Diasporic Cultures in the Caribbean and Caribbean Literature

• Diasporic Cultures in the Caribbean and Caribbean Literature: An Overview Pinchia Feng 馮品佳 NCTU

Diasporic Cultures in the Caribbean • “The Caribbean is a region in which the aboriginal communities [Amerindians-- Arawaks, Caribs, etc. ] were virtually exterminated, and replaced by peoples from Africa, Asia and Europe. ” -Louis James • names: West Indies/ the Antilles/ the Caribbean

Map of the Caribbean

Images of the Caribbean 1 • Jan van de Straet’s engraving “America”--the new world as a woman

Images of the Caribbean 2 • John Stedman • slave family life • image of happy slaves

Caribbean Literature--Chronology 1 • 1492 -96 Columbus’s “discovery” of the West Indies • 1808 Britain and USA abolished slave trade • 1838 complete abolition of slavery in British colonies • 1845 East Indian indentured laborers in Trinidad; Chinese indenture in French colonies • 1950 “colonization in reverse”: West Indian migration to England

“Colonization in Reverse” • • What a joyful news, Miss Mattie; Ah feel like me heart gwine burs-Jamaica people colonizin Englan in verse • • By de hundred, by de tousan From country an from town, By de ship-load, by the plane-load, Jamaica is Englan boun.

• • Dem a pout a Jamaica; Everybody future plan Is fi get a big-time job An settle in de motherlan • • • What a islan! What a people! Man an woman, ole and young Jussa pack dem bag an baggage An tun history upside dung! --Louis Bennett

Caribbean Literature--Chronology 2 • 1958 -62 The Federation of the West Indies • 1962 independence for Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago; restrictions imposed on West Indian immigration to Britain • 1966 independence for Barbados and Guyana

Caribbean Literature--Overview 1 • Edward Kamau Brathwaite--“Little Tradition” (the culture of ordinary people) vs “Great Tradition”--the writer functions in, from, for his own society (cultural nationalism) • V. S. Naipaul--writer’s “self-cultivation” to get out of West Indies, a “destitute, ” sterile void

Caribbean Literature--Overview 2 • “New Day”--London West Indies • importance of West Indian poetry since Independence--openness to pop culture and esp. to music (reggae and calypso); appeal of public performance; acceptance of social responsibility -poetry has a “function” (poetry vs fiction as a middle-class genre) • amateur poetic practice in the WI

Artistic Expressions of Caribbean Creolization � Caribbean Spirituality See http: //www. eng. fju. edu. tw/worl dlit/photos/caribbean_arts. html