Rediasporization: African-Guyanese Kweh-Kweh

REDIASPORIZATION

REDIASPORIZATION

African-Guyanese Kwe-Kwe

By Gillian Richards-Greaves

University Press of Mississippi / Jackson

The University Press of Mississippi is the scholarly publishing agency of the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning: Alcorn State University, Delta State University, Jackson State University, Mississippi State University, Mississippi University for Women, Mississippi Valley State University, University of Mississippi, and University of Southern Mississippi.

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Copyright © 2020 by University Press of Mississippi

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Manufactured in the United States of America

First printing 2020

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2020020399

Hardback: 978-1-4968-3115-6

Trade Paperback: 978-1-4968-3116-3

Epub Single: 978-1-4968-3117-0

Epub Institutional: 978-1-4968-3118-7

PDF Single: 978-1-4968-3119-4

PDF Institutional: 978-1-4968-3120-0

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

Contents

Acknowledgments

Abstract

Prologue: The Processes of Diasporization and Rediasporization

1      Introduction: Who Karkalay? From Wedding-Based Kweh-Kweh to Cultural Reenactment

2      Where’s the Cookup Rice? Extracting the African and Reconstructing Home through Food

3      Wipin’, Winin’, and Wukkin’: Constructing, Contesting, and Displaying Gender Values

4      Beat de Drum and de Spirit Gon Get Up: Music, Dance, and Authenticity in Rediasporization

5      Borrow a Day from God: Navigating the Boundaries of Race and Religion in Rediasporization

6      Conclusion: Wholly Fractured, Wholly Whole: Innovating Traditions and Reconstructing Self in Come to My Kwe-Kwe Rituals

Epilogue: Picking Up the Pieces

Glossary

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgments

Rediasporization: African-Guyanese Kweh-Kweh is the culmination of more than a decade of ethnographic research that I started in 2005. Throughout this journey, I was supported by my family and colleagues. I also received financial support in the form of professional development funding, which allowed me to travel to conferences, where I presented my ideas and received critique, feedback, and questions that helped make the writing process productive.

The research and writing process was long and arduous but my husband, Chris, and my sons, David and Josiah, were patient and supportive, particularly during my sixteen-month ethnographic research stay in Guyana, South America. They also often read my work and provided feedback and the emotional support I needed throughout the process. My mother Waveney Richards, nieces and nephews, cousins (especially Hazel Harris), friends, and seven siblings also provided moral support that sustained me, even though we live in different parts of the world. I am especially grateful for the continued support I received from members of my church families in Guyana and New York City, including Lucille Marks, Claire and Compton Roberts, Kenneth and Caroline Saul, Allison Wren, Michael and Jackie Clarke, Alexander and Lynette Hodge, Wendell and Sharmine Blair, Steven Locke and Beverly Crawford-Locke, Tyrone and Feliz Jackson, and Fitzpatrick and Yvette Dublin.

The research for this monograph would not have been possible without the support of the Guyanese people in New York City, Guyana, and even the state of Georgia. Many individuals opened their homes and provided information through formal and informal interviews, making it possible for me to learn much more about Guyanese culture than the kweh-kweh ritual I set out to study. From the time I expressed interest in studying kweh-kweh, Dr. Vibert Cambridge, the president of the Guyana Cultural Association (GCA) in New York City, assisted me in networking with former and current kweh-kweh practitioners in Guyana and enabled me to attend, record, and collect data at every Come to My Kwe-Kwe celebration since its inception in 2005. Dr. Rose October-Edun, members of the Guyana Folk Festival Committee, the Kwe-Kwe Ensemble, and musicians like Akoyaw Rudder, Winston Jeggae Hoppie, and Hilton Hemerding also played crucial roles in helping me obtain the data I needed to complete this monograph. They made the research process enjoyable.

My research journey and writing were also supported by my former professors and colleagues, with whom I discussed my work and from whom I received advice. Drs. Barbara Hampton, Daniel B. Reed, Anya Peterson Royce, Daniel Suslak, Marvin Sterling, Ruth Stone, Mellonee Burnim, and Richard Rick Wilk offered invaluable insight and feedback at different phases throughout this process.

A few of my colleagues also played integral roles in the research and completion of this project. Drs. Austin Okigbo and Mintzi Martinez Rivera were two of the first individuals with whom I discussed the concept of rediasporization in great detail. They listened to my ideas, read my work, and offered suggestions for developing my arguments beyond the seminal stages. My countrywoman and friend Dr. Pauline Baird was a catalyst and supportive big sister throughout the process. Her advice was particularly crucial because it was deeply rooted in her in-depth knowledge of Guyanese history and culture. At Coastal Carolina University, my colleague Dr. Emma Howes eagerly read my work, provided valuable feedback, and asked copious probing questions that helped me sharpen my focus and arguments. My colleague Dr. Richard Aidoo also read some of my chapters, listened to my ideas, and provided feedback from an Africanist perspective.

Abstract

Come to My Kwe-Kwe is a reenactment of a uniquely African-Guyanese prewedding ritual called kweh-kweh, sometimes referred to as karkalay, mayan, kweh-keh, and pele. Since the fall of 2005, African-Guyanese in New York City have celebrated Come to My Kwe-Kwe (more recently, Kwe-Kwe Nite) on the Friday evening before Labor Day. This book draws on more than a decade of ethnographic research data to examine the role of Come to My Kwe-Kwe in the processes of African-Guyanese rediasporization, that is, the creation of a newer diaspora from an existing one. To do so, this work also interrogates the factors that affect African-Guyanese perceptions of their racial and gendered selves, and how these perceptions in turn impact their engagement with African-influenced cultural performances like the Come to My Kwe-Kwe ritual. It shows how the malleability of Come to My Kwe-Kwe allows African-Guyanese to negotiate, highlight, conceal, and even reject complex, shifting, overlapping, and contextual identities, particularly those influenced by race, class, and religion. Ultimately, this work demonstrates how Come to My Kwe-Kwe performances in the United States facilitate African-Guyanese transformation from an imagined community to a tangible community that does the same things with each other, at the same time, and in the same physical space.

PROLOGUE

The Processes of Diasporization and Rediasporization

Physical Separation

The first stage in the process of diasporization is the physical separation or physical fracture of a group from a geographic space of residence, particularly one in which they have resided for several generations and regard as home (Clifford 1994; Gilroy 1993; Lesser 2003; Okpewho 2009). Ethnic groups become separated from their homelands for diverse reasons, including enslavement (Gomez 2007; Klein 2010), war (Sonneborn 2006; Alajaji 2015; Ibrahim 2016), and other negative or push factors. In other instances, the pursuit of economic advancement (Munasinghe 2006; Sinn 2012), religious freedom (Morse 1912; Milbrandt 2017), and other pull factors entice or compel people to migrate from their homelands (Morier-Genoud and Cahen 2012). The reasons for separation also affect the composition of the displaced group in their new homeland (Okpewho 2009), as well as the type and degree of interaction they have with other ethnic groups with whom they share space (Kasinitz 1992; Foner 1998; Gonzalez and McCommon 1989). Robin Cohen (1997) has argued that the diverse reasons for separation also create different types of diasporas, including victim diasporas, labour diasporas, trade diasporas, imperial diasporas, and cultural diasporas. This book emphasizes not just the cause for separation from an ancestral African homeland but also the internal processes that work actively and collectively to shape a group’s cohesion and identity. These are the processes of diasporization, which, over subsequent generations, might be repeated severally as significant numbers of the displaced group relocate to even newer homelands while deliberately and inadvertently maintaining connections, broadly construed, with former homelands (Butler 2000, 127). The redoing of the diasporic process with multiple homelands actively in focus is what constitutes rediasporization.

Memory

The second stage of diasporization is remembering, which entails emotional/psychological fractures (Bastide 1978; Yelvington 2001, 240; McGavin 2017, 130). At this stage, it is imperative that members of the displaced group draw on what they already know to create a sense of normalcy. Displacement creates emotional and psychological fractures because the things, practices, and people that the displaced group regards as mundane and normal are no longer present, and "neither the sending or [sic] receiving country serves any longer as a stable source of social belonging" (Tsuda 2003, 122). This is particularly important for members of groups who have been forcibly displaced. In their new space, they begin to identify or emphasize commonalities between their present state and former homeland in order to reconstitute norms. In this stage also, they draw heavily on the senses to materialize memories and reconstruct experiences of the past. More specifically, memories of the physicality or geography of former homelands, memories of languages, and memories of rituals and other cultural enactments form the foundation of the new life the displaced will create (Shelemay 1998; Sutton 2001; Ray 2004). However, even though they may remember, they must convey those memories in tangible ways to others in the group, particularly the young, through songs, stories, food, and other cultural enactments (Slobin 1994; Hall 2005).

As time progresses and subsequent generations emerge, the displaced group gradually becomes placed in their new geographic space. This placing involves some remembering and some forgetting of practices from previous homelands, particularly by older generations. Sometimes, the forgetting is simply a feature of displacement and distance, but sometimes it is also a mental purge of survival (Tsuda 2003, 135). To survive in the new homeland, the displaced must learn new things and, in the process, discard older, more distant realities that have become mentally burdensome or otherwise irrelevant. In some instances, also, the memory purge is not deliberate, or even a purge, but a gradual decay of thoughts and recollections, which lie dormant or become extinct as the need, desire, or ability to conjure them wane, or the people themselves die.

Cultural Mixing

The third stage of diasporization is cultural mixing, which necessitates cultural fractures. Even when memories remain, they must coexist in the minds and realities of the displaced in tandem with more recent experiences and memories that might be more crucial for survival. Often, the newer experiences include transnational and trans-ethnic mixing (Anthias 1998b, 565–66) that uniquely colors the cultural values and interpretations and reshapes the everyday lives of those who are placed—a diaspora (see also Brah 1996).

As much as diasporas draw on elements of the past—particularly former homelands—to inform their sense of group identity, their experiences with other ethnic groups uniquely shape what they subsequently become. Through the process of acculturation, whereby ethnic groups experience cultural changes due to sustained, long-term contact with each other (Kottak 2015, 34; Redfield, Linton, and Herskovits 1936), a diaspora learns new languages, adopts new foods, and undergoes other metamorphoses. In the process, the diaspora retains some of the cultural elements of the past but becomes significantly different from people still residing in previous homeland(s). The diaspora, and its cultural expressions, can therefore be said to have become creolized—a new entity in a new place, created from older, more distinct elements from other places.

Even though uniquely different from residents of former homelands, diasporas are diasporas because they, in tangible and symbolic ways, identify with those homelands (Yelvington 2001, 229). Moreover, in many instances, they draw on cultural practices and ideals of former homelands to articulate diasporic identities that distinguish them from other ethnic groups. Their interpretations of tradition are often innovative, reflecting both cultural continuity and change.

Rediasporization

Rediasporization encompasses all the processes of diasporization previously discussed but also entails the refracturing of a community, which complicates and compounds their experiences (Takyi 2002). The displaced primary diaspora must simultaneously connect to multiple former homelands, though not with equal fervency, often privileging one homeland over another depending on the context. In the secondary diaspora (and later diasporas), memories of the first homeland (root) are distant and sometimes nonexistent, depending on how much time has passed. Thus, the secondary or more recent homeland—the route to the current homeland or hostland—which shaped experiences in the more recent homeland, is privileged with respect to memories (Clifford 1997; Anthias 1998b, 568). The first or primary homeland, however, often continues to be the standard of authenticity by which diasporas evaluate cultural expressions. In many instances, diasporas tend to overlook the cultural changes taking place in the primary or previous homelands, which may put the authenticity of their cultural practices into question. Diasporas also overlook the fact that, in many instances, they have retained older and thus more authentic iterations of cultural practices, because they have had to remember the past in order to diminish the cultural and psychological fracture that results from displacement and homeland-lessness (Tsuda 2003, 122), and distinguish themselves from other ethnic groups (Jackson and Cothran 2003). According to Paul Zeleza, The relations between the old and new diasporas can be characterized by antagonism, ambivalence, acceptance, adaptation, and assimilation (2009, 45). Nevertheless, the rediasporized community must exist in multiple realms of belonging and dis-belonging, while at the same time navigating connections to multiple homelands (Mori 2003; Levy and Weingrod 2005; Burns 2009, 127–45; Wrazen 2012, 146–60). As Kim Butler argues, conceptualizations of diaspora must be able to accommodate the reality of multiple identities and phases of diasporization of time (2000, 127).

REDIASPORIZATION

1

Introduction: Who Karkalay?

From Wedding-Based Kweh-Kweh to Cultural Reenactment

Introduction

Since the fall of 2005, African-Guyanese in New York City have celebrated a ritual called Come to My Kwe-Kwe (more recently, Kwe-Kwe Nite) on the Friday evening before Labor Day. Come to My Kwe-Kwe is a reenactment of a uniquely African-Guyanese prewedding ritual called kweh-kweh, also known as karkalay, mayan, kweh-keh, and pele (fig. 1.1).¹ A typical traditional (wedding-based) kweh-kweh has approximately ten ritual segments, which include the pouring of libation to welcome or appease the ancestors; a procession from the groom’s residence to the bride’s residence or central kweh-kweh venue; the hiding of the bride; and the negotiation of the bride price.² Each ritual segment is executed with singing and dancing, which enable participants to chide, praise, and tease the bride and groom and their respective nations (relatives, friends, and representatives) on conjugal matters such as sex, domestication, submissiveness, and hard work.³ Come to My Kwe-Kwe replicates the overarching segments of the wedding-based kweh-kweh, which I will discuss in greater detail later, but a couple (male and female) is chosen from the audience to act as the bride and groom, and props simulate the boundaries of the traditional kweh-kweh performance space, such as a gate and the bride’s home. However, unlike traditional kweh-kweh, which focuses exclusively on the nations of the bride and groom, Come to My Kwe-Kwe engages the larger Guyanese community, albeit for an entry fee.

When the Folk Festival Committee of the Guyana Cultural Association (GCA) in New York City first sponsored Come to My Kwe-Kwe in 2005, they envisioned it as a one-time event that would contribute to the year’s theme, Celebrating Guyanese Dance. However, at the end of the event, the overwhelmingly positive feedback from the audience inspired the GCA to make Come to My Kwe-Kwe a fixture of the annual Folk Festival (fig. 1.2). Thus, every year on the Friday before Labor Day, Guyanese from all over the world convene in Brooklyn to celebrate the accidental tradition of Come to My Kwe-Kwe and to connect or reconnect with other Guyanese. Consequently, Come to My Kwe-Kwe has increasingly become a symbol of African-Guyaneseness, which participants manipulate to facilitate group solidarity and to distinguish themselves from other ethnic groups.

This book examines the role of Come to My Kwe-Kwe in the construction of a secondary African-Guyanese diaspora (rediasporization) in New York City by exploring how African-Guyanese in the United States draw on the ritual to articulate their tricultural (African-Guyanese-American) identities. This work also interrogates the factors that affect African-Guyanese perceptions of their racial and gendered selves, and how these perceptions in turn impact their engagement with African-influenced cultural performances like Come to My Kwe-Kwe. By drawing on longitudinal research data, this work demonstrates how the malleability of Come to My Kwe-Kwe allows African-Guyanese to negotiate, highlight, conceal, and even reject complex, shifting, overlapping, and contextual identities. Ultimately, this work demonstrates how Come to My Kwe-Kwe performances in the United States facilitate African-Guyanese transformation from an imagined community to a tangible community that does the same things with each other, at the same time, and in the same physical space.

Figure 1.1: Deconstructing traditional kweh-kweh.

Ethnographic Data

As a young girl growing up in Guyana, I only observed the kweh-kweh ritual from a distance because it was considered grown folk business (adult matters) and African (pagan, ungodly, taboo). However, I became interested in kweh-kweh as a research topic in 2002 while gathering data to write an end-of-term paper on the ritual. Due to the paucity of literature on kweh-kweh, I decided to interview older African-Guyanese who were knowledgeable about the ritual. However, instead of gaining a wealth of information from them, I was met with resounding silence, shunning, and statements such as we don’t do that thing anymore, "kweh-kweh is vulgar, and kweh-kweh is dead." Only a few individuals I spoke with at the time regarded kweh-kweh as an important facet of African-Guyanese culture and identity, but some argued that the ritual was dead or dying. What I found particularly interesting about their responses, however, was the fact that each time there was an impending wedding these very individuals actively celebrated kweh-kweh. For example, Patsy, a deaconess in a local church in Brooklyn, refused to discuss kweh-kweh with me because she perceived it as pagan and vulgar. However, months later, in an unguarded moment, this church mother informed me that she was getting ready to throw (sponsor) a kweh-kweh in her daughter’s honor. Annoyed and confused, I said, "I thought you didn’t celebrate kweh-kweh! Patsy responded almost apologetically: Girl, you can’t have a wedding without a kweh-kweh, but not everybody would understand." During subsequent discussions with other African-Guyanese I discovered that, like Patsy, they held views on kweh-kweh that were contradictory to their actual engagement with the ritual. Their inconsistent behavior piqued my interest and inspired me to conduct further research on the ritual.

Although I am a native Guyanese, gaining research access to African-Guyanese communities in Guyana and New York City was a slow, painstaking process because I occupy a liminal state of existence in each community. I am both Guyanese and American. To Guyanese in Guyana, I am a foreigner; to older, more seasoned kweh-kweh performers, I am young, and thus a novice; to older Guyanese women I am too mannish to be considered a proper woman; to Africanist Guyanese who embrace kweh-kweh, I am a Christian and therefore a potential threat to the ritual; and to many Guyanese I am