Christianity and Islam ease creolization while Hindu purity blocks nationalist inclusion in Trinidad

Evidence

Cultural and racial amalgamation has been available only to those members of the East Indian community prepared to reject representations and practices of purity. One avenue of rejection is through conversion to Christianity by Hindus. For the smaller Muslim East Indians (less than 25 percent of the East Indian population) religion poses less of a barrier to creolization, given the monotheism and common foundation of belief that it shares with Christianity. Muslims have been much more visibly included in the representation and practices of Creole nationalist expression. However, discourses of purity continue to locate the large majority of the East Indian population, as Hindus, outside of the national space. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3259

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to broader literature on race, religion, and national belonging — parallels the marginalization narratives in Naqvi’s Home Boy and Furuh’s storytelling about identity negotiation.