The Asian Other in the Caribbean

In: Small axe: a journal of criticism, Volume 13, Issue 2, p. 57-71

Abstract

This essay examines the problem of being Asian in the Caribbean, Asian referring generically to settled groups originating from the sub-continent of Asia. The essay traces how demographic minority status and religious difference have historically led to the process of becoming the outsider in the region. Focusing primarily on Indians, the essay explores the tropes of the "home and the world" in which "otherness" emerges as metaphors in the fictional works of Rabindranath Tagore's The Home and the World which resonates in V.S. Naipaul's A House for Mr. Biswas. The `Other' in this essay extemporizes on Edward Said's concept in Orientalism. Othering excludes Asians from the creole project of nationalisms in the region, conferring instead a script of antiquity and cultural spirituality that Asians have colluded with for negotiating difference. This collusion comes with its own metaphysical dilemmas of identity and belonging that remain unresolved.