{"id":25201,"date":"2012-09-05T02:43:03","date_gmt":"2012-09-05T02:43:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=25201"},"modified":"2012-09-05T03:40:17","modified_gmt":"2012-09-05T03:40:17","slug":"roots-saint-lucias-hindu-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=25201","title":{"rendered":"Roots: Saint Lucia’s Hindu Legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Roots: Saint Lucia’s Hindu Legacy<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Hinduism Today<\/a>
\nOctober\/November\/December 2012<\/a><\/p>\n

Gajanan Nataraj<\/strong>
\nSaint Lucia<\/em><\/p>\n

I am a Saint Lucian<\/a> citizen.\u00a0I was born in the US Virgin Islands<\/a> and lived briefly on the mainland (USA), but for the better part of 23 years I was raised on the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia. I am roughly two-quarters Indian and two-quarters Negro–meaning both my parents were themselves of mixed heritage. This is common in Saint Lucia. We are called dougla<\/a>–which comes from doogala<\/em> (“two necks”), a demeaning label meaning mixed race or half-caste<\/a> in Bhojpuri<\/a> and Hindi<\/a>. In Saint Lucia, the term is sometimes used affectionately, sometimes not so affectionately.<\/p>\n

Though many on the island are of Indian heritage, I am one of the very few Hindus<\/a>. I have a Hindu name, perform daily puja<\/a> to Lord Ganesha<\/a> and consider the cow a sacred creature. I believe in karma<\/a>, dharma<\/a>, reincarnation<\/a>, the divinity of the Vedas<\/a> and in the need for a satguru<\/a> to guide my spiritual journey. Of all the Indian families who came to Saint Lucia from Kolkata<\/a> as indentured workers in the 19th century, mine is one of the few to reclaim our Hindu heritage. In being Hindu, I am almost unique among the fifth generation of Indian immigrants. Even among my close relatives, almost all are Christians.<\/p>\n

How did I come to be a Hindu in a land where Christianity reigns supreme, even among Indians? I attribute my discovery of this beautiful religion to the interplay of my soul’s natural calling and God’s blessing of being born to parents who are ardent seekers of spiritual truth. Indeed, my growth from non-religious, Christian-influenced spiritual confusion can only be credited to the marvelous journey of my parents…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Roots: Saint Lucia’s Hindu Legacy Hinduism Today October\/November\/December 2012 Gajanan Nataraj Saint Lucia I am a Saint Lucian citizen.\u00a0I was born in the US Virgin Islands and lived briefly on the mainland (USA), but for the better part of 23 years I was raised on the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia. I am roughly two-quarters […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,21,459,8,820],"tags":[11752,11753,11751],"class_list":["post-25201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-latincarib","category-history","category-media-archive","category-religion","tag-gajanan-nataraj","tag-hinduism-today","tag-saint-lucia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25201\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}