The Creation of Race, Ethnicity, and Caste in the U.S. and Mauritius

In the United States, we are raised to believe that “race” is real, biological, and even, primordial. In reality, it is socially constructed and imprecise. Americans are so distanced from the origins of “racial” identities that we take them for granted. For three months I lived in Mauritius, a country independent for less than 40 years. As a country still in its infancy, it was fascinating to experience “racial,” “ethnic,” and “caste” identities being created and negotiated on a daily basis.

“Race” is a human invention
Before I jump to Mauritius, I want to explain my general views on “race” … by quoting someone who can articulate it much better than me. In the words of Columbia University history professor Barbara Fields: “Anyone who continues to believe in race as a physical attribute of individuals, despite the now commonplace disclaimers of biologists and geneticists, might as well also believe that Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the tooth fairy are real, and that the earth stands still while the sun moves.”

Conventionally, people like to think that “race” denotes a whole range of features such as skin color, body size, eye color, hair type, and shape of facial features. Also, most think that certain genetic features are uniquely held by certain “races” and have been held by them since antiquity. I routinely hear people – educated people – make statements like: “she has a black voice,” “he’s not hairy enough to be an Italian,” and “you don’t look Indian.” This widespread belief that people can be subdivided into separate categories based on sets of appearance-based traits rests on shaky biological evidence.

Legal scholar Sharona Hoffman summarizes the science:

Scientists estimate that human beings share 98.56 percent of their genes with chimpanzees. 148 Human beings have approximately 30,000 to 35,000 genes, 149 and 99.9 percent of genes are identical for all human beings. 150 While there is variation in the remaining one tenth of a percent, ninety to [*1117] ninety-five percent of variations, which are called alleles, 151 are found at equal rates in every population. 152 Consequently, only five to ten percent of all genetic variations (in the one-tenth of a percent of genes that actually vary) are distributed along geographical or continental lines. 153 Significantly, among the five to ten percent of variants in that tenth percent of variable genes that seem to be distributed differentially between geographical populations, there are no variants or alleles that are unique to one "race." 154 (emphasis added)

Importantly, in the lengthy quote above, Hoffman notes that there is a small geographical component to human genetic variation. Admittedly, over very large spans of time, one’s environment can provoke certain genes to be expressed. Thus, native sub-Saharan Africans have black skin because it’s advantageous in a hot and sunny climate. Also, because different environments may have different kinds of infectious organisms or bacteria, bodily functions such as digestion may slightly differ among people with different geographic origins. None of this is to say, however, that “race” is a coherent concept.

Hoffman’s last statement—that no variants or alleles are unique to one race— is crucial. Consider the concept of a “black race.” Does such a “race” include or exclude groups like New Guinea highlanders and Australian aborigines who share skin color, but little else, with those originally from sub-Saharan Africa? Does it include or exclude Ethiopians who also share the same skin color, but whose genetic structure (meaning whose five to ten percent of geographic difference in the tenth of a percent of genes that actually vary) bears greater similarity with Europeans than sub-Saharan Africans (according to a 2001 study by James F.Wilson printed in Nature Genetics)? Furthermore, although most associate heightened susceptibility to the disease sickle cell anemia with a “black race” or “African race,” black South Africans actually are not more susceptible to the disease (though, interestingly, individuals from Greece and Sicily are). Perhaps the most important question is: how does one classify those of mixed heritage?

Clearly, upon deeper investigation, “race” classification is a complex phenomenon that is largely a social construction. The Human Genome project supports such an assertion. It found that there is dramatically greater genetic variation between any two individuals within a “race” than there are between the genetic profiles of the “races” (the project created profiles of each “race” by averaging the genetic statistics for individuals who self-reported a “race” they belonged to). Thus, as Hoffman writes, “interest in an expressed-trait difference [between “races”] is a social decision rather than a biological structure.”

