Caribbean Diaspora in the USA: Diversity of Caribbean Religions in New York City

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Caribbean Diaspora in the USA
Bhabha picks up a provocative reinterpretation of the British debate. 8 Nonetheless,
the Latin American debate has different roots, as I will show.
The process of hybridization was intensified by urban expansion in Latin America:
while at the beginning of the twentieth century only 10 per cent of the population lived in
urban centres, the figure was 60–70 per cent by the end of the century (García Canclini
1997: 207). Hence most studies about cultural heterogeneity investigate urban Latin
America. As distinct from the mestizaje studies, which were written by Latin American
intellectuals in opposition to European concepts, studies about heterogeneity and hybridity
focus on the consequences of the new communication media and the globalization of
Latin American societies. The world changes so fast that understanding withdraws from
the systematic theoretical formulations (Carlos Monsiváis, quoted in Rincón 1994: 29).
Mestizaje and cultural heterogeneity describe therefore different moments of cultural
contact. While mestizaje had focused on New Spain and Spanish colonization, the
new studies centred on McDonald’s and MTV society or, as Petra Schumm argues
(1994: 59), on the horror scenario of the utopian society in Blade Runner.
Hybrid Cultures
The concept of hybrid cultures is connected to Néstor García Canclini though he
did not invent the term. Born in Argentina, he has worked in Mexico since 1976,
where he is professor for urban studies at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana.
He investigates social changes such as those which have occurred in popular art in
Mexico. His book Culturas híbridas: estrategias para entrar y salir de la modernidad
(1990) 9 presents a critical picture of Mexican society on its way to the global century
in which the labour market in the USA will become more important than the one in
Mexico. Latin American societies are in a process of transformation and are losing
their focus on subjects. According to this evaluation he characterizes the postmodern
culture as the staging of a double loss, of the script and the author (García Canclini
1997: 243). Postmodernity in Latin America is conceived by García Canclini therefore
not as a style but as a special way of working, created on the ruins of modernity. 10
8 In Britain the term hybrid was already used in the nineteenth century as a metaphor
for a shattered identity and society, though with a negative connotation. Hybrid forms were
regarded as threats to society. See Young 1995, in particular chapter 1, pp. 1–28.
9 Writing this book I used the original version (in Spanish) but the following verbatim
quotes and references will refer to the third edition of the English translation by Christopher
L. Chiappari and Silvia L. López, published under the title Hybrid Cultures in 1997. Though I
will use most of the terminology used by Chiappari and López, there can be some discrepancies
between the two texts.
10 In order to understand his concept I need to explain the differences between the
Spanish term cultura popular and the English term ‘popular culture’ because both terms are
sometimes confused. Lienhard defines the first as culture that is more or less autonomous and
subordinated and the latter as culture that is produced by the dominant sectors for the masses
(1996: 77–8, fn. 10). Nonetheless, cultura popular is not identical to traditional culture.
Handicrafts produced by indigenous people to sell to tourists are not generally labelled
traditional culture though their daily pottery is. The traditional patterns are often static, passed
down through generations, and a fixed part of the material culture. Cultura popular, however,