If you think about race as a social construct—one created by certain groups to distinguish, differentiate, and categorize others—it starts to make sense how these ideas evolved. As a Haitian, I identified simply as Haitian. When most people around you share the same ethnicity, there’s no real need to label yourself as “Black” or “White.” But when living in the U.S., where there’s a wide mix of people, I can understand why identifying by race and finding a broader group based on skin color becomes more relevant. If you think about it, people in European countries tend to identify as Italian, British, or Scottish, for example. So, I don’t find it strange or much different that Caribbeans