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ETHNIC, MULTI-ETHNIC, AND NATIONALIST IDENTITY IN BELIZE:
Voices of Belizean Children 

Sarah Woodbury Haug
Pennsylvania State University
U. S. A.

The Government's Plan
Methodology
Ethnicity in Punta Gorda
Working in the Schools
Voices of Ethnically Mixed Children
Conclusion
Endnotes
References

This paper is about children’s ethnic and nationalist identity in Punta Gorda, Belize, focusing specifically on children's understanding of their identity and the effect of school curriculum, teachers, and peers on their understanding. This paper begins by discussing the Belizean government’s attempts to teach ethnicity and nationalism in schools. It then compares the government’s program with the identities children construct for themselves, asserting that the formation of ethnic identity in children is an individual process. This paper concludes with a discussion of the role that ethnicity plays within Belizean nationalism and the wider implications of a government policy in which the phrase, "From Many Cultures, One Nation," is the central premise. [paragraph 1]

The Government’s Plan

Since 1981 when Belize became independent from Great Britain, the Belizean government has made a great effort to teach about ethnicity and nationalism in the Belizean school system. In doing so, it takes a two-pronged approach. First, it proposes the existence of a pan-ethnic nationalism for all Belizeans. Second, it celebrates the cultures of all its ethnic groups and teaches about them in the primary schools. This policy, as it is manifested in the schools, places great importance on the uniqueness of each ethnic group and requires that every child fit into, and relate to, a single ethnic group. [paragraph 2]

The government devotes so much effort to this policy because Belize is an example of a "plural society" (Furnivall, 1948; Smith 1965). Smith challenged the Parsonian idea that a society cannot exist without a sharing of common values or social will and that in many societies ethnic groups "mix but do not combine" (Magid, 1988, p. 236). Following Furnivall and Smith, social scientists have proposed that nationalism within a plural society is a disruptive force "which tends to shatter, rather than consolidate, the social order" (Despres, 1967, p. 269). [paragraph 3]

Consequently, policy-makers and intellectuals in Belize are preoccupied with the nature of Belize as a nation. Emerson has defined a nation as a "terminal community--the largest community that when the chips are down, effectively commands men's loyalty, overriding the claims both of the lesser communities within it and those that cut across it or potentially enfold it within a still greater society..." (quoted in Geertz, 1973, p. 257). With so many "lesser communities" in Belize, the Belizean government faces the challenge of engendering the necessary loyalty so that Creoles, Garifuna, Mayas, Mestizos, and East Indians will be Belizean when the chips are down. [paragraph 4]

Given the example of Eastern Europe since the break-up of the Soviet Union, they know that whether or not Belize is a nation is left "to the determination of some future, unspecified historical crisis" (Geertz, p. 258). As Fox (1990) notes, ethnicity, nationalism, and racial identifications are cultural productions of public identity: "A national culture is always 'temporary’ because, whether antique or recent, its character and puissance are matters of historical practice; they are plastic constructions, not cultural givens" (p. 4). The Belizean government, by promoting its program of ethnicity and nationalism in the schools, is hoping that Belize can avoid the upheavals that other countries have faced in this regard. [paragraph 5]

For a number of reasons, Punta Gorda is a particularly suitable location within Belize to explore these issues. First, it is a multi-ethnic community within a multi-ethnic nation that is deliberately promoting the notion of unity-in-diversity within its program of nationalism. Punta Gorda has only 3500 residents but has six major ethnic groups that are recognized by the Belizean government, each with 7 percent or more of the population. Second, the Belizean government is actively attempting to influence the development of ethnic and national identities in children through school curricular. Third, because of the specific nature of ethnic interactions in Punta Gorda, over the past twenty years the community has experienced a significant increase in the number of inter-ethnic unions and ethnically mixed individuals. This increasing diversity has encouraged both the blurring of ethnic categories and peaceful daily interaction among children of the different ethnic groups. [paragraph 6]

As Erikson (1993) has also observed in Mauritius the schools and the government face problems because  there are many children of mixed ethnicity who are a continual example of the lack of fit between the State’s neat categories and daily life in practice. This dilemma for government policy makers occurs around the world.  Similar phenomena have been observed in China (Harrell in a personal conversation, 1995); Mongolia (Borchigud,1995); and Pakistan (Kazi, 1987).  Stephens (1996) comments on the alienation of children in adults' debates about cultural values and ethnic categorization:

