Reflections on T&T Independence - reproduced from the Trinidad Express

The article below by Professor Rosanne Kanhai has been reproduced unedited from the Trinidad Express. JYOTI selected it because the subject matter is something with which many citizens identify.

Kanhai is Professor of English and Women Studies Director, Western Washington University. She is the author of three books: The Green Face Man: Poetry and Short Fiction; Rage and Renewal: Poetry and Short Fiction; and Matikor: The Politics of Identity for Indo-Caribbean Women, and several refereed articles.

One of the advantages of being old is that one can speak about history quoting books, in particular history from a personal perspective. Here I share my reflections of what Independence meant to me as an 11-year-old.

During the late 1950s and early 60s, I (together with siblings and cousins) attended the Arouca Anglican school because we were Anglicans. As pre-Independence and Independence activities swung into full gear, there kindled in me certain contradictions about being Indian in an Afro-dominated environment. 

Never in my short life had I experienced confusion about being Indian and Anglican simultaneously. Of course I did not know the word "contradiction" and maybe a better word is "torment" because I do remember that my confusion was fraught with emotional pain. 

My teachers, many of them openly wearing balisier broaches and tiepins, could hardly contain their excitement as they taught us the nationalist songs, national anthem, etc. and explained the colours of the flag. There was near-worship for Dr Eric Williams. In fact there was a portrait of him prominently displayed in our school. 

I was caught up in the excitement even though I was not always sure the extent to which I was included. How did I know that Anglican-PNM-Afro-Trinidadian was a seamless identity in which I could not fit? I was "bright" so I was one of the favourites in class but I noticed that teachers did not choose Indo students for the school choir or as representatives for the regional Independence celebrations in Tacarigua. 

Some of the "chosen" students were my friends; some were not particularly bright or as well-behaved. What gave them an "extra edge" I wondered. They grew in confidence while I shrank in humiliation. 

At my school these one-time Independence activities overlay a cultural context in which the small number of Indo students were already in a place of embarrassment. For example, Indo children hid (for fear of ridicule) to eat their brown-paper-wrapped lunches of roti and alloo, or roti and tomato choka. 

Indo girls wore demure white ribbons in their hair while Afro girls wore brilliant red. They had perky plaits, ours lay flat down our backs. It was not uncommon for female teachers to beckon a red-ribboned girl and smooth her hair, but they never touched the coconut-oiled heads. In my mind, not being chosen for the choir or the Independence marching in Tacarigua was related to the oily roti and oily hair.

Our teachers read and explained (as best they could to 11-year-olds) the PNM manifesto as regards education. It was presented as a promise to us all. They almost wept when they repeated Dr Williams' statement that the future of the nation was in our book bags. 

I was impressed; I took on the feelings of awe for this great man. I did not understand the significance of throwing off the yoke of colonialism and building a nation through education but I did feel that children like me were centre stage. I was in Common Entrance class at the time and we were the generation who would realise the dreams of our country. Of course I did not quite understand the dreams nor the idea of country, but I knew that I was being taught to be proud as Trinidadian. 

My teachers also wanted me to make them proud by passing for a first choice school. Academic achievement was intertwined with this developing concept of pride as Trinidadian. And girls could study as hard as boys, our female teachers insisted – that included me!

At home, in the village of Lopinot, the pre-Independence build-up was quite volatile. My father was a known DLP supporter and there was open hostility against our family. I remember our house being stoned one night when my father was away. My mother put out the kerosene lamp and huddled us close. 

When my father arrived he grabbed his gun and strode up and down the village loudly challenging the person or persons who stoned his wife and children to come out and face him. It was terrifying. On other occasions, I remember a car driving back and forth in front of our house with loud speakers directly addressing us in statements that made the women in my family shut the doors and windows. 

I remember whispered conversations about family land being taken away and given to PNM supporters. That was what Independence meant for us. One neighbour frequently passed by our house dropping words such as "Nigger on top of Coolie!" Kyah-kyah-kyah she laughed. It burned into my consciousness. Independence made the women in my family afraid and nervous. What was communicated to me was that Independence meant that anything, in fact everything, could be taken away from us and we would have no recourse.

As for my father — he was angry and determined to resist intimidation. I perceived contradictions about his status in the village. As Independence was ushered in, he, the only Indo member of the Village Council, was voted president. I picked up that some of the village men were trying to convince him to join the "Party." 

It was not about race, they insisted, if he joined the Party he too would get free land and his children would get jobs in the civil service. My father threw it on us; he would not join the Party, we would have to excel academically to get ahead in life and to make him proud. It was quite a responsibility. In the midst of all this strife, my father was captain of the village cricket team and he proudly led his team against other villages. I remember no conflicts, no bad blood – only the exuberant male energy around the game and the drinking afterward.

