1 00:00:08,041 --> 00:00:09,843 KAREN: Okay. Today's our last class, 2 00:00:12,345 --> 00:00:14,681 and so, in this presentation, we hope 3 00:00:14,681 --> 00:00:17,517 to discuss and pull together a lot of different themes 4 00:00:17,517 --> 00:00:20,453 that we've talked about over the course of the semester, namely 5 00:00:20,453 --> 00:00:22,889 centered around discourses of power. 6 00:00:22,889 --> 00:00:25,925 So we've kind of teased apart the idea 7 00:00:25,925 --> 00:00:28,995 that there are political, economic, social, 8 00:00:28,995 --> 00:00:32,766 and linguistic discourses of power that impact the way 9 00:00:32,766 --> 00:00:36,536 people live their lives and how they identify, and hopefully 10 00:00:36,536 --> 00:00:39,973 by learning about these different discourses of power, 11 00:00:39,973 --> 00:00:46,046 we can find the treasure trove of understanding identity. 12 00:00:46,046 --> 00:00:52,650 RACHEL: So in terms of discourses of power, 13 00:00:52,652 --> 00:00:56,056 in the political sense, in our readings 14 00:00:56,056 --> 00:00:58,625 about the different issues in the Caribbean, 15 00:00:58,625 --> 00:01:01,461 we discussed the general topic was colonialization 16 00:01:01,461 --> 00:01:05,230 as a discourse of power and how colonialization, 17 00:01:05,230 --> 00:01:08,268 in all of these countries, established dominant discourses 18 00:01:08,268 --> 00:01:12,572 for racial, social, linguistic, and economic hierarchies 19 00:01:12,572 --> 00:01:14,441 of power. 20 00:01:14,441 --> 00:01:21,047 We-- and how these hierarchies kind of dictated 21 00:01:21,047 --> 00:01:25,585 the structure of the society, so the governmental power 22 00:01:25,585 --> 00:01:28,455 went to a small group of elites that 23 00:01:28,455 --> 00:01:35,929 were kind of reminiscent of the way the colonies were set up. 24 00:01:35,929 --> 00:01:42,235 And then even after colonial power left these colonies, 25 00:01:42,235 --> 00:01:44,571 these new nations were still set up 26 00:01:44,571 --> 00:01:48,074 in this structure of colonial power 27 00:01:48,074 --> 00:01:50,844 with the dominant hierarchies remaining 28 00:01:50,844 --> 00:01:55,582 unchanging-- race, social, linguistic, and economic. 29 00:01:55,582 --> 00:01:57,550 KAREN: So we've talked a lot, this semester, 30 00:01:57,550 --> 00:02:00,420 about the idea of Caribbean exceptionalism and Haitian 31 00:02:00,420 --> 00:02:04,891 exceptionalism, but last weekend, you kind of also 32 00:02:04,891 --> 00:02:08,026 touched on the idea that this neo colonial power 33 00:02:08,026 --> 00:02:10,130 political aspect is something that's 34 00:02:10,130 --> 00:02:13,533 pervasive the worldwide in post-colonial states, 35 00:02:13,533 --> 00:02:18,605 like Rachel said, in maintaining colonial power hierarchies even 36 00:02:18,605 --> 00:02:20,573 after independence. 37 00:02:20,573 --> 00:02:24,444 Personally speaking, India is an example of this. 38 00:02:24,444 --> 00:02:27,714 People from upper castes and like Hindi speaking populations 39 00:02:27,714 --> 00:02:29,883 within India under British colonial rule 40 00:02:29,883 --> 00:02:33,153 tend to be given a lot of power, and that is very much 41 00:02:33,153 --> 00:02:36,022 how India is structured today. 42 00:02:36,022 --> 00:02:40,226 Also within the diaspora, even like non-political 43 00:02:40,226 --> 00:02:44,631 in terms of legislation, a lot of the South Asian diaspora 44 00:02:44,631 --> 00:02:46,866 is centered around Hindu-speaking upper caste 45 00:02:46,866 --> 00:02:49,502 experiences. 46 00:02:49,502 --> 00:02:55,775 So then there's also the idea of economic discourses of power-- 47 00:02:55,775 --> 00:02:57,744 that political power kind of also 48 00:02:57,744 --> 00:03:01,247 confers economic power on a small group of elite people. 