ABSTRACT
Like many other parts of the Americas, the Caribbean is a region of migrants, forced or voluntary. With the exception of a marginalised minority of indigenous peoples, still fi ghting for visibility and recognition, issues of citizenship-legal, political, economic, cultural, and symbolic-are constant in the day-to-day negotiations of everyday life. The history of postcolonial multiethnic Trinidad and Tobago can be characterised as a continuous struggle for inclusion by all groups, for the security of belonging, for recognition, and for rights to the benefi ts of citizenship. State responses to demands by leaders of ethnic and religious collectivities have resulted in what can only be defi ned as a form of multiculturalism, although this has never been a position publicly acknowledged as offi cial policy. These demands and the state responses have been used to provide the feelings of inclusion, belonging, and recognition that citizenship claims, both material and symbolic. But each group’s demand usually results in parallel demands or counterdemands by other groups.
