NICH holds “Belizean I.D.” exhibit

And we ask tonight: What does it mean to be a Belizean? To be more specific, to what ethnic group do you belong? Chances are you will respond Creole, Garifuna, East Indian, Mestizo, Chinese, and so on but it is much more complex. To say you belong to one ethnic group, restricts and limits you to particular cultural practices. In Belize we prefer to see ourselves as Belizeans, regardless of our ethnicity, because of the rich and diverse melting pot that makes up the Belizean mosaic. With that in mind, the National Institute of Culture and History and the Museum of Belize, today launched a Belizean I.D. exhibit. Panelists had their own take on what is the Belizean identity and according to them, our ethnicity is subjective to the individual but it is our cultural identity that defines who we are.

Lita Krohn, Director, Museum of Belize
“We have the mixture of the buccaneers, logwood cutters, mahogany with the people coming from Africa; the Creole, Mestizos which is now a mixture of Spanish with Maya and then other people coming; Chinese, people from India, people from all over the place. And so we are a country made up of many ethnicities speaking many languages and I thought that we have to start to have our children understand that we don’t have to be categorized in any little pigeon-whole. We can deal with a lot of ethnicities and a lot of cultures and we are rich in our diversity and that’s what we want to do; to celebrate our diversity under one flag, the Belize flag.”

Dr. Carla Barnett, Panelist
“It is very important for people to know who they are, and to know who you are you have to understand where you come from. I think we all have to understand our history because that’s what empowers us. It makes us understand ourselves, understand what we can do and what we can be. So for everybody, you have to figure out for yourself what is your identity and it is not necessary for you to fit yourself into a category that is defined for example, on a census document because the way the categories are defined, you may just not fit into any one. And that does not make anything wrong with you; it makes something wrong with the categories. I don’t want us to confuse the Belizean identity or ethnic identity with racial identity, racial stereotypes. I think we need to take account that as Belizeans we are all mixed and that’s one of the points that I made today, that going way back to the first time they started to collect this data when they asked people said that their mother is this and their father is that. You get a lot of missing going. That’s just who we are. We are a people that is very culturally rich and that is something we should feel good about. We don’t have to make excuses for that. We should feel good about that; understand why it is so but we should be proud of what we are.”