Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo says T&T has ben­e­fit­ted from the sac­ri­fices of in­den­tured East In­di­an labour­ers who de­cid­ed to make this coun­try their home.

In her In­di­an Ar­rival Day mes­sage, Kan­ga­loo called on cit­i­zens to use the oc­ca­sion to re­flect on the ex­pe­ri­ences of their East In­di­an fore­bear­ers and adopt their abil­i­ty to en­dure and over­come even the harsh­est of cir­cum­stances.

Like the in­den­tured labour­ers, she said cit­i­zens must press on through times of dif­fi­cul­ty with re­solve and courage. She said they should al­so ho­n­our the mem­o­ries of those who gave their lives for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions by em­brac­ing the cul­tur­al di­ver­si­ty and her­itage to which they rich­ly con­tributed and re­sist­ing all forms of di­vi­sion and dis­cord.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go has ben­e­fit­ted enor­mous­ly and been en­riched in many ways, the tan­gi­ble and in­tan­gi­ble, by the sac­ri­fices and con­tri­bu­tions of the peo­ple who came, per­se­vered, and pros­pered, and in so do­ing, helped forge a stronger, more di­verse so­ci­ety. Among the most en­dur­ing lessons that their ar­rival and way of life have taught us is the pow­er of com­mit­ment and the im­por­tance of re­silience,” Kan­ga­loo said.

She said the ar­rival of the Fa­tel Raza­ck at the Port-of-Spain har­bour on May 30, 1845, sig­nalled the be­gin­ning of a sig­nif­i­cant chap­ter in T&T’s his­to­ry. When 225 pas­sen­gers dis­em­barked to sur­vey their adopt­ed home­land, they did so af­ter an ex­haust­ing jour­ney over the treach­er­ous Kali Pani. How­ev­er, they did it with hope and ex­pec­ta­tion for the fu­ture.

Kan­ga­loo said these were the first of more than 143,000 East In­di­an in­den­tured labour­ers who came to T&T over 72 years to work on sug­ar and oth­er agri­cul­tur­al es­tates, for­ev­er trans­form­ing the so­cial and cul­tur­al land­scape.

In­di­an Ar­rival Day is a cel­e­bra­tion of the lega­cy of those daunt­less im­mi­grants who brought their cul­tures, tra­di­tions, val­ues and morals, as well as the dri­ve and de­ter­mi­na­tion to forge a bet­ter and brighter fu­ture for them­selves and their off­spring, she said.

Al­though they faced harsh work­ing and liv­ing con­di­tions, mea­gre wages and ram­pant dis­crim­i­na­tion—even af­ter the end of the in­den­ture­ship sys­tem— they per­se­vered, re­main­ing fierce­ly com­mit­ted to their cus­toms and be­liefs and sac­ri­ficed tremen­dous­ly to achieve their goals. They tri­umphed over ad­ver­si­ty, and they made this coun­try their home.

“To­geth­er, and in their mem­o­ry and ho­n­our, let us rise to this mo­ment in our coun­try’s his­to­ry, strong and re­silient in the face of our mod­ern-day chal­lenges: pover­ty, crime, misog­y­nism and in­tol­er­ance. Let us, like those 225 pas­sen­gers who walked off of the Fa­tel Raza­ck and in­to a fu­ture which we now call the present, step for­ward, unit­ed in our com­mit­ment to stare down any and all chal­lenges, to teach our chil­dren the mean­ing of re­silience, and to show the world why Trinidad and To­ba­go, de­spite all of its ad­ver­si­ties, is still the most amaz­ing na­tion on the face of plan­et Earth.”