Back to the roots

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Abstract

Back to the Roots

– The Role of Migrants in the Construction of the Garinagu’s Ethnicity

Abstract

This study examines how migrants construct and influence

traditional values of their cultural heritage. Using

ethnographical material from the Garinagu (an ethnic group from

Central America of Amerindian and African decent), it focuses on

how migrants in the USA are tangled in as well as exposed to

different identity categories and how this affects the Garinagu in

Honduras.

The study traces the Garinagu’s historic roots and, by

the use of a semiotic approach, a significant connection is

discovered between the history of the Garinagu and the social

meaning imbedded in the root crop cassava. The social meaning,

however, is only relevant in the context of the Garinagu.

Furthermore, the study explores how the Garinagu in the USA

construct their identity, and how they make use of cassava to

inform about their ethnicity. Last but not least the migrants’

impact on their community in Honduras is discussed.

I argue that the migrants play a crucial role in

constructing and reconstructing the traditional values of the

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Garinagu because they, in their new cultural setting, discover the

uniqueness of their group, and obtain knowledge about taste

preferences of other cultures as well as knowledge of how to

appeal to a larger range of political organs. Even though the form

of the cassava tradition is changing, the social code imbedded in

the roots stays the same at least for now.

Key words: Garinagu, Garifuna, cassava, ethnicity, food, migrants, ereba, roots, transnational, USA, Honduras, Central America, gastro-politics, gastroethnic images, ethnic emblems, categorization, definition, identity, semiotics

Abstract........................................................1Back to the Roots................................................3

1.0 Introduction..............................................31.1 Garinagu or Garifuna?.....................................4

2.0 Theory......................................................52.1 Ethnicity.................................................52.2 Gastroethnic Images and Gastro-politics...................6

3.0 Analysis....................................................73.1 The European Colonists’ Impact on the Natives of St. Vincent.......................................................73.2 A Garifuna legend.........................................8

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3.3 The Dialectics between the Internal and External Definitions in the USA.......................................113.4 The Migrants’ Gastroethnic Representation................15

4.0 Discussion.................................................184.1 A Gastro-political Message...............................18

5.0 Conclusion.................................................21References......................................................22

Back to the Roots – The Role of Migrants in the Construction of the Garinagu’s

Ethnicity

By Maria Lauridsen Jensen, anthropologist from Aarhus University

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1.0 IntroductionIn this global era, a significant part of the inhabitants of the

world are living as migrants. Anthropologist Arjun Appadurai

(1996:48-49) notices that this has led to the point that ethnic

groups no longer can be observed from one point of locality.

Instead ethnicity should be seen as a ”landscape of group

identity” with cultural flows. The flows move between members of

the landscape, who are localized different places on earth, and

who all contribute to the construction of a group identity.

Appadurai calls the landscape ”ethnoscape”.

The purpose of this study is to contribute with an

insight in how the meeting between migrants and their new society

can strengthen their own feeling of ethnicity as well as the

ethnic awareness in their home society. In this study home is used

to describe the place where the person in question, or his family,

originally has migrated from.

My point of reference is the ethnic group the Garinagu

(cf. Barth 1969:13). The majority of the Garinagu are living as

transmigrants, which means they often travel between the United

States and either Honduras, Belize, Nicaragua or Guatemala (England

1999:44). They thereby belong to a transnational community, meaning

that the social processes of their community are embedded in and

lived out in several national contexts simultaneously (England

2006:4).

About 300 years before Colombus discovered America, an

ethnogenesis took place on the Antilles between the Caribs and the

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Arawaks, who are both people from South America. The two people

became one people with the name ”Kallínagu”, which means ”those

who eat cassava” (Palacio 2005:177-178). Between 1636 and 1735 the

Garinagu was formed as a result of yet an ethnogenesis on the

island of St. Vincent in the Antilles between the Kallínagu and

African slaves, who had escaped the European colonists1 (Jenkins,

C. 1983:151). ”Garinagu” derives from ”Kallínagu” (Palacio

2005:178). The meaning ”those who eat cassava” still exists

(GAFHU, INC. 2012).

Anthropologist Sarah England (2006:151) writes that those

Garinagu in contemporary Honduras who are critical towards

migration, claim the migrants are weakening the traditional values

of the ethnic group. The traditional values of the Garinagu

include its ethnic emblems, because ethnic emblems are those signs

that are significant to the members of an ethnic group (Barth

1969:14).

Initiated by a wondering of how far the migrants are

weakening the Garinagu’s traditional values in the Central

American villages, I will examine what role migrants play in

regards to the Garinagu’s ethnic emblem cassava, which is an

edible root (cf. England 2006:166). In order to do so, I will make

use of three empirical examples: The Garinagu’s history of exile;

the construction of identity among migrants in the USA; and the

cassava business Wabagari, that is founded by Lina Martinez. The

data is based on Sarah England’s book Afro Central Americans in New York

1 This is the most common history, but other versions exist, in which the ethnogenesis happened about year 1200 (cf. e.g. GAFHU, INC. 2012).

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City (2006), photojournalist Susie P. Rust’s article ”The Garífuna”

(2001) and Wabagari’s webpage (Martinez 2013). The source is

chosen, because they pass on knowledge of the contemporary

Garinagu. The study focuses on the Garinagu in New York City

(henceforth NYC) and cultural flows between NYC and Honduras.

I will primarily draw on theories by the anthropologists

Arjun Appadurai (1981; 1988; 1996), Fredrik Barth (1969; 1995) and

Richard Jenkins (2008). They have all worked with ethnicity.

