"Joe'i Korsou?" (who is the true Curacaoan?): a musical dialogue on identity in twentieth-century Curacao.

Meaning is what gives us a sense of our own identity, of who we are and with whom we 'belong'--so it is tied up with questions of how culture is used to mark out and maintain identity within and difference between groups.

--Stuart Hall (1997, 3)

African diasporic identities are construed as an ongoing, ever-changing process, in which perceived African pasts are constantly renegotiated, constantly subjugated to new and changing realities. In the words of Stuart Hall (1990, 235), the diasporic experience "is defined, not by essence or purity, but by the recognition of a necessary heterogeneity and diversity; by a conception of 'identity' which lives in and through, not despite, difference; by hybridity." Furthermore, black/African identities, "far from being eternally fixed in some essentialised past ... are subject to the continuous 'play' of history, culture and power" (Hall 1996, 4). As a result, the means and mechanisms by which people of African descent arrived and continue to arrive at definitions of identity necessarily involve a variety of social, cultural, and political sources.

On the Dutch Caribbean island of Curacao, a country yet to gain independence, complexities regarding identity are particularly pronounced. A wide range of cultural identities currently circulates across the island. "I am Cuban," one Afro-Curacaoan explains, pointing to his love of traditional salsa as the deciding factor behind this cultural affiliation. "In my heart, I know I am Colombian," says another as he claps out the Colombian cumbia rhythm across his chest. A man standing nearby quickly joins in the conversation by announcing his own affiliation: "African, Dutch, Sephardic Jew, Native American!"

Admittedly, these diverse concepts of self seem oddly misplaced. Most Curacaoans I have spoken with have never traveled to the region designated by their assumed identity (nor has anyone in their immediate family). What emerged during the course of our conversations was that Curacaoan identity is in flux, adjusting to and reconciling a changing Caribbean society--in the end, emphasizing the island's growing cultural heterogeneity. It is an approach to identity that developed so gradually that it became conceived as a natural condition or an accepted part of Curacaoan life. According to the Curacaoan rationale, identity is quite simply a reflection of cultures the people there find important and relevant, and there is nothing odd about it--"I can be from anywhere I choose. I think my history gives me that right," shares a young Afro-Curacaoan pianist and bandleader. "And I choose Cuba. It's as simple as that" (Arnell Salsbach 1997).

This article speaks to some of the identity complexities surrounding the African diasporic experience with reference to Curacao's own evolving construction of self introduced as a relative category. Like other New World colonies, Curacao adopted polemically based identities during slavery, when "Being Dutch" or "Being African" was the choice. When twentieth-century globalization introduced cultures fundamentally different from those of the Netherlands, Afro-Curacaoans found themselves drawn to new and different ways of life. By adapting these disparate cultures to their own needs, reshaping them in their own image, Afro-Curacaoans created an interactive system whereby they could pick and choose particular cultures from which to forge new, syncretic identities. A unique form of homegrown resistance took root, empowering Afro-Curacaoans to reject binary oppositions and assume belonging to that indeterminate "third space" distinctive to the diasporic experience (Bhabha 1994).

Music emerged as the primary means and mechanism by which distant cultures were introduced to and accepted by Afro-Curacaoans, becoming a creative--and effective--system to represent and maintain identity. As we shall see, the more involved Curacaoans became in the music, the more closely they aligned themselves with the culture or cultures behind the music, and the more complete--and permanent--was their adoption of new cultural identity. Although most Curacaoans seem unaware of the deeper meanings and larger associations involved in their self-perception, there is no denying that modern Curacaoan identity provides an alternative to Dutch colonial claims, enabling Afro-Curacaoans to engage in a powerful process of self-definition that breaks with the colonial past, despite the island's colonial status. Rather than being represented and appropriated by the Dutch, Afro-Curacaoans have used identity to represent themselves, allowing them to assume the role of active participants in a society that traditionally marginalized them as subject and passive. (1)

