Foreword. Always on the Move

Transcription

1 Always on the Move Anton Allahar The English-speaking Caribbean is closely associated with the movement of people. All the way from the indigenous sea-going Caribs to the African slaves brought through the Middle Passage to the East Indian indentured servants who crossed the dark waters to the modern period, Caribbean people are noted for their movement. Whether it is to the beat of their lively music, to visit friends, to take on new adventures in new lands or to make the journey back home, they are constantly on the move, and that constant movement has fitted them for most social encounters. This is why George Lamming sees the creolized Caribbean person as possessed of great cultural capital and as more than the sum of national groupings that went into her or his making: No Indian from India, no European, no African can adjust with greater ease and naturalness to new situations (Lamming 1960, 34). The themes of travel, departure and return define much of Caribbean history and literature; they are linked with the above-mentioned ideas of both home and movement. These are recurrent motifs that reflect the postcolonial condition where the forced migrations associated with slavery and indentureship are the backdrops against which post-colonial Caribbean peoples now seek to establish diasporic existences and to fashion a new way in the world (Naipaul 1995), and also, more recently, to contemplate a return to their Caribbean homes. These twice-migrants (first from Africa and India and then from the Caribbean) are today reacting to the initial trauma of ix

2 Given the earlier arrival and greater numbers of Africans, African- Caribbean sensibilities and sensitivities have come to define most of the region s identity politics. There are Middle Eastern-, Chinese-, Europeanand East Indian-descended populations in both the Caribbean and the Caribbean diasporas across the world, but it is to the African element that most attention is paid, and when independence came to these Englishspeaking countries, it was said to be black in complexion. Hence, those immigrants who claim African ancestry see the Caribbean as both home and an African diasporic home away from home. However, any talk of return migration must take into account the racial differentiation of Caribbean populations, the considerable racialization of popular political consciousness today, and the attempts of those non-african peoples to carve a space for their own Caribbean-derived identities within the Caribbean itself and in the diaspora (Allahar 1998). Here the politics of diaspora are increasingly tied to the politics of home, for whether in exile abroad or at home in the Caribbean, the connection to an African homex forced removal from their ancestral lands and have embraced a form of identity politics informed by a spiritual yearning for rootedness and symbolic return to home. Facing economic hardships, racism and general social exclusion in the new country, the migrants often find it comforting to think of home as a paradise that is free from the social malaises of their adopted countries. Thus, it is common for such immigrants to develop and propagate myths of the Caribbean as a place with economic and racial equality, with a deep sense of community caring and civic pride where everyone knows everyone and where everybody looks out for everybody. And as is well known, for a variety of social and psychological reasons, immigrants can come to believe these myths are true and even base decisions to return on those beliefs. The difficulty is that they seek to return with new baggage acquired in their years of exile (in Lamming s thinking), with new ideas and with hopes of reclaiming a home that is no longer there. In many cases, this has led to great disillusionment, at times even anger, as the comforting myths that were created to buffer the harsher aspects of a life of voluntary exile are quickly shattered. Diasporic Community and Identity

3 xi land is the centrepiece of much contemporary Afrocentric politics (Allahar 2004). For this reason, the concept of diaspora has come to figure so prominently in the common political parlance of today. In Caribbean diasporic communities around the world, those first generation immigrants, who opted some four or five decades ago for a sort of voluntary exile, have managed to make their marks on their host societies. For cultural change is a two-way process, and as Edwin Carrington has pointed out in the case of Europe, the Caribbean s economic and cultural influence on Europe also needs to be created frontally. Their wealth may no longer fuel the advancement of Europe but they continue to provide significant political/cultural dimensions to Europe s own way of life and represent vital linkages in Europe s outreach for international influence (Carrington 1991, xi xii). Obviously, however, it is not just in Europe, for the Caribbean immigrant in New York, Boston, Toronto, Montreal, and so on, has had a clear economic, political and cultural impact on those cities and societies, and these are the points of departure for return migration among firstgeneration immigrants. Return to the Source As is well documented, the most significant out-migration of Caribbean peoples began in the post World War II period when largely unskilled jobs in the various European and North American capitals were plentiful. Facing the trauma of uprooting in the early years and not yet having the comfort and security of a critical mass of like-cultured compatriots, those immigrants faced all kinds of problems associated with racial discrimination, cultural misunderstanding, police harassment, unemployment and inadequate housing. By the late 1950s and early 1960s, as their numbers began to grow, West Indians in such cities as London, Birmingham, New York, Boston, Toronto and Montreal began to establish the first institutions of diasporic communities: a home away from home. These usually assumed the form of popular cultural institutions such as churches, restaurants, barber shops, hair dressing salons, cultural festivals like carnivals (notably in Notting Hill, Brooklyn and Toronto), sporting clubs and some professional associations. With the passage of time, many members of that first generation became more culturally settled and more financially secure. By the 1970s they