49 00:03:01,247 --> 00:03:05,318 This limits access to a lot of resources and global capital 50 00:03:05,318 --> 00:03:08,221 and further helps in keeping people 51 00:03:08,221 --> 00:03:14,928 in post-colonial stratified societies. 52 00:03:14,928 --> 00:03:17,363 In the Caribbean, you can look at trade 53 00:03:17,363 --> 00:03:20,667 and how and unequal balance of trade kind 54 00:03:20,667 --> 00:03:23,736 of support more importing than exporting, 55 00:03:23,736 --> 00:03:26,206 which is very damaging. 56 00:03:26,206 --> 00:03:30,376 RACHEL: And so, globally, these dominant discourses 57 00:03:30,376 --> 00:03:34,814 of economic power have a parallel throughout the world 58 00:03:34,814 --> 00:03:38,251 in terms of the distribution of economic capital 59 00:03:38,251 --> 00:03:41,054 and the allocation of funding-- 60 00:03:41,054 --> 00:03:45,425 of global funding, and so, specifically, certain countries 61 00:03:45,425 --> 00:03:49,896 tend to have control over valuable resources 62 00:03:49,896 --> 00:03:51,965 even if they're not necessarily located 63 00:03:51,965 --> 00:03:53,333 within their own countries. 64 00:03:53,333 --> 00:03:57,971 An example of that is US's hand in oil in the Middle East 65 00:03:57,971 --> 00:04:01,674 at some point in history and currently-- 66 00:04:01,674 --> 00:04:05,511 and then the idea of international aid 67 00:04:05,511 --> 00:04:09,115 being focused on certain countries 68 00:04:09,115 --> 00:04:11,384 based on natural disasters and such. 69 00:04:11,384 --> 00:04:14,654 KAREN: I mean, also if we look, like, two months ago, 70 00:04:14,654 --> 00:04:18,491 there was a conference held in California, the African Global 71 00:04:18,491 --> 00:04:20,893 Economic and Development Summit. 72 00:04:20,893 --> 00:04:24,230 That's meant to help bridge ties between businesses in the US 73 00:04:24,230 --> 00:04:28,501 and Africa and lead to economic development, 74 00:04:28,501 --> 00:04:31,571 but none of the delegates from African countries 75 00:04:31,571 --> 00:04:34,741 were able to even enter the US to attend the summit because 76 00:04:34,741 --> 00:04:37,143 of visa difficulties. 77 00:04:37,143 --> 00:04:40,713 So we had, like, discussions of Africa's 78 00:04:40,713 --> 00:04:43,716 economic and developmental future being 79 00:04:43,716 --> 00:04:45,585 held, like professor DeGraff was saying, 80 00:04:45,585 --> 00:04:49,122 by no one who really had a personal stake in Africa. 81 00:04:53,120 --> 00:04:57,130 So these economic and political discourses of power 82 00:04:57,130 --> 00:05:01,067 also contribute to socially stratified societies, 83 00:05:01,067 --> 00:05:05,538 where social mobility is challenged. 84 00:05:05,538 --> 00:05:09,542 Education is usually seen as a means for social mobility 85 00:05:09,542 --> 00:05:11,444 and subverting the stratification, 86 00:05:11,444 --> 00:05:16,015 but in a lot of cases like we have discussed previously, 87 00:05:16,015 --> 00:05:18,885 education and access to education is also stratified, 88 00:05:18,885 --> 00:05:21,287 and it is very unequal. 89 00:05:21,287 --> 00:05:23,089 We've talked about linguistics and, like, 90 00:05:23,089 --> 00:05:25,792 language being a barrier to accessing education within 91 00:05:25,792 --> 00:05:30,897 the Caribbean with French-based education in Haiti-- 92 00:05:30,897 --> 00:05:34,767 and the work of MIT Haiti to try and change this. 93 00:05:34,767 --> 00:05:38,471 But education is also barred by political and natural disaster 94 00:05:38,471 --> 00:05:42,375 issues and the idea that this inequal access to education 95 00:05:42,375 --> 00:05:44,644 further cements stratification. 