West Indian

Last updated

A West Indian is a native or inhabitant of the West Indies (the Antilles and the Lucayan Archipelago). In the 1597 Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the term West Indian initially described the indigenous inhabitants of the West Indies, by 1661 the term defined "an inhabitant or native of the West Indies, of European origin or descent." In the 1950s, coinciding with decolonization and the arrival of Afro-Caribbean migrants in the United Kingdom, West Indian referred to those who were Black. Inclusively, in 1961 all inhabitants of the West Indies Federation were termed West Indian regardless of their descent, besides West indian Indo-Caribbean people sometimes also use the term East Indian West Indian. [1] The OED now defines it simply as a citizen of any West Indies nation. Some West Indian people reserve this term for citizens or natives of the British West Indies only, to the exclusion of not just the Hispanophones, but also French and Dutch West Indians.

Contents

See also

Related Research Articles

Indian or Indians may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Demographics of Trinidad and Tobago</span>

This article is about the demography of the population of Trinidad and Tobago including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">African diaspora</span> People descending from indigenous Africans living outside Africa

The globalAfrican diaspora is the worldwide collection of communities descended from people from Africa, predominantly in the Americas. The African populations in the Americas are descended from haplogroup L genetic groups of native Africans. The term most commonly refers to the descendants of the native West and Central Africans who were enslaved and shipped to the Americas via the Atlantic slave trade between the 16th and 19th centuries, with their largest populations in Brazil, the United States, and Haiti. However, the term can also be used to refer to African descendants who immigrated to other parts of the world consensually. Some scholars identify "four circulatory phases" of this migration out of Africa. The phrase African diaspora gradually entered common usage at the turn of the 21st century. The term diaspora originates from the Greek διασπορά which gained popularity in English in reference to the Jewish diaspora before being more broadly applied to other populations.

An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people who identify with each other on the basis of perceived shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include a people of a common language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, religion, history, or social treatment. The term ethnicity is sometimes used interchangeably with the term nation, particularly in cases of ethnic nationalism.

<i>Mestizo</i> Spanish term to denote a person of mixed European and non-European indigenous ancestry

Mestizo is a person of mixed European and Indigenous non-European ancestry in the former Spanish Empire. In certain regions such as Latin America, it may also refer to people who are culturally European even though their ancestors are Indigenous. The term was used as an ethno-racial exonym for mixed-race castas that evolved during the Spanish Empire. It was a formal label for individuals in official documents, such as censuses, parish registers, Inquisition trials, and others. Priests and royal officials might have classified persons as mestizos, but individuals also used the term in self-identification. With the Bourbon reforms and the independence of the Americas, the caste system disappeared and terms like "mestizo" fell in popularity.

The terms multiracial people refer to people who are of multiple races, and the terms multi-ethnic people refer to people who are of more than one ethnicities. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for multiracial people in a variety of contexts, including multiethnic, polyethnic, occasionally bi-ethnic, Métis, Muwallad, Melezi, Coloured, Dougla, half-caste, ʻafakasi, mestizo, mutt, Melungeon, quadroon, octoroon, sambo/zambo, Eurasian, hapa, hāfu, Garifuna, pardo, and Gurans. A number of these once-acceptable terms are now considered offensive, in addition to those that were initially coined for pejorative use.

Caribbean English is a set of dialects of the English language which are spoken in the Caribbean and most countries on the Caribbean coasts of Central America and South America. Caribbean English is influenced by, but is distinct to the English-based creole languages spoken in the region. Though dialects of Caribbean English vary structurally and phonetically across the region, all are primarily derived from British English and West African languages. In some countries with a plurality Indian population, such as Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana, Caribbean English has further been influenced by Hindustani and other South Asian languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Half-caste</span> Type of biracial person

Half-caste is a term used for individuals of multiracial descent. The word caste is borrowed from the Portuguese or Spanish word casta, meaning race. Terms such as half-caste, caste, quarter-caste and mix-breed were used by colonial officials in the British Empire during their classification of indigenous populations, and in Australia used during the Australian government's pursuit of a policy of assimilation. In Latin America, the equivalent term for half-castes was Cholo and Zambo. Some people now consider the term offensive.

Dougla people are Caribbean people who are of mixed African and South Asian descent. The word Dougla is used throughout the Dutch and English-speaking Caribbean. Afro-Indo people may also be another term used to describe them.

