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There is a common myth surrounding Caribbean indigenous history that starts and ends with colonialism. In today's episode, we are joined by linguist Dr. Paula Prescod to explore what her new scholarly collection The Carib, Kalinago, and Garifuna Peoples: Indigeneity, Hybridization, and Mobility in the Americas reveals about indigeneity, mobility, and the myths we inherited from colonial writers. We look specificallt into the case of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, where indigenous resistance, African survival, and deep cultural exchange shaped Afro-Indigenous communities whose descendants are known today as the Garifuna or Garinagu. We break down myths around indigenous communities and get precise about language and power: Carib, Kalinago, Kalina, Garifuna, Garinagu, even “cannibal” are not neutral words. Dr. Prescod explains how sound shifts, mishearings, and outside labeling shaped the record, and why self-identification still varies, even within St. Vincent.

Mobility ties everything together. We talk forced exile from St. Vincent to Baliceaux and Roatán, the building of Garifuna communities along the Central American Caribbean coast, and the modern “third exile” framework that links today’s migration routes and asylum claims to older histories of dispossession. We also look at cultural survival in practice: cassava bread traditions, spiritual life, music-making in tourism economies, and education policy proposals like intercultural bilingual education to reclaim heritage language at the homeland. If you are interested in Garifuna culture, Kalinago identity, diaspora studies, or decolonizing the archive, listen through and share your biggest takeaway.

Paula Prescod is an Associate Professor of Linguistics and Didactics of French. Her research focuses on four key areas: the linguistic and cultural implications of learning new languages, the linguistic description of contact languages, hybridization practices in the French Caribbean novel, and the sociohistorical and cultural study of the Indigenous peoples of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. She previously taught at the secondary and tertiary levels in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and later at university in the English department at Bielefeld University. She earned her Ph.D from the University of Paris III in 2004 with a thesis titled Une grammaire descriptive du syntagme nominal dans le créole anglophone de Saint-Vincent-et-les-Grenadines, which was later published in English as A Grammatical Description of the Noun Phrase in the English-based Creole of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (Lincom Europa, 2010).

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In honor of Calypso History Month this October and the recent passing of the great "Calypso King of the World" Slinger “Mighty Sparrow” Francisco, we reshare this throwback episode with music sociologist Dr. Meagan A. Sylvester. Calypso isn’t just a sound you dance to, it’s a way Caribbean people have documented power, pain, pride, and punchlines for centuries. Together, we follow calypso from its roots in the slavery era, where satire and storytelling become tools for survival, into a genre that still functions like public commentary set to rhythm. Along the way we unpack why “mother music” matters, and why the calypsonian’s job has never been only to entertain.

We also zoom in on Trinidad and Tobago’s outsized role in shaping calypso’s modern identity, from early recording history to the migration that brings artists from across the region into Port of Spain’s competitive calypso scene. Dr. Sylvester breaks down how language and tempo shift over time, and why double entendre becomes a signature strategy when you want leaders to hear the song but miss the sting. Carnival sits at the center of the story, not as a side note but as a major stage where lyrics carry debates about colonization, independence, republicanism, civil rights, and everyday governance. We talk calypso’s relationship to soca, how generations argue about what counts as “real” calypso, and how new artists move between styles.

Meagan A. Sylvester - Music Sociologist.Author.Researcher is a published author of over fifteen book chapters and journal articles and is a well know public academic in her native Trinidad and Tobago where she participates in both television and radio discussions on the Calypso and Soca musical artforms. Her research topics of interest are Music and National Identity in Calypso and Soca, Music of Diasporic Carnivals, Narratives of Resistance in Calypso and Ragga Soca music, Steelpan and kaisoJazz musical identities, Gender and Identity in Calypso and Soca music and Music and Human Rights in the Americas. She has presented academic papers and hosted scholarly workshops in several spaces across the globe including Europe, Latin America, South America, the United States and numerous islands in the Caribbean.Follow Dr. Sylvester on Facebook and Twitter.

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Caribbean people know all too well that the story of migration doesn’t end at the border. Dr. Tyesha Maddox, Associate Professor at Fordham University, joins us for a conversation about the history of Caribbean mutual aid societies and benevolent associations that help communities upon their arrival in the US. We dig into what mutual aid actually means in Caribbean migration history: not charity, not a top-down savior model, but an egalitarian system where members build solutions together. Dr. Maddox connects Caribbean American mutual aid societies in New York to earlier Caribbean friendly societies after emancipation and to West African traditions of collective care. We talk burial and funeral funds as a dignified corrective to slavery’s violence, support during illness and injury that looks like early workers’ comp, and even maternity benefits that were well ahead of their time. We also get into susu and padna style rotating savings, and why trust is the real currency behind these networks.

Then we zoom out to the social and political power of these groups. They throw parties, organize trips, teach culture to children through auxiliaries, and help people become Caribbean in the diaspora, sometimes for the first time. We also place these organizations inside the New York landscape of Harlem, Garveyism, and Black political organizing, where Caribbean immigrants help shape the world many of us now take for granted. If you care about Caribbean diaspora community, Black history, New York history, or mutual aid today, this conversation offers a blueprint worth revisiting. Subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review if this made you think.

Tyesha Maddox is an Associate Professor at Fordham University in the Department of African & African American Studies. She received her PhD in History from New York University in 2016. She received a BA in History and Africana Studies and a MPS in Africana Studies both from Cornell University in 2006 and 2008. Her book, A Home Away from Home: Mutual Aid, Political Activism, and Caribbean American Identity (Penn Press, 2024) examines the significance of early twentieth century Anglophone Caribbean immigrant mutual aid societies and benevolent associations in New York City. In 2020, she co-edited a comprehensive resource guide and website titled "This is Not a Riot!" (www.notariot.com) to help contextualize the Black Lives Matter Uprisings of 2020 and place them in the historical radical tradition of Black protest in the US. She also serves as a key organizer for Mutual Aid NYC's Organizing Archive and Library as well as their Public History and Political Education Committee.

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Produced by Breadfruit Media