Abstract :
This paper focuses on childrenʹs identity in the rural community of Punta Gorda, Belize. My purpose is to discuss the nature of ethnicity in Punta Gorda and to contrast government policy towards childrenʹs identity with childrenʹs own life experiences as described by the children themselves. Belize became independent from Great Britain only in 1981, and its population includes six different ethnic groups. Consequently, identity has become a particularly urgent issue to government leaders and policy makers, and the Belizean government actively promotes ethnicity and nationalism in its schools through a curriculum designed to teach about the ethnic diversity of the country.
The children of Punta Gorda, however, have little in common with the lessons taught in the schools because the rigid curriculum that does not resemble childrenʹs lives. This is particularly true for ethnically mixed children whom the government has so far not acknowledged. Children must, as individuals, discover a meaningful ethnic identity through their own understandings of the world, without the help of teachers and schools. That many have done so is one of the primary reasons that the community life of Punta Gorda is being gradually transformed from one that focuses on ethnic identities as separate and distinct from one another, to a more amalgamated and blended identity of Punta Gordans as primarily Belizean, rather than ethnic.
