Unsilencing HI (Stories) of Indo-Caribbean Women: Re-Writing and Re-Presenting Self and Community

This study unearths and explores stories of six Indo-Caribbean women (including myself) who live in Canada. We remembered, wrote, shared, and discussed in the context of a group writing practice. We met eleven times over a period of three months in 2012. In addition, I collected family stories from my mother, her sister—my aunt, and my father’s brother—my uncle, as I sought to fill in huge spaces of not knowing with understandings. While there is no doubt that I have learnt a great deal about the lives of people in the Caribbean, and while there is still much that I may never know, this project has shown me that when I ask, there is a chance to know. Caribbean politics and culture have historically been a source of alienation for all of us, and yet we have a growing sense of belonging to the region. Our discussions spanned formal and traditional education, immigration, negotiations of race relations, gendered roles and stipulations of class and caste. My analysis uncovered and formed new understandings about the lives of women in the study and Indo-Caribbean women more generally. I situate this study within a theoretical framework of colonial and postcolonial theory and history that integrates constructs of identity and memory; of Caribbean feminist discourse; and dominant traditional, cultural and political systems. The stories, combined with interviews, are a gateway into histories that have been silenced. Silences, questions and gaps in this work are as important as the stories that were told. In this dissertation, I have discussed alienation and hardship as core aspects of experience for Indo-Caribbean women. In citing the scarcity of their published work, I ask, can mental abandonment of one’s environment be thought of as a form of silencing iii that is characteristic of formerly subjugated people? I consider the possibility of silence when there is nothing to applaud, and the silences of women as a form of resistance. As a work of remembrance and creative narration, this dissertation contributes to the growing body of literature and theoretical discourse of Indo-Caribbean women.