Dear Editor,
I applaud the University of Guyana for hosting a Diaspora engagement conference last week. I attempt to explain how the concept of “Guyanese Diaspora” developed.
Guyanese Diaspora is relatively new and it was introduced during the 1980s by New York-based Guyanese involved in the struggle for the liberation of their country from the dictatorship. The term Diaspora was widely restricted for use among Jews – referring to dispersion of Jews. Other ethnic groups have also found themselves scattered, but the term was not widely used to refer to their migration. The term became popular during the 1990s when other national groups in America began to refer to themselves as the Diaspora of their former homeland.
So the term Diaspora is relatively new among Guyanese. It was introduced by Indo-Guyanese in NYC in our meetings with nationals and Government officials from India during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Indian nationals used to use NRIs to describe overseas Indians but the term was not meant to include Indo-Caribbeans, since we were not born in India. Indo-Caribbeans like Dev, myself and others introduced the term PIO to Indian nationals and politicians, and later we introduced the term Indian Diaspora to them; we had recognised that both terms would include Indo-Guyanese and other Indo-Caribbean people. Other groups in the US have emulated the usage of the term Diaspora.
The term Diaspora was not in the vocabulary of Guyana – Government or Guyanese at home or abroad – until about a decade ago. Prior to that, Guyanese who have migrated were referred to as overseas-based Guyanese similar to the term overseas-based Indians, Brazilians. The term Guyanese Diaspora was first introduced in discussions among a group of us in NYC during the mid 1980s in the heydays of our struggle for the restoration of democracy in our former homeland. The term was even used in the name of a Caribbean organisation formed in 1986 – East Indian Diaspora Steering Committee which was officially registered as non-profit in 1987.
In late 1986, a group of Indo-Caribbeans met with Professor Brinsley Samaroo at CUNY Graduate School on 42nd Street to establish and launch a planning committee to commemorate the 150th anniversary since the first indentured immigrants landed in Guyana. Dr Samaroo was a Minister in the NAR Government in Trinidad and made a special trip to NYC to help plan and organise what would the fourth conference of Indians in the Caribbean. We met at CUNY doctoral centre.
The three (1975, 79, 84) previous conferences (all held at UWI) were on Indo-Caribbeans. We felt the 1988 conference should be broad based to include the global Indian community. We came up with the term Diaspora conference borrowing it from the Jews to include all Indians (regardless of region or nationality, and, hence, the coinage of the Indian Diaspora which we would introduce to nationals from India. This term was introduced in interactions we held with academics and activists from India in the US including at an Indian conference in 1989 at the Sheraton Center in Manhattan. The term Guyanese Diaspora would similarly be used to refer to Guyanese abroad in meetings.
At that CUNY meeting, a formal name of our group was not taken. But Professor Prem Misir (LIU and St John) was nominated by myself and Ravi Dev to be President of the planning committee. I also nominated Professor Mahin Gosine (Fordham and CUNY) as Chair of the Academic Sub-Committee. Both nominees were elected. I was elected General Secretary.
At a subsequent meeting at the Research Institute for Study of Man on 5th Ave in Manhattan, two names for the organisation were proposed – Asian Indian Diaspora Steering Committee or East Indian Diaspora Steering Committee. The acronym of the first – AIDSC – was not acceptable with the objection being that it was too close to the disease AIDS which had just arrived on the health scene. The acronym of the second organisation – EIDSC – was considered more acceptable and it was unanimously carried in a vote. Some Professors from Columbia University attending the meeting offered their university as host of a week-long conferences. EIDSC was subsequently registered as a NGO co-hosting the Indo-Caribbean Diaspora conference at a hotel in Queens. There was a conflict in the group. Another conference was held on the same dates at Columbia University as planned. Dr Cheddi Jagan and Basdeo Panday attended both conferences.
It was through the 1988 conferences that the term Diaspora was introduced to Guyanese and would gradually be used in the vocabulary of Guyanese in NYC. It frequently appeared in my voluminous writings on Guyanese in the USA in our ethnic publications from then onward.
Yours truly,
Vishnu Bisram