Ethnogenesis is the formation and development of an ethnic group. This can originate by group self-identification or by outside identification.

Caribbean literature is the literature of the various territories of the Caribbean region. Literature in English from the former British West Indies may be referred to as Anglo-Caribbean or, in historical contexts, as West Indian literature. Most of these territories have become independent nations since the 1960s, though some retain colonial ties to the United Kingdom. They share, apart from the English language, a number of political, cultural, and social ties which make it useful to consider their literary output in a single category. Note that other non-independent islands may include the Caribbean unincorporated territories of the United States, however literature from this region has not yet been studied as a separate category and is independent from West Indian literature. The more wide-ranging term "Caribbean literature" generally refers to the literature of all Caribbean territories regardless of language—whether written in English, Spanish, French, Hindustani, or Dutch, or one of numerous creoles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">West Indies</span> Island region of the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean

The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, which comprises 13 independent island countries and 19 dependencies in three archipelagos: the Greater Antilles, the Lesser Antilles, and the Lucayan Archipelago.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Native American identity in the United States</span>

Native American identity in the United States is a community identity, determined by the tribal nation the individual or group belongs to. While it is common for non-Natives to consider it a racial or ethnic identity, for Native Americans in the United States it is considered to be a political identity, based on citizenship and immediate family relationships. As culture can vary widely between the 574 extant federally recognized tribes in the United States, the idea of a single unified "Native American" racial identity is a European construct that does not have an equivalent in tribal thought.

Panethnicity is a political neologism used to group various ethnic groups together based on their related cultural origins; geographic, linguistic, religious, or "racial" similarities are often used alone or in combination to draw panethnic boundaries. The term panethnic was used extensively during mid-20th century anti-colonial/national liberation movements. In the United States, Yen Le Espiritu popularized the term and coined the nominal term panethnicity in reference to Asian Americans, a racial category composed of disparate peoples having in common only their origin in the continent of Asia.

Asian people are the people of the continent of Asia. The term may also refer to their descendants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indo-Fijians</span> Fijian citizens of Indian descent

Indo-Fijians, also known as Indian Fijians, are Fijian citizens of South Asian descent, and include people who trace their ancestry to various regions of the Indian subcontinent. Although Indo-Fijians constituted a majority of Fiji's population from 1956 through the late 1980s, discrimination and the resulting brain drain resulted in them numbering 313,798 (37.6%) out of a total of 827,900 people living in Fiji as of 2007.

Ethnic nationalism, also known as ethnonationalism, is a form of nationalism wherein the nation and nationality are defined in terms of ethnicity, with emphasis on an ethnocentric approach to various political issues related to national affirmation of a particular ethnic group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women in Guyana</span>

Women in Guyana are a cross-section of Asian, African, and indigenous backgrounds. British colonization and imperialism have contributed to the sexism against Guyanese women in the household, politics, and education.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Panamanians</span> People identified with the country Panama

Panamanians are people identified with Panama, a country in Central America, and with residential, legal, historical, or cultural connections with North America. For most Panamanians, several or all of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their Panamanian identity. Panama is a multilingual and multicultural society, home to people of many different ethnicities and religions. Therefore, many Panamanians do not equate their nationality with ethnicity, but with citizenship and allegiance to Panama. The overwhelming majority of Panamanians are the product of varying degrees of admixture between European ethnic groups with native Amerindians and Black Africans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elsa Goveia</span> Guyanese historian (1925–1980)

Elsa Goveia was born in British Guiana and became a foremost scholar and historian of the Caribbean. She was the first woman to become a professor at the newly created University College of the West Indies (UCWI) and first professor of West Indian studies in the UCWI History Department. Her seminal work, Slave Society in the British Leeward Islands at the End of the Eighteenth Century (1965), was a pioneering study of the institution of slavery and the first to put forth the concept of a "slave society" encompassing not just the slaves but the entire community. She was one of the pioneers of historical research on slavery and the Caribbean and is considered the "premier social historian" from the 1960s to her death.

References

  1. Hall, Catherine (2003). "What Is a West Indian?". In Schwartz, Bill (ed.). West Indian Intellectuals in Britain. Manchester: Manchester University Press. pp. 33–34. ISBN   9780719064746. OCLC   52829533 . Retrieved 12 December 2013.

Further reading