Appadurai (1981; 1988) furthermore focuses on food in relation to

identity, which is relevant in those parts of the analysis dealing

with cassava. Appadurai (1981:494) writes following about food:

“It is therefore a highly condensed social fact. It is also, at

least in many human societies, a marvelously plastic kind of

collective representation”. Food can be used to shape and create a

group identity. In the following chapter I will give an account of

the anthropological theories used in this study.

1.1 Garinagu or Garifuna?Garinagu is the original Central American name used by the people

itself. In the original use of the Garifuna language, Garinagu is

used when referring to the people. Garinagu is plural and Garifuna

is singular as well as an adjective (England 1999:44). The

Garifuna people or Garifunas are the most common terms referring

to the people in English speaking media (England 1999:44). I

follow the original use of the terms.

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2.0 TheoryIn this chapter I will give an account of the anthropological

theories underlying this study. To make clear what it means that

the Garinagu is an ethnic group, I will firstly give an account on

perspectives on ethnicity. Thereafter, I will narrow down the

theme to a focus on food as an emblem of identity as well as food

used as a political language.

2.1 Ethnicity

Fredrik Barth revolutionized anthropology in 1969 with the

introduction in the book Ethnic Groups and Boundaries. In the book he

carries out a transactionistic view on ethnicity, with the

fundamental point that ethnicity is the result of transactions

between individuals, and that ethnicity thereby is a changeable

process (Jenkins 2008:13). Barth (1969:10) makes an end to the

theory that geographical and social isolation determine the

existence of ethnic groups, and he points out that contact between

ethnic groups indeed often creates the foundation for ethnicity.

Barth (1969:11) underlines that culture is the result of

interaction between people in an ethnic group instead of a

characteristic of the ethnic group. This last point is a quantum

leap, since anthropology so far had regarded interaction between

people as the result of culture.

According to Barth (1969:14, 25) it is possible that

individuals takes part in cultural practices or political systems

of other groups, because ethnicity involves a code of organization

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to when, how, and against who the individuals should differentiate

themselves. Barth (1969:15) focuses on the ethnic boundary, a

social border, which presupposes that members of the ethnic group

share a criterion of evaluation as well as an understanding of

that their group is different from other groups. An ethnic group

can only last as long as the acts of the actors express, that

they, as members of a certain group, are different. This they can

do by selecting emblems that bring out the uniqueness of the

group, and thereby contrast them to other groups in relation to

similar situations (Barth 1995:6).

Richard Jenkins (2008:57) criticizes post Barth

anthropologists for focusing too much on self-definition

internally in groups, and he makes clear that it is necessary to

draw more attention towards how other groups characterizes the

group in question. Jenkins (2008:55) calls self-definition the

”internal definition”, and he calls the categorization the

”external definition”. Both types of definition of identity happen

collectively, but have potential to be incorporated in the self-

definition of the individual. According to Jenkins (2008:76)

identity is the result of a constant dialectical process between

internal and external definitions.

One of Jenkins’s main points is (2008:62) that if the one

who characterizes has authority to make the external definition of

the ethnic group count, the individuals in the ethnic group will

in the course of time take on the categorization by changing their

self-image. That kind of influence, in which the group take on an

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external definition, he calls ” internalization” (2008: 74). Social

identity is furthermore both nominal (the name) and virtual (the

practical meaning or experience), and these two aspects can change

independently (Jenkins 2008:58).

2.2 Gastroethnic Images and Gastro-politics

Due to the fact that this study will focus on the edible root

cassava as an ethnic emblem (cf. England 2006:166), the general

theories about ethnicity described above will be supplemented with

Arjun Appadurai’s theories (1981; 1988) about the relationship

between food and identity. Appadurai’s starting point is

anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss’s approach to food as a

semiotic system, but he (1981:494-95) believes, in contrast to

Lévi-Strauss, that food only is part of the semiotic system, and

that the system should be viewed from its specific context.

Appadurai’s semiotic perspective on food investigates the social

meaning that is expressed through (certain) food and acts with

food in the contexts in which he did research. He also

investigates the social consequences the messages in the food

creates (Appadurai 1981:495).

Appadurai (1988:7, 16) calls the ethnic stereotypes, that

are based on food, and produced in a multiethnic contexts through

interaction between members of the ethnic group and outsiders

”gastroethnic images”, and he mentions ethnic cookbooks as an

example. The data of this study does not include cookbooks.

Appadurai (1988:6), however, explains that the oral exchange of

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food customs come before cookbooks and it is thereby possible to

use his work on the Garinagu’s interactions with cassava. The text

on Wabagaris webpage is furthermore similar to the ethnic

portraits often found in ethnic cookbooks (cf. Appadurai 1988:16;

Martinez 2013:3).

Appadurai (1981:496) writes that food can be used

semiotically to construct or maintain social relations. Food has

according to Appadurai (1981:507-508) a ”general capacity to

simultaneously encode messages about both homogeneity […] and

heterogeneity”, whereby it can ”serve to regulate rank, reify

roles, and signify privileges.”. He views interactions with food a

kind of political language which he calls ”gastro-politics”.

Appadurai (1981:495) defines gastro-politics as follows: ”conflict or

competition over specific cultural or economic resources as it

emerges in social transactions around food”.

