Dougla Lives: At the Intersections
Curated by Aleah N. Ranjitsingh | Artwork by Marques EdwardsTo be Dougla is to experience mixedness as Blackness (coded African-descended in the Caribbean), modified by Indianness and possibly any combination of other racialized ethnic groups that form part of the social landscape of the Caribbean. The Dougla therefore exists at the INTERSECTION of these, at home and abroad, often causing for reflection and contemplation of self as one exists in the world often occupying spaces of, and experiencing inbetweenness - these intersecting identities, and those ascribed and asserted marking the Dougla experience.
How then do these Douglas maneuver their identities and understandings of race, ethnicity, Indianness and Blackness in the United States and the global north? What are the stories they must tell?
This project is grounded in the work on Dougla by Sue Ann Barratt and Aleah N. Ranjitsingh (2021), particularly the concept of “maneuvering,” defined as “a meaning making process enacted by those who live the inbetweenness of mixedness, giving them a site for recognizable connection” and “performed in order to situate self in compliance with or in resistance to the state of inbetweenness” (74). It reflects an internal process, one of critical self-reflection and transformation. Here, Dougla voices, their self-reflections, and possible stories of transformation are shared and preserved.
Zoe
“Well I just call myself mixed honestly, and if they ask me what I am mixed with I say it. I don’t go through the whole describing and explaining the Dougla thing ‘cause as I say, sometimes I really can’t bother, but if they already know the term, and they try to use it with me, then ok.”
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Kiev Davis
“The key thing that I think is that I have become more accepting of myself, right, and it’s okay to be multifaceted. So don’t try to put me in a box, because I am no one thing. I am Black, I am Dougla, I am a nerd, I am from the Caribbean, I am Vincy. I’m me.”
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Aleah Ranjitsingh
“I’ve never felt safe, and I will say it here, I’ve never felt safe in fully Indo, Indian spaces or Indo-Trinidadian spaces. I’ve never felt safe, I’ve always felt that I did not belong, and I sort of stuck out.”
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Latoya Thompson
“When I’m filling out the thing on the boxes, I don't even look for the other options to know what they have, to even know if they have something outside of the ‘Black.’ I just know they better have that there so I could select it. I don't know what other options they have, if it's not ‘Black,’ what would I choose?”
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Melissa Afeisha Conneuil-Hosein
“I always saw myself as a Black person because I grew up in the States. But they weren't seeing me as a Black person. They were seeing me as approximate to Indianness because my mom was Indian. And so because of that, they were just comfortable doing their anti-Black, subtle microaggressions. without knowing that I don't see myself as Dougla. But that was the first time that people seeing me as Dougla strips me of what I essentially see myself as, which is a Black person. And it reduced it, and it made me realize that in spaces where I'm perceived as a Dougla person, I am not essentially valued as a Black person.”
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Anonymous
“What comes up for me is where I am right now is trying to be in a space of healing as much as possible, and trying to reclaim the parts of identity that I think serve me.”
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Sania Bolasingh
“If you see me and you're just like, oh, I'm a Black girl. Like if I if I'm like, writing down on the job sheet or whatever, like I'm a Black girl or like I'm Black. But, if you ask me, oh, like, ‘What are you mixed with?’ then I’ll say, you know, I’ll identify – I’ll say the Indian, I’ll say the Jamaican . . .”
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Kaneesha Cherelle Parsard
“My sense of my Indo Caribbean identity comes through, and I think this is probably clear by now, comes through a sense of my own history and my relationship to that history rather than the attitudes, or acceptance of any given person I may meet.”
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Aleah N. Ranjitsingh (she/her) is an Assistant Professor in the Africana Studies Department and Caribbean Studies Program, at Brooklyn College, City University of New York (CUNY). She is the co-author of Dougla in the 21st Century: Adding to the Mix, a study of race and the mixed race Dougla identity in the Caribbean and the Caribbean diaspora. She was born in Trinidad and is Dougla (of mixed African and Indian descent). Her project will further engage with Caribbean immigrants who identify as Dougla in the United States, so as to gather stories on how they maneuver their identities as mixed race and Caribbean in a space where understandings of Dougla may not translate, and racial systems and processes of racialization, racial quantification and stratification vary from those in the Caribbean homeland space.
The Archival Creators Fellowship Program is made possible with support from The Institute of Museum & Library Services.
Artwork by Marques Edwards
Marques (/marr-kess/) is a multidisciplinary artist & designer creating vibrant impactful visuals, and branding experiences. View Marques’ work at marquesedwards.com
The Archival Creators Fellowship Program is made possible with support from The Institute of Museum & Library Services.
Artwork by Marques Edwards
Marques (/marr-kess/) is a multidisciplinary artist & designer creating vibrant impactful visuals, and branding experiences. View Marques’ work at marquesedwards.com