As representatives of the contested future and subjects of cultural policies, children stand at the crossroads of divergent cultural projects. Their minds and bodies are at stake in debates about the transmission of fundamental cultural values in the schools. The very nature of their sense, language, social networks, worldviews, and material futures are at stake in debates about ethnic purity, national identity, minority self-expression, and self-rule. (p. 23) [paragraph 7]

Methodology

The initial methodology for this research involved participant-observation in three schools--Roman Catholic, Methodist, and Adventist--in Punta Gorda and in the community-at-large for fifteen months in 1993 and 1994. They are part of a church/state educational system in which the government provides the curriculum and school supplies and churches provide buildings and hire teachers. The government is also responsible for teacher pay. During each school year I worked in five classrooms with seven different teachers over the two school years. [paragraph 8]

In working in schools, I combined interviews with children and teachers about ethnicity and nationalism with a systematic collection of data including tests, drawings, and papers in which notions of identity were a part. I attended classes every day as an observer. I asked both teachers and children what they believed their ethnic identification to be and interviewed, either formally or informally, 161 children to determine how they identified themselves ethnically and nationally. I also interviewed each teacher to record the "official" (the teacher’s) identification for every child. Because I worked in the schools for two consecutive years, I followed both children and teachers from one year to the next and was able to compare responses about identity made during one year to those made during the next year. [paragraph 9]

I returned to Punta Gorda in May and June of 1998 for a short trip to follow up on my research. I was able to return to the Catholic and Methodist Schools, work with two of the teachers I had worked with during 1994, and reconnect with many of the children I had known before. During this trip I asked 130 children, now in Standard V and VI (7^th and 8^th grades in the U.S.), about their ethnic and national identity and recorded their written, as well as verbal, responses. I was able, then, to assess how and if these children’s understanding of their identity had evolved and changed over the years and whether or not ethnic mixing was a continuing aspect of school life. [paragraph 10]

The "mixed" ethnic background of between 30 to 50 percent of children in the schools in Punta Gorda was one of the most profoundly exciting discovery of my fieldwork. Given that the government does not allow "mixed" as an ethnic group in its censuses or in the curriculum guides, I was initially unprepared for the extent to which ethnic mixing was occurring in Punta Gorda. Once it became clear that many children were ethnically and they face some unique challenges, my intention was to discover what their lives were like in practice and how they dealt with this mixed identity. As Stephens (1996) writes, children are "social actors in their own right, engaged in making sense of and recreating the social worlds they inherit" (p. 23-24). From my research, children are active participants in the construction of their own identity, even if their constructions are not recognized by the adult community and children are labeled according to adult needs and perceptions. [paragraph 11]

Ethnicity in Punta Gorda

Punta Gorda is an isolated town in an isolated district. It is not usual to take eight to ten hours to drive the 150 miles from Belize City to Punta Gorda. A taxi driver, who parked beside us as we filled up our vehicle to drive to Punta Gorda, was shocked that we would attempt to go there: "You are going to PG, mon? What do you want to do that for? It ain't good for nothin’ down there but rice." Bullard writes, "There are no major sources of employment and one never hears of anyone going to Punta Gorda for work. In fact, one rarely hears of anyone going to Punta Gorda for any reason" (quoted in Staiano, 1986, p. 52). [paragraph 12]

The isolation of Punta Gorda has not limited its ethnic diversity, however. There are six ethnic groups in Punta Gorda: Creoles, Mestizos, Garifuna, East Indians, Mopan Maya and Kekchi Maya. Punta Gorda was settled originally as a logging camp by Creoles but then transformed into a predominantly Garifuna community (due to immigration of the Garifuna from Honduras) by the mid-1800s. It remained that way until the 1960s, when it began to be increasingly diverse. This was due mostly to migration into Punta Gorda of individuals and families from the other ethnic groups who had been living in villages in the surrounding area. [paragraph 13]