Identities in Conflict: A Historical Setting

Processes of migration, immigration, and globalization established new cultural contexts in Curacao and introduced unique social spaces for cultural exchange. Chief among these was slavery, an imposed institution that forced on Curacao's African community the standards and expectations of the dominant Dutch. The island was a lucrative trading post during slavery. Among the five hundred thousand Africans who passed through the island during the slave years, only some twenty-three hundred remained there permanently, left behind for any number of reasons that made them unsalable (Goslinga 1971). As a result, the ratio of Africans to whites residing on the island was considerably lower than on most other Caribbean islands, a circumstance that helped establish a social atmosphere of extensive proprietor scrutiny and control. Interaction between Afro-Curacaoans and the white Hollanders was even more explicitly controlled because the island's Dutch families pressed the Africans into service as domestic servants, living in buildings located only a short distance from proprietors' homes (Postma 1975, 237; Goslinga 1971, 362). Compelled to abide by Western ways, Curacaoan blacks were introduced to new frames of reference, including new hierarchies of values and new systems of norms. It is hardly surprising that a pronounced "Dutchness" emerged as the standard against which Curacaoan blacks, forbidden to question the veracity of these ways, came to measure their own identity and self-worth.

Maintaining any African sensibility became more difficult when the Dutch government began instigating harsh laws against the practice of African musics and customs. Priests joined in the campaign, using their pulpits to denounce African dances as "movements that are not Christian" (Juliana 1990, 3, my translation), going so far as to warn black congregations that even rumored participation in African traditions jeopardized a place in heaven and relinquished rights to a decent burial (Juliana 1987, 1990). Attacking a people through their music and culture, notes Kenyan writer and philosopher Ngugi wa-Thiongo (1986, 30), is a hegemonic device whereby ideas of cultural superiority serve to construct dominant versions of "reality," leaving the concerned people to view "their past as one wasteland of non-achievement." In Curacao, this self-assertion of the dominant culture served to empower the island's European heritage at the expense of African-based culture, further contributing to an Afro-Curacaoan "experience [of] acute anxiety about cultural identity and about the boundaries between cultures" (Lipsitz 1997, 119).

The connection between identity and music began early in Curacao. The Dutch and the Catholic Church cited African music as schlecht gedrag ("bad behavior") and encouraged Afro-Curacaoans to practice the more "respectable" musics, such as the waltz and mazurka (Juliana 1990, 3). By dissociating from African musical types, blacks living in Curacao quickly learned that if they could not identify directly with the Dutch, they could certainly do so with their value system, claiming a place in society precisely because they met the standards that had been set by their colonial masters.

Yet, while the Dutch demanded acceptance of their values, they consistently denied black Curacaoans equal membership in their society. As so often in the colonial experience, therefore, the African peoples were culturally unprepared for emancipation when it finally came. Freed slaves found it difficult to fall back on old traditions that had been long repressed. Unable to escape the hold of the white culture, they maintained alliances with the Dutch, despite being denied representation in the dominant society. Finally, in the twentieth century, Afro-Curacaoans exercised the freedom to explore cultures other than Dutch, and issues of personal identity became ripe for challenge and contest. Accordingly, Afro-Curacao began to embrace appealing aspects of a range of other cultures, adapting them to fit and reflect their own lifestyle. Thus were new spaces of belonging pioneered and alternatives to Dutch colonial expectations acquired. Music became an early beneficiary of this cultural appropriation--a medium for cultural exploration and experimentation. Through music, foreign ideals achieved familiarity and offered Afro-Curacao both a source and a setting for new identity constructs.

Adopting a Cuban Identity

Cuba emerged as a popular identity indicator at the turn of the twentieth century, when Afro-Curacaoans, working in Cuba's sugar industry, developed an affinity for Cuban culture that they reintegrated into Curacaoan society upon their return. This chapter in Curacao's history offers a particularly colorful story of rebirth, poignant in that the Afro-Curacaoans had to leave their home island and return to it with a set of experiences containing seeds of eventual cultural rebirth.

Curacao's economy was based in slavery, and emancipation (in 1864) sent the island into a financial tailspin. Most white Hollanders returned to the Netherlands, whereas Afro-Curacaoans were forced to migrate to nearby islands in search of work, the majority of them traveling to Cuba. Working conditions were far from ideal there: wages were low, hours were long, and mistreatment was commonplace. Afro-Cubans, finding themselves increasingly unable to compete for work, their small wages undercut further by the influx of migrant workers, organized protests and established workers' unions (Allen 1995; Brenneker 1961; Paula 1978). Afro-Curacaoans, also unsatisfied with the work conditions, joined Cubans in expressing their discontent, many attending the Afro-Cuban workers' union meetings and joining in their protests for equality (Paula 1978, 45).