The Creation of “Race” in America
The precise historical origins of the term “race” are unknown though most speculate that it was not used as a term until the 17th or 18th Century. In America, according to historian Barbara Fields, “racial” ideology gained prominence among white elites as a response to issues they faced with the country’s independence movement. Before independence, these elites had no qualms about enslaving whites to achieve their money-making ends. However, with the emerging notion that all humans possessed “inalienable rights,” it became necessary for Euro-American profiteers to reconcile this ideology of liberty with slavery. The response was to end the slavery of whites, import more African and Afro West Indians slaves, and craft a “racial” ideology that declared blacks were a sub-human “race” and thus undeserving of the same rights as whites. The unfortunate solution worked for them, allowing their economic interests in slavery to coexist with the country’s lofty ideals.

As Hoffman has noted, interest in “race” theory spiked in Europe and America during this time. Harvard professor Louis Agassiz – believing that races formed distinct sub-species with some superior to others – urged fellow researchers to rank the races with biological evidence. A Philadelphia physician named Samuel Morton did precisely this, gathering more than 800 skulls from countries spanning the globe. He measured the skull size of each “race” and determined (surprise, surprise) that “caucasians” ranked highest and blacks lowest. Twentieth century scientists rebutted Morton’s findings, noting that he: 1) (either consciously or unconsciously) fudged the measurements to find what he sought, and 2) failed to show that there is a link between skull size and intelligence.

Throughout American history there were (and continue to be) problems with defining “race.” Assigning a “race” to those with mixed backgrounds became a perennial headache. In some states a person was legally black if one of his grandparents were black while in others a single drop of black blood would suffice. This meant that a person could magically change “races” by crossing imaginary state lines.

American courts were frequently implicated in deciding the “race” of individuals and, consequently, the rights they inherited. Since “race” is an incoherent concept, judges could not reference a reliable formula for determining it. Instead, they rendered decisions deemed favorable to society’s stability and needs. Hoffman cites three court cases that illustrate the absurdity of trying to definitively assign someone a “race.”

1) Hudgins v. Wright. A group of slaves argue that they have Native American descent and are entitled to freedom. The court ultimately sides with them but judges disagree on the role of appearance in defining one’s “race.” According to Hoffman, “Judge Tucker stated that even if one's color is in doubt because of ‘racial’ mingling, ‘a flat nose and woolly head of hair,’ which disappear ‘the last of all,’ can serve as reliable indicators of an individual's status as ‘African.’ On the other hand, Judge Roane asserted that when ‘races’ become mixed, ‘it is difficult, if not impossible, to say from inspection only, which race predominates in the offspring.’”

2) Ozawa v. United States. A Japanese man attempts to gain U.S. citizenship, which was restricted to “whites and persons of African nativity,” by claiming that he appears white. The Court denies his appeal because to be white was to belong to the “Caucasian race,” which he allegedly did not.

3) Thind v. United States. Just months after Ozawa, Thind, of Asian Indian ancestry, provided evidence that north Indians were conquered by members of the “Aryan” race in 2000 B.C.E. and, thus, were technically “Caucasian.” Flip flopping on its judgment in Ozawa, the Court denied Thind citizenship, declaring that to be white was not to be Caucasian after all, but to be whatever is “the understanding of the common man.”

Re-Casting "Race" for Rights and Recognition
While Ozawa and Thind failed in re-casting their “race” for rights and recognition, many in early America (as in the case of Hudgins) succeeded (sometimes by not merely recasting but inventing). In his fascinating 2007 law review “Crossing the Color Line: Racial Migration and the One-Drop Rule, 1600-1860,” Daniel Sharfstein details the history of individuals changing “races” to gain legal and social acceptance, particularly in the antebellum South.

In his opening example, Sharfstein cites from the writings of a native Scotsman, James Flint, who recounted an incident in Jefferson, Indiana where a black man and white woman asked a local official to marry them. They were politely rebuffed because, according to Flint, the law prevented “all sexual intercourse between white and coloured people, under a penalty for each offence.” The official, however, hinted at an alternative, noting “that if the woman could be qualified to swear that there was black blood in her, the law would not apply.” Flint went on: “…[T]he lancet was immediately applied to the Negro's arm. The loving bride drank the blood, made the necessary oath, and his honour joined their hands, to the great satisfaction of all parties."