The schools have been a significant cause of this migration. The first high school in the Toledo District (of which Punta Gorda is the capital) was opened in Punta Gorda in 1961. Parents who lived in the villages surrounding Punta Gorda wanted their children to have the opportunity to attend high school and possibly gain enough education to succeed outside of their small village, so they moved into town. A census carried out during my fieldwork supports this time frame. Cosminsky (1977), who conducted research in Punta Gorda in the 1960s, estimates that in 1965 70 percent of the community were Garifuna, 17.5 percent were Creole, and the remainder were small groups of Mestizos, East Indians, and Chinese (p. 227-228). By 1980 when the next government census was carried out, the ethnic distribution of the community had changed dramatically. Table 1 indicates the percentages of the different ethnic groups in 1980, 1991 (Central Statistical Office, 1993), and 1994 when a census for this fieldwork project was carried out.¹ [paragraph 14]

Source: Abstract of Statistics (Central Statistical Office, 1993) and the 1994 Census for Punda Gorda (Haug, 1994)

Furthermore, numerous Punta Gordans agreed that the opening of the first high school in 1961 was the point at which inter-ethnic unions began to occur. A Garifuna informant suggested that children started going to high school and falling in "love" with individuals who belonged to ethnic groups other than their own. In her opinion, "love" meant "everything" and children were no longer willing to behave as their parents wanted. I believe that the combination of ethnic diversity in the classroom and a government program in which information about different ethnic groups are taught is integral to this trend. [paragraph 15]

Data from Haug’s 1994 census (1994) confirm that ethnic mixing has increased dramatically over the past twenty years, such that over the age of twenty the ethnically mixed population is 8 percent, but under the age of twenty it is 22 percent. Figure 1 illustrates this change.² [paragraph 16]

Figure I.  Percentage of Ethnically Mixed Individuals by Age Group

Source: The 1994 Census for Punta Gorda (Haug, 1994)

Working in the Schools

The choice on the part of Belizeans to accept the multi-ethnic nature of their nation is not a simple one. As Macklin (1992) points out that a Belizean national identity can incorporate as much diversity as Belizeans want it to include: "A single dominant identity needs not smother all others, nor must the full impact of pluralism be sacrificed in the process of constructing a viable national identity" (p. 169). Acknowledging ethnic diversity, the Belizean government has developed a curriculum to teach ethnicity to schoolchildren as part of its program of nationalism. Unfortunately in doing so, it ignores the every day reality of life in a community such as Punda Gorda, in which most people eat the same foods, choosing them from all ethnic groups, wear the same clothing, listen to the same music, and speak the same language. In other words, the Belizean government has set up a system where ethnic groups are rigidly defined for a community in which ethnic groups cannot be rigidly defined. The schools teach about ethnic categories such that members of each ethnic group eat different foods, dance different dances, speak different languages, wear different clothing, and practice religious customs specific to their ethnic group. According to this curriculum, an East Indian girl, for example, eats fish with yellow ginger or dahlroti, wears a sari, and is Hindu. A Garifuna girl eats hudut, dances punta, and speaks Garifuna.  [paragraph 17]

Consequently, some children become confused about the different ethnic groups and are incapable of passing the social studies tests that are required of them. At the end of one semester, the teachers in two classrooms—one in 2^nd and one in 6^th grade—gave nearly identical tests in which the children were asked to match certain cultural markers with the ethnic group to which the markers belonged. Although the older children did slightly better than the younger, fully half of the children in both classrooms failed this aspect of the test. For example, they were unable to correlate the appropriate cultures with their ethnic foods (Haug, 1998). The words of an East Indian boy reflect this problem. He attempts to associate cultural markers with ethnic groups, but his own reality prevents him from getting the markers "right" as required by the curriculum. He stated:

[T]he East Indian ethnic group...is a fine group for me. I like the dance that they do. The food that the East Indians eat is rice and beans, chicken, and salad [a Creole dish]. East Indian is a very important group to me... because the people are fine people that is kind with other people.³ [paragraph 18]

Similarly, one girl talked for a long time about the foods that her mother prepares because "food" is one of her ethnic markers. Her mother is Mestizo but cooks "fish with yellow ginger and chicken soup on Sunday." This is an East Indian dish. Her father who is Creole likes "rice and beans and sometime he cook fry chicken." Her favorite food, however, is "pizza." [paragraph 19]

In another instance, two 12-year old boys discussed the clothing that their ethnic group wears. They both were able to name the kind of clothing their ethnic group was "supposed to wear" but commented at the end of their discussion about what they like. One boy said, "The kind of clothes I like is soft comfortable jeans, pants, and T-shirts--these kind of clothes are much different from the East Indian cultural clothes." The other boy, a mixed English/Mestizo/Creole/East Indian child, stated, "The clothes I like best is jeans pants with short sleeve shirt," the preferred dress of most boys in Punta Gorda. [paragraph 20]

