West Indian vs Caribbean

When I made the decision to begin this adventure into blogging, I came back to an old point of vacillation; do I call myself Caribbean or West Indian? I’m so used to growing up with history texts and literary analyses referring to the English Eastern Caribbean as West Indian, that the political correctness(?) of the label ‘Caribbean’ sometimes seems forced. I still think of ‘West Indian’ as a marker of the English - formerly British colonies.

Now, I believe it is more widely understood that ‘West Indian’ is a misnomer, and Caribbean is more internationally recognized, more inclusive of the culture and climate of this region. ( I don’t have ANY empirical evidence to support this claim that it is more widely understood) It’s really all about what the words/labels conjure in one’s psyche.

‘Caribbean’ also connotes a distinction from our colonial associations, as if binding the geographical location with a label that encompasses culture is a renaming of our identity that suggests ownership of our destinies. When we speak of the West Indies cricket team, for me the colonial issues resonate.

Since my recent research, the label of Caribbean has grown on me because I find it more inclusive of French and Hispanic writing. Although the (ancient) history books have used the terms French West Indies, Dutch West Indies, I’ve hardly seen Spanish West Indies (that would be just Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo, who am I missing?). In my research I needed to make reference to writers like Edwidge Danticat of Haiti, Maryse Conde of Guadeloupe, Simone Schwarz-Bart also of Guadeloupe and I also needed to acknowledge Diaspora in terms of writers with a Caribbean background who have lives outside of the Caribbean, such as Paule Marshall and Nalo Hopkinson. Caribbean has become the most suitable accommodating term.

So while there are times I think of myself as West Indian and I would like to be considered in terms of a tradition of writing going back to when Kenneth Ramchand wrote ‘The West Indian Novel and its Background’ I think the label 'Caribbean' suits the time.

I have a feeling that there are other issues in that debate that I’m overlooking right now.

On another note; I really must stop spending so much time on Amazon. I’m like a kid in a candy store until I remind myself that there’s another life out there to live. Ok, so I’m incorrigible, I’ll be back there sooner than I’ll write an entry for this blog.

Or maybe, that’s where I’m going to surf now, which is why this entry’s debate is getting cut short.