The Scotsman Flint expressed his displeasure at the permeability of early American laws, writing that “equivocations of this sort have been so often noticed in the United States, that they must be looked on as notorious.” Although in the example the white woman became black by mixing, it was also possible for individuals to become white, a process that Sharfstein terms “racial migration.” He writes that “racial migration” was a widespread phenomenon, necessary for maintaining stability in Southern society and approved by, basically, a system of winks and nods:

“With an exponentially increasing number of people who were vulnerable to reclassification, the stability of Southern communities depended on what was in essence a massive grandfathering of white people with African ancestry. This racial amnesty was accomplished through court decisions that discouraged overzealous policing of the color line; 14 through scientific theories and popular beliefs that African ancestry would always be visible on people's bodies; and most importantly, through small-town Southern traditions of acceptance, secrecy, and denial.”

Even when those of mixed heritage could not be accepted as white, their options for “racial migration” did not end. From cases like Hudgins that I cited earlier, many got the cue that by becoming Native American or some other inbetween identity (like “Portuguese” or “Turk”), they could gain similar rights as whites. In other cases, individuals coupled their “racial migration” with a physical migration to other towns or states. Joshua Peavy was born a free person of color in early 19th Century North Carolina, but according to Sharfstein, was “born again as Methodist and ‘French’ by the time he reached Alabama.” Citing the account of locals, Sharfstein writes, ironically, that “ordained a minister, Peavy was known for ‘the alacrity with which he met heretics, and the zeal with which he engaged in driving away erroneous doctrines’ – and for his ‘very dark complexion.’”

In the years leading up to slavery’s demise, and certainly thereafter, Southern societies toughened their laws on “race.” Abolition threatened to accelerate mixing to unacceptable levels, so stricter lines needed to be drawn. Nevertheless, individuals (though certainly fewer) still found ways around the system in the South. Many more opted to move to the West or North and begin anew, including with an invented ancestry. Summarizing the experience, Sharfstein cites a Boston journalist who wrote the following in 1925: "Suffice it to say, that there are hundreds of ‘Portuguese' who were once just plain Jack Johnsons and Mary Browns... . There are scores of ‘Armenians' and ‘Greeks' and a few ‘Italians' who came to this great center of culture and liberty from Shoe Button, Mississippi; Hop Toad, Georgia; and Corn Pone, Arkansas.”

Seeing the Creation of “Race,” “Ethnicity,” and “Caste” First-Hand in Mauritius
Every human confronts the chaos of meaninglessness. While animals inherit a set of comprehensive instincts that program their lives until death, humans must construct order from a world of infinite possibility. Group identities (such as “race,” “ethnicity,” and religion) tend to place social mores and values onto individuals, giving them a set of constraints that permit life to no longer be a formless void, but one of bounded order. Out of this order, life gains meaning and purpose. While such identities (and associated beliefs, values, and rituals) are typically created at a particular moment in time and adapt to changing circumstances, people (as I have shown with the case of contemporary Americans and “race”) tend to think of them as part of objective reality. Living in Mauritius, I had the unique opportunity to see various groups of society struggling to create a workable identity.

As I stated in a previous post, nearly 70 percent of the population is of Indian ancestry with Creoles (who are of mixed African and European or Asian ancestry) comprising roughly 27 percent. Small populations with Chinese ancestry and European ancestry make up the rest. Since independence there has been the development, consolidation, and redevelopment of group identities, particularly within the Indo-Mauritian population. During the drafting of the Mauritian constitution, Indo-Mauritian Muslims feared marginalization under a general Indo-Mauritian category and were able to gain a separate category for themselves. The final Mauritian constitution recognized (and still recognizes) four groups: Hindus, Muslims, Chinese, and General Population. This constitutional language filtered down to the level of daily conversation as the word “Indo-Mauritian” has largely disappeared. When I asked people “are you Indian?” I don’t recall anyone saying “yes” as many would often respond “I am Hindu.”