Common to many children is the comment one child made to me: "My race is Garifuna and my favorite food is rice and beans." This is not viewed as contradictory. The lessons I observed indicate that children are very aware of the blurring of ethnic categories. They know that East Indians eat rice and beans and that everyone loves panades, a Mestizo food. Everyone knows how to dance "punta," a traditional Garifuna dance. In a lesson on the Garifuna at one school, members of the class agreed that José, who was Mestizo, was the person to ask about Garifuna traditions, because he had been to Barranco, a Garifuna village south of Punta Gorda. At a Garifuna holiday celebration, the best "Garifuna" dancer was a Mestizo girl. [paragraph 21]

In the curriculum guides, however, completely separate cultural characteristics are attributed to each ethnic group. At no time is it mentioned that some of the lines between these ethnic categories might be blurred or that a child might belong to two or more ethnic groups. Because they feel they must follow the curriculum guides and are not confident that they could teach an alternative viewpoint, the teachers discuss cultural characteristics as if they are exclusive to one ethnic group only. Even so, I witnessed many instances where the children attempted to assert a different opinion but were never acknowledged. [paragraph 22]

It is an adult conceit that children, when taught specific lessons in school, learn the material and absorb it in the manner that educators intend. My research in Punta Gorda indicates that children are not really learning what the government intends them to learn. Children are taking what is taught and shaping it in individualistic ways that make sense to them and their peers. Rogoff (1990) writes, "Children are apprentices in thinking" (p. 7). They actively try to learn from observing and participating with peers and teachers to develop skills to "handle culturally defined problems with available tools, and building from these givens to construct new solutions within the context of sociocultural activity" (p. 7). [paragraph 23]

It is clear that children have notions about what they believe to be important about their ethnic identity even if they are different from what the government puts forth. A Mopan Maya teenage boy wrote:

I am a Maya Indian [and] I [was] born in a village surrounded by a virgin jungle. When I was a child I like to hunt and go in the forest to see beautiful birds. But as I grew up I change my mind. I prefer to live in a city [Punta Gorda]. . . but I still won’t forget who I am because many Indian are [officials] but they don’t care about their own ethnic group...I want to help my people in some way to have a better life.... [paragraph 24]

A 13-year-old East Indian girl said:

What I like best about my ethnic group is that my hair is straight and I can comb my hair easily although it is long. The other thing I like about it is that we don’t have to dress in hot dresses like the Mennonites. . . .The main thing I like about it is that we believe in God. Unlike some cultures which believe in idols as their God. [paragraph 25]

The government has two primary purposes in teaching ethnicity this way. One reason is that they really do want to create an atmosphere of tolerance in the classroom so that children will respect all ethnic groups even if tolerance to the government does not include respect for ethnic blending. In this regard I believe they actually have succeeded because most children in Punta Gorda freely associate and become friends with individuals of other ethnic groups. Not only that, but the children with whom I worked strongly identified themselves as Belizean and possessed a clear sense of Belizean nationalism. A 12-year-old Mestizo boy wrote:

In school we study all the culture and their food and the way they live. My social studies teacher teaches us about the different ethnic group and their ways to live. We are all proud to be a Belizean. I love to be Belizean because we could help other ethnic group and to be friend with all the ethnic group we have in Belize. [paragraph 26]

One girl who describes herself as "mix nation" wrote of her pride in being a Belizean:

It's very good to me to be a Belizean...I am proud of it. I am so happy that I'm a Belizean. It means a lot to me. I experience many different things about Belize. I love Belize because there are not many killing, and not many bad things happen here in Belize. [paragraph 27]

Another girl who described herself as Garifuna and "mixed" stated:

Well! I am very proud to be a Belizean and to live in Belize. Our country is small but peaceful and wonderful . . . I love Belize and I love all the country . . .I love it all. [paragraph 28]

I have many examples of this kind of sentiment. In addition a few children seemed to have a coherent argument as to why they loved Belize. The presence of peace gives a reason for mixed Kekchi/ Mopan Maya girl to love the country :

