine that has declared the Tainos extinct.

Listen to Dr. Marianela Medrano-Marra's lecture, "The Divine Feminine in the Taino Tradition," which was delivered at the Yale Peabody Museum on Indigenous Peoples Day, October 8, 2007. This program also features an interview with Jorge Estevez, Taino from Kiskeya (also known as the Dominican Republic), and Valerie Nana Ture Vargas, Taino from Boriken (also known as Puerto Rico) on the politics of Columbus Day and indigenous identities.

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Congress of the People and Trinidad's Caribs

In "Dookeran pays tribute to the Caribs," an article that appeared in Trinidad's Newsday on June 9, 2007, Winston Dookeran, the leader of the opposition Congress of the People (COP),

has paid tribute to the indigenous people of Trinidad and Tobago, mainly the Caribs, and urged the country not to forget the contribution they made to its development. Dookeran made the call on Wednesday night during his address at the seminar — A Rich Heritage a Common Future in celebration of our First People — at Legacy Hall, Sanchez Street, Arima. He said the COP is committed to the construction of a “national character” and in so doing cannot forget the sacrifice of the country’s indigenous foreparents. Dookeran said he is aware of the many challenges faced by the descendants of indigenous people and expressed the firm conviction that the fragile community is already threatened by the trends of Western society and must be preserved. He said most people will agree that not enough had been done to support the Carib community of Arima in a country that possesses so much wealth. “It is high time that we learn to respect the memory and contribution of those who came before us,” said Dookeran. “It is important that we pay debt of gratitude to the Santa Rosa festival and tribute to the descendants in spite of the hurdles they had to overcome.”

It is interesting to see that, increasingly, national political parties visit Arima and court it's "indigenous heritage" in making their pitches for national unity, as part of their campaigns to attain national office. This was rarely the case before the current millennium. Why this is starting to happen with greater frequency now is an interesting question.

Where Dookeran does not depart from the past is in his resort to a standard menu for framing Trinidad's indigenous people, in terms of past "contributions"--indeed, contributions to "national development," which supposedly occurred prior to the nation, in fact, prior to "development" itself. Caribs are memory, and sacrifice, part of the long and painful quest to achieve national independence--it is a laudable, even heroic theme, but it is also nostalgic and abandons Trinidad's Amerindians to history, speaking of Caribs today as "descendants."

(For those of you who may be asking if Dookeran is East Indian, one can only say he is a "descendant.")

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Twelve percent American Indian?

It is more than a little disturbing to see the relative ease which writers in major mainstream news media exhibit when reporting that a person is "12 percent American Indian." This weighing of indigenous cultural identity on a scale, as if it were a sack of grain, not to mention the imposition of questions of "authenticity" (as if these persons were objects), is one of the perverse outcomes of the rise of DNA testing technology coupled with debates over membership in indigenous communities, and ownership of indigenous cultural artifacts. The most recent example, among a series, was authored by Ellen Rosen, in The New York Times (Sunday, Aug. 18, 2007) in an article titled, "Latest Genealogy Tools Create a Need to Know." The caption to the opening photograph states: "Through a DNA test, Dr. Holden found out that she is 12 percent American Indian." Not only that, she is yet another descendant of a "princess," which is an amazing accomplishment for someone whose indigenous ancestors knew no royal or noble titles. Apparently pricesses made for incredibly prolific breeders, as it is virtually impossible to find anyone who claims to be the descendant of a "commoner."

An American comedian--Stephen Colbert--recently claimed to have undergone some testing that revealed he was 75% Jewish, which gave him ample material for jokes about getting a "three quarters circumcision" or telling three fourths of a Jewish joke. When it comes to American Indian or indigenous identity, the subject no longer becomes the stuff of jokes, which it really deserves to be. I would hate to be a 12 percent American Indian in a debate about indigenous issues with a 13 percent American Indian.