Meanwhile, Muslims have distanced themselves from their Indian heritage and seen many aspects of their culture become “Arabized.” In his Ethnology journal article “Islamic revivalism and political opposition among minority Muslims in Mauritius,” Oddvar Hollup writes that this trend “is an expression of a need for a separate identity, but also a response to Hindu-Muslim antagonism and an expression of opposition to the political dominance of the Hindus.”

Arab Islamic culture has altered several aspects of Muslim Mauritian identity. A once popular Muslim festival known as “Muharram” (still widely practiced in Trinidad, known here as “Hosay”) which borrows some features from Hindu rituals is now virtually non-existent. Other Indian elements have been purged in favor of more orthodox Arab Sunni practices. Muslim women rarely donned a veil or burqa in the past, but now most do. Perhaps most interesting, increasing numbers of Muslims in census data claim Urdu or even Arabic as their ancestral language (though no Arab Muslims are present in Mauritius and the Indo-Mauritian Muslims’ forefathers spoke Gujarati or Bhojpuri). In Mauritian madrassas (Islamic schools that are largely financed by Saudi Arabia and Libya), children are taught to read and write in Urdu and Arabic. Additional Arab cultural influences are evident in the architecture of new mosques and their domes and in the intimate greeting among Muslim men (embracing and shaking hands) at religious events. Finally, in recent years large numbers of Muslims have abandoned their affiliation with the socialist political party and joined a fundamentalist Islamic party known as “Hisbullah.”

Unlike in any other country in the Diaspora that I have visited or will visit, the caste system is at least partially operational in Mauritius among Hindus. In each country I have visited the caste system vanished when the Hindus, regardless of previous standing or caste, were forced to do the same degrading work on sugar plantations. Mauritius, initially, was no exception. With the first wave of indentured servants, many customs disappeared under a period of dissolution. A scarcity of Indian women in the initial wave compelled Indian men to reproduce with black ex-slaves, thereby breaking previous custom requiring marriage and reproduction within one’s religion and caste (and producing the large numbers of Mauritian “Creoles” who many mistakenly believe are primarily from mixed African-European ancestry). With the arrival of large numbers of Indian village women generations later, the caste system (or at least a primitive replica) became reconstituted. Groups of Hindus were somewhat arbitrarily assigned to different groups. The arbitrariness is perhaps most evident in the prominence of the “Vaish” or merchant caste. Most Hindu Mauritians claim to be Vaish, though their ancestors were brought to Mauritius as extremely poor laborers not merchants. Nevertheless, the caste system today operates in the Mauritian consciousness as if it were directly imported from India.

Perhaps the most interesting people under the Mauritian caste system are the “Rajputs” or members of a warrior caste. A group that was classified as a lower caste upon the system’s reconstitution did not appreciate its low standing and proceeded to simply reinvent its caste and ancestry decades later. This group has claimed to be Rajputs, a famed warrior caste who are also the descendants of maharajas in the north Indian state of Rajasthan. The fact that no laborers were brought from Rajasthan has not stopped these “Rajputs” from building Rajput Hindu temples throughout Mauritius and bringing dance groups from Rajasthan for cultural events to celebrate their “shared” heritage. While some learned and older people recognize that the Rajput identity is purely invented, most others (including the government who has provided grants to the group) have no idea and accept it as fact.

