Writer and educator Marvin Hokstam will give workshops on St. Eustatius

SINT EUSTATIUS (ORANJESTAD) - On invitation of the 'St. Eustatius Afrikan Burial Ground Alliance' (in short Alliance), writer and educator Marvin Hokstam has traveled to St. Eustatius to give several writing workshops this week.

It is the sixth in a series of workshops that the Alliance is organizing as part of the project "Remember Statia: Tracing Our Origins." In 2022, Hokstam, the project's initiator, collaborated with the Surinamese community in the Netherlands on a similar project called Memre. He is of Surinamese descent but no stranger to the region, as he has lived in St. Maarten for 14 years and was a journalist for The Daily Herald from 1998–2001.

Distorted history and how to change the narrative

"It is his first visit to St. Eustatius, though," explains Kenneth Cuvalay, who is the project leader for the activities on the island. "We're very proud to have him here. We, as Afrikan descendents, must rewrite, question, and shift the perspective of our distorted history. 

“We have known this for a long time, but people have to actually start writing, and keep on writing. That is what we want to achieve with our project."

Untold stories from the Black community

Hokstam: "The black community has an unopened treasure trove of similar, never-told stories. Important to realize is that our ancestors' history is not just a string of marginalization and hardship; it also contains plenty of great stories of heroism, love, and entrepreneurship. Stories that live on in the oral tradition of families but have been conveniently ignored by Eurocentric historiography."

"It is a great pleasure for me to be physically present at St. Eustatius and meet the participants in person. There are so many untold stories here waiting to be recorded. History books are incomplete, and with journalism, yesterday's complete stories can be written today, for the benefit of tomorrow."

69 Golden Rock ancestors excavated from their final resting place

The project is a result of the protests against the archaeological excavations of 69 Afrikan ancestors from the former Golden Rock plantation burial ground on St. Eustatius in 2021. More than three years later, the ancestral remains have still not been reintered.

"Remember Statia: Tracing Our Origins" is a community project in which the inhabitants of St. Eustatius write their own history and honor their ancestors.

The importance of writing your own history

Marvin Hokstam is also the founder and director of The Broos Institute for Afro-European Studies and Research, as well as AFRO Magazine, and he intends to continue his activities even after the project ends. "Writers are educators, so it's important to write. That’s how we rewrite our history."

Broos Institute for Afro-European Studies and Research

The Broos Institute merges applied research; grassroots community education interventions and initiatives in the Netherlands, Suriname, and Ghana. It's projects center on Afrikan and Afrikan diaspora history, culture, art, and education. Aim of Broos Institute is to bring Afrikan and Afrikan diasporic experiences into mainstream European education.

People of Afrikan descent are offered a study environment that recognizes, respects and encourages their unique perspectives which is lacking in so many countries where the Afrikan diaspora communities live.