96 00:05:44,644 --> 00:05:46,679 RACHEL: Globally, there are parallels 97 00:05:46,679 --> 00:05:50,917 of this stratification throughout countries, 98 00:05:50,917 --> 00:05:53,686 and so the idea of cultural capital 99 00:05:53,686 --> 00:05:55,555 and different countries' cultures 100 00:05:55,555 --> 00:05:59,425 being more valuable than others has kind of created 101 00:05:59,425 --> 00:06:05,298 this idea of, like, ultimate cultures to aspire to. 102 00:06:05,298 --> 00:06:11,504 And it's contributed to the idea of cultural assimilation, which 103 00:06:11,504 --> 00:06:14,240 is happening in such a global-- like, 104 00:06:14,240 --> 00:06:16,109 as our society becomes more and more global, 105 00:06:16,109 --> 00:06:19,612 and there's a lot of migration, and there 106 00:06:19,612 --> 00:06:22,081 are more correct cultures and more incorrect cultures-- 107 00:06:22,081 --> 00:06:24,917 and the same with language. 108 00:06:24,917 --> 00:06:28,121 And so, we've seen, like, situations of this cultural 109 00:06:28,121 --> 00:06:30,723 assimilation in the US throughout history 110 00:06:30,723 --> 00:06:33,359 and throughout the world but specifically in the US, 111 00:06:33,359 --> 00:06:39,465 thinking about boarding schools for the Native American, 112 00:06:39,465 --> 00:06:41,667 where they were forced to-- where they were punished 113 00:06:41,667 --> 00:06:44,504 for speaking their native languages or participating 114 00:06:44,504 --> 00:06:47,006 in their native culture even amongst themselves and not 115 00:06:47,006 --> 00:06:48,975 in an educational setting-- 116 00:06:48,975 --> 00:06:51,411 and parallels in countries like Haiti and Jamaica, 117 00:06:51,411 --> 00:06:53,980 where they were not-- when they went to school, at some point, 118 00:06:53,980 --> 00:06:55,848 they were not allowed to speak their creoles, 119 00:06:55,848 --> 00:06:58,284 their native languages. 120 00:06:58,284 --> 00:07:01,788 Personally, the thing that comes to mind 121 00:07:01,788 --> 00:07:03,656 in terms of cultural assimilation 122 00:07:03,656 --> 00:07:07,827 is in the small town where I went to high school, 123 00:07:07,827 --> 00:07:09,429 specifically at the high school, there 124 00:07:09,429 --> 00:07:12,632 were three acceptable cultures or, like, 125 00:07:12,632 --> 00:07:13,699 two well-defined cultures. 126 00:07:13,699 --> 00:07:15,868 It's like being a white American, 127 00:07:15,868 --> 00:07:17,937 being a black American, or being Hispanic. 128 00:07:17,937 --> 00:07:21,140 And within Hispanic, they specifically Mexican-- 129 00:07:21,140 --> 00:07:26,212 not really being either Hispanic, Mexican, or white-- 130 00:07:26,212 --> 00:07:28,114 being a white Hispanic and not Mexican, 131 00:07:28,114 --> 00:07:32,784 it was kind of interesting to resist cultural assimilation 132 00:07:32,784 --> 00:07:36,355 of, like, choosing one or the other, 133 00:07:36,355 --> 00:07:38,724 especially when people would tell me things, like, 134 00:07:38,724 --> 00:07:41,294 speak English because we're in the US-- 135 00:07:41,294 --> 00:07:43,996 to which I vigorously responded in Spanish 136 00:07:43,996 --> 00:07:46,933 much to their irritation. 137 00:07:46,933 --> 00:07:49,469 But it's just like having to choose between having 138 00:07:49,469 --> 00:07:52,805 friends and losing my culture. 139 00:07:52,805 --> 00:07:55,808 Often I chose just to be with my family, 140 00:07:55,808 --> 00:07:57,577 because I was more important to me, 141 00:07:57,577 --> 00:08:00,079 but that pressure was definitely present. 