"All ah we is not one:" Historical and Ethnic Narratives in Pluralist Trinidad

Globalization has been impacting the Caribbean region since the end of the fifteenth century, when it was incorporated into an Atlantic economy within just a few generations. One of the results of this earlier phase of globalization was to bring people from many different parts of the world to the region, creating colonial societies with a high degree of ethnic diversity. Trinidad and Tobago, in the southern Caribbean, is a good example; currently people of African and of South Asian (Indian) descent each constitute about forty percent of the population, and several smaller ethnic groups are also represented. The modern (late twentieth-century) globalization trends have tended to deepen ethnic identities, partly as a defensive reaction to their homogenizing and westernizing effects. One aspect of this has been the emergence of ethnic narratives of the nation, challenging the earlier colonial and anti-colonial narratives. This paper will examine the development of an Indocentric and an Afrocentric narrative of the nation's past over the last few decades. I hope to show how the Afrocentric narrative of the country's history is continually challenged by spokespersons for oppositional ethnic versions.