To me it means a lot to be a Belizean because you can talk and play with any one you want to. I love it because no one neglects you. Sometimes it is not good living in other country because there is a lot of corruption. Living as a Belizean is the best because in this country there is peace. Many times I think about moving to other country but when I think about it being a Belizean is the best. [paragraph 29]

One Garifuna/Mestizo girl wrote about having a variety of dances as a reason to love being a Belizean:

To me being a Belizean mean that you should be proud of it. That we must not be shame of what we are. To me being a Belizean is a very good ethnic group, like right now there are some Belizean people who do Belizean dances and when they go and do their dance they wore the colour of the Belizean flag and everyone love to see it. That's why those dancer are really interesting in their Belizean culture. They are proud of it. They show that they love Belize and they care for Belize. [paragraph 30]

A mixed Mopan Maya/Kekchi/Mestizo boy, age fourteen, listed several reasons for his love of Belize:

It mean to me to be a Belizean because we can travel where we want to go. We also have the right to come to school or to get a job. We can also have our own house. We can also get to go fishing in the sea. There are farmer who own a farm. The Belizean can help other people who are in need. They can teach the young children not to be bad or not to fight with other children. [paragraph 31]

I believe the atmosphere of tolerance that is created in the classroom by teaching about all the different ethnic groups is a primary reason for this positive attitude. The government is not seeking to promote the ethnic culture of one group over all the others but instead is actively attempting to teach about them all. This provides an environment for children in which members of different ethnic groups can interact in a positive manner. Although there are instances of prejudice, particularly against members of the Maya ethnic groups, children for the most part do not take ethnic categories into account when choosing friends. It is very common to see a Mopan Maya girl, an East Indian girl, and a Garifuna girl walking down the street holding hands. Peer groups are not divided along ethnic lines particularly at school. Outside of school it is possible to see groups of boys who are predominantly Garifuna or perhaps East Indian, but they are rarely exclusive. [paragraph 32]

I recorded a very common occurrence in one classroom. The children were all trying to paste pictures of different animals into their notebooks. As I observed, an East Indian girl, a Garifuna girl and a Kekchi boy were working together at the back. At the front, Kekchi, Garifuna and mixed East Indian/Mestizo boys were working together. A mixed East Indian/Chinese girl and a Garifuna/Creole girl were working (or rather, whispering and giggling) together in the middle. These groupings were made by choice on the part of the children involved. [paragraph 33]

Familiarity with individuals of different groups has led to a sense in children that the differences that the government teaches about in schools are not as important as the similarities that they see every day. There is little about the circumstances of their lives that serve to dissuade children from this position, especially as more and more of the people with whom they come into contact are ethnically mixed or involved in an inter-ethnic union. Their own teachers are evidence of this. Of the seven teachers who taught at the Methodist School during the 1994-95 school year, there was one Garifuna woman married to a Creole man, one Creole woman married to a East Indian man, one mixed Garifuna/Creole man, one Mestizo woman married to an East Indian man, one mixed Creole/Mestizo woman married to an East Indian man, and two East Indian women, one of whom was married to a Creole man. [paragraph 34]

The other purpose behind the government’s approach to ethnicity is more complicated and less clear. Although the Belizean government has promoted ethnic tolerance as part of its program of nationalism since its inception, the two primary ethnic groups in Belize, Mestizo and Creole, have competed for supremacy within the national consciousness since that time. The political parties have always been ethnically diverse, but each ethnic group vies for status within the national mosaic and for a place as an "original", "important" or "authentic" culture. For example, arguments between Mestizos and Creoles have been reported in the newspapers. Members of the Mestizo ethnic group claim that "Creoles don’t have no culture," whereas Creoles assert that the Creole culture is the "original" one for Belize because the the Creoles were brought as slaves to Belize from around 1650. Mayans, of course, have the strongest claim to being "original," but members of other ethnic groups deny Mayans this status because the present population of Mayans in Belize is largely comprised of immigrants from Guatemala. [paragraph 35]

These political notions are played out in the classroom where adults emphasize the uniqueness of ethnic categories in the face of rampant inter-ethnic mixing. Unfortunately for the children who are attempting to learn the lessons, this complicates children’s understandings of ethnicity enormously. This is especially true for children of mixed ethnicity, who comprise up to 50% of the children in any given classroom. [paragraph 36]