The implications of living in Cuba during a time when Afro-Cubans themselves were developing a national cohesiveness were far-reaching for the Afro-Curacaoans, changing their lives in ways that could scarcely have been imagined. These Afro-Curacaoans came to know Cuba intimately and were inevitably shaped by this experience, their involvement influencing the way in which they contemplated nationhood and affecting the very construct and character of their own identity. They formulated a nationality around Cuban structures--traditions and institutions--becoming like the Cubans, practicing "emulation as a means of assimilation" (Perez 1999, 53). When music emerged as the primary force by which Afro-Cuban identity found expression, Afro-Curacaoans also assumed the symbol as their own.

The musical genres that assumed the greatest importance among Afro-Curacaoans were those that developed out of Cuba's black street culture, which, in their fusion of African and Iberian art forms, accentuated Cuba's cultural hybridity. The danzon and son, which demonstrated the union of things African and European, were chosen for their syncretic appeal. Similarly, the guaracha, a working-class Afro-Cuban vocal and dance genre repressed in the nineteenth century, and the guajira (a subgenre of the son), which combined Spanish traditions with Hispanic melodies, reemerged as important national symbols. These formerly marginal genres expressed the depth of artistic possibilities available within Cuba's Creole culture. Afro-Curacaoans who found themselves sympathetic to the spirit of Cuban reform found in the island's Creole music a comfortable position by which to acknowledge their own conflicted past. By adopting these musics as their own, Afro-Curacaoans maintained their appreciation for Europe while exploring an African past too heavily repressed to be acknowledged in their home country. Cuban music allowed Afro-Curacaoans to challenge assumptions regarding origins and cultural boundaries, setting into motion a new way by which to define their own heterogeneous background.

Afro-Curacaoans returned to their home island in the 1930s, when prospects for employment improved with the establishment there of Shell Oil (van Soest 1977, 125; Romer 1977, 113-114). (2) They reentered, however, as a collective community, bringing with them revered memories of their Cuban experience (De Jong 2003). Although life in Cuba was not ideal, they remembered it with great sentimentality, a phenomenon representing a "quest ... carried on in a spirit of sentimental appreciation rather than of critical analysis" (Hofstadter 1948, v). Memory and identity, John R. Gillis (1994, 3) convincingly argues, are interdependent "constructions of reality" undergoing constant revision in accordance with present needs, with group identity reflecting "a sense of sameness over time and space, [as] sustained by remembering; and what is remembered is defined by the assumed identity." When Afro-Curacaoan workers united with those from Cuba, they managed to commemorate a shared past and, in a relatively brief time, constructed what they regarded as a Cuban concept of identity.

Migrants transformed Cuba into a nostalgically perceived mythology through the inventive use of Cuban music, disseminated through the many 78 rpm recordings they brought back with them. Cuban music emerged as a popular commodity in Curacao, receiving considerable airplay from local disc jockeys while also dominating the entertainment at local parties (Martijn 1979, 18-21). Afro-Curacaoan musicians began organizing dance bands that specialized in idioms of the traditional Cuban music such as danzon, son, guaracha, and guajira. Most band members used typical Cuban instruments, including the tres, a small guitarlike instrument distinct to Cuba, and the marimbula, a wooden-boxed instrument from Cuba's rural Oriente province. Cuban music garnered a loyal following of listeners and, with it, assumed bold nationalist connotations in Curacao. The Spanish language, too, gained popularity, used as a vocabulary of code, implying shared experiences and a renewed Cuban consciousness (De Jong 2003).

"My neighborhood turned into a little Cuba," one elderly musician remembers. "Many men in my neighborhood had gone to Cuba to work. When they returned, the whole place changed. Parties every weekend, [and there was] always Cuban music" (M. Salsbach 1997). As private Cuban dance parties flourished, numerous Cuban dance clubs also emerged, with club owners and hosts either hiring bands or playing records. The popularity of Cuban music and dance in Curacao not only helped to promote and teach a Cuban nationalism to the general Curacaoan public; it also set forth a trend among Afro-Curacaoans to view identity as a tool for challenging key premises of Dutch colonial rule.