142 00:08:00,079 --> 00:08:02,181 KAREN: Definitely also someone who is first-gen, 143 00:08:02,181 --> 00:08:04,250 the idea of assimilation is something that's 144 00:08:04,250 --> 00:08:07,253 had an impact on my life. 145 00:08:07,253 --> 00:08:08,688 And for me it's really been really 146 00:08:08,688 --> 00:08:10,089 interesting to kind of tease apart 147 00:08:10,089 --> 00:08:12,925 the differences and attitudes toward assimilation 148 00:08:12,925 --> 00:08:15,862 between my generation and my parents' generation, 149 00:08:15,862 --> 00:08:18,231 because my parents were the ones that moved to the US. 150 00:08:18,231 --> 00:08:20,466 And for them, assimilation was something 151 00:08:20,466 --> 00:08:26,973 that they didn't teach me their languages, 152 00:08:26,973 --> 00:08:28,774 and for people of their generation 153 00:08:28,774 --> 00:08:32,211 that-- we have family friends that seek to assimilate kind 154 00:08:32,211 --> 00:08:37,015 of by not only adopting Western American styles of dress 155 00:08:37,015 --> 00:08:42,188 and language but also by forcibly distancing themselves 156 00:08:42,188 --> 00:08:45,358 from their South Asian roots even if they 157 00:08:45,358 --> 00:08:48,160 are born and raised in India. 158 00:08:48,160 --> 00:08:50,096 Like, there's a family friend that 159 00:08:50,096 --> 00:08:53,266 refuses to fly certain airlines to certain places 160 00:08:53,266 --> 00:08:58,538 in the world to not be seen as part of that South Asian crowd 161 00:08:58,538 --> 00:09:01,040 and things like that, versus, like, people in my generation, 162 00:09:01,040 --> 00:09:04,143 where it's become kind of a reclamation of identity-- 163 00:09:04,143 --> 00:09:07,813 a kind of like what Rachel was talking about-- kind of trying 164 00:09:07,813 --> 00:09:09,682 to avoid assimilation by adopting 165 00:09:09,682 --> 00:09:14,020 different styles of dress and sort 166 00:09:14,020 --> 00:09:15,588 of reclaiming your heritage. 167 00:09:15,588 --> 00:09:19,158 But it's also interesting to compare assimilation 168 00:09:19,158 --> 00:09:21,727 and attitudes towards-- like, assimilation towards 169 00:09:21,727 --> 00:09:24,997 the melting pot in the US, versus in the Caribbean, 170 00:09:24,997 --> 00:09:28,100 people tend to call the US a melting pot, 171 00:09:28,100 --> 00:09:30,136 but there's definitely still, like, 172 00:09:30,136 --> 00:09:34,373 stratified social groups and cultural groups within the US, 173 00:09:34,373 --> 00:09:36,242 versus in-- 174 00:09:36,242 --> 00:09:38,711 and almost as if you're trying to aspire 175 00:09:38,711 --> 00:09:41,447 to one assimilated one American norm, whatever that means, 176 00:09:41,447 --> 00:09:43,049 even though we're supposed to celebrate 177 00:09:43,049 --> 00:09:44,450 our cultural diversity. 178 00:09:44,450 --> 00:09:48,321 But the Caribbean, as the Walcott reading pointed out so 179 00:09:48,321 --> 00:09:50,790 beautifully, I thought that there 180 00:09:50,790 --> 00:09:54,927 is so many different points and lingering memories of vestiges 181 00:09:54,927 --> 00:09:56,696 of different cultures within the Caribbean. 182 00:09:56,696 --> 00:10:01,033 They all exist harmoniously and create a new culture, 183 00:10:01,033 --> 00:10:03,469 so the idea of, like, is the US truly a melting pot, 184 00:10:03,469 --> 00:10:05,571 or are there better examples of that in the world? 185 00:10:09,840 --> 00:10:13,110 And then we've been hinting around it, 186 00:10:13,112 --> 00:10:17,383 basically political, economic, and social discourses of power 187 00:10:17,383 --> 00:10:22,722 also confer into linguistic discourses of power. 188 00:10:22,722 --> 00:10:24,590 There is the quote from-- 189 00:10:24,590 --> 00:10:26,692 RACHEL: Oh, and it was very wonderfully 190 00:10:26,692 --> 00:10:31,130 captured in several of the readings, the quote 191 00:10:31,130 --> 00:10:34,667 from the bishop of Seville to the queen of Spain 192 00:10:34,667 --> 00:10:38,204 when Columbus requested to go into the colonies, 193 00:10:38,204 --> 00:10:40,906 he, like, handed her a dictionary of Spanish 194 00:10:40,906 --> 00:10:44,877 and was like, "language is the perfect instrument of empire." 