In his essay ”Gastro-Politics in Hindu South Asia”

Appadurai (1981:497) writes about situations in South Indian Tamil

Brahmin households, weddings and temples, where conflicts arise

about food. Appadurai (1981:501) points out that food can be

manipulated to contain a gastro-political message. Anthropologist

Dylan Clark (2004) carries gastro-politic on to a literally political

context. He describes how punks show their discontent with the

American society though their use of food. The analysis of this

study is about how Garifuna migrants manipulate cassava. I will

use the term in way similar to that of Clark. Gastro-politics can show

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us how the Garinagu has the possibility of acting strategically in

relation to ethnicity.

This chapter has given an insight in those theories about

ethnicity and food that forms the foundation of this study. The

theories will be gone more thoroughly in the analysis below.

3.0 AnalysisIn this chapter I will carry out an analysis of how the

Garinagu constructs an ethnic identity by using cassava as an

ethnic emblem, and how they do this through flows between Central

America and the USA. The chapter will begin with an analysis of

the Garinagu’s history of exile.

3.1 The European Colonists’ Impact on the Natives of St. Vincent

In 1660 the European colonists founded reserves, in which they

sent the natives of the Antilles (among others the Garinagu)

(England 2006:35). The Europeans’ distinction between the natives

and themselves thereby became consequential to the natives. As the

Garinagu became a people, the Europeans furthermore began to

differentiate between ”Black Caribs” and ”Red Caribs”. The

Garinagu were called ”Black Caribs” (Anderson 1997:22). Black

Caribs is thereby what Richard Jenkins (2008:55, 58) calls ”an

external definition of” the Garinagu’s ”nominal identity”.

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According to anthropologist Mark Anderson (1997:27) the

English colonists used the definition ”Black Caribs” after their

victory over France in the Second Caribbean War to justify that

they sent the Garinagu in exile. The French was allied with the

Garinagu, whereby the Englishmen demonstrated their dominance of

St. Vincent by sending the Garinagu in exile (Anderson 1997:25,

27). The justification was that both the French and English

colonists’ impression that ”the Black Caribs” stole the land,

wives and traditions of ”the true native and Indian” (Anderson

1997:26). In 1797 the Garinagu were taken from St. Vincent to the

nearby island Balliceaux, where many died of illness and hunger.

The same year, the survivors were sent to Roatan by the Honduran

coast, and from there to Honduras, were they separated into

smaller group that settled in Honduras, Belize, Guatemala and

Nicaragua respectively (Jenkins, C. 1983:151).

As shown above, the colonists created an ethnic boundary

between themselves and Garinagu that became a sign of who were

allowed to inhabit the island. The colonists decided thereby, who

had the rights to the resources that so far had been the

foundation of the Garifuna society. Jenkins (2008:58) points out,

that an external definition has potential to at define the virtual

identity of an ethnic group. That is the case here, since the

colonists’ definition of the Garinagu ”Black Caribs” has

influenced the collective self-definition of the Garinagu. The

influence is that the Garinagu has become a people with a history

of exile.

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This chapter has dealt with the Garinagu’s contact with the

European colonists in the time before the Garinagu arrived to the

Central American mainland. It appears that the colonists have had

an impact on the Garinagu’s collective self-understanding, as they

have banished the Garinagu from their homeland St. Vincent. This

claim will be further developed in the following chapter, in which

a Garifuna legend about the exile will be analyzed.

3.2 A Garifuna legend

Imprisoned there in appalling conditions, more than half died. The following yearsurvivors were shipped to Roatán Island off the coast of Honduras. According tolegend, the Garífuna hid cassava, a mainstay of their diet, inside their clothes, whereit stayed alive watered by the sweat of the tightly packed captives. They planted thecassava on Roatán, where it grew abundantly. Soon the Garífuna established fishingvillages in Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Belize. [Rust 2001]

The legend above is acted out as a ritual as part of

Settlement Day2 in Garifuna societies in Belize (Rust 2001). In

this chapter I will use Appadurai’s semiotic perspective (1981;

1988) to analyze cassava roots as they are pictured in the legend.

Firstly, however, I will explain why the legend is relevant in

connection to Garifuna migrants in the USA.

Appadurai (1996:53) stress that the spread of the mass media gives

individuals throughout the world a wide selection of possible

lives among which they can choose. An example of a cultural flow

2 A annual celebration of the Garinagu’s arrival in Belize.

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between the Garinagu is the blog Being Garifuna, written by Teofilo

Colon Jr., who lives in NYC (Colon Jr. 2010). Colon Jr. (2013

Martz) for example refer to a TV-show that shows scenes from the

performance of the legend in Belize. Furthermore, the Garinagu in

the USA are a mixture of nationalities (England 2006:216); and

Garinagu from their respective countries flock to Settlement Day

in Belize (Palacio 2006:184). Garinagu thereby influence, cross

nations, each other’s understanding of what it means to be

Garifuna. Colon Jr. has in a message to me confirmed that Garinagu

in the NYC knows the legend (Colon Jr. and Jensen 2013).

From a semiotic point of view on the legend above,

cassava is used to express the conflict of being sent in exile,

and to communicate a message to the contemporary Garinagu. These

two aspects about cassava will be dealt with below. The legend

portraits those Garinagu who survived the exile as strong, because

they refused to succumb by the repression by the European

colonists. Thereby, the legend shows that the colonists have

influenced the collective self-understanding of the Garinagu, but

also that Garinagu have internalized the external definition in a

way that shows resistance towards the power of the colonizers.

Such kind of resistance still confirms the colonizers’ power over

the Garinagu’s self-understanding according to Jenkins (2008:75).

The legend also depicts the importance of cassava to the

Garifuna ancestors. In spite of illness and fatigue, the ancestors

were willing to collect cassava from the earth, carry it, and

plant them once more. The Garifuna ancestors were thereby willing

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to fight to preserve the roots. The focus of the legend on telling

the roots were carried underneath the clothes and nourished by

sweat, points on a fusion of the Garinagu and cassava. The

nourishment from the roots gave the people the power to survive

the exile; the people nourished the cassava by their sweat and

later on earth, which ensured the survival of the cassava; and the

roots have since that time ensured the survival of the Garinagu by

growing abundantly and thereby nourished them. That the roots were

carried under the clothes can be seen as a metaphor for the

culture is embodied in the cassava. Thus the people carried the

culture from St. Vincent and grounded it in their new home.

Simultaneously the culture carried the people by giving it

strength and teamwork. Appadurai (1981:496) points out that food

in a Hindu context connects human beings with gods. Similarly,

this analysis suggests that cassava in a Garifuna context connects

the Garinagu with their ancestors.

Drawing on the interpretation above, the message of the

legend to the contemporary Garinagu is that they should appreciate

their ancestors and cassava – in other words their culture. In the

analysis the following characteristics of the Garinagu appear:

cassava is important to the Garinagu; the Garinagu protect their

culture; the Garinagu fight to survive and refuse to be

suppressed. These characteristics have oppositions, which thereby

characterizes what the Garinagu are not. Thus cassava contains an

encoded a message of both homogeneity and heterogeneity, which

means that cassava has potential to be used gastro-politically by

Garinagu (cf. Appadurais 1981:507-508).

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The message of the legend makes cassava an ethnic emblem,

because it differentiates the Garinagu from those, who are not

descendants of those ancestors, who protected the cassava roots.

This interpretation is supported by England (2006:166-167), who

writes that cassava today is a staple in the Garifuna diet, and

that cassava and tools used to make cassava products are powerful

symbols of Garifuna culture. Following Barth (1969:14), an ethnic

emblem can be used to show identity, but it can also be a social code

of moral (henceforth social code) that functions as a shared criterion

of evaluation. The Garinagu for example show their identity though

the ritual performance of the legend.

From the analysis of this chapter I infer that the

Garinagu’s social code is that solidarity, strength, teamwork,

perseverance, respect towards ancestors as well as preservation of

culture are cultural virtues.

The Garinagu’s acts of identity and their social code are

both aspects of the Garinagu’s virtual identity (cf. Jenkins

2008:58). Drawing on the interpretation of cassava in this

chapter, it appears that Garinagu’s nominal identity ”those who

eat cassava” besides food refers to the Garinagu’s social code

(cf. Jenkins 2008:58). According to Barth (1969:15), an ethnic

group can only last as long as the actors’ acts are distinguished

from acts of other groups. The nominal identity is therefore not a

strong ethnic emblem isolated. A Garifuna can define himself as

”Garifuna”, referring to shared ancestors, but Garinagu have to

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interact with emblems as for example cassava if they will achieve

an external definition as ”garinagu” as well (cf. Barth 1969:28).

In this chapter I have analyzed cassava as it is depicted in the

Garifuna legend above. I have argued that the legend represents

the contemporary Garinagu’s collective self-understanding, and

that this self-understanding is embedded in cassava. It appears in

the interpretation of the legend that cassava contains the

Garinagu’s social code, which among other things add importance to

solidarity, respect towards ancestors and preservation of culture,

and that these virtues are the result of the dialectics between

the influence of the colonists on the Garinagu’s self-

understanding and the Garinagu’s resistance against the power of

the colonists. I have furthermore pointed out that cassava has a

gastro-political potential to the Garinagu. In the following

chapter I will direct focus towards Garinagu in the contemporary

USA, and how Garinagu in that context construct their ethnic

identity. I will show how the social code embedded in cassava is

reflected in the construction of identity in the USA.

3.3 The Dialectics between the Internal and External Definitions

in the USA

In the 1940’s many Garifuna men were hired on merchant ships that

took them to the big North American seaports in the USA. From the

1960’s Garifuna men started to settle in North America and since

the 1970’s Garifuna women have also migrated there (England 1999:

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11; England 2006:76). Today NYC is assumed to be home to more than

100.000 Garinagu (Hardman 2009).

Garinagu in the contemporary USA is an ethnic group,

because they are biologically self-sustaining (England 2006:216);

share visible cultural values, among which I focus on cassava;

form a field of communication and interaction such as the blog

Being Garifuna (Colon Jr. 2010); identify themselves as Garinagu, and

are defined by others as belonging to another ethnic group (cf.

Barth 1969:10-11; England 2006:211).

It is now, however, self-evident that the Garinagu is an

ethnic group in the USA. Garinagu from Belize, who speak English,

typically live in Brooklyn that also is home to many English-

speaking West Indians; and Garinagu from the Spanish-speaking

countries typically live in the Bronx that has been home to many

Latin-Americans3, also called ”Hispanics”, since the 1970’s

(England 2006:51; Gonzáles 1988:180). According to England

(2006:125) a part of the Garinagu live in Central Harlem and East

Harlem that mainly houses Afro-Americans, Africans, black West

Indians and Puertoricans.

Both Barth (1969:25; 1995:1-3), Jenkins (2008:23-25) and

Appadurai (1996:61) highlights that ethnicity does not determine

the acts or thoughts of the individual, because these are the

result of the individual’s experiences in the world. The pattern

of settlement above reflects the migrants’ economic condition;

3 Spanish-speaking Amerikanere. The term can also mean ”mixture” (England 2006:195).

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their desire to ”camouflage” among others of African descent; and

their cultural taste for Latin-American areas (England 2006:51).

Barth (1995:3) writes in connection to Pakistani migrants

in Norway that the culture of the individual migrants changes as

he acquires new experiences in his new home. The migrant searches

for other persons, who are in the same position as himself, which

can lead to that the relevant in his country of origin becomes

irrelevant in his new country. A Garifuna has to NPR-reporter

Jesse Hardman (2009) given the expression that she and her

Garifuna friends have had a tendency to assimilate with members of

other ethnic groups outside the home, but that they have lived out

the Garifuna identity in private. England (2006:214) stresses that

assimilation between Garinagu and Afro-Americans and Latin-

Americans does not exclude that the garinagu at the same time

identify with a Garifuna ethnicity.

Barth (1995:4) points out that the cultural foundation is

weak and that the internal differences are big in the construction

of a new identity, which is based on that the members are being

put into the same stereotype, and share the same contrasts to the

majority population. Even though Garinagu and Latin-Americans

identify with each other on the basis of some cultural

similarities, the other Latin-American distinguish themselves from

the Garinagu by calling them ”Negritos” or ”Morenos”, referring to

their skin color (England 2006:210). Racism, is according to

Jenkins (2008:23), a subcategory of ethnicity characterized by a

dominating group impose the group, they want to dominate, an

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identity based on ”reference to their purported inherent and

immutable differences, and/or inferiority to the dominating

group”. Latin-Americans’ self-definition creates an ethnic

boundary, which excludes the Garinagu from being one of the

”Latin-Americans”, because they express that Garinagu is less

worth than non-black Latin-Americans, which is discrimination

based on race (England 2006:208).

Some Garinagu identify with Afro-Americans (”African-

Americans”) on the basis of a shared skin color, a shared fight

against discrimination, a shared continent of origin, as well as a

shared taste for esthetics and music (England 2006:206-208). The

Afro-Americans and the Garinagu are, due to their skin color,

subjected to the same stereotype, whereby they, following Barth’s

theory (1995:4), can identify with a shared position. From

Jenkins’s theory (2008:74), the Garinagu internalizes the external

definition imposed on them, when they assimilate with Afro-

Americans, which shows the authority of the external definitions

in the construction of their ethnicity. The shared identification

with the Afro-Americans is also weak, because the cultural

differences internally in the group are big. Besides, the Afro-

Americans make fun of the Garinagu, when they speak Spanish

(England 2006:209). By referring to the Spanish language, the

Afro-Americans define the Garinagu as ”Latin-Americans”.

The Garinagu’s self-definition also creates a clear

boundary between the Afro-Americans and themselves (England

2006:208). One of England’s informants describes Afro-Americans as

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follows: ”[…] since African Americans had the experience of being

slaves, they have no self-confidence and just blame all their

problems on the system.” (England 2006:209). The Garinagu in NYC

furthermore describe Afro-Americans as being cultureless, lazy and

criminal (England 2006:209). The Garinagu’s differentiating of

themselves from the Afro-Americans, reflects the social code, as

described in the last chapter, is embedded in the Garinagu’s

collective self-understanding. The distance the Garinagu create to

Afro-Americans is based on the collective understanding that the

Garifuna ancestors escaped life in slavery; had strength to resist

a dominating system; and carried their culture from St. Vincent to

their new home. In the chapter we also saw that solidarity is

among the Garinagu’s virtues. Solidarity differentiate the

Garinagu from those Afro-Americans, who above are described as

lazy, because the Garifuna migrants work hard and live in poor

housing in order to send home remittances (cf. England 2006:90-

91).

England points out (2006:211) that there is an increased

tendency among the Garinagu in the USA to define themselves as

”Garifuna”. Drawing on Barth’s theory (1995:4), the tendency is

due to that individuals have a need to identify with other

individuals, who are in the same position. As the number of

Garinagu in USA increases, more Garinagu are exposed to the

experiences in connection to identity described earlier: to be

externally defined as ”Black” and ”Latin-American”; identify

themselves with the ”Afro-Americans”, ”Latin-Americans” or both

groups, but at the same time experiencing to be distinguished from

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the group identity other members of the group (cf. England

2006:211). Since there is now expected to be more than 100.000

Garinagu in NYC (Hardman 2009), the Garifuna migrants have

foundation to identify with other Garinagu, and they even have a

new shared identity, because they experience the same issues in

connection to finding a group identity in the USA. Below I will

describe how the Garifuna ethnicity is verbalized in relation to

the American census in 2010.

According to Jenkins (2008:72), ethnic categories are

established as an official discourse in censuses, which can

influence the self-identification. The influence of the categories

on the Garinagu’s self-identification is seen in the debate about

the American census, where Garinagu internally disagree with if

they belong to the category ”African-American”, ”Hispanic” or

”Other” (England 1999:26). England (2006:207, 211) notices that

these categories are problematic, because they originate from of

the two distinct main categories race and ethnicity. The issue is

that the Garinagu both belong to the race ”African-American”, the

ethnicity ”Hispanic” (except the Garinagu from Belize) as well as

their own Garifuna ethnicity. As Jenkins remarks (2008:81), it

does not make sense to having to choose between race and

ethnicity.

A Garifuna woman argues in a video interview to The New

York Times that there is a need for a separate Garifuna category:

“Garifuna, me is who I am. It’s my culture; it’s my language; it’s

my food; It’s my family […] So hopefully […] in a couple of years

23

it will be that box will that says “Garifuna” – we will no longer

have to check “other” and write in “Garifuna”” (Orr and Singh

2012:01:49). The quote shows the importance of having one’s own

category. It is a showdown with the before mentioned tendency to

assimilate with Afro-Americans and Latin-Americans when not at

home. The quote shows how some Garinagu work to strengthen the

internal definition as a defense against the external definition.