It was my father who negotiated race, politics, religion, and gender to take advantage of the educational possibilities that came with Independence. Ironically he went against the womenfolk in my family to insist that his girl children (my sister and I) study hard and try to get into Bishop Anstey High School (BAHS) in Port-of-Spain. 

He wanted his girls educated for gendered economic independence. He wanted us in the city, in the best Anglican high school in the country. Queen's Royal College was the goal for my brothers. My father personally coached us all. So there were more layers - academic achievement was bound-up gender liberation, with showing the villagers that his children would do well in life, and with pride as Indo-Trinidadian. 

It was as if educational achievement would compensate for my father's and family's hurts. And we, the children, were to accomplish this excellence within Afro-dominated schools and under an Afro-dominated government. The women in my family had no choice but to support my father's plans. 

We were girls yet we left home to go into the city -- it was part of the spirit of Independence! My sister and I did not realise how tremendous a step that was. For some years we boarded during the school week at a home in Port of Spain. run by an Afro-Trinidadian woman. 

She idolised the "doctah" yet she loved us as children. She struggled to make ends meet because none of her boarders were well-off but she had such a big heart it brings me almost to tears to remember her. Not only did she take care of our physical needs, she was also a moral and spiritual mentor to us. Yet it was clear that we were not included in euphoria of black pride that permeated the boarding house. 

Furthermore I was beginning to see that their Black pride gained momentum from incidents outside of Trinidad. For example, when the Guyanese national elections were being reported on T&T Rediffusion, they vociferously supported Forbes Burnham and lowered their voices when my sister or I entered the living room. 

When they celebrated the triumph of Cassius Clay (as he was known at the time) I knew that it was somehow bound up with Independence and black racial pride. I felt smaller and smaller. It seemed that my own identity as Trinidadian had less currency since they could reach outside of Trinidad to bolster theirs. There was nothing I could do to compensate.

I had no language to express myself, no frame of reference to understand what was happening so I swallowed my confusion.

The older generation of women in my family saw that, for my sister and I, there were opportunities that came with Independence. They did not trust that Independence provided conditions that were fair to us so they would compensate by giving us as much support as they could. 

Education would liberate us from the gender constraints, get us out of our limited village community and push us into mainstream Trinidad and even abroad. We could do it, was the message, if our grandparents could step out of the canefields, we could step up to the higher rungs of society. 

We were bound for the city and the sky was the limit! But BAHS opened up a world of problems that my parents and aunts could not anticipate. My sister and I were "country bookies" and we suffered in silence rather than betray our impoverished backgrounds and awkwardness about the ways of the city. 

I could not distinguish between class and race marginalisation but I knew that I did not qualify for entry into any of the recognisable cliques of privileged students. I heard nothing of national pride but there were some changes in the curriculum that reflected black awareness. 

For example History included West Indian history with the focus on slavery and post slavery; there were a few lines about the Caribs and Arawaks, and a few about Indian Indenture. Home Economics assumed a middle-class, urban home, and cooking classes included callaloo and fish broth. I did not even notice the absence of dishes such as roti or curry chataigne because I was developing a double-consciousness that kept my two worlds (home and school) apart. 

This double-consciousness required a deliberate numbing of aspects of myself. I had to be cautious not to let my "home self" leak through when I was at school. It was difficult, it was emotionally painful, it took a lot of mental energy. I constantly reminded myself that I was there to pass examinations not to see my home culture affirmed. 

Trinidadian teachers replaced British teachers and when the British principal retired, the new Afro-Trinidadian principal took down the white Jesus in the school chapel and mounted a black one. I saw that Independence meant that Jesus became black. I felt that that was a problem for me personally but I did not know to whom I could complain. 

White Jesus was a neutral, distant, fantasy presence whereas black Jesus was a mirror of many of my friends and teachers but did not include an image of me. The Anglican Church that oversaw my school was changing its white colonial priests for local Afro-Trinidadians who were overtly pro-PNM and pro-Black. 

I knew I was excluded racially yet I wanted desperately to be part of the BAHS community. My sense of identity and my self esteem were greatly invested in the BAHS uniform. Additionally, financial resources were terribly stretched for my family and there was the daily humiliation of being threadbare among some of Trinidad's most well-heeled girls. That hurt went very deep. Independence meant the opportunity to level that playing field.

Fifty years later the playing field has been levelled for the many Indo-Trinidadian "independence children." We are educated and self-confident. Have we fulfilled those original dreams that were imposed on us? Have we had different, maybe conflicting dreams?