Voices of Ethnically Mixed Children

While some children wanted their teachers to acknowledge their ethnically mixed background, many interviews with children, especially those under the age of ten, indicated that they were hesitant when discussing their ethnic group or groups and did not seem to be sure how to go about doing that. One girl was unable to talk about her ethnic group at all. She could not say to what ethnic group her parents belonged and eventually settled upon "Garifuna" as her ethnic group when I gave her a list of ethnic groups from which to choose. The teacher said later that the child’s father was mixed Mestizo and East Indian and her mother was Creole. In another instance, a boy stated that his mother was Mestizo, his father was English, and he was East Indian. [paragraph 37]

In another class, a girl informed her mother (another teacher) that she was Garifuna. Her mother reacted angrily and created a poster that the girl brought to school. It had a picture of her daughter, under which the mother wrote, "I am a Creole girl" and "Afro-Belizean" and drew a picture of Creole clothing for women. A few days later, the child told me that she was mixed Creole and East Indian, which was the identity of her mother and father respectively. She could not portray to me the difference between the groups or explain why her mother had reacted so negatively to the notion that she was Garifuna, which was the ethnic group of some of her close friends. Finally, when at my request, a teacher asked what "mixed" meant on an exam most children answered with the statement: "parents are from different ethnic groups." One child wrote instead, "Being mixed is not being shamed." This was potentially a result of an earlier incident in which a mixed Creole/white boy had burst into tears because he did not want to tell his peers that he was "mixed" (Haug, 1998, p. 61). [paragraph 38]

Ethnically mixed children had a variety of approaches to deal with their "mixed" ethnicity. Some ethnically mixed children acknowledged that they had some "trouble" with some aspects of it. One twelve year old mixed Creole/Garifuna/East Indian/English boy said, "I feel funny because all of the different ways make me that I’m three-four ethnic groups." For some, multiple languages presented some problems. One mixed American/ Garifuna boy wrote in an essay:

Sometimes I have trouble with my ethnic group because my mother wants to teach me Garifuna but I cannot learn. I can only understand a little of the Garifuna language. I can understand the English language very good. I love both of my ethnic group. It is good to be mixed. You can learn all kinds of languages from the different ethnic groups. We can also meet different kinds of people. [paragraph 39]

An English/Garifuna boy, age twelve, had a similar problem:

Sometimes I have trouble with my ethnic group because my mother is trying to teach me Garifuna, but I don’t understand. My mother always speak to me in Garifuna but when I can’t understand, she speak in English. Sometimes I do understand, some. My father’s ethnic group is English . . .This is an ethnic group which I always understand and speak. Sometimes when we get visits from relatives in England I have trouble speaking it correctly. My ethnic group is very confusing because I can change it anytime, but I like to speak Creole, which my father doesn’t allow. [paragraph 40]

A 12-year-old mixed Mestizo/Garifuna girl had a different kind of trouble with her identity. She stated:

Being a Garifuna is good, the same as being a Mestizo. I do like being a mixed girl. But when people ask me what ethnic group I belong I tell them that I’m mixed and they do not believe me. They say that I’m not mixed just because I take my father’s color. I’m still proud of what I am . . . but there is one difference with my father, that is he can’t talk the Spanish good and my mother can’t talk the Garifuna good. I could talk the both language Garifuna and Spanish.... [paragraph 41]

A mixed Garifuna/Creole girl talked about her response to learning that when she was younger she was ethnically mixed. She stated:

My ethnic group is very important to me because it is part of our Belizean lives in our country.... I like my cultures [but] I did not believe that I was mix when my father told me... I was very surprise--my father told me I was not full Garifuna and I did not believe.... [paragraph 42]

Finally, a mixed Mestizo/Creole boy felt ambivalent about his mixed identity:

Sometimes I have trouble accepting my culture, but in times I see that my culture is really important. I am mixed with Creole and Mestizo. I talk Creole very good. I can talk Spanish but not very good. Being a Mestizo feels like fun. We have different ways to do things. . . Being a Creole feels like an active culture. We dance punta and have lots of fun together.... [Punta is a Garifuna dance] [paragraph 43]