However, the defense, according to Jenkins (2008:59) confirms the

power of the external definitions.

According to Jose Avila, leader of a Garifuna migrant

association, the fight towards having Garinagu write ”garifuna” in

the public register is also a fight for resources (GCU, INC. 2011;

Hardman 2009). Barth (1969:35) notices that political

confrontations involving ethnicity only can be carried out if the

parties approach each other structurally. The external power is

seen as the Garinagu have to use the political system of the USA

to identify themselves, if they want resources.

In this chapter I have argued that Garifuna ethnicity in the USA

not is self-evident, as the individual Garifuna moves in and out

of various categories of ethnicity, and has external definition

laid on him, which varies from one situation to the other. I have

pointed out that the social code embedded in cassava, reflects in

the way the Garinagu in the USA differentiates from the Afro-

Americans. I have also argued that Garifuna migrants’ desire for a

Garifuna ethnicity arises as they as a group experience to not fit

24

into the already established ethnic categories in the USA. The

following chapter will concern how cassava is relevant in regard

to spreading the message that Garinagu is a distinct ethnic group.

3.4 The Migrants’ Gastroethnic RepresentationVarious anthropologists have pointed out that it is in the

migrants meeting with other ethnic groups ethnic food is

constructed (cf. e.g. Lindholm 2012; Arvela 2012; Appadurai 1988).

Ethnic food is food that differentiates the group in question from

other ethnic groups (Kaplan et al. 1998:122). In this chapter I

will argue that it is in the meeting with other ethnic groups the

Garinagu becomes conscious of that cassava is their ethnic food.

England (2006:26) writes that the Garinagu in NYC can

“buy their plantains and cassava in one of the many Dominican

bodegas”. Furthermore she mentions (2006:97-98, 212-213), that the

Garinagu in NYC have pictures of ereba baking on the wall in their

clubhouse (ereba/bami is a dry pancake-like bread made of cassava);

sacrifice ereba to their ancestors; show photos of cassava

planting to a festival in a park, and uses tool from the cassava

production as trophies at a Garifuna beauty pageant. On Colon

Jr.’s Facebook page he shows photos of a Garifuna dance troop that

performs in NYC with a dance interpretation of the Garinagu’s

history (Colon Jr. 2010 April). In the show ereba baking is

reenacted through dance (Colon Jr. and Jensen 2013).

The empirical examples above show that the Garinagu in

the contemporary NYC interact with cassava and regard cassava as

25

their food. Gastroethnic representations are food versions of ethnic

emblems (cf. Barth 1969:14). A gastroethnic representation is a

conscious and selective self-representation of an ethnic

stereotype (Appadurai 1988:17). When the Garinagu choose to

represent themselves through photos and reenactments of cassava

planting and ereba baking, and to reward each other with tools

from the cassava production, they construct cassava as their

gastroethnic representation. Below I will show how Garinagu in the

USA can use the gastroethnic representation, cassava, gastro-

politically, as well as how they indeed do use the representation.

Cassava originates from South America, but it is also a

central ingredient to many Africans (Gonzáles 1988:106). Following

Appadurai’s theory about gastro-politics, which I have accounted

for in Chapter 2, cassava can thereby create homogeneity between

Latin Americans, Africans and Garinagu. Cassava can similarly

create heterogeneity between Garinagu and other ethnic groups,

because whereas the Garinagu process the roots to for example

breed, other ethnic groups only boil them (cf. Gonzáles 1988:106).

The Garinagu can thereby identify themselves with the Latin

Americans, Africans and the Afro-Americans respectively on

foundation of a shared ingredient, but they can as well mark out

their unique use of cassava, and the special meaning they ascribe

to cassava. The potential to create heterogeneity on the one hand,

and homogeneity on the other, makes it possible to use cassava

gastro-politically to confirm the individual Garifuna’s role as

both ”Hispanic”, ”African-American” and ”Garifuna” depending on

which resources the person wish to obtain in a given situation. It

26

is worth to notice that it is only by pointing out the Garinagu’s

unique relationship to cassava that cassava becomes an emblem of

Garifuna ethnicity (cf. Barth 1969:14).

The empirical examples show that the Garinagu in the USA

in practice use cassava to construct their own gastroethnic

representation, which reflects the Garinagu’s fight for their own

ethnic category. Appadurai (1981:507) suggests that food is an

effective instrument to unite people. Following Appadurai, the

Garinagu can offer cassava to members of other ethnic group,

whereby the ethnic boundary is softened, but they can on the other

hand put forward an explanation of why cassava historically is their

food. Cassava can in thereby be used as a language though which

the Garinagu can teach ethnic others about Garifuna culture

without the others become part of the Garifuna group.

An example of the gastro-political use of cassava is seen

in the comments on Colon Jr.’s photo number 19 (2010 April). There

Colon Jr. expresses a wish to spread a knowledge of a

differentiated Garifuna ethnicity by spreading photos of a

reenactment of ereba baking. A woman comments photo number 19:

”Wow that takes me back. I used to help my grandma do that […]

from going "al monte" buscar la yuca4 to leaning over that hot fire

making the "ereba". Some of my best childhood memories.” (Colon

Jr. 2010 April). The quote confirms Appadurai’s emphasis on

(1981:494) the ability of food to evoke strong feelings, as well

as anthropologist David Sutton’s point (2001:161) that memories

4 To go in the field to collect cassava roots.

27

about tastes and smells attaches to a situation, whereby food can

be interpreted very subjectively.

England (2006:2) and Mandelbaum (2013) describe that it

is important to Garifuna migrants to participate in the production

of ereba, when they are in Central America, and to bring cassava

products back to the USA. Sutton bring out (2001:80-84) that food

symbolically can bind migrants with their family and the

traditions of their society through memories, and through a

knowledge of that people in their home society eat the same thing.

Sutton thereby clarifies why it is important to Garifuna migrants

to interact with cassava.

Garinagu in the USA become aware that cassava is their

ethnic food, because cassava brings out memories of their

homeland. In the Garifuna societies in Honduras cassava is viewed

as a daily staple (Andrews 2012). Ethnicity and cassava are to

Garinagu in Honduras a ”background factor” making up the daily

life and therefore go almost unnoticed (cf. Jenkins 2008:80).

Garinagu in the USA, on the other hand, have to actively search

for cassava in certain stores (England 2006:26). Interactions with

the gastroethnic representation cassava, which brings out the

differences between Garinagu and other groups, are according to

Barth’s theory (1969:15), contributory of giving the Garinagu the

status of being an ethnic group. The individual Garifuna can,

however, be a Garifuna without interacting with cassava, if the

person identifies himself with an upbringing in the Garifuna

society or the Garinagu’s social code (cf. Barth 1969:28).

28

The argument I have put forward in this chapter is that Garifuna

migrants in the USA discovers that cassava characterizes them,

because in the USA they actively have to opt for cassava, whereas

cassava to a greater extend is taken for given in Honduras. On the

basis of that, the migrants construct the gastroethnic

representation cassava. I have pointed out that cassava can

connect Garinagu’s identity with the identity of Africans and

Latin-Americans, but that the Garinagu instead use cassava gastro-

politically to spread the message that they are a separate ethnic

group. In the following chapter I will investigate how the

migrant’s construction of the gastroethnic representation cassava

influences the Garinagu’s traditional values.

4.0 DiscussionAccording to anthropologist Charles Lindholm (2012:7) migrants

have had a significant role in strengthening and constructing

national food traditions in their home countries. Drawing on the

analysis above, I will discuss how the Garifuna migrants influence

the Garinagu’s traditional values in the Central American Garifuna

communities. The discussion will include the cassava business

Wabagari as an example.

29

4.1 A Gastro-political Message

Wabagaris mission statement is: ”To distribute a high quality

cassava products to an international market, while generating

income for Garifuna cassava bread producers of Honduras and

raising awareness about Garifuna culture.” (Martinez 2013: 1). The

mission statement expresses that cassava should be(come)

Garinagu’s gastroethnic representation. It expresses a compromise

between a striving towards being authentic, but also a striving

towards promoting and popularizing elements of ethnicity, and

thereby it reflects the same compromise as Appadurai (1988:17)

describes in relation to ethnic cookbooks. Wabagari wants to be

authentic, because the business wants to spread knowledge about

Garifuna communities. Wabagari’s goal to be the biggest cassava

producer on the international market is a goal about promoting

popularize.

”O’Big Mama snacks” is Wabagari’s further development of

ereba. They are an attempt to popularize cassava, because they are

easier to bring along than the traditional ereba, which is about

50 cm in diameter (Martinez 2013:4). The presence of cassava pizza

flour and the cassava products in American restaurant chains, that

are to be found all over the world, are similarly examples of

Wabagari’s attempts to popularize cassava (Martinez 2013:5;

Martinez 2013:1). Appadurai (1988:16) explains that gastroethnic

representations are founded on the way the ethnic group prepares

the food, but developed in new directions which only make sense

from a multiethnic perspective.

30

In 2002 Garifuna Lina Martinez founded Wabagari. Before

she founded Wabagari, she has taken a bachelor’s degree in the

USA, and she finished her education on the national university of

Honduras (UNAH) (Martinez 2013:2). Drawing on the analysis in the

former chapters I suggest that Martinez has become aware about the

importance of the preservation of the Garinagu’s cassava

production as a migrant. Wabagari’s initiative to popularize and

further develop cassava products had hardly arisen, if Martinez

only had lived in a Garifuna community.

The Wabagari products furthermore appeal to those

consumers, who are aware of ecology (Martinez 2013:4). As I have

pointed out earlier, respect towards the ancestors is embedded in

the Garinagu’s social code. The word ”organic” connotes that the

Garinagu is a people in contact with nature, and who takes care of

that earth they have inherited from their ancestors. Wabagari

highlights that cassava is authentic Garifuna food by writing:

”The women who cook the cassava bread, have been taught this

tradition by their mothers and grandmothers” (Martinez 2013:3).

According to England (2006:205) the Garifuna organization

Garifuna Cultural Unification works strategically together with

the Pan-American Indian organization World Council of Indigenous

People to make the United Nations put a pressure on the nation

states to give Garinagu rights of land on the foundation of an

agreement about the rights of original peoples. Wabagari’s

marketing of cassava is gastro-politics, because the business

strategically writes that the Garinagu is an ”autochthonous5

5 native

31

people”, who has cultivated cassava for centuries (Martinez

2013:3). Wabagari thereby transmits that the Garinagu has the

status of being an original people, and that the land they inhabit

is essential for the cultivation of their culture. Such a message

only reaches its suitable recipients if the ethnic group creates a

shared frame of understanding with the recipients (cf. Appadurai

1981:509; Barth 1969:35). Wabagari creates a shared frame of

understanding by appealing to the term ”original people”, and by

adjusting cassava to the taste of the recipients.