195 00:10:44,877 --> 00:10:48,180 And I thought that was very representative of how social, 196 00:10:48,180 --> 00:10:49,882 political, and economic kind of fed 197 00:10:49,882 --> 00:10:52,451 into linguistic discourses of power 198 00:10:52,451 --> 00:10:55,554 as the, like, predominant vehicle for it. 199 00:10:55,554 --> 00:10:57,256 KAREN: And today within the Caribbean, 200 00:10:57,256 --> 00:10:59,458 as we've discussed, this plays out 201 00:10:59,458 --> 00:11:01,727 in education-- in the language of education, 202 00:11:01,727 --> 00:11:03,562 in the language of politics, in the language 203 00:11:03,562 --> 00:11:08,334 of the upper class, where the native language of a very, very 204 00:11:08,334 --> 00:11:11,170 small population is given so much precedence 205 00:11:11,170 --> 00:11:14,774 over the language-- the lingua franca of these countries 206 00:11:14,774 --> 00:11:18,044 and a language that is very emblematic of these countries 207 00:11:18,044 --> 00:11:18,544 itself. 208 00:11:18,544 --> 00:11:20,613 It's a language that is a melting pot. 209 00:11:20,613 --> 00:11:22,048 Creole is a language that is born 210 00:11:22,048 --> 00:11:23,883 of so many different languages coming together 211 00:11:23,883 --> 00:11:26,385 just as Caribbean cultures born of so many different peoples 212 00:11:26,385 --> 00:11:29,088 coming together, and it's a bit ironic. 213 00:11:29,088 --> 00:11:30,723 There's a Lippi-Green quote that says, 214 00:11:30,723 --> 00:11:34,694 "to take away someone's access to their mother 215 00:11:34,694 --> 00:11:36,796 tongue is to also take away access 216 00:11:36,796 --> 00:11:42,401 to their best tool for social change," essentially. 217 00:11:42,401 --> 00:11:45,204 And a lot of the readings hinted at this-- 218 00:11:45,204 --> 00:11:50,543 that reclaiming language through music like what Coke was doing 219 00:11:50,543 --> 00:11:52,978 in Jamaica through poetry-- 220 00:11:52,978 --> 00:11:55,481 like what Chamberlin was suggesting 221 00:11:55,481 --> 00:11:58,551 is a way of subverting these economic and political 222 00:11:58,551 --> 00:12:00,586 discourses of power. 223 00:12:00,586 --> 00:12:03,055 RACHEL: And these discourses of linguistic power are 224 00:12:03,055 --> 00:12:06,926 paralleled globally, as have all of that difficulty discources 225 00:12:06,926 --> 00:12:08,494 of power we've been talking about, 226 00:12:08,494 --> 00:12:12,231 in two prevailing ideas that are linked together-- 227 00:12:12,231 --> 00:12:16,969 the idea of prescriptivism which feeds cultural capital-- 228 00:12:16,969 --> 00:12:19,705 that there is a correct way of speaking every language. 229 00:12:19,705 --> 00:12:22,141 And then there are predominant correct languages 230 00:12:22,141 --> 00:12:24,810 and incorrect languages or better than worse, 231 00:12:24,810 --> 00:12:29,615 and this has been a largely larger form 232 00:12:29,615 --> 00:12:33,152 of global control of language. 233 00:12:33,152 --> 00:12:37,089 And it contributes to the idea of linguistic genocide, which 234 00:12:37,089 --> 00:12:39,759 has now been documented very well that it's 235 00:12:39,759 --> 00:12:42,795 rampant throughout the world that languages are dying 236 00:12:42,795 --> 00:12:47,800 at alarming rates, but it's due to-- it's linked to this idea 237 00:12:47,800 --> 00:12:50,536 that there is a correct language, 238 00:12:50,536 --> 00:12:54,073 and the speakers of these quote, unquote "incorrect languages" 239 00:12:54,073 --> 00:12:57,243 have abandoned for violent and nonviolent reasons. 