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Abstract

The following interview with Patricia Mohammed discusses the status of Indo-Caribbean women from indenture to the contemporary period. The interview seeks to understand why Indo-Caribbean women have been marginalized in the general historiography of the Caribbean and how the status of Indo-Caribbean has evolved in a predominantly patriarchal Caribbean plantation system. Some central questions in the interview are as follows: Are women better off in the Caribbean than their ancestral home in India. Are they still subjected to patriarchal trends in the home and at the work place, or any other place in the Caribbean? If they are, what sort of strategies Indo-Caribbean women have used to improve their situation? How are Indo-Caribbean perceived by other ethnic groups in the Caribbean. The interview reveals that while an unknown segment of Indo-Caribbean are trapped in a male dominated Caribbean, some they have turned adverse circumstances to their advantage, some have participated in all sectors of society and have made significant social, economic and political contributions to their respective communities. Some have become role models for the young Indo-Caribbean women to emulate.

Author Biography

Lomarsh Roopnarine, from Guyana, is Professor of Caribbean and Latin American History at Jackson State University. He has published over three dozen articles on Indian Diaspora in the Caribbean. Dr. Roopnarine is the author of Indo-Caribbean Indenture: Resistance and Accommodation. Kingston: University of the West Indies Press (2007); Indian Indenture in the Danish West Indies. Palgrave Macmillan (2016). He is currently completing a book on Indian Migration and Identity in the Caribbean, University of Mississippi Press.

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