4 xii began to marry and produce a second-generation Trinidadian Canadian, Jamaican American, Barbadian English. Now at or nearing retirement years, they find themselves with sufficient accumulated resources to contemplate a return to home to spend those years in freedom: free from want, free of the winter, free of the hustle and bustle of having to work for a living, free of racism, and free of the sense of being an other. They can be whole people once more, and for many this is very compelling. Owing to post-war affluence and the heavy emphasis that Caribbean people have traditionally placed on education, this immigrant cohort has done quite well, which afforded them the opportunity to make more frequent trips back home. Their children, on the other hand, still facing racial discrimination and exclusion in their countries of birth, began to identify with and embrace their parents home as their home, and they came to adopt their parents cultural icons as theirs. This was given a great boost with the simultaneous rise to world prominence of Bob Marley and the reggae craze that swept Europe and North America, followed by the successful export of soca music, the appearance of outstanding sportsmen like Brian Lara and Dwight Yorke, and even the pride in Nobel laureates Arthur Lewis, Derek Walcott and V.S. Naipaul. That first generation, who, in the early days, used to have to pay as much as ten dollars per minute to call the Caribbean, were aided by technological advances in the 1980s and onward that saw the phenomenon of the overseas phone call at less than a dollar a minute and the evolution of (and, of course, the Internet) that put them in daily contact with news and developments back home. Suddenly, coupled with cheaper air fares, home was a great deal closer, and the initial alienation that accompanied their immigration to foreign lands began to dissolve. Added to this is the fact that, whether through the remittance of money, the cultural impact of multiple vacation trips or even the Caribbean person s penchant for travel abroad to visit friends and family, diasporas have exercised a decided impact on home matters. Indeed, owing to the forces of globalization, much of the Caribbean s popular culture, for example, is now produced and packaged in the diasporas (New York, Toronto and London). Recording studios based in the imperialist centres do the music, foreign factories fabricate most of the textiles and other materials for the carnival costumes, and in the Trinidad carnival, whole bands of masqueraders are known to travel home for the festival. Interestingly, too, because one soca or reggae performance in the New York, Miami or Toronto diaspora will net

5 xiii performers far more money than they would make at home, the promoters of Caribbean concerts outside the region can get performers to forgo significant Caribbean gigs in favour of foreign engagements. Conclusion Now that migration is understood as a circular process, it implies not only leaving home but also a return to home. Return is seen as tied to a yearning for reconnection with family, friends and all that is familiar and suggests comfort. For, as noted earlier, in the modern globalized world, alienation and rootlessness associated with living in huge, impersonal, fast-paced, industrial megalopolises have served to isolate people from traditional communities of meaning and acceptance. These are the motivating forces behind the modern search for, maybe even preoccupation with, identity and belonging (identity politics of race, ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation, nationalism and so on), which also speak to the Caribbean immigrant and her or his urge to return to the source. In sum, then, for the individual in the diaspora, a Caribbean identity usually implies a crisis of belonging commonly experienced by the minority ethnic migrant, uprooted from the familiarity of home, cut adrift and all alone in a new land, feeling insecure and sometimes scared. The human condition, both today and in earlier times, is such that humans prefer to imagine a time when life was better, simpler and more predictable. Especially for those who, for whatever reasons, will feel physically, emotionally and psychologically displaced (for example, migrants and refugees), it is important and comforting to remember or even to invent the idea of the good old days. That memory or invention is what lies behind much return migration, for as the challenges of migrant living mount, migrants can always harbour the idea of going back home. It is like having a psychological escape valve, and just knowing it is there and can be activated whenever one wishes, gives one the strength to persevere and to give exile one more shot. Nostalgic recollections and even invention of what home was like provide cures for feelings of homelessness and alienation. It gives migrants security and familiarity about home and kinship, and it also tells them who they are and where they came from, all in an unbroken chain of generations. This provides a sense of continuity and comfort that guides migrants in their daily quest for meaning

6 xiv and belonging in life and can, eventually, play a key role in any decision to return home (Smith 1984). References Allahar, A.L Popular Culture and the Racialisation of Political Consciousness in Trinidad. Wadabagei: Journal of the Caribbean and Its Diaspora 1 (2): Ethnic Entrepreneurship and Nationalism in Trinidad: Afrocentrism and Hindutva. Social and Economic Studies 53 (2): Carrington, E Europe and the Caribbean, ed. P. Sutton. London: Macmillan. Lamming, G The Pleasures of Exile. London: Michael Joseph. Naipaul, V.S A Way in the World: A Novel. New York: Vintage. Smith, A.D National Identity and Myths of Ethnic Descent. Research in Social Movements, Conflict and Change 7: