The Nuances of a hyphenated Identity

By: Amelia Seepersaud 

“Perhaps instead of thinking of identity as an already accomplished fact, which the new cultural practices then represent, we should think, instead, of identity as a ‘production’, which is never complete, always in process, and always constituted within not outside, representation.”

-    Stuart Hall, Cultural Identity and Diaspora

“I am a Guyanese from the Bronx,” I declared, hands on my hips, head held high, from the living room of our two-family home in Ozone Park, NY.

At the time, the scene was a humorous one. A four-year-old who knew little of Guyana or the Bronx beyond family trips and get-togethers, proudly shouting such a declaration. But now, almost two decades later, I regard that moment as perhaps my first reckoning with identity. The first moment of “becoming” as Stuart Hall would say. For I was not born in Guyana, and though I was born in the Bronx and it was, in every right, the first home I ever had, my home in Queens, the one we moved to when I was just two-years old, is the only one I have ever truly known. Yet, at the budding age of four-years-old, I recognized these parts of my history as inextricably linked to my sense of belonging and identity.

This was my first attempt at defining who I was.

Growing up in Ozone Park was a privilege. The schools I attended were overwhelmingly West Indian. Though we all were raised in New York, we called ourselves Guyanese. That was what our parents were, after all. And by all appearances—the food we ate, the music we listened to, the vernaculars with which we spoke—it seemed so were we.

Me on my fourth birthday.

Walking down the streets of Ozone Park and Richmond Hill in the summertime always felt like a party. Soca music blasting down one block, Bollywood down the other. Chutney music blaring from car speakers.

My favorite summer sound was that of the Tassa drums echoing from God knows where. It didn’t really matter where it came from, but when it reverberated through the air, I knew someone somewhere close by was getting married. Sometimes I dance along to the rhythms, celebrating these strangers’ union because that’s what you do when you hear tassa play. The beat is infectious, plaguing your hips, urging it to sway this way and that.

High school was the first time I wouldn’t be surrounded by Guyanese people. It was the first time I wasn’t one of the majority, specifically in terms of culture, in my environment. “You’re Indian, right?”

“No, I’m Guyanese.”

Puzzled expressions.

“You’re Indian, right?”

“No, I’m GUYANESE”

Poor kid, he had never heard of a Guyanese and now here was one shouting it at him.

Indian.

I’m not Indian. And yet…

I suppose I did grow up watching Bollywood movies, jamming to Indian chunes as we’d call them. I am Hindu. I went to music class every week where I clacked away at the keys on my Harmonium and sang bhajans in Hindi even though I didn’t know any Hindi myself. These are all very Indian things I suppose. Yet, how could I be Indian?

I have never stepped foot in India. Nor has my mother or my mother’s mother or her mother before her. Then again, our people did come from India at some point. So, maybe I was Indian.

No. I’m Guyanese… from the Bronx… from Queens.

Indo-Guyanese?

It wouldn’t be until my senior year of college that I learned about W.E.B DuBois’ theory of double consciousness, a theory in which our identity is not simply shaped by who we know ourselves to be but also, by who others perceive us to be. Now I reckon that that was what this was. The first of many reconfigurations of my identity. An awareness of and an adjustment to appease the perceptions of those around me. I cannot simply be Guyanese because my skin says to others, I am Indian. So, I must be Indo-Guyanese for folks to understand what box to place me into. Honestly, one would think a hyphenated identity would further complicate the matter of boxes.

So, there it was, sometime between the ages of 13 to 15, I went from being simply Guyanese to being Indo-Guyanese. And when I went abroad to France in my junior year of college and then again this past year in Ireland, I was Indo-Guyanese-American or my preferred label when abroad, simply a New Yorker. I did quite enjoy refusing to elaborate when I saw the dissatisfied looks on the faces of those who asked where I was from, and I truthfully answered New York. Many people accepted this answer but others seemed frustrated because when they asked where I was from, they meant where I was really from, which to them should mean somewhere like India, Pakistan or Bangladesh (somewhere within the South Asian subcontinent).  But honestly, there isn’t a more truthful answer to “where I am really from” than New York.

Returning to the Russian nesting doll of identity labels (Indo-Guyanese-American), frankly, I find the “Indo” quite redundant. Calling myself Guyanese is already an inherent acknowledgement of my Indianness; it is an acknowledgement of the full extent of the history that binds my bloodline.

That’s not to say being Guyanese, in a general sense, implies Indianness. Guyana is quite a diverse nation with people of various ethnic origins. What I mean is, when I and others who share the same history as my ancestors call ourselves Guyanese, our Indian heritage is automatically implied. In fact, I am staunchly against the notion that I am simply Indian and Indian alone. This would be a complete erasure of approximately one to two centuries worth of my family and cultural history (especially depending on which branch of my family tree you follow). Calling me Guyanese, does not erase my Indianess but calling me Indian does erase my Guyaneseness.

A picture of me with my sister before one of her Kathak performances. Kathak is a classical Indian dance form my sister learned and performed in her childhood. Music and dance were an avenue of connection to our culture and religion.

These distinctions may prove useful when discussing matters of race and how it factors into how our culture is shaped and how our people interact. But, in a general sense, when I get asked where my people are from or what my cultural background is, there is no real reason to emphasize the "Indo" component of the Guyanese or Caribbean label other than for the comfortability of others in making sense of us.

I also often find that while I can find points of connection within both South Asian and Caribbean communities, I have a much easier time finding community amongst other Caribbean people. I think it is due, in part, to the reality that when I tell a Caribbean person I am Guyanese, the expression on their face is almost always one of recognition. Whereas, when I tell an Indian person, particularly when it is outside of New York—one thing I will always appreciate about New York is the strong Caribbean presence and acknowledgement of our communities by everyday New Yorkers—that I am Guyanese, I am often met with puzzled expressions. It gets exhausting after a time having to launch into a history lesson every time I get asked by non-Caribbean folk where I’m really from.

I say, “I’m Guyanese” and I get told, “Oh, but you don’t look Guyanese?”

I’m always curious what this person, who clearly knows so little of Guyana by that statement alone, thinks a Guyanese person is meant to look like. It’s a matter of fact, not opinion, that I look exactly like a Guyanese person. No reconfiguration of this label justifies the refusal of that truth.

-  This piece was inspired by Nandani Felicia Devi's piece on Substack, “I don’t like the ‘Indo’ part of Indo-Caribbean”. This is my perspective on the “Indo-Caribbean” label.