Garinagu in the USA are encouraged by their leaders to

participate in the fight for rights of land (England 2006:214). In

2010 Wabagari exported 1200 O’Big Mama snacks to NYC on a monthly

basis (Colon Jr. 2010 May). The export gives the Garinagu in the

USA the opportunity to support the fight by buying the cassava

products.

It is important to differentiate between the gastroethnic

representation and the reality of cooking. The gastroethnic

representation cassava is only a stereotype, constructed by the

Garinagu in order to communicate knowledge of their culture to the

world beyond the Garifuna community. Lindholm notices the

following:

The declaration of an authentic identity by consumption of food and drink that isthought to be characteristic of one’s ethnic, racial or national group takes on evenmore powerful symbolism in cases of internal stratification. Then consumption maynot only be a mark of intimacy or an expression of difference, it can also be a potentreminder of collective unity and of resistance against the dominant culture.[Lindholm 2012:2]

32

As suggested through the analysis, cassava is an emblem that

unites the Garinagu cross time and nations. Cassava reminds the

Garinagu of how their ancestors stood together and survived the

exile. Cassava also carries a message of how the Garinagu now have

to stand together in a similar manner against the external

definitions and a threatening assimilation in regard to the

dominating cultures in those nations they inhabit. Besides from

being part of a traditional diet, and a source to bring out

memories, cassava is therefore a representation with a gastro-

political message.

In the American food magazine Saveur, a Garifuna woman,

who lives in Martinez’s hometown La Ceiba, states: ”The

lifestyle has changed, but the culture of the Garifuna will not

change. The food will not change.” (Andrews 2012). Yet drawing

on the analysis and discussion above, it can be concluded that

the statement only is partly true. Wabagari has created new

products with an old core, and even if the new products only are

eaten by the migrants or by ethnic others, the Garifuna culture

in Honduras is changed, because cassava is developed further by

Garinagu, and because cassava has been given a gastro-political

meaning. However, Garinagu (migrants or not) still connect

cassava with Garifuna ethnicity. Wabagari even strengthen those

Garifuna values that make up the moral message that cassava

brings in a Garifuna context: respect towards the ancestors,

solidarity and teamwork.

33

Barth (1995:2) underlines that ethnic emblem always are

in a process of change, because they are constructed of the

experiences of the group members. Migration has given Martinez a

multiethnic perspective on the world that has made her aware of

her own culture, American and Honduran food preferences as well

as politics. She has due to her experiences away from the

Garifuna community managed to give new life to the cassava

production – a tradition that was dying because it was taken for

given (cf. England 2006:166-167). She has given the Garifuna

women a culture of which they are proud (Andrews 2012).

In this chapter I have discussed the migrants’ impact on the

traditional Garifuna values. I have pointed out that the fact that

Martinez has been a migrant has a large impact on her realization

of the importance of preserving the cassava production in the

Garifuna communities. Garinagu through cassava can communicate an

awareness of their ethnicity and fight a political battle about

rights of land. The migrants in the USA, who buys Wabagari’s

products, are by their purchase participating in the maintenance

of the economy, the fight for rights of land, and the feeling of

ethnicity among Garinagu in Honduras, because the purchases

supports that the Garinagu in Honduras produce food by using the

traditional ingredient.

34

5.0 ConclusionThe main argument of this study is that Garifuna migrants have

central role in the construction of the Garinagu’s ethnic identity

as well as in the strengthening of the ethnic self-consciousness

in their home countries, because they construct and spread the

gastro-political message that Garinagu is an independent ethnic

group.

Starting with the Garinagu’s history of exile I set out

to analyze, how Garifuna migrants in the USA construct an ethnic

identity by using the edible root, cassava, as an ethnic emblem. I

have demonstrated that the history of exile is a central part of

the Garinagu’s collective self-understanding, and that this self-

understanding is embedded in cassava. I have pointed out that the

desire of the Garifuna-migrants in the USA to construct their own

ethnic group arises when they as a group experience not to belong

into any of the existing ethnic categories, from which the North-

Americans interact. Furthermore I have demonstrated that it is on

the foundation of the contact with other ethnic groups, and

because the migrants actively opt for cassava, that the Garinagu

construct their gastroethnic representation cassava.

I set out to discuss how the migrants influence the

Garinagu’s traditional values. I have shown that a migrant like

the founder of Wabagari, the Garifuna woman Martinez, brings a new

perspective to her home community, from which she in co-operation

with the home community can develop new types of ethnic emblems on

the basis of traditional values. When the migrants in the USA buy

35

Wabagari-products, they give Garinagu in Honduras the opportunity

to work with the traditional ingredient, and they also support the

fight for rights of land. Wabagari’s new types of food, made from

cassava, emerge from a compromise between having to be authentic

and having to be able to be sold on the international market. The

social values, which to the Garinagu are embedded in cassava,

however, still stand.

The study provides an insight to how the migrants meeting

with a new society can strengthen their own feeling of ethnicity

as well as the feeling of ethnicity in their home communities. The

conclusion is relevant in regard to communicating to migrant

communities that they can strengthen their home community

economically and politically by acquiring knowledge of other

cultures’ developments of ethnic products. The study can be

supplemented with an investigation of how the Garinagu’s

interactions with other ethnic groups in Honduras influence the

Garifuna ethnicity.

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