I wondered what Trinidadians and Tobagonians call their parents and grandparents? Is Mooma and Poopa accurate to say in reference to mom and dad? I know there are different cultures there like Afro-Trinis, Indo-Trinis, Chinese-Trinis, so I wanted to know the proper way to address family. Also, is calling your parents Mami and Papi rare in Trinidad?
THE FIRST TRINIDADIANS AND TOBAGONIANS IN AMERICA
Trinidadian and Tobagonian immigration to the United States, which dates back to the seventeenth century, was spasmodic and is best studied in relation to the major waves of Caribbean immigration. The first documented account of black immigration to the United States from the Caribbean dates back to 1619, when a small group of voluntary indentured workers arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, on a Dutch frigate. The immigrants worked as free people until 1629 when a Portuguese vessel arrived with the first shipload of blacks captured off the west coast of Africa. In the 1640s Virginia and other states began instituting laws that took away the freedom of blacks and redefined them as chattel, or personal property. Trinidad, like many other islands in the British West Indies, served as a clearinghouse for slaves en route to North America. The region also acted as a "seasoning camp" where newly arrived blacks were "broken-in" psychologically and physically to a life of slavery, as well as a place where they acquired biological resistance to deadly European diseases.
SIGNIFICANT IMMIGRATION WAVES
Since the turn of the twentieth century, there have been three distinct waves of Caribbean immigrants into the United States. The first wave was modest and lasted from about 1900 to the 1920s. Between 1899 and 1924, the number of documented, English-speaking Caribbean immigrants entering the United States increased annually from 412 in 1899 to 12,245 in 1924, although the actual number of Caribbean residents in the United States was probably twice as high. Immigration fell substantially after 1924 when the U.S. government established national quotas on African and Caribbean countries. By 1930 there were only 177,981 documented foreign blacks in the United States—less than two percent of the aggregate black population. Approximately 72,200 of the foreign blacks were first-generation emigrants from the English-speaking Caribbean.
Most Trinidadians and Tobagonians who entered the United States during that period were industrial workers, civil servants, laborers, and former soldiers disillusioned by the high unemployment rate in Trinidad and Tobago after World War I. The number of new arrivals dropped significantly during the Great Depression (1932-1937) when more blacks returned to the Caribbean than came to the United States. Only a small number of professionals and graduate students migrated to America prior to World War I
... keep reading on reddit ➡What do you think are the biggest cultural differences between India & Trinidad & Tobago? And is it worth it for a guy from the Subcontinent to move Trinidad & Tobago & work there?
While many cultures broadly share similar types of crops despite being distantly related, some crops or animals have become nearly synonymous with certain broad cultural groups due to that crop or animal's prevalence within the broader societies which cultivated them. It is because these cultures of the past relied so heavily on just one or two staple foods that we now associte certain foods (corn-tortillas) with certain cultural cuisines (mexican food). So, what are the equivalents of these crops or animals in your world? Are they different than the kinds of plants and animals we have already domesticated here? Are they different? How so? And how has this impacted the cultures of your world's societies?
