WEBVTT

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KAREN: Okay. Today's
our last class,

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and so, in this
presentation, we hope

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to discuss and pull together
a lot of different themes

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that we've talked about over the
course of the semester, namely

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centered around
discourses of power.

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So we've kind of
teased apart the idea

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that there are political,
economic, social,

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and linguistic discourses
of power that impact the way

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people live their lives and how
they identify, and hopefully

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by learning about these
different discourses of power,

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we can find the treasure trove
of understanding identity.

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RACHEL: So in terms
of discourses of power,

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in the political
sense, in our readings

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about the different
issues in the Caribbean,

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we discussed the general
topic was colonialization

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as a discourse of power
and how colonialization,

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in all of these countries,
established dominant discourses

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for racial, social, linguistic,
and economic hierarchies

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of power.

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We-- and how these
hierarchies kind of dictated

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the structure of the society,
so the governmental power

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went to a small
group of elites that

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were kind of reminiscent of the
way the colonies were set up.

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And then even after colonial
power left these colonies,

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these new nations
were still set up

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in this structure
of colonial power

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with the dominant
hierarchies remaining

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unchanging-- race, social,
linguistic, and economic.

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KAREN: So we've talked
a lot, this semester,

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about the idea of Caribbean
exceptionalism and Haitian

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exceptionalism, but last
weekend, you kind of also

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touched on the idea that
this neo colonial power

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political aspect
is something that's

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pervasive the worldwide
in post-colonial states,

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like Rachel said, in maintaining
colonial power hierarchies even

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after independence.

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Personally speaking, India
is an example of this.

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People from upper castes and
like Hindi speaking populations

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within India under
British colonial rule

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tend to be given a lot of
power, and that is very much

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how India is structured today.

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Also within the diaspora,
even like non-political

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in terms of legislation, a lot
of the South Asian diaspora

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is centered around
Hindu-speaking upper caste

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experiences.

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So then there's also the idea of
economic discourses of power--

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that political
power kind of also

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confers economic power on a
small group of elite people.

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This limits access to a lot of
resources and global capital

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and further helps
in keeping people

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in post-colonial
stratified societies.

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In the Caribbean,
you can look at trade

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and how and unequal
balance of trade kind

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of support more
importing than exporting,

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which is very damaging.

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RACHEL: And so, globally,
these dominant discourses

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of economic power have a
parallel throughout the world

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in terms of the distribution
of economic capital

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and the allocation of funding--

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of global funding, and so,
specifically, certain countries

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tend to have control
over valuable resources

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even if they're not
necessarily located

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within their own countries.

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An example of that is US's
hand in oil in the Middle East

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at some point in
history and currently--

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and then the idea
of international aid

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being focused on
certain countries

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based on natural
disasters and such.

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KAREN: I mean, also if we
look, like, two months ago,

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there was a conference held in
California, the African Global

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Economic and Development Summit.

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That's meant to help bridge ties
between businesses in the US

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and Africa and lead to
economic development,

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but none of the delegates
from African countries

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were able to even enter the US
to attend the summit because

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of visa difficulties.

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So we had, like,
discussions of Africa's

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economic and
developmental future being

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held, like professor
DeGraff was saying,

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by no one who really had a
personal stake in Africa.

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So these economic and
political discourses of power

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also contribute to socially
stratified societies,

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where social mobility
is challenged.

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Education is usually seen as
a means for social mobility

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and subverting the
stratification,

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but in a lot of cases like
we have discussed previously,

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education and access to
education is also stratified,

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and it is very unequal.

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We've talked about
linguistics and, like,

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language being a barrier to
accessing education within

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the Caribbean with French-based
education in Haiti--

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and the work of MIT Haiti
to try and change this.

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But education is also barred by
political and natural disaster

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issues and the idea that this
inequal access to education

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further cements stratification.

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RACHEL: Globally,
there are parallels

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of this stratification
throughout countries,

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and so the idea of
cultural capital

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and different
countries' cultures

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being more valuable than
others has kind of created

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this idea of, like, ultimate
cultures to aspire to.

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And it's contributed to the idea
of cultural assimilation, which

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is happening in such
a global-- like,

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as our society becomes
more and more global,

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and there's a lot of
migration, and there

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are more correct cultures
and more incorrect cultures--

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and the same with language.

