Race versus nationality and citizenship

I just finished reading an excellent article in TorontoLife about how the next generation of kids in Toronto are quite a mixed-up bunch. Let me explain. The city’s wonderful diversity is slowing transforming Toronto into a melting pot of multi-race, multi-cultural and oh so very unique kids.

Being from the Caribbean I’m ecstatic to see this transformation happening and soon the face of the world will be more beautiful than it’s ever been. Having parents from opposite sides of the world must be invigorating.

However, I noticed that there needs to be some clarification on the difference between nationality and a race of people. Actually, I’ve noticed the need for this clarification for years while living in Toronto.

The first thing is you can’t be mixed with Trinidadian and Canadian, or be half Guyanese and half African. Why? Think about it, what does that really mean? That you have dual citizenship? I understand that people use this to explain their roots, but it’s also used to explain what races someone might be mixed with and that’s where it gets confusing. You can’t be mixed with citizenship.

Here’s a quick history lesson on the Caribbean as I feel it would shed some light on this discussion. Also since I'm from there it's the best way for me to get my message across.

If you’re not familiar with the Caribbean it’s very similar to Toronto in terms of the various races of people living in the same place who have all come from different parts of the world. When Columbus discovered the West Indies, along came the British, Spanish and French plantation owners. Plantation owners brought hordes of slaves from Africa to work on the plantations, this is why a large demographic of Caribbean people are black as their ancestors are directly from Africa. When slavery was abolished many indentured workers were brought in from India and then some from East Asia and Portugal in smaller numbers. Let’s not forget the natives who were already living in many of the islands like the Caribs and Arawaks.

So you see, people from all over the world immigrated to the archipelago of islands we call the Caribbean just as people from all over the world have settled here in Toronto.

I’ve heard my friends say with a puzzled look, “He looked like he was Indian but told me he was Caribbean,” or “She looked white but she was Caribbean.” Now you see it’s not so puzzling afer all.

Just as by saying you’re from Toronto doesn’t reflect your race and you can’t really say you’re half Torontonian because that could mean your ancestors were from any part of the world, or you were born in any part of the world. If you were born here, you’re Canadian and that’s a beautiful thing to be embraced. I understand that such diversity in a city causes a certain feeling of fragmentation in a society and in its people. So, we grasp at the puzzle pieces we have to create an identity for ourselves to give us roots where we don’t feel like we have any. And so, we say we’re half Trini, when in fact our father was born in Trinidad and he left when he was 18 and you’ve never visited. It makes us interesting and exotic to make those delineations, I get it. But me obtaining a British passport and becoming British doesn’t make me anymore British than Madonna.

I’m Black (African), Indian, Amerindian (Guyanese Native), Portuguese and possibly some French, Dutch and East Asian I’ve been told. My great, great, great grandparents were slaves, indentured workers, slave owners and Guyanese natives. I’m Guyanese. Saying that I’m Guyanese only means that I was born there. I am mixed races. Yes, that’s a thing. In Guyana when filling out forms about your race there’s a box that says mixed races. Then you can check off the races that you are mixed with and there’s a separate box to state your nationality. I think Canada needs to implement this box, not only in our paper work but in our discourse about diversity.

To wrap up, I may sound like I’m being a know-it-all, but I’m just so darn proud to be so mixed and that Toronto and the world seem to be becoming one big melting pot of all the beautiful races of the world. I think it would be great for people to understand their heritage more, and know exactly what it means to be from somewhere else or from right here in Toronto. I also think it’s great that people who are second or third generation want to identify with their heritage by saying they are half Trini or Jamaican, but when translated it’s as if someone is saying they are half East Asian… so does that mean you are Chinese, Japanese, Korean? It’s just so unnecessarily vague and a slight effort would lend some much needed clarity.

Before I get the third degree from everyone, I don’t expect people to stop saying that they are half this or part that, I think the discourse will evolve naturally. We have to describe our heritage somehow and in the best way we know how, I’m just saying there’s room for improvement. You end up having to explain yourself anyways when you say you’re Trini then I ask what part of Trinidad you’re from, or your parents, or anything and you don’t know…. That's a knowing where you came from fail right there.

I consider myself a Torontonian, and saying that takes on the same meaning as saying I’m Caribbean. I’m a part of this wonderful twirl of cultures, swishing and swashing together, but, if asked my nationality it’s Guyanese, if given the opportunity to add a bit more detail– my ancestors were African, Portuguese, Amerindian and Indian, and that’s why I look so funny .

Let me be a hippie for a second and say maybe we get too tied up about where we are from, we are citizens of the world, and hopefully one day we will care as much about where we are from as we do where the flowers in a garden are from.

Funny story on perception- As a kid living in Guyana, I was bullied for not being black; in Toronto I’m constantly referred to as black. Cool beans.

Also check out that TorontoLife article
http://www.torontolife.com/informer/features/2013/02/12/mixie-me/

Image courtesy Mixed Babies on Tumblur.