Accepting an American Identity

Approaches to identity shifted in the 1960s, when U.S. interests assumed prominence in Curacao. Many hotels came under U.S. ownership and began providing elaborate shows featuring popular American singing stars (Angel Salsbach 1994). As a by-product, these shows brought a variety of Caribbean and South American musical forms to Curacao. The number of musicians needed by hotel owners was great, and those hired were expected to learn new musical repertoire quickly. Because most local Curacaoan musicians did not read musical notation, the hotels received special governmental permission to hire musicians from outside Curacao. Within a few months, musicians from throughout South and Central America, as well as other Caribbean islands, relocated to Curacao. As a consequence, the island's U.S. hotels transformed into unlikely sites of cultural exchange (Angel Salsbach 1994). "We were playing a different show every two weeks," explains Curacaoan pianist Errol "El Toro" Corlina (1996). "We had a lot of rehearsals and, therefore, spent a lot of time together." Stemming from the exchange was a new awareness of the passilo rhythm from Colombia, the gaita rhythm from Venezuela, and the corrido song from Mexico, credited by Corlina as the three forces most influential in establishing the island's syncretic approach to jazz, which gained prominence decades later.

The immediate effects of U.S. interests, however, were felt in the Cuban embargo, which, instigated by the United States in 1962, made it nearly impossible for Afro-Curacaoans to import Cuban recordings or to hear musical programs broadcast via Cuban radio stations--the media through which they had maintained their Cuban identity. For a time, the only new popular music accessible to Curacaoan listeners was British rock and American rhythm and blues, musical styles favored by the white upper class. These styles became a pervasive force in the development of yet another identity choice, which, this time, pulled in the youth. Young Curacaoans--white and black--appropriated American and British music into their daily social lives, where they developed a preference for the English language, even assuming the popular colloquial speech of the era (Martijn 1999). "Dig it!" "Daddy-o!" "Right on!" made up the new coded vocabulary, its usage suggesting distinction and difference. Cuban music was relegated to "that stuff the old people danced to" (J. Wout 1998). Local preferences along these lines were forged through the establishment of bands emulating the sounds of the Platters, the Beatles, the Impressions, and the Rolling Stones. Dressed in tight polyester and sporting narrow pants and collarless jackets, young local musicians formed beat bands, with names like the Silhouettes and the Scorpions, copying the American and British genres they heard on the radio and read about in foreign magazines (De Jong 2003).

By creating solidarity through rock and rhythm and blues, black and white Curacaoan youth revealed more than an attachment to American culture. When these youths constructed a U.S.-derived identity, they called into question perceived assumptions regarding racial divisions, their mutually adopted identity representing a growing interconnectedness they had developed among themselves. This promoted a hybrid space of belonging, where white and black assumed unified meaning, the diasporic "third space," often singled out as a New World African phenomenon, revised to include white Curacaoans as well. "The complex of difference and similarity that gave rise to the consciousness of diaspora inter-culture has become more extensive in the era of 'globalization,'" reminds Paul Gilroy (1992, 20), with many people offered the experience "of being diaspora" (Woodward 1997, 16). Clearly, identity in Curacao had exceeded typical categories of exclusive membership.

A U.S. identity pushed against family norms and expectations. For older Curacaoans, for whom neither the United States nor Britain held historical or cultural relevance, the results of the youth identity were devastating. Dance clubs featuring guaracha and guarija were replaced by beat-band lounges, and private Cuban dance parties all but disappeared (De Jong 2003). Without its communal site of remembrance, the Curacaoan-Cuban identity slowly vanished. As poignantly explained by an elderly woman, parties featuring Cuban music "were a way for us in Curacao to build a community--to socialize. When we no longer felt welcome at the neighborhood parties, it was very difficult. It meant we no longer had a place to socialize. We no longer had our community" (A. Wout 1997). Although this U.S.-derived identity signaled a generational divide, it followed the trends set forth by the older generation: Afro-Curacaoan youth, too, had constructed an identity through the interactive system of music and dance, which, forged outside Dutch models, they pursued with equal enthusiasm and commitment.

Returning to a Cuban Identity

When Shell Oil revenues skyrocketed in the late 1960s, numerous lucrative governmental jobs were created, which, to the discouragement of both Afro-Curacaoan workers and their white Curacaoan counterparts, were filled by imported Dutch-born civil servants. A deepening discontent among Curacao's white and black populations served to unite them, their relationship culminating on May 9, 1969, when they joined forces in a politically charged riot, known today as "The May Movement" (Anderson 1975).

