Creole authors and the role of memory for identity

Memory certainly plays a central role in identity building; this is true not only at a
personal level but at a broader level too. In fact, single memories put together build up
collective memory, which is essential when creating a national identity.
As it is clearly stated in the essay In Praise of Creoleness, memory is of primary
importance for Creole authors: Collective memory is the first thing on our agenda.
Collective memory for Creole authors is this relevant because, being the result of such
a mixed combination of origins, they strongly feel the need to define what Creoleness
(and therefore their identity) is and what it can be.
Surely memory has played a central role for the identity building process of the
peoples of the Caribbean since the first arrivals of slave ships. African slaves who were
brought by colonizers to America through the Middle Passage used to carve their
stories, their ancestors traditions, on calabash fruits. This activity was not only a way
to try and keep themselves occupied during the hateful journey from African coasts to
America, but it was also and most importantly- a way to remember the past, that life
that certainly was felt far already, a life that could still be called human.
Every negro in slavery days had their own hand-engraved calabash writes Lorna
Goodison (Passing the Grace Vessels of Calabash): it was the mean of communication
through which identity was passed on from one generation to another. Carving the
calabash meant fighting ones way through history by recollecting memories ,
desperately focusing on identity, in order to be aware of the present and be prepared
for the future; a way to be prepared for settling and building society anew.
For writer Lasana Sekou the historical and cultural background, the identity that St.
Martiners share should be the starting point of the islands independence process, a
central theme in Sekous production. To prove the importance of memory for identity
Sekou tells the story of the girl that will become the mother of all St. Martiners of both
the French and the Dutch sides, the starting point of the shared history of the islands
inhabitants. The short story A salting describes the unpredictable journey of this young
girl from Africa to St. Martin, a moment in the young girls life that is at the same time
an end and a beginning: the fact of being captured means the end of her life as she
knew it and the beginning of a new life in a different continent.
Memory here is presented as a flow: every moment is a ring connected to another
creating a chain of events that continues on to the present. The traditions and the
stories that are told to the young girl by Nana Mandisa are those traditions and stories
that she will pass on to following generations and that would constitute the Creole
heritage, in a continuous memory flow that has no barriers, neither geographical nor
temporal. The character of Nana Mandisa expresses the importance of memory for
identity: it is her who creates the cultural and historical background of the young girl,
telling her about her journeys and stories, passing knowledge on to her. What the
protagonist learns from Nana Mandisa will then become her story, her identity that she
would pass on to her children, enriching the heritage with tales about her own journey.
The memory will continue to flow, building up what is the St. Martins heritage today,
the very heritage that should be the cornerstone of that national identity St. Martiners
need to recognise in order to start an independence process.
At a more personal level though, memory is equally important as far as identity is
concerned. Jacqueline Bishop expresses in her poems the need of closing the circle of

myth and memory in order to become fully aware of ones identity. Closing the circle
of memory is the key to be free: it is an end and a beginning at the same time.
The importance of memory for identity in Bishop can be seen also in the often present
characters of grandmothers-storytellers. These women are in charge of childrens
education, which begins with the family history since its ancestral origins.
Grandmothers answer questions and give advice, they are the source of knowledge
and memory, and they clearly play a fundamental role in the childrens lives - see
poems like An End, Or Maybe A Beginning, Calling Me Back Home or A Conversation
With My Grandmother.
In order to see how memory is important for identity and self-awareness, it is
interesting also to look at Bishops short story Brown Girl In The Ring. Here the
protagonist, Tia, speaks in first person and tells in a stream of consciousness the
dreadful story of how she ended up living in a psychiatric hospital.
Tia is lost, she has lost her identity, and she is not able to tell what is real from what is
not real anymore because she was forced to erase her memory. Her family wanted her
to lose confidence in herself and they did so by keeping on telling her that what she
saw, felt and experienced, never happened. Tia cannot close her circle of memory and,
for family reputations sake, she loses her identity.
In conclusion, many different Creole authors feel the need to express in their
production the importance of memory for their own lives and for their peoples.
Freedom and awareness can be reached only when the past is accepted and thus the
task of Creole authors is one of great responsibility.
Again, closing the circle of memory is an end and a beginning at the same time, and
Creole authors will have to be at once the collectors of ancestral speech, the
gatherers of new words, and the discoverers of the Creoleness.

Bibliography
Bernab J., Chamoiseau P., Confiant R.,Taleb Khyar M., In Praise of Creoleness, in
Callaloo, Vol. 13, No. 4 (Autumn, 1990)
Bishop J., A Conversation With My Grandmother, in Calabash A Journal of Caribbean
Arts and Letters, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Fall Spring, 2004/2005)
Bishop J., Brown Girl In The Ring, in Calabash A Journal of Caribbean Arts and Letters,
Vol. 2, No. 1 (Fall, 2002)
Bishop J., Fauna, Peepal Tree Press, 2006.
Goodison L., Controlling The Silver, University of Illinois Press, 2004
Sekou L., Brotherhood of the Spurs, House of Nehesi Publishers, 2007