Deonarine Karan
English 1101
Professor Carrie Hall
“The Backstory of the word Coolie”
Guyana is the only South American nation in which English is the official language. Although, Guyana is in South America it’s considered to be part of the Caribbean and the West Indies. The majority of the population, however, speak Guyanese Creole, an English-based creole language, as a first language. Guyana is part of the Anglophone Caribbean. British Guiana was the name of the British colony, part of the British West Indies, on the northern coast of South America, now known as the independent nation of Guyana. Have you ever heard the term “Coolie” before? Now used in the Caribbean (primarily Guyana & Trinidad) to refer to anyone of East Indian origin. The word today is usually associated with the history of the Caribbean, in fact, “coolie” had been used as a slur against low-wage, immigrant laborers in the United States. “It’s widely believed that the word “coolie” is derived from the South Indian language Tamil, in which the word “kuli” means wages (“A History Of Indentured Labor Gives ‘Coolie’ Its Sting” by Lakshmi Gandhi). The word coolie can be mistaken for the word “dougla. But “dougla” is someone that is a mixed with both african and indian descent. A coolie is a person that is only of full indian descent. But the dictionary definition of coolie says we are unskilled native laborer in India, China, or some other Asian countries. Many West Indians that come to New York live in Richmond Hill, Queens its a diverse neighborhood with many ethnicities like Jamaican, Trini, Guyanese, Dominican, and Puerto Rican.
East and South Asians that traveled to the Americas as part of a system of indentured labor used throughout the British colonies. The word would enter the English language in the 1830s, as the indentured labor system gained currency as a replacement for the use of slavery in the British Empire. Although the word “coolie” is primarily associated today with the histories of the Caribbean and South America, indentured labor was a widespread in the mid-19th century America. The workers would work for low wages and live in poor living conditions, the word “coolie” became a derogatory code for Asians in the United States. The anti-Chinese labor sentiment was so high that in 1862, Abraham Lincoln signed an “anti-coolie” bill that “banned transportation of ‘coolies’ in ships owned by citizens of the United States of America.” Chinese labor and the “coolies” would surface again during the construction of the Panama Canal. After intense initial resistance, the Theodore Roosevelt administration elected to allow “coolie labor” to work on the canal in 1906. The decision to use “coolie labor” on the canal was a reversal of course for Theodore Roosevelt. The anti-Asian sentiment that existed in the United States in the first half of the 20th century, the word “coolie” was also used by fashion designers to describe Asian inspired clothes and accessories. There were “Coolie hats”, “Coolie coats” and “coolie pajamas”. In 1950, Spring Training was about to begin, Jimmy Powers from the New York Daily accused Branch Rickey (Jackie Robinson manger) of paying his players “coolie wages” after two members of the team were reportedly asked to take pay cuts.
(The Chinese Coolie trade) Indian workforce was brought to a halt in 1839, Guyana proprietors were pressed to consider further alternatives. According to Clementi, the first hint that British Guyana should look to China for a supply of free labour dated back to 1811 but not until January 1853 that the first shipment of 262 Chinese ‘coolies’ arrived in the colony on board the Glentanner. Two years later migration to the colony was “suspended due to financial pressures. For example, (Guyanese) Girl: Ay coolie bai wah yuh do? Boy: Nothing coolie gyal meh deh hea,( Trini) Girl: Ay coolie bwoy, i tell yuh tuh put di ting ova der in di corna. Boy: Coolie gyul ah do it , and ( Jamaican) Girl: Wha gwan dey rude bwoy, Boy: Nuttin, we guh lock it up tonite. Coolie even refers to West Indian descent who have spend years and many more years to consider whether it is really chicken curry or curried chicken. People from Trinidad would say it’s Curried Chicken and people from where I’m from (Guyana) would say chicken curry but at the end there both the same.
My parents were born and raised in Guyana and my ancestors were from India. Guyana
is one of the original colonies of the British West Indies and, although not located in the Caribbean Sea. It is home to a number of ethnic and racial identities, including peoples of African, Indian, Chinese, European and Amerindian descent. Today, the word “coolie” has largely faded from use everyday life. But for many in the Caribbean community, the word is a painful reminder of the troubled history of indentured labor in the Americas.
Works Cited:
Williams, Karen. “Coolie: A History.” Google, Google, 2015, www.google.com/amp/s/mediadiversified.org/2016/06/29/coolie-a-history/amp/.
“Coolie Trade in the 19th Century.” College of Liberal Arts | University of Minnesota, 16 June 2015, cla.umn.edu/ihrc/news-events/other/coolie-trade-19th-century.
