00:00.00 heritagevoices Welcome to heritage voices episode 82 I'm Jessica u quinto and I'm your host and today we are talking about maroon heritage in Dominicica before we begin I'd like to honor and acknowledge that the lands I'm recording on today are part of the noche or ute people's treaty lands the daneta and the ancestral puebloan Homeland. And today we have Jonathan Rodriguez on the show. Jonathan Rodriguez is a third year ph d student in the applied anthropology program at the University Of South Florida he earned an ma in Latin American and caribbean history that was weird. He earned an ma in Latin American and caribbean history. And a b a in history with a minor in anthropology. He was recently awarded a fulbrightus student research grant to dominicica his recent his dissertation research is a community based project that examines marinage in Dominicica. And that examines marinage in dad shoot I'm getting confused again which one is it dominicka. Okay, his dissertation research and I also. 01:07.13 Jonathan Rodriguez Dominika. 01:13.12 heritagevoices Cut out the Usf Earlier I don't know if that matters the second time. Okay, all right? So his dissertation research is a community based project that examines ah marinage in dominiica dang it I'm soon as I started talking I realized I couldn't remember which one it was. 01:14.57 Jonathan Rodriguez It It doesn't. 01:30.84 Jonathan Rodriguez Ah, dominika. 01:31.99 heritagevoices Which one is it Dominicica okay, his dissertation research is a community based project that examines marinage in Dominiica Fugitive geographies settlement ecologies and Maroon Heritage um I'm going to say that 1 more time. His dissertation research is a community based project. That examines marinage in dumy good I don't know what it is with me that word. Um, okay, sorry Chris um, his dissertation research is a community based project that examines marinagej in dominiica fugitive sorry that examines marinage in Dominika. Fugitive geographies, settlement ecologies and marine heritage think we got it that time. Um, hope sorry Chris don't murder me for making you splice all that together. Um. 02:23.40 Jonathan Rodriguez Chris is like damonika say it. Ah. 02:29.31 heritagevoices Um god um, yeah, so welcome to the show. Jonathan Super excited to have you. 02:37.80 Jonathan Rodriguez Thanks, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here I also want to acknowledge where I'm residing right now I'm at Usf in Tampa and we reside on the traditional homelands and territories of the seminole as well as other historical groups including the callosa and tokabaga. Thanks for having me. 02:57.83 heritagevoices Yeah, Okay, so before we do our usual start looking at where you got started. Let's let's define some terms real quick because I'm not sure all of our listeners will know about the maroons and who they were um so if you could just give like a. Super brief intro into that topic that would be awesome. 03:20.45 Jonathan Rodriguez Yeah, so marinage existed ah in the Western hemisphere anywhere. There was really slavery. Um, marinage is a form of resistance where enslaved people would flee from Slavery Temporarily. Ah, or for as long as they could and Scholars have usually broken this down into Grand marinage which is fleeing from slavery to set up autonomous sovereign communities or petite marinage which is temporarily. Fleeing slavery. Um, sometimes to go see relatives but they would eventually ah return back to the plantations or wherever they were being enslaved. 04:07.82 heritagevoices Wow I Mean that seems that seems very risky The second one I mean have and. 04:15.15 Jonathan Rodriguez Yes, yes, most of the time. Ah, in the case of petite marinage. Ah it was usually because of like excessive labor or like the violence that they were experiencing from their enslavers. 04:30.17 heritagevoices E. 04:32.77 Jonathan Rodriguez Um, and grandmarinage sometimes an individual we or as groups and especially it would happen a lot during times of war. So these different colonial aerial wars that happened in the caribbean the us um, even in. South america maroons were pretty much everywhere and a real thorn in the side to the plantation slavery system. 