Knowing that the success of the May Movement depended largely on the ability to unite, workers abandoned "white" and "black" divisions articulated by older Curacaoans in favor of the more inclusive term "Antillean." A collective strategy of making Cuban culture central to the struggle further strengthened the sense of solidarity. Cuba resumed mythological status as movement participants--white and black--looked to the Cuban Revolution as a model for instigating social reform within Curacao's politics. Some followers even compared the situation in Curacao with the Batista years in Cuba, with one participant responding, "All Antilleans should be as free as the Cubans have been since the Castro-led revolution" (quoted in Anderson 1975, 10). Further emulation of Cuba was demonstrated by the choice of clothing: most adherents sported the khaki military dress made famous by the Castro regime. Cuban culture made a corresponding return, this time pursued not only by Afro-Curacaoans but also by white Curacaoans (Anderson 1975; Allen 1995). They recognized and revered Cuban music specifically for its fusion of European and African influences, which offered precisely those qualities in which white and black Curacaoans could collectively find meaning, while at the same time enabling them to distinguish themselves from the Holland Dutch (Anderson 1975). Although the May Movement may have resulted in only minor changes in the island's political system, (3) its impact on Curacaoan culture was significant and long lasting: not only did it establish a unified, Antillean identity that (unlike the U.S. identity) exceeded generational boundaries, but it also reaffirmed Cuba as the primary vehicle by which to express that identity.

The revival of Cuban music resulted in the reappearance of the Cuban bands made famous decades earlier. Younger musicians, caught up in Cuba's renewed popularity, gradually left rock music behind and reorganized themselves into contemporary Cuban bands. Unlike the majority of their predecessors, however, many of these younger musicians were trained, able to read and write in Western notation. Applying this training to the genre of 1920s Cuban music, these younger musicians expanded the idea of "being Cuban" to reflect a more personal Antillean sensibility. They wrote original compositions emulating the traditional styles, attaching new texts, which, written in Spanish, Papiamento (the Creole language of Curacao), (4) and even English, communicated stories distinctive to Curacao and represented a growing acceptance of the island's wide-ranging cultural diversity (Martijn 1979).

A new type of dance party emerged, highlighting Curacaoans' return to Cuban music. Called Comback, the party was devised as a tool for audiences to "[c]ome back to the music you know and love. Come back to the music of your past" (Reymound 2000). Even the title, Comback, a vernacular version of the English term comeback, recognized Curacao's cultural hybridity. As Comback parties flourished, so too did expectations that Curacaoans "learn about Cuban culture and its special meaning to the Curacao people" (A. Wout 1998). Dancing and singing "Cuban" emerged as integral to everyday Curacaoan life, as pianist and bandleader Walter Wout (1998) explained: "The island has no place for someone who doesn't know how to dance Cuban. If you can't dance Cuban, you can't socialize on the island."

Blended Identities

Shell Oil had brought economic prosperity to Curacao, attracting a large immigrant labor force drawn from the British West Indies, the Dominican Republic, Suriname, and the French Caribbean. Merchant immigrants soon followed, the majority of whom came from Lebanon, Syria, and China. Along with the musician immigrants, who had come from South and Central America to perform at area hotels during the 1960s, these new influxes meant that Curacao emerged as one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse islands in the Caribbean. By 1979, the number of immigrants living in Curacao had exceeded some fifty thousand, with the government recording over forty nationalities in its registrar.

Their arrival brought significant changes to the island. As Curacaoans developed appreciation for specific migrant cultures, they began combining ethnicities to create individualized "hybrid" concepts of self. Among examples I have encountered are "half White Curacaoan, half Portuguese," "Curacaoan-born authentic pure-blood Venezuelan," and a plethora of other combinations of African, Dutch, Sephardic Jewish, and Native-American backgrounds. (5) While historians often see pluralism as a dividing force, splitting populations into separate social enclaves (Hoetink 1958), in Curacao, blended notions of identity actually promoted social unity, "creat[ing] cultural coalitions that transcend ethnic and political differences" (Lipsitz 1997, 130).

Curacaoans resurrected the interactive system of music and dance, their syncretic approach to identity now realized through jazz: musicians used jazz improvisation to exhibit their individual and divergent approaches to identity, creating a single eclectic music style, colored with elements perceived to reflect their chosen geographical regions of origin. The first jazz performance I attended on the island, held in an outdoor cafe, showcased a well-rehearsed ensemble, the Blue Apple Trio, which included bassist John Wout, saxophonist John James Willekes, pianist Arnell Salsbach, and a carefully monitored drum machine. At the start of their first tune of the evening, "Night in Tunisia," it was immediately apparent that Curacaoan jazz was distinctly different from what is customarily heard in the United States. The bass player's melodic lines were simple, his motives minimalist in character. The pianist's improvisational accompaniment was stylistically reminiscent of Thelonious Monk, with percussive accents and angular phrasing, yet comprising unusual salsa montuno lines. The saxophonist's rhythmic style, with unexpected high-register squeals, reminded me of avant-garde saxophonist Albert Ayler. Over the course of my stay in Curacao, I made numerous such visits to the local jazz clubs. By degrees, I began to perceive that such stylistic elements both defined Curacaoan jazz and were a reflection of revised constructions of cultural identity.

