KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter/Pro­duc­er

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

BEI­JING, CHI­NA—As Trinidad and To­ba­go marks an­oth­er an­niver­sary of the ar­rival of the first Chi­nese im­mi­grants to its shores on Oc­to­ber 12, the oc­ca­sion con­tin­ues to spark dis­cus­sion about its na­tion­al sig­nif­i­cance and whether Chi­nese Ar­rival Day de­serves to be recog­nised as a na­tion­al pub­lic hol­i­day.

Speak­ing ex­clu­sive­ly to Guardian Me­dia, the new­ly mint­ed Chi­nese Am­bas­sador to Trinidad and To­ba­go, His Ex­cel­len­cy Am­bas­sador Ren Hongyan and pres­i­dent of the Chi­nese As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (CATT), Col­in Mitchell, both said Chi­nese Ar­rival Day was a mo­ment of re­flec­tion, grat­i­tude, and a re­minder of the sac­ri­fices and con­tri­bu­tions of the ear­ly set­tlers and their de­scen­dants.

Am­bas­sador Hongyan de­scribed Chi­nese Ar­rival Day as a his­toric bridge of friend­ship con­nect­ing the peo­ples of both na­tions for over two cen­turies.

Hongyan said, “On Oc­to­ber 12, 1806, the first group of Chi­nese im­mi­grants set foot on the beau­ti­ful is­land of Trinidad. This not on­ly marked the be­gin­ning of friend­ly ex­changes be­tween the peo­ples of Chi­na and Trinidad and To­ba­go, link­ing two na­tions sep­a­rat­ed by oceans, but al­so laid a pro­found emo­tion­al foun­da­tion for fu­ture of­fi­cial re­la­tions. Over the past 219 years, our peo­ples have walked side by side, forg­ing deep bonds of friend­ship that have be­come an in­te­gral part of Chi­na–Trinidad and To­ba­go re­la­tions. Com­mem­o­rat­ing this im­por­tant oc­ca­sion helps both peo­ples re­vis­it our long and en­dur­ing his­to­ry of friend­ship, fur­ther con­sol­i­date our tra­di­tion­al ties, and con­tribute to the steady and last­ing de­vel­op­ment of bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions.”

He al­so praised the Chi­nese di­as­po­ra’s con­tri­bu­tion to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s iden­ti­ty, not­ing fig­ures such as Sir Solomon Ho­choy, Carlisle Chang, and Dai Ail­ian, who helped shape the na­tion’s po­lit­i­cal, cul­tur­al, and artis­tic land­scape.

He added, “They made last­ing con­tri­bu­tions to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s de­vel­op­ment and to mu­tu­al un­der­stand­ing be­tween our peo­ples.”

Sim­i­lar­ly, Mitchell shared, “It is a mo­ment of re­flec­tion, iden­ti­ty, and grat­i­tude. It re­minds us of our roots, vin­di­cates our jour­ney, and reaf­firms our com­mit­ment to con­tribut­ing mean­ing­ful­ly to Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

And when it comes to to­day be­ing up­grad­ed to a pub­lic hol­i­day, CATT wel­comed the idea, high­light­ing the one-off pub­lic hol­i­day in 2006 un­der the (late) Patrick Man­ning ad­min­is­tra­tion as a suc­cess.

Mitchell said, “We be­lieve Chi­nese Ar­rival Day de­serves na­tion­al recog­ni­tion. A pub­lic hol­i­day would not on­ly ho­n­our Chi­nese her­itage but al­so re­in­force the in­clu­sive cul­tur­al nar­ra­tive of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Sev­er­al uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents al­so agreed that it should be made a pub­lic hol­i­day.

The UWI stu­dent Bre­ana Moolchan said, “They would have set­tled here and built a life here, and a lot of their cul­ture has now meshed in­to our cul­ture. Any­where you go, there’s a Chi­nese gro­cery on every oth­er cor­ner. They are here, and I think we should cel­e­brate them.”

Sim­i­lar­ly, an­oth­er stu­dent, Shanae Wal­cott, said, “We are a plur­al so­ci­ety. We have all dif­fer­ent eth­nic­i­ties, and if we have In­di­an Ar­rival Day, then we should have a Chi­nese Ar­rival Day as well. I think that is on­ly fair.”

But the de­ci­sion is not up to the peo­ple alone, as ac­knowl­edged by the am­bas­sador.

He said, “The es­tab­lish­ment of pub­lic hol­i­days is an in­ter­nal af­fair of Trinidad and To­ba­go. Chi­na re­spects the gov­ern­ment and peo­ple’s in­de­pen­dent choic­es. We ap­pre­ci­ate the long-stand­ing care ex­tend­ed to the Chi­nese com­mu­ni­ty and wel­come any ini­tia­tives that deep­en cul­tur­al ex­change and friend­ship.”

Ef­forts to con­tact Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on the is­sue yes­ter­day were un­suc­cess­ful.

Guardian Me­dia al­so reached out to At­tor­ney John Je­re­mie, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, and Sen­a­tor Dr Amery Browne, who were all part of the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion when the one-off pub­lic hol­i­day was grant­ed, but there was no re­sponse up to late yes­ter­day.

At­tempts to con­tact for­mer tourism min­is­ter Howard Chin Lee, who made the an­nounce­ment of the bi­cen­ten­ni­al cel­e­bra­tion in 2006, and Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism Min­is­ter Satyaka­ma Ma­haraj for com­ment were al­so un­suc­cess­ful.