05:04.20 heritagevoices Yeah, okay, um, well just wanted to make sure everyone had that off the top and then but let's let's go back to your story. So how did how did you get interested in this work. 05:16.63 Jonathan Rodriguez So during my master's program I originally wanted to study like the geopolitics of Cuba the Ussr and the us during like the old war I was really interested in Cuba at the time. 05:31.13 heritagevoices Here here. 05:36.22 Jonathan Rodriguez Um, and my advisor she actually geared. She was a colonial historian of Mexico and she kind of pointed me to some of these antislavery and anti-colonial uprisings that were happening in the caribbean specifically. Nineteenth Century Cuba um and that really opened my eyes into different types of anti-slavery resistance specifically there's a rebellion um the eighteen twelve of bunte rebellion and I read this. Great book by Matt Childs that covers that subject as well as ah, Ida Ferre there're two very well-known scholars of Cuba. Um, so that kind of interested me into antislavery resistance and then when I got into the ph d program. I initially wanted to study marinoj in Haiti or colonial st domain but to do that I would have had to build rapport go to the island like set up all my own projects really and my advisor. Dr. Diane Wallman she had an ongoing project in Dominiica so like I entered the program knowing a lot more about the spanish speaking caribbean um and didn't know much about like the anglophone caribbean but. 07:12.26 Jonathan Rodriguez And and this is just sidebar kind of advice for any listeners out there that are thinking about going to grad school just if there's an opportunity on the table listen to your advisor and just follow that path. So i. Listen to her I started reading more about dominiica and I found out that there was maroons on that island and that none of the maroon settlements had been studied archaeologically so that's kind of how I got interested in. studying Dominico's studying maroon heritage there oh 07:50.61 heritagevoices Um, well and how did you So when I mean because it sounds like you had a little bit of an academic ah academic journey through different disciplines which you know from my perspective is a good thing. Um, but what what brought you. 08:08.32 heritagevoices Ultimately to anthropology I Guess even before that um like when when did you start like maybe even before school thinking about um this kind of work in general. 08:10.21 Jonathan Rodriguez A. 08:22.96 Jonathan Rodriguez Right? Um, yeah I kind of have an interesting background into getting into this work but from an early age I was always kind of interested in history I was always eating either reading historical fiction or any kind of history. 08:30.10 heritagevoices Are. 08:40.94 Jonathan Rodriguez Books but I was like that kid who is always interested in like world war two history I read. Ah I read a lot about that and then um I traveled a lot as a kid I'm from I'm from New York where I was born. Um, and. 08:45.72 heritagevoices And her. 09:00.34 Jonathan Rodriguez My dad ended up getting Ms. so he had to move we we moved the family from New York to Florida and then eventually um, my parents split up my dad remarried a woman in South Dakota and then I moved to South Dakota 09:16.74 heritagevoices He. 09:18.87 Jonathan Rodriguez Which was huge cultural shock. Um I went from like a school or like a town of you know, maybe 300000 people in Florida to going to a very rural small town in South Dakota with a population of like 88 where me my brother and my dad were the only puerto ricans in sight. Um, so there. Um I eventually went to a different Usf University of sioux falls and while I was there I majored in history but I didn't have. Funding to go to school I was taking out student loans and I ended up joining the military so I was in army for 6 years and while I was in the army. That's where I really. Learned that like I was not really familiar anymore with like my Puerto rican culture because there's a lot of Puerto ricans in the military and like I am one of those no sabo kids I didn't speak spanish. Um, so I was kind of detached from my own heritage even though growing up in New York it was like every easter we were going down to Puerto rico and like really visiting the island visiting my grandparents but I hadn't gone since my parents had. 10:53.00 Jonathan Rodriguez Really split up and then I did 2 tours in Afghanistan and on and on the first deployment I was part of a counter ied platoon and my job was I was trained in tactical site exploitation. As well as evidence collection. So basically we would patrol the main highway in Afghanistan and anytime we found an ied or if an ied went off my job was to. Basically record the site like I had to collect all the materials from the ice that was blown up take photographs bag and collect the evidence that sort of thing I didn't know it was going to have any kind of benefit long term as far as archeology. 11:31.80 heritagevoices Yeah. 11:48.42 Jonathan Rodriguez But while I was there being around a different culture and you know seeing those things that kind of opened my eyes to being a part of history and then when I eventually got out of the military I went to Usf and I think I was originally like a business major. Um, but I had to take an ancient history class and now I was just like this is I was back in my element I was like okay this is great but I still hadn't even really heard of archeology up to that point like I really didn't um and. 12:27.51 Jonathan Rodriguez From that class I switched my major back to history. Um, and because I had prior courses in history I was pretty much almost done with my degree but to get the full benefits of the gi bill I had to take more courses so I minored in anthropology. And then it was my last semester of my bachelor's degree I had to take an archeological field methods class and being outside being part of a team it kind of was a good thing for me. Um, but I had already been accepted. Into a grad program for history. Um, so while I was in the grad program I started working for a local Crm firm here in Tampa called Janus research and I was like oh I could. Work and get paid to do archaeology like this is great and while I was in the program I took electives in caribbean archeology and historical archeology and once I found out there was a subfield called historical archeology I was like this isn't. My niche. This is what I want to do? Um, so long story short That's basically how I got into this and then that plus my advisor kind of shifting my focus to antislavery resistance in colonial Cuba I was that's. 14:01.14 Jonathan Rodriguez What kind of brought me into that. Um, but being trained as a Historian I was learning more about how the voices of enslaved people aren't necessarily in the archives. So a way to counter that is through artifacts is through other methods. So That's what geared me towards Okay I Want to apply to a Ph D program in anthropology and focus on historical archeology. 14:37.82 heritagevoices Okay, so obviously I want to come back to all of that. But before we get too far away from it I'm ah I'm curious. Um, you know, thinking about your experience with the Army. Um, first like if that. Affected the way that you think about anthropology in any way and then also if anthropology affected the way you think about your army experience in any way. 15:04.24 Jonathan Rodriguez I would say both? um at the time on on my first deployment I probably was very supportive of what we were doing over there when I went back in 142 and I saw that not much had changed I started having these questions of like is is this good what we're doing over here. Um, and then once I got into reading more. Ah, reading was like probably the biggest influence. My brother recommended. Ah, Howard Zin's people's history of the United States and reading through that then getting into this program and meaning reading more ah histories about colonialism imperialism and and slavery I started to look back on. 15:41.82 heritagevoices A. 16:01.90 Jonathan Rodriguez My I'm in the military and the occupation of Afghanistan as like not a good thing. Um, and I kind of wanted to correct that by you know, doing this type of work and being more. Of an activist scholar versus just being a scholar. Not really concerned about what's going on in our current day and age. So yeah, it definitely changed how I viewed the past as well as. 16:28.63 heritagevoices A. 16:37.91 Jonathan Rodriguez Ah, present. 16:39.37 heritagevoices Um, and I imagine like the reverse was true like in the sense of.. For example, you were talking about kind of mapping a site and um, getting that experience in your time in the army and and did that affect the way that you. Do your work at all. 16:58.46 Jonathan Rodriguez Yeah I mean that that is one of the the highlights for my time that that kind of experience. Um, it wasn't all bad learning how to be a mentor. Um. Learning how to set goals and achieve them like those types of skills I didn't really have early on in my life even though you know I I Love my parents to death but my dad was very sick so I didn't really have that kind of structure. 17:14.57 heritagevoices A. 17:33.81 Jonathan Rodriguez Growing up So those types of things did help and especially the tactical site exploitation as well as the evidence collection courses I took helps with having that paying attention to detail that you need when doing archeology. Um, so yeah, those types of skills were definitely transferable once I got into archeology. Um, it was more of the theoretical and philosophical things I had learned through reading. 18:04.66 heritagevoices Yeah here. Yeah. 18:10.41 Jonathan Rodriguez That I was not getting in the military. Yeah. 18:12.68 heritagevoices Yeah, right, right? all right? Well we're already at our first breakpoint. Ah, but when we come back. Let's let's dive back into your graduate school work. So. 18:26.96 heritagevoices Everybody We will be back here in a moment.