Each member of the Blue Apple Trio had made separate decisions regarding identity and relied on jazz to communicate that identity to the public (De Jong 2005). John Wout (1995) aligned himself with Arawak Amerindian culture, his performance style, in its use of small intervals and repeated motives, meant to "represent a Native American spirit." By combining stylistic features of Thelonious Monk with those of salsa, pianist Arnell Salsbach (1995) revealed his alliance with Cuba. Saxophonist John James Willekes (1995), with his complex rhythmic solos, announced to the world, "I'm an African who studied in the United States and lives in Curacao."

Jazz musicians throughout the island shared similar identity choices through performance. "I know I must have been Brazilian in a past life," one saxophonist offered after performing a bossa nova-like improvisation to the Miles Davis tune "All Blues" (Ruby 1995). "Venezuela has captured my soul," explained an elderly bandleader, proudly sharing his musical arrangements of jazz standards, each integrating a different Venezuelan rhythm, such as gaita, joropo, and bambuco (Corlina 1997).

The exercise of identity choices through jazz performance was not limited to the musicians. Audience members, too, were quick to participate. When they heard a musician playing in a style emulating their own choice in identity, they stood and cheered. Onlookers who did not hear their choice in identity could contribute through their own rhythmic responses, tapping out a Colombian cumbia rhythm across the table or hitting a Cuban son clave rhythm against the side of a beer bottle. Curacaoan jazz aimed to unite the island's current diversity in identity in a dynamic yet continuous process of collective reinterpretation and reenactment. Yet, no matter how differently members of Curacaoan jazz ensembles (and accompanying audiences) approached identity, the jazz performances sounded polished and well connected.

"Joe'i Korsou?": Conclusions

"Who is the true Curacaoan?" The question engenders heated debate. "My heart is Cuban," explains an elderly Curacaoan man, whose own Cuban-inspired identity finds significance in the many Cuban recordings he collected during the 1930s and 1940s (Martijn Salsbach 1997). "I have always felt connected to the States," another man confesses, himself a musician and founding member of Three Voices, a rhythm and blues group that specializes in the American hits of the 1950s and 1960s (Boy Wout 1997). "Curacaoan identity is a mosaic of ideas," says jazz bandleader John Wout (1995), who encourages listeners to "view the Blue Apple Trio as a miniature Curacao."

While slavery and the decades immediately following served as a crucible of identity, wherein Afro-Curacaoans forged constructs of self that reflected the Netherlands, the events of the twentieth century created new fields of cultural exchange, ultimately contributing to a transformation in identity. As Curacao became entwined with many new and different cultures, identity models emerged that challenged binary oppositions. In this new social context, plural identities not only developed but thrived.

For those finding themselves a part of the diaspora, "There is no going 'home' again," writes Roza Tsagarousianou (2004, 57). Rather, home must be re-created through a "relationship with a multiplicity of locations ... linked with issues related to inclusion or exclusion ... subjectively experienced depending upon the circumstances" (57). Curacaoans have staked a claim to the diaspora through self-definition, their proclamations of "I am Cuban!" "I am Colombian!" "I am Sephardic, African, Arawak!" representing the "act[s] of place-naming" required for transforming Curacao "symbolically into a place, that is, a space with a history" (Carter 1987, xxiv).

Music emerges as a particularly powerful tool in the struggle over place. When captured in recordings or sheet music, heard over the radio or on television, music "make[s] it possible for us to experience close contact with cultures from far away," able to "transform--but not erase--attachments to place" (Lipsitz 1997, 3-4). It seems all but impossible to discuss modern Curacaoan identity in any terms other than musical: music as environment, as context, as process, forming and informing the assumptions of daily Curacaoan life, providing a frame of reference by which Curacaoans ultimately make sense "of being diaspora." The Afro-Curacaoan pianist Arnell Salsbach (1998) perhaps said it best: "Cuba for me is home. And the clave [rhythm] is the force that takes me home."