Mauritius is also the only country in the Diaspora (that I have visited) where several Indian state identities are becoming more entrenched. Thus, Marathis (from the Indian state of Maharastra), Tamils (from contemporary Tamil Nadu), and Telegus (from Andhra Pradesh) all claim distinct identities from what locals call the “Hindu” group (more descriptively Hindus that descends from the north Indian states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh). These state identities, too, are modified and consolidated at a dizzying pace. For example, each community now has its own government-funded cultural centers where individuals can learn their original state language, music, and dance. A drive along any Mauritius thoroughfare will reveal the construction of massive ornate Tamil temples. The Tamil community felt that their temples did not look sufficiently distinctive so they have brought in architects from Tamil Nadu, India to design and build temples that are visibly “more Tamil.” In addition, Tamils and Marathis each have their own governmentally recognized holy festivals. Since their arrival in Mauritius, Tamils have observed a festival known as “Cavadee.” Marathis, however, only recently began taking a deeper pride in their identity, celebrating their own festival of “Ganesh Chaturthi Utsav” on a very large-scale. Feeling left out, Telegus have collapsed a festival dedicated to the Hindu Lord Vishnu (that traditionally spans several days) into a single day, hoping to also gain government recognition.

Interestingly, the dominant “Hindu” group has distanced itself from its state origins and adopted a more Hindu nationalist identity. Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, where these individuals hail from, are considered two of the poorest and most corrupt states in India so the distancing is understandable. Although people from these areas traditionally speak “Bhojpuri,” the “Hindu” group often claims “Hindi” (a national language of India) as its ancestral language and is interchangeably known as the “Hindi-speaking” group. Hindus also have a strong institutional base. Large mainstream organizations include Hindu House and Sanatan Dharam Temples Federation. Highlighting the differences among communities in Mauritius, a recent report by the Indian government on People’s of Indian Origin (PIOs) were shocked to find out from Hindu House that “Tamils are not really Hindu” when they inquired about the presence of non North Indians in the organization.
A critical part of Hindu identity in Mauritius is the massive celebrations of the Hindu holy day Shivaratri. Shivaratri celebrations enable Mauritian Hindus to reaffirm their close bond to India and place in Indian sacred mythology. On Shivaratri, roughly a quarter of Mauritius’ 1.2 million people make a pilgrimage (by foot) to a mountain lake in the southwest corner of the island known popularly as Grand Bassin or to Hindus as Ganga Talao (Ganges pond). Several local myths explain how water from the Ganges in India was brought to Grand Bassin, thereby conferring it equally sacred status. According to one myth, the goddess Ganga shed a tear when she saw Indians leaving for Mauritius and that tear was carried to the site by Vayu, the god of the winds. The main rituals at the pilgrimage site consist of taking water from Ganga Talao and pouring it on Shiva lingam, a large stone representing the Lord Shiva, brought from India.

In his journal article “Temporalities of Community: Ancestral Language, Pilgrimage, and Diasporic Belonging in Mauritius,” Patrick Eisenlohr describes how Ganga Talao has been deliberately constructed to assume “a sacred geography resembling that of the Hindu pilgrimage sites on the sacred river Ganges in North India.” He cites several examples of sacred geographic imitation, including:

· The steps leading down to the lake closely resembling a bathing ghat common to Hindu pilgrimage sites in India where devotees perform rituals and gather holy water.

· The architecture of four temples overlooking the ghat at the site which resemble typical Indian temples.

· The two Shiva temples, in particular, project this aura of authenticity and are complete with Shiva lingams brought from India. One of these temples is even named after the renowned Kashi Vishvanath Mandir of the holy city Banaras on the Ganges.

· The location of a Hanuman Temple on top of a hill overlooking Ganga Talao. This is popularly known to reference a scene in the holy text the Ramayana where the monkey god Hanuman lifts an entire mountain.

All of these elements, along with the impressive natural beauty of the site itself, evoke the sense that Ganga Talao is a holy site on par with the Ganges. By making the annual pilgrimage to the site, Mauritian Hindus claim a distinct place in the sacred traditions of Hindu mythology.

Conclusion
As the examples of the United States and Mauritius show, group identities are incredibly powerful and incredibly fluid. While they can give people meaning and purpose, they also pose the threat of distorting reality and depriving people of their common humanity. As societies throughout the globe continue to struggle with sectarian conflict, a solid step forward may be merely recognizing the contingent nature of group identities.