Disparate Diasporas: Identity and Politics in an African-Nicaraguan Community (review)

Disparate Diasporas: Identity and Politics in an African-Nicaraguan Community. By Edmund T. Gordon. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998. xiv + 330 pp., preface, introduction, map, acronyms, references, index.)

This important, interesting book studies contradictory and ever-shifting identities among a people of partially African descent who live on the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua. These people are called Creoles and speak an English-based Creole language. The author defines them as “mixed-blood, Creole-speaking nonwhites born in America” (39). The author’s approach is overtly subjective. A bi-racial African American from the United States, Edmund Gordon went to Nicaragua with a commitment to the Sandinista revolution, to pan-Africanism, and to activist, politicized scholarship. He quickly found that he was not accepted as a comrade by either the Sandinista government or by the Afro-Creole peoples of the Atlantic Coast, who called him “gringo,” “white man,” and even, at times, “green man.” Nevertheless, he remained on the Atlantic Coast between 1981 and 1990, until shortly after the defeat of the FSLN in the 1990 elections. While there, he married a local Creole woman and fathered two children. His intimate, extended experience in the area, informed by a very open, flexible mind, serious research into historical documents, and extensive interviews with local people, resulted in this valuable book.

The major theme of this book is the varied and conflicting identities among Nicaraguan Creoles stemming from what Gordon refers to repeatedly as Creole common sense. Identities that seem to be contradictory are always present, with various aspects predominating in response to changing circumstances. The African ingredient in Creole identity has waxed and waned over time. While many Creoles can certainly trace their ancestry to runaway slaves who successfully fought for their freedom during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century and found shelter in the swamps in the area, the origins of these slave ancestors remain shrouded in mystery. Were they composed at least partially of shipwrecked Africans brought over on Atlantic slave trade voyages? Africa, however, was usually a muted theme among Atlantic Coast Creoles. Their ancestors were preferably spoken of as Jamaicans, or better yet, British. Nevertheless, the Garvey movement was strong there during the 1920s, and the Black Power Movement, inspir ed from the United States and Jamaica, became prominent among the dispossessed black youth during the 1970s. The Rastafarian movement was viewed as a major problem by the Sandinistas and ruthlessly repressed by them.

Although there was clearly extensive biological mixing between Creoles and the Miskitu and other native Americans of the Atlantic Coast, the Creoles have very often distanced themselves from them, viewing themselves as social and cultural superiors. For many years, the Creole elite maintained local political power over these native Americans as agents for British, American, and Nicaraguan investors and rulers. Nevertheless, the most recent development among these Creoles is to emphasize their Miskitu identity as the Creole group has diminished sharply in numbers through outmigration and have become increasingly outnumbered by Spanish-speaking, Catholic mestizos immigrating into the area from the Pacific region. There is a very practical reason for this development. By identifying their ancestors as Native Americans, Creoles can assert their rights to ownership of lands held by peoples before the Spanish conquest.

Gordon presents a very informed and sensitive discussion of religious, linguistic, economic, political, racial, and cultural conflicts between the Atlantic Coast Creoles and the Sandinista revolutionary government. The mestizo Nicaraguans identified with what they view as superior Spanish culture, while the Creoles identified with what they view as superior Anglo, especially British, culture. The mestizo Nicaraguans are Catholic, while the Creoles are Protestants. The Moravians, Protestants with the deepest roots on the Atlantic Coast, were originally a German missionizing sect that for centuries played a major, and understated, role in the African diaspora. Gordon studied the Moravian archives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, with quite fascinating results. Many Creole leaders identified with the Moravians, who opposed the...