REFERENCES

Allen, Rose Mary. 1995. Interview with the author. Curacao, September 12.

Anderson, William Averette. 1975. Social movements, violence, and change: The May Movement in Curacao. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.

Benjamin, Alan. 2002. Jews on the Dutch Caribbean: Exploring ethnic identity on Curacao. New York: Routledge.

Bhabha, Homi K. 1994. The location of culture. London and New York: Routledge.

Brenneker, Pater. 1961. Curacaoensia. Curacao: Boekhandel Augustinus.

Carter, Paul. 1987. The road to Botany Bay: An essay in spatial history. Boston: Faber and Faber.

Corlina, Errol "El Toro." 1996. Interview with the author. Curacao, October 1.

De Jong, Nanette. 2003. Forgotten histories and (mis)remembered cultures: The Comback party of Curacao. British Journal of Ethnomusicology 12, no. 2: 135-151.

--. 2005. We are who we believe ourselves to be: Curacao jazz and the expression of identity. Image and Narrative: Online Magazine of the Visual Narrative 10 (March). http://www.imageandnarrative.be/worldmusica/nanettedejong.htm.

Gillis, John R., ed. 1994. Commemorations: The politics of national identity. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

Gilroy, Paul 1992. The black Atlantic: Modernity and double consciousness. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Goslinga, Cornelis Charles. 1971. The Dutch in the Caribbean and on the Wild Coast, 1580-1680. Gainesville: University of Florida Press.

Hall, Stuart. 1990. Cultural identity and diaspora* In Identity: community, culture, difference, edited by Jonathan Rutherford, 222-237. London: Lawrence and Wishart.

--. 1996. Introduction: Who needs "identity"? In Questions of cultural identity, edited by Stuart Hall and Paul de Gay, 1-17. London: Sage.

--. 1997. The work of representation* In Representations, edited by Stuart Hall, 1-30. London: Sage.

Hoetink, Harry. 1958. Het patroon van de oude Curacaose samenleving. Assen, Netherlands: Van Gorcum.

Hofstadter, Richard. 1948. The American political tradition and the men who made it. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Juliana, Ells. 1987. De Tamboe op Curacao. Bzzletin 143: 59-65.

--. 1990. Kiko ta pasa ku Tambu? Centraal Historisch Archief, Curacao.

Lipsitz, George. 1997. Dangerous crossroads: Postmodernism and the poetics of place. London: Verso.

Martijn, S. "Yapi." 1979. Korsou musikal I: Un dokumentashon di nos historia musikal popular entre 1930 i 1989. Curacao: Drukkerij Scherpenheuvel, N.V.

--. 1999. Korsou musikal II Un dokumentashon di nos historia musikal popular entre 1930 i 1989. Curacao: Drukkerij Scherpenheuvel, N.V.

Ngugi wa-Thiongo. 1986. Decolonizing the mind: The politics of language in African literature. Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann.

Paula, Alejando Felippe. 1978. Problemen rondom de emigratie van arbeiders uit de kolonie Curacao naar Cuba, 1917-1937. Centraal Historisch Archief: Curacao.

Perez, Louis A. 1999. On becoming Cuban: Identity, nationality, and culture. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

Postma, Johannes. 1975. The origin of African slaves: The Dutch activities on the Guinea Coast. In Race and slavery in the Western hemisphere, edited by Stanley L. Engerman and

Eugene D. Genovese. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

--. 1990. The Dutch in the Atlantic slave trade, 1600-1815, Cambridge, England:

Cambridge University Press.

Reymound, Leonard "Magou." 2000. Interview with the author. Curacao, August 13.

Romer, Rene. 1977. Un pueblo na kaminda: Een sociologisch historische schets van de Curacaose samenleving. Zutphen: Walburg Pers.

Salsbach, Angel. 1995. Interview with the author. Curacao, October 20.

Salsbach, Arnell. 1995. Interview with the author. Curacao, September 13.

--. 1997. Interview with the author* Curacao, August 12.

--. 1998. Interview with the author. Curacao, August 20.

Salsbach, Martijn "Shon Ma." 1997. Interview with the author. Curacao, August 12.

