Day+06+Walking+Tour+Charlotte+Amalie+and+Virgin+Islands+Cultural+Heritage+Institute

,On this day we had the opportunity to experience the past and present influence of Colonial rule. It was certainly interesting to see the influence of the Danish, American, Amerindian, French, Spanish, and African people who have inhabited the islands throughout centuries. It was exciting to be able to know the background of the buildings and landmarks which we had unknowingly walked past just days before. Below are photographs and short descriptions of the thing we saw during the tour.

This is a picture of a statue of a man during the slave revolts who was alerting the slaves using a Conch while holding a Sugar Cane cutter. He has a tribal mark on his cheek which most people do not notice.

This is a picture of a Lutheran Church which was a part of the Danish Rule. The Lutheran Church taught tolerance towards others which accounts for the various cultural and religious influence in the islands.



This statue is from the Governor's Office and includes the territory's symbol, in the furthest corner the certificate for the U.S. Virgin Islands Quarter which all states and territories have.

At the Virgin Islands Cultural Heritage Institute that Mr. Myron Jackson, Director, works at, is where he gave a talk about more of the culture/history of the islands. It was interesting because he started off with making his point about how it is important to know and understand your history and ancestral roots. At one point, he brought up the discussion of the whole identity issue and related it to the locals' ancestral European/African roots.I had a hard time identifying with it, personally, but it reminded me of a discussion we had in one of my classes at the very beginning of the semester. It was essentially about labeling people as a certain race or ethnicity and what exactly defines a certain ethnic group as that ethnic group. The basic gist of it is, "do locals here consider themselves Caribbean, Black, African-american, or a part another ethnic group?" When someone asked about that, Mr. Jackson gave the best answer possible, which was that it ultimately depends on the person and what group they choose to identify with.

He also talked brought up the importance of making family trees, which made me start thinking about my ancestors and how I could personally relate to this topic. The complication for me is that my Mom is an immigrant, so everything was lost on the way here. This was another thing Mr. Jackson mentioned that reminded me of my class. In that class, my GSI told us about a research study that supports the idea that there are no genetic differences between people of difference races/ethnic groups, but the disconnection is obvious because there are so many other studies and advertisements that talk about how different races can be more prone to certain diseases or conditions. For example, African-Americans are more predisposed to getting diabetes than a white person, etc. If there is no genetic difference between people, then how can there be these divisions when it comes to health issues? Obviously location has a lot to do with it too, I’m sure; for example, people in America are more likely to get diabetes or be obese than people in Asia. If it came down to it, according to these studies, one white man living in a rich neighborhood is less likely to get diabetes than a black man living in the same rich neighborhood, which I find really intriguing to look at these differences and be able to see the similarities at the same time.