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And so, we've seen, like,
situations of this cultural

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assimilation in the
US throughout history

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and throughout the world
but specifically in the US,

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thinking about boarding schools
for the Native American,

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where they were forced to--
where they were punished

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for speaking their native
languages or participating

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in their native culture even
amongst themselves and not

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in an educational setting--

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and parallels in countries
like Haiti and Jamaica,

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where they were not-- when they
went to school, at some point,

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they were not allowed
to speak their creoles,

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their native languages.

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Personally, the thing
that comes to mind

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in terms of cultural
assimilation

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is in the small town where
I went to high school,

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specifically at the
high school, there

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were three acceptable
cultures or, like,

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two well-defined cultures.

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It's like being
a white American,

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being a black American,
or being Hispanic.

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And within Hispanic, they
specifically Mexican--

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not really being either
Hispanic, Mexican, or white--

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being a white Hispanic
and not Mexican,

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it was kind of interesting to
resist cultural assimilation

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of, like, choosing
one or the other,

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especially when people
would tell me things, like,

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speak English because
we're in the US--

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to which I vigorously
responded in Spanish

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much to their irritation.

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But it's just like having
to choose between having

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friends and losing my culture.

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Often I chose just
to be with my family,

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because I was more
important to me,

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but that pressure was
definitely present.

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KAREN: Definitely also
someone who is first-gen,

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the idea of assimilation
is something that's

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had an impact on my life.

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And for me it's
really been really

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interesting to
kind of tease apart

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the differences and
attitudes toward assimilation

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between my generation and
my parents' generation,

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because my parents were the
ones that moved to the US.

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And for them,
assimilation was something

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that they didn't teach
me their languages,

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and for people of
their generation

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that-- we have family friends
that seek to assimilate kind

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of by not only adopting Western
American styles of dress

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and language but also by
forcibly distancing themselves

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from their South Asian
roots even if they

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are born and raised in India.

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Like, there's a
family friend that

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refuses to fly certain
airlines to certain places

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in the world to not be seen as
part of that South Asian crowd

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and things like that, versus,
like, people in my generation,

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where it's become kind of
a reclamation of identity--

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a kind of like what Rachel was
talking about-- kind of trying

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to avoid assimilation
by adopting

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different styles
of dress and sort

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of reclaiming your heritage.

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But it's also interesting
to compare assimilation

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and attitudes towards--
like, assimilation towards

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the melting pot in the US,
versus in the Caribbean,

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people tend to call
the US a melting pot,

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but there's definitely
still, like,

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stratified social groups and
cultural groups within the US,

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versus in--

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and almost as if
you're trying to aspire

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to one assimilated one American
norm, whatever that means,

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even though we're
supposed to celebrate

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our cultural diversity.

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But the Caribbean, as the
Walcott reading pointed out so

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beautifully, I
thought that there

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is so many different points and
lingering memories of vestiges

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of different cultures
within the Caribbean.

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They all exist harmoniously
and create a new culture,

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so the idea of, like, is
the US truly a melting pot,

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or are there better examples
of that in the world?

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And then we've been
hinting around it,

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basically political, economic,
and social discourses of power

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also confer into linguistic
discourses of power.

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There is the quote from--

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RACHEL: Oh, and it
was very wonderfully

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captured in several of
the readings, the quote

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from the bishop of Seville
to the queen of Spain

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when Columbus requested
to go into the colonies,

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he, like, handed her a
dictionary of Spanish

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and was like, "language is the
perfect instrument of empire."

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And I thought that was very
representative of how social,

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political, and
economic kind of fed

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into linguistic
discourses of power

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as the, like, predominant
vehicle for it.

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KAREN: And today
within the Caribbean,

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as we've discussed,
this plays out

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in education-- in the
language of education,

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in the language of
politics, in the language

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of the upper class, where the
native language of a very, very

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small population is
given so much precedence

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over the language-- the lingua
franca of these countries

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and a language that is very
emblematic of these countries

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itself.

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It's a language that
is a melting pot.

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Creole is a language
that is born

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of so many different
languages coming together

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just as Caribbean cultures born
of so many different peoples

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coming together, and
it's a bit ironic.

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There's a Lippi-Green
quote that says,

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"to take away someone's
access to their mother

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tongue is to also
take away access

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to their best tool for
social change," essentially.

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And a lot of the
readings hinted at this--

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that reclaiming language through
music like what Coke was doing

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in Jamaica through poetry--

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like what Chamberlin
was suggesting

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is a way of subverting
these economic and political

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discourses of power.

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RACHEL: And these discourses
of linguistic power are

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paralleled globally, as have all
of that difficulty discources

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of power we've
been talking about,

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in two prevailing ideas
that are linked together--

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the idea of prescriptivism
which feeds cultural capital--

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that there is a correct way
of speaking every language.

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And then there are
predominant correct languages

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and incorrect languages
or better than worse,

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and this has been a
largely larger form

00:12:29.615 --> 00:12:33.152
of global control of language.

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And it contributes to the idea
of linguistic genocide, which

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has now been documented
very well that it's

00:12:39.759 --> 00:12:42.795
rampant throughout the world
that languages are dying

00:12:42.795 --> 00:12:47.800
at alarming rates, but it's due
to-- it's linked to this idea

00:12:47.800 --> 00:12:50.536
that there is a
correct language,

00:12:50.536 --> 00:12:54.073
and the speakers of these quote,
unquote "incorrect languages"

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have abandoned for violent
and nonviolent reasons.

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 And so, like, this idea
has been very prevalent.

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KAREN: So then
now talking about how

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all of these predominant
discourses of power

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impact the shaping and
formation of identity.

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So there are a lot of
complex in defining identity

00:13:19.799 --> 00:13:21.600
in a post-colonial world.

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The Barack Obama has a
quote that "the worst

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thing that colonialism did was
to cloud our view of the past,"

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but also this view of the
past is kind of something

00:13:33.112 --> 00:13:35.314
that a lot of countries
are struggling with when

00:13:35.314 --> 00:13:37.249
defining today's
identity-- is what is

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our relationship to the past?

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Was it a relationship
to colonial powers--

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to countries that the
people of today come from?

00:13:45.324 --> 00:13:48.861
And how do we or
do we at all use

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these influences to shape a
unique national identity today?

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If we look at Jamaica,
their way of shaping

00:13:56.802 --> 00:14:00.506
a unique Jamaican identity
was through their music

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through what Coke was
doing and in sponsoring

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these dancehall music--

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the popularity of it, and
through the propagation

00:14:10.883 --> 00:14:17.056
of Caribbean poetry, and
just the idea that language

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can be used as a tool to
maintain a sense of identity.

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RACHEL: And then
identity also has

00:14:25.631 --> 00:14:28.234
kind of a dual nature
that goes along with this,

00:14:28.234 --> 00:14:33.472
like, choosing whether or not we
are colonial, or not, or both.

00:14:33.472 --> 00:14:37.176
Or a new thing is that
identity is both self-chosen

00:14:37.176 --> 00:14:41.780
and imposed, and you can choose
how all of these discourses

00:14:41.780 --> 00:14:46.252
of power influence how
you define yourself,

00:14:46.252 --> 00:14:50.656
and so then like the
idea, as Walcott said--

00:14:50.656 --> 00:14:54.526
KAREN: Yeah, so he
kind of hinted at the idea

00:14:54.526 --> 00:14:58.030
that historically Caribbean
cultures have struggled,

00:14:58.030 --> 00:15:01.700
or people have struggled
with the idea of buying

00:15:01.700 --> 00:15:05.304
Caribbean cultures as
being a culture of people,

00:15:05.304 --> 00:15:08.107
because they're so
hodgepodge and made up

00:15:08.107 --> 00:15:09.942
of so many different
influences--

00:15:09.942 --> 00:15:12.111
kind of hearkening back to
the idea of, like, purity

00:15:12.111 --> 00:15:13.913
and authenticity.

00:15:13.913 --> 00:15:17.149
RACHEL: And so, using
this idea of purity

00:15:17.149 --> 00:15:21.253
as a way of deciding whether,
like, what you choose

00:15:21.253 --> 00:15:24.456
or what's imposed on you
makes you pure or not,

00:15:24.456 --> 00:15:28.727
and how you decide to
identify with that idea,

00:15:28.727 --> 00:15:32.031
and whether or not it's
authentic to have chosen

00:15:32.031 --> 00:15:33.465
or to be imposed,
and, like, what

00:15:33.465 --> 00:15:35.734
remains in your
identity in terms

00:15:35.734 --> 00:15:39.071
of the idea of authenticity
that Tiango and Achebe

00:15:39.071 --> 00:15:43.108
discussed in a
paper that we read.