Tsagarousianou, Roza. 2004. Rethinking the concept of diaspora mobility: Connectivity and communication in a globalised world. Westminister Papers in Communication and Culture 1, no. 1: 52-66.

van Soest, J. 1977. The world on an island: The international labour force of Shell in Curacao, 1915-1960. 1977 Conference Papers. Cave Hill, Barbados: Association of Caribbean Historians.

Willekes, John James. 1995. Interview with the author. Curacao, July 10.

Woodward, Kathryn, ed. 1997. Identity and difference. London: Sage.

Wout, Aura Rijke. 1997. Interview with the author. Curacao, August 8.

--. 1998. Interview with the author. Curacao, August 2.

Wout, John. 1995. Interview with the author. Curacao, October 1.

--.1998. Interview with the author. Curacao, August 2.

Wout, Walter. 1997. Interview with the author. Curacao, July 30.

(1.) I introduced the phenomenon of Cuban-Curacaoan identity in a previous article (De Jong 2003) as part of an ongoing search for self-definition. My motivation to reevaluate current themes of identity on Curacao comes from discussions shared with honor students from Livingston College, Rutgers University during 2002-2004. My research for this article draws on several visits to Curacao over a period of ten years (1995-2005), in the course of which I gathered data from a variety of people from throughout the island--city, suburb, and countryside. My integration into Curacaoan society was eased by the fact that I am a flutist, versed in jazz and salsa performance--two of the island's most popular music genres; I became a regular guest artist with several salsa bands, including the famed Arnell i su Orkesta, one of the oldest and most revered bands on the island, and with several jazz ensembles, including several groups led by saxophonist John James Willekes, considered the "godfather" of jazz in Curacao. Through the common ground of musical performance, I connected with Curacaoan musicians and local audiences in ways that would otherwise have been impossible. Many of the conversations I had with local musicians occurred after gigs, when party hosts shut their doors to outside visitors and offered drinks to the musicians and a few close friends. Without my flute playing, these conversations would almost certainly have remained closed, and musicians likely would not have conversed so honestly and openly with me.

(2.) Prospects for employment improved in Curacao when the giant Dutch oil corporation Shell established new refineries on the island. To meet new employment demands, the Curacaoan government, during the 1930s, began making arrangements for the repatriation of its emigrant workforce in Cuba, inviting them to come back and offering incentives for them to do so (van Soest 1977, 125; Romer 1977, 113-114). Although some elected to stay in Cuba to build their own Antillean community there, scores of Afro-Curacaoans, many with strong family connections to Cuba, began to stream back to their home island. The number of migrants traveling to Cuba declined after the government's plea, but not until 1948 did migration to Cuba by Afro-Curacaoans finally cease (Paula 1978, 59-61).

(3.) Following the May Movement, Afro-Curacaoans, for the first time, were considered for employment in certain governmental positions. In 1970, the first Afro-Curacaoan governor was appointed; in 1973, the first Afro-Curacaoan prime minister was elected. Internal conflicts ensued, however, with the Dutch government soon regaining its political dominance. For more information, see Anderson (1975).

(4.) Papiamento is a combination of several languages, including Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish, and myriad West African languages. In its unique fusion of cultural influences, Papiamento exemplifies Curacao's distinctive cultural makeup.

(5.) These ethnic classifications come from an advertisement for Rudy's Grocery Store, taken from the local newspaper Bala (October 23, 1992), as cited in Benjamin (2002, 52). Curacaoan Ewald Onga Kwie claimed the identity "Suriname Chinese-African," Curacaoan Errol Cova claimed "Curacaoan-born authentic pure-blood Venezuelan," and Rudy Plaate, the owner of the store, claimed "African, Dutch, Sephardic Jew-Native American." The stated intent of the advertisement was Plaate's desire that "all ethnic identities ... feel welcome at his store" (52). The advertisement serves as written testimony to the wide range of identities existing in Curacao, as well as the people's own acceptance of their individual differences.

NANETTE DE JONG is senior lecturer at the International Centre for Music Studies, University of Newcastle. Her research examines the identities forged by African diasporic groups, emphasizing the ways in which these identities find expression in music. She has published on avant-garde jazz and Caribbean music in such journals as Latin American Music Review, Afro-Hispanic Review, and Jazzforschung/Jazz Research. Her most recent work, Tambu and the Politics of Memory, will be published by Indiana University Press in 2007. Currently on a Fulbright grant in South Africa, she is conducting research on the trans-Atlantic journey of Afro-Caribbean and jazz rhythms returning to Africa through globalization.