240 00:13:00,410 --> 00:13:04,110  And so, like, this idea has been very prevalent. 241 00:13:06,710 --> 00:13:08,350 KAREN: So then now talking about how 242 00:13:08,354 --> 00:13:10,890 all of these predominant discourses of power 243 00:13:10,890 --> 00:13:16,896 impact the shaping and formation of identity. 244 00:13:16,896 --> 00:13:19,799 So there are a lot of complex in defining identity 245 00:13:19,799 --> 00:13:21,600 in a post-colonial world. 246 00:13:21,600 --> 00:13:25,204 The Barack Obama has a quote that "the worst 247 00:13:25,204 --> 00:13:29,141 thing that colonialism did was to cloud our view of the past," 248 00:13:29,141 --> 00:13:33,112 but also this view of the past is kind of something 249 00:13:33,112 --> 00:13:35,314 that a lot of countries are struggling with when 250 00:13:35,314 --> 00:13:37,249 defining today's identity-- is what is 251 00:13:37,249 --> 00:13:38,450 our relationship to the past? 252 00:13:38,450 --> 00:13:41,320 Was it a relationship to colonial powers-- 253 00:13:41,320 --> 00:13:45,324 to countries that the people of today come from? 254 00:13:45,324 --> 00:13:48,861 And how do we or do we at all use 255 00:13:48,861 --> 00:13:52,865 these influences to shape a unique national identity today? 256 00:13:52,865 --> 00:13:56,802 If we look at Jamaica, their way of shaping 257 00:13:56,802 --> 00:14:00,506 a unique Jamaican identity was through their music 258 00:14:00,506 --> 00:14:05,311 through what Coke was doing and in sponsoring 259 00:14:05,311 --> 00:14:07,780 these dancehall music-- 260 00:14:07,780 --> 00:14:10,883 the popularity of it, and through the propagation 261 00:14:10,883 --> 00:14:17,056 of Caribbean poetry, and just the idea that language 262 00:14:17,056 --> 00:14:23,729 can be used as a tool to maintain a sense of identity. 263 00:14:23,729 --> 00:14:25,631 RACHEL: And then identity also has 264 00:14:25,631 --> 00:14:28,234 kind of a dual nature that goes along with this, 265 00:14:28,234 --> 00:14:33,472 like, choosing whether or not we are colonial, or not, or both. 266 00:14:33,472 --> 00:14:37,176 Or a new thing is that identity is both self-chosen 267 00:14:37,176 --> 00:14:41,780 and imposed, and you can choose how all of these discourses 268 00:14:41,780 --> 00:14:46,252 of power influence how you define yourself, 269 00:14:46,252 --> 00:14:50,656 and so then like the idea, as Walcott said-- 270 00:14:50,656 --> 00:14:54,526 KAREN: Yeah, so he kind of hinted at the idea 271 00:14:54,526 --> 00:14:58,030 that historically Caribbean cultures have struggled, 272 00:14:58,030 --> 00:15:01,700 or people have struggled with the idea of buying 273 00:15:01,700 --> 00:15:05,304 Caribbean cultures as being a culture of people, 274 00:15:05,304 --> 00:15:08,107 because they're so hodgepodge and made up 275 00:15:08,107 --> 00:15:09,942 of so many different influences-- 276 00:15:09,942 --> 00:15:12,111 kind of hearkening back to the idea of, like, purity 277 00:15:12,111 --> 00:15:13,913 and authenticity. 278 00:15:13,913 --> 00:15:17,149 RACHEL: And so, using this idea of purity 279 00:15:17,149 --> 00:15:21,253 as a way of deciding whether, like, what you choose 280 00:15:21,253 --> 00:15:24,456 or what's imposed on you makes you pure or not, 281 00:15:24,456 --> 00:15:28,727 and how you decide to identify with that idea, 282 00:15:28,727 --> 00:15:32,031 and whether or not it's authentic to have chosen 283 00:15:32,031 --> 00:15:33,465 or to be imposed, and, like, what 284 00:15:33,465 --> 00:15:35,734 remains in your identity in terms 285 00:15:35,734 --> 00:15:39,071 of the idea of authenticity that Tiango and Achebe 286 00:15:39,071 --> 00:15:43,108 discussed in a paper that we read.