We're used to hearing about Belize's African, Mayan, Spanish and British roots, but now a new book that will be launched tomorrow discusses the lesser known people who came to these shores. It's called "Peopling Belize" and in it author St. John Robinson explores those little talked about groups like the French, Germans or even the U.S. civil war's confederates and who they've become in today's society.
St. John Robinson, Author
"The book looks at a lot of groups that came to Belize, some who are not here anymore. I started off with the Germans and that led me to the French and eventually to people who lost the American Revolution. They had to go somewhere and many of them came to Belize, way back before 1787. The book addresses, the first chapter addresses those Americans loyalists and then I have a chapter that addresses the Italians, the Jews, and the French, and the Belgians. The reading public is probably the average reader in Belize. The book has notes but the style of writing is for the general reader. I did not want my book to end up on a library shelf and spend its life there.
I think Belizeans in particular will be interested to know cultural history, the stuff that's not in the textbook, the stuff that's not politics. It deals really with the different ethnic groups that have come to Belize. It looks at why they came, what they did, and if they stayed, how did they assimilate."
Alfonso Noble,
Do you at all deal with those groups that we do know of, the Garifunas, the Mestizos, the Mayas?
St. John Robinson,
"No and there is a reason why I didn't. There are some good studies on the Garifunas, there are good studies on the Mennonites, various people have attempted to do things with Creole; dealing with Creole and Mestizo society is very broad. You need years and many people so what I tried to focus on is the smaller groups, something that I could handle; something that I knew would have limits to it."
The book will be officially launched tomorrow at the House of Culture in Belize City.
