One of the things attracting tourists has taught us is to value the habit of preservation. We have to depend on devoted scholars and archeology diggers and always, tenacious individuals like Dr. Walter Roth. He was a medical man of German stock who moved to Guyana by way of Australia and was the moving spirit in the rise of Georgetown's museum of natural history. As a youth I made many trips to this museum and was fascinated by its presentation and displays; for instance the diorama of gold-digging operations in the far interior, the lighted fish tanks with fish such as the blood-thirsty pirai, a lifelike representation on the wall of the world's biggest freshwater fish, the arapaima, caught in Guyana. A huge live anaconda pans have all but vanished.
It may also have helped English-speaking migrants from the Caribbean that Florida served as a broad entry point for Caribbean migrants from Cuba, Haiti, and other countries: Where an area has a strong tradition of immigration, prevailing social attitudes are not likely to be as parochial as those in traditionally closed communities. Again, this is not to minimize the difficulties that particular migrants have faced; it is to acknowledge the fairly obvious point that some communities are less impenetrable for outsiders than others. A recent study by the British Cabinet Office has found that Caribbean women constitute a significant success story at the professional level. Specifically, for the generation born between 1940 and 1959, as many as 45 percent of the black women from the Caribbean, or who are of Caribbean heritage, now hold professional or managerial jobs, as against 27.3 percent of the black men in the same category. For the generation born between 1960 and 1979, 38.1 percent of the black women with Caribbean roots are professionals or managers, in comparison with 28.6 percent of the black men. These figures warn us that gender is now a significant factor in determining the prospects of Caribbean migrants to Britain, and they highlight the need for a broader examination of the factors that determine success for those who, in Claude McKay's words, may find themselves "a long way from home."
The genesis of these carnivals carries the intent of resisting on some level, by Caribbean migrants, the otherwise alienating conditions of life in migration, to "carnivalise" these landscapes with some of the joy and space commensurate with Caribbean carnival. Indeed, Caribbean intellectual contributions have had successful impact on the development of U.S., European and African thought. Still, the Caribbean in most imaginings, and in particular to those who do not know it well, is the place of "sun and fun," a vacation land devoid of serious engagement with the world. Caribbean carnival then is the climax of all those "sun and fun" constructions. Yet, there is a history and politics to carnival - a "carnival of resistance" beyond the outer face of "carnival of tourism" - that demands exposure.
August 14, 1991, will mark the Bicentennial of the "Bios-Caiman" ceremony which led to the general insurrection of the slaves of St. Dominique on the night of the 22nd and dawn of the 23 of August 1791. That gave us: the first triumphant anti-slavery movement. After 121⁄2 years of fierce fighting independence was obtained in Haiti on January 1, 1804. History perceived the ceremony of August 14, 1791, in a confused manner. They will also have space available for Vendors at the encouraging price of $25.00. Inquire now for spaces are limited. Planned Events 14th of August 1991: Conference at Toussaint Louverture Elementary School. Guests: Anthropologist, Ernest Mirville, Wolley Enriquez Ethnology, Claude Charles, Professor, Jean-Claude Exullien.
These articles mostly concerned [Castro]'s cracking down on terrorism and crime committed against tourists in Cuba. In reaction to incidents of hotel bombings, and in one case, the murder of an Italian tourist, Castro's government had passed a series of strict new laws to deter crimes that would further injure the country's leading source of foreign currency - tourism. One evening in Santago de Cuba, I was discussing the race issue with a few Cuban friends, among whom was a loyal Castro supporter who had fought for four years in Angola with the Cuban army. He argued that what was happening in his country wasn't so much a problem of racism as it was an honest attempt on Castro's part to protect the country's main source of revenue, tourism, upon which the U.S. embargo had made Cuba dependent. Although the once-again blatant debasing of my friend's civil rights incensed me, I did understand his point. Most of the tourists now coming to Cuba are from predominately white European countries, or they are upper-class whites from Latin America. Most of the tourists now coming to Cuba are from predominately white European countries, or they are upper-class whites from Latin America. Most of these white tourists come to Cuba with racism ingrained in them from their own cultures. In fact, it is unofficially acknowledged that a large percentage of the foreign currency in Cuba comes from sex tourism, which generally comprises white men drawn to Cuba by the lure of "exotic" mulatto women.
Mayor [Rudolph Giuliani] proclaimed Monday, August 4, "Jamaica Independence Day" in the city. He presented Jamaica's consul general to New York - Fay Baxter-Collins - and Jamaica's permanent representative to the United Nations - Ambassador Patricia Durrant - with a written proclamation of "Jamaica Independence Day".
Friday, Oct. 29 was Kweyol Day, a celebration of island identity and culture. While the official language of the Commonwealth of Dominica is English, 80 percent of the population speak Kweyol, a legacy of early French settlement. Kweyol language and folk culture, after being sidelined, dismissed or denigrated during the British colonial period, has played an important role in forging the identity of independent Dominica since 1978. People's irritation with a late start was quickly dissolved. After the Stars, the Vodou rhythms of Haiti's seminal roots music band Boukman Eksperyans reverberated through Festival City. Named after the Vodou priest who presided over the ceremony that ignited Haiti's slave rebellion, Boukman Eksperyans has been at the forefront of taking the Vodou beat into the arena of world music. Tabou Combo, the most famous and long-lived Haitian Konpa band, seemed reluctant to leave the stage, but from 5 a.m., Festival City was overrun by WCK, [Dominica]'s marathon bouyon band, with whom I was still chipping at breakfast time. Not even a large pot of extra-strong Dominican coffee could revive me, and I retired battered and rambling in Kweyol, to recover in Trinidad.
Talk to Richard Lue and it becomes clear that not nearly enough Caribbean people are heading `home'. Neither are enough African Americans trying to discover the Caribbean, although their connection with the culture has long been established in the U.S. That's why Lue was appointed Air Jamaica's regional manager for special markets in the southern U.S. Another Air Jamaica representative has been given similar responsibilities for the northern states. "It wasn't neglect," said Lue. "It just wasn't accountability. We've always been there. The problem was internally. We feel we can get more out of that (Caribbean) market." "To me it's no big deal," he said. "The problems in Jamaica are serious, but Jamaica has never been an easy sell. But it is a challenge. It is because of 9/11 that we realized we had to diversify our markets and give importance to all the markets. The challenge is there, but we just have to deliver."
Tanya Quintero, a light-skinned mulatta and prominent independent journalist in Havana, said she was not aware of racial discrimination until she had a daughter with darker skin the than she. Suddenly, some of her friends referred to her child with a Spanish phrase that literally translates as "sour or dark stomach" but figuratively is slang for "a child who comes out darker than her mother," she said. Lighter-skinned children later made fun of her daughter for being a "marron," brown. Also the millions of dollars in "remittances" that Cubans in the United States and elsewhere send their relatives back on the island very year reach few "black" Cubans because more than 90 percent of the exiles are "white." As a result, the long-standing economic gap between darker and lighter Cubans widens. I use quotation marks around "black" and "white" because the terms don't mean the same as they do in the United States, with our traditional "one-drop rule." Race in Cuba, as in the rest of Latin America, is somewhat fluid: You are pretty much what you say you are, even within the same family.
Another established Caribbean tradition runs counter to the claim that racism there is unusual and of recent origin. This is the tendency to account for a person's character by identifying the racial identity of that individual's parents. West Indians, quite spontaneously, account for each other's personality traits with statements such as "Well, after all, his father was white," or "His father was quite dark you know. In Guyana and Trinidad, one hears frequently that East Indians are by nature "cheap". Elsewhere, Syrians and Jews are, reportedly, successful merchants because of their "clannishness". The Caribs of Dominica are described as Creoles as "lazy drunkards", and the Caribs accuse Creoles of being "mean" and "immoral". Throughout the islands, Creoles who are dark are said to be less motivated for success, and those who are lighter are accused of being snobbish and too sober for their own good. Since independence, racial discrimination has been systemically condemned, and with a good deal of success. But racism (at least in the form of the belief that "once we know a person's racial background, we then know much about that persons' abilities and character traits,") is very much ingrained in the thinking of many West Indians. This style of racism has met with no effective challenge comparable to the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's. In the absence of racial segregation or the North American type of racial polarization, and with what scholars call the Caribbean "myth of racial harmony," most leaders throughout the region seldom address this insidious racism.
