Are You My Ancestor?

Warning: the following post gets a little deep. If you'd rather continue onto the next day of my journey click here for Fort Kochi Part 5: Yes, It Is Actually Called Jewtown.

I've never really given all that much thought to my heritage before this trip, largely, I think, because my family just doesn't know that much about our history and as far as I can tell, doesn't seem to care that much either. I've sometimes wondered about it, yes, but it's generally a passing wonder that's satisfied by a quick five minutes of googling Guyana's history, which is then quickly derailed by the inevitable new question that pops into my head and needs an immediate answer from the internet. I haven't been back to Guyana since I was old enough to care about what Guyana means to me personally. I really wanted to go with my parents this summer but things came up and we weren't able to make the trip. I was surprised at how sad I was that we weren't going to be able to go. The older I've gotten, the more I really wish I knew more about where I come from. It's important! It's important to know these things. I don't really know why it's important or why I've started to think more about this recently, but I just know that it's important.

Nope, I'm just a lazy, Albino dog who on occasion enjoys chasing after his own ears.

Being here in India is another chance to learn about my history. But being here has been frustrating. All day today in Kerala, and really all throughout India I've found myself trying to find... me, or at least people that look like me, in the people I've seen. The thing is... no one anywhere looks like me. At least not to me, they don't. In every place in India I've gone to, I've asked people where I look like I'm from, and about 80% of the time I hear "South India" or specifically "Kerala." Occasionally, I hear "North India" or "Bihar" (a state in North India), but universally, people are confident in their opinion. How can this be so clear to Indians but so hard to see myself? I've sort of been like the baby bird in P.D. Eastman's Are You My Mother? throughout this trip, who wanders around asking that title question to an assortment of animals and machines that are clearly not his mother.

Most of the time when people ask where I'm from, my answer basically details all of the ways I'm not from India. But the reality is Guyana was just a blip on the radar of my family history. Obviously, recency has a disproportionate impact on the present, but at the end of the day, (in all likelihood) my family has been in India for a zillion generations. Zillion being an exact figure. (Prior to that, we're all actually from Africa. If you didn't know that before, now you do. You're welcome.) So really, I am Indian.

The real reason being here has been frustrating is that I don't know how much I should be identifying with the culture I see. In any given part of the country, I always has the question in the back of my mind "are these my people or are they from a culture to which I have zero connection?" This has been particularly true in Kerala, where I'm supposedly from. I mean... did you see that Kathakali show?! It's... well, it's certainly unique. But is it part of what makes me, me? Am I supposed to look at this show with awe and reverence or with a sentiment of "...this is ridiculous." Maybe both, why choose? Yes, I am Indian. But India is so far removed from what makes me, me, that maybe it's not that important after all. I guess it's just one of those nice-to-knows, like how old the universe is. Or do I own a copy of The Italian Job? I don't want to watch it, it's just nice to know if I have the option.

CONTINUE ON to Fort Kochi Part 5: Yes, It Is Actually Called Jewtown

Know Your Planet: the Guyana Edition

Just push play! Wait, no, that's a flag, sorry.

Today on Know Your Planet, we cover Guyana. Which might seem kind of random, but I can assure you it's totally germane. You see, most people assume I'm from India. Fun fact #1: I'm not. Sort of. I mean, way back I am, but India is so far removed from my culture that I don't really consider myself Indian at all. But even after I tell people I'm not from India... most people forget because their brains have already anchored onto the idea that I'm from India. So let's get this all sorted out, shall we? I was born in the good old United States of America. My parents are from Guyana and their (maybe great?) grandparents are from India.

Source: Wikipedia. And reality.

Fun fact #2: Guyana is not the same country as Ghana. Ghana is in Africa. Guyana is in South America. And yes, while my skin may be darker than yours, it's not a license to assume I'm from Africa when I say "actually my family is from Guyana."


Fun Fact #3: Guyana is the only English-speaking country in South America. So yes, again while I might look Indian, my family hasn't spoken any languages other than English for generations. So, no I don't speak Hindi. Homeless guy on the street, unless we're in a yoga class together, it's offensive when you greet me with "namaste." And yes, I will still give you food, but I won't give you money.

Sugar cane: the real reason why I'm so sweet

So why are there so many Black and Indian people in Guyana? Fun fact #4: As is the case while most global ethnographic anomalies, the answer is... the British! British Guiana as it was known, has and still has tons of fields where lots of fieldy thing happen. Crops and such, you know what I'm talking about. For a while the British used slaves from Africa to work the fields. When slavery was abolished in British Guiana in the early 1800s, the British shopped around the rest of the world to full their labor needs, like a kid in a candy store searching for that perfect treat to satisfy his sweet tooth. Except this candy store is the world. And that perfect treat is actually the British tricking poor, uneducated people of the world into voluntarily uprooting themselves and moving halfway across the world to work the fields under the false pretense that those workers might someday have a better life. The British finally settled on Indians as their best bet, which brings us to today, where Guyana has a population comprised of 45% Indian, 30% African, 10% Native Amerind, and 15% other people (which mostly means some mix of those first three buckets).

Fun fact #5: Record keeping in the very third-world country that is Guyana leaves a little to be desired. Which means aside from the little that I've already stated, we don't really know much more about our family history. We think either my grandparents or great grandparents came to Guyana from India. And we have no idea where in India we're from.

Maybe a history can help answer this geographic conundrum! As it turns out, nope, because the British imported people (is that an offensive way to say that? even if so, I stand by it's historical accuracy) from both the north and south of India. So... history, you are yet again, totally unhelpful.

http://xkcd.com/634/

How about biology? The details of my family origin by definition must be encoded in my DNA but for the time being, it will remain trapped until I can figure out how to get it out of there. However, phenotype to the rescue! (For your non-biologists out there, phenotype refers to the physical manifestation of certain features encoded in your DNA, i.e. that crazy 2nd toe you have that's longer than your big toe, or that head fully of fiery red hair.) Fun fact #5: Many people tell me dad that he looks like he's from Kerala, a coastal state in the south of India. And that's good enough for me to at least make it a stop on my journey. I mean, I figure while I'm out here, I might as well check it out, right?