Older children were most willing to talk about their ethnically mixed background in a positive and coherent manner. This is perhaps because they have become more accustomed to dealing with the government’s perversity in not allowing them to have a "mixed" ethnic identity or because as they approach adulthood they recognize that a great number of their peers are ethnically mixed and/or are forming unions and producing children with those of other ethnic groups. Many of those I interviewed discussed the ethnic diversity in the lives with great interest and enthusiasm. Comments such as the one that an 11-year-old girl made reverberate throughout my notes. She said, "I love my ethnic group because we are mix. My mother is mix with different ethnic group such as Garifuna, Spanish and Creole ...." A similar attitude was expressed by three girls of different mixes: 

What I like about my family is that it is mixed up with different beautiful colours and cultures. I also like the different traditions they have, because it makes you know about many different races and cultures. By being part of so many ethnic groups it helps me a lot in school, like when I get homework to do in social studies about cultures. (Creole/Garifuna/East Indian/German girl, age 12) 

My ethnic group is Garifuna mixed with Creole.... I would not want to be a full Garifuna--I would want to be mixed. All of my mother’s ethnic group is Garifuna and all of my father’s is Creole.... (Garifuna/ Creole girl, age 12) 

I like my ethnic group; some people don’t like their ethnic group but they should be proud [of it]. My ethnic group eat their own food, but sometimes we eat different kinds of food like the Garifuna food.... I would say every person’s ethnic group is good too.... (East Indian and Creole girl, age 10)  [paragraph 44]

One boy talked very pragmatically about the benefits of belonging to more than one ethnic group. He stated:

I like my ethnic group because when I am in Belize City people recognize me a Creole, but when I’m in Punta Gorda I am recognized as a Garifuna.... I like being mixed. I can say that I am any ethnic group I want. I can say I am Garifuna or I can say I am Creole. Actually, I really like the both of them. [paragraph 45]

The children with whom I worked in 1998 was more certain about their ethnic identity than those children in the classrooms during my 1993-94 fieldwork. Ethnic mixing was much more accepted and the view that other ethnic groups are equally good was present. To many children, the diversity of the ethnic groups in Belize is one of the reasons to like their country. The fact that 66% of the children with whom I worked in 1998 stated that their parents belonged to different ethnic groups indicates the extent to which ethnic mixing has become even more commonplace and was potentially underreported by teachers and children in 1993-94. It is unquestionable that ethnic mixing will continue to be an important element in the ethnic "mix" of Punta Gorda and given the ability of these children to talk about their ethnic identity as young adults the mixing may not even be questioned sooner or later. [paragraph 46]

The government curriculum, however, remains unchanged, and the way that ethnic groups are discussed in classes also remains unchanged. The content of the social studies curriculum remains irrelevant to many children and will remain so until the Belizean government chooses to address the ethnicity of the children in its schools "on the ground" instead of only in theory. With regard to the lessons about ethnicity adults need to make a different commitment when teaching children the reality of ethnic difference and its meanings to members of ethnic groups.  It will require them to actually listen to children and create a curriculum in which ethnicity has meaning, rather than simply a list of attributes. Lustig (1997) emphasizes the importance of listening to children's voices in her study of multi-cultural education in California:

Listening to students’ voices and acknowledging their conflicts would form a foundation of understanding on which to build a multi-cultural education that includes all the cultures...and, even more importantly includes an analysis of the interrelations among groups and the variations within groups. (p. 587) [paragraph 47]

Furthermore, the incorporation of meaningful ethnic identity by children into their own understandings of the world is one of the primary reasons that Punta Gordans were able to gradually transform their community from the one that focused on separate and distinct ethnic identities to the one that valued the more amalgamated and blended identity of Belizeans. While some members of the older generations oppose this blending, the blurring of ethnic boundaries in Belize is taken for granted among members of the younger generation. When I asked him how his son, a mixed Creole/Mestizo/Garifuna/Mopan Maya child, would understand ethnicity, a young man told me, "Well, I’ll just have to talk to all of his grandparents about their ethnic groups, and teach him about them all!" [paragraph 48]

Conclusion

This paper has sought to describe and analyze the nature of ethnic and nationalist identity in children in Punta Gorda, Belize. It has approached children from the perspective that they are conscious actors in their own right. Too often, children’s ideas, wishes, thoughts, and perspectives are dismissed by adults and ignored by adult researchers because these thoughts are not easily accessible. To many adults asking a child what he or she thinks about a particular issue or about his or her schooling experience is unnecessary because children’s experiences are inconsequential. Jenks (1996) resonates this unfortunate negligence:

Given the dominance of particular models of child development in public perceptions of children, models which are both unilinear and on the whole uniform, children are rarely seen as competent advocates of their own experiences. (p. 135). [paragraph 49]

Individuals are not born as adults; however, it is erroneous to assume that a person's childhood says nothing about the adults they will become. At the same time, the tendency among adults to assume the irrelevance of childhood is less a deliberate attempt to leave children out of the equation than the simple, and habitual, inability to see them at all. [paragraph 50]

In Belize, the government has a specific agenda in its approach to ethnic identity in schools and Belizean nationalism. This agenda is the promotion of awareness of ethnic difference within a larger all-encompassing Belizean identity. This has taught tolerance, but because this agenda is not reflective of daily life children are for the most part not learning the specifics of the school curriculum. Instead, children are interpreting the curriculum in a way that demonstrates the extent to which they are actors in their own right and active participants in the construction of their culture. [paragraph 51]

Contrary to the government’s program, children perceive first and foremost the similarities among ethnic groups in the community. Children (and adults) in Punta Gorda eat the same foods, dance the same dances, wear the same clothes, and speak the same language. Teaching about the worth of multiple ethnic groups does serve a purpose, however. It shows children that the differences that they do see are acceptable, which creates an atmosphere in schools which is conducive to positive interaction among people of different ethnic groups and ultimately leads to a sense in children of the importance of being Belizean. This is the paradox presented by the school curriculum. [paragraph 52]

Children see the similarities among the children of different ethnic groups as being far more evident and find it difficult to see the diversity of Belizeans.  They believe themselves to be Belizeans because their lives and those of their friends are very much the same in practice. In basing its nationalism in the uniqueness of each ethnic group, the government is over-emphasizing differences and giving them too much credence. This situation clearly indicates that there is more to teaching multi-culturalism than simply teaching about multiple ethnic groups in a positive way. [paragraph 53]

The ways in which children in Punta Gorda have constructed their own ethnic identity are as varied as the children themselves, but there are some common themes that are important to highlight as broader indications of changes in the community as whole. First, as a consequence of the existence of many children of mixed ethnicity, children are far more accepting of continued ethnic mixing than members of older generations. Some children do find their "mixed" ethnic identity uncomfortable, but this is usually in the context of school, in the presence of adults who discuss their identity, or under the pressure of my direct questions. Among their peers, ethnic identity is rarely discussed except in passing and is an accepted fact with which an ethnically mixed child lives. [paragraph 54]

Second, the way in which children in Punta Gorda construct their ethnic identity points to a significant rift between their perspective of what it means to be ethnic and the perspective of their elders not only in Punta Gorda but in the Ministry of Education which is responsible for the curriculum guides. What is "ethnic" in their lives is much more subtle than the characteristics of ethnic groups that are taught in schools. Furthermore, evidence from individual children’s lives indicates that children can and do transform, interpret, and even ignore the lessons they are taught and that teachers and administrators have not taken this into account. [paragraph 55]

Moving to an "intercultural education" that "emphasizes the relationships between and within all ethnic groups" (Lustig, 1997, p. 588) makes sense for Belize. Lustig states that students "deserve an education that reflects their histories and experiences and helps them negotiate a society in which traversing cultural borderlands in the norm" (p. 588). There is more to promoting multi-ethnic education than simply devising lessons that adults think will teach it. The task for the Belizean government is to listen to the adults and children of Punta Gorda and use their understandings to shape the curriculum in the schools. To do this would take a giant step towards creating a government policy that makes sense to Punta Gordans and includes them. [paragraph 56]

Endnotes

1. This census was conducted of the whole town by Daniel Haug during the months of April-June, 1994.  It had a 95 percent response rate.

2. What is not shown here is the 0-2 age category which seems to be continuing this trend.  The ethnically mixed population in this group is 35%.

3. Minimal editing was done to children's voices to capture their authenticity.  

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Sarah Woodbury Haug is an affiliated faculty member at Penn State University. Her present interests include children’s multi-ethnic identity, inter-ethnic relations, and alternative methods of education (Contact her at dshaug@neteze.com).

Editor's Note

The author has published an article on the same study, but with a different focus, in Anthropology and Education Quarterly.  She includes her previously published work in the references.  Instead of citing them separately we inform the readers that the table, the figure and a few paragraphs of this article appear in her previously published work.