User:Guettarda/Race

Trinidad and Tobago is a multiethnic society in the southern Caribbean. While most discussions of race and ethnicity tend to focus on the two largest racial groups (Afro-Trinidadians and Indo-Trinidadians (who between them account for over 80% of the population), or focus on the mixed nature of the society (often using descriptors like "rainbow" or "callaloo" society), the reality of racial and ethnic identities are more complicated and complex. Census forms gives the options of African, Indian, White, Chinese, Mixed race or Other. People who identify into one of these categories usually have more specific identities within these groups. Some of these identities were more well-established in the past and have been blurred by intermarriage and integration. Others are new identities that have developed in recent decades.

National identities

Although Trinidad and Tobago is a unitary state, citizens tend to identify as Trinidadians or Tobagonians. While colloquial descriptors like "Trinbagonian" exist, there is a distinct Tobagonian identity that exists separate from the larger Trinidadian identity. Since Tobago only has about 5% of the land area and 5% of the population, the Trinidadian identity tends to be conflated with the national identity.

Trinidad and Tobago had separate histories up until 1889. Originally a Spanish colony, Trinidad was settled by French planters (both white and mulatto) and their slaves between 1783 and 1797, when the island was captured by the British. Labour shortages after emancipation led to the importation of indentured labour from India, Portuguese Madeira, China, and Africa. Demands for labour also attracted immigration from the rest of the West Indies and Venezuela. Immigration remained high — until the 1960s, immigration exceeded emigration, even as large numbers of people migrated to the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

Census categories

Census data forms offer the following categories: African, Indian, Mixed, White, Chinese or Other. These categories present a broad cross-section of society in Trinidad and Tobago, but they fail to capture the full spectrum of ethnic identification that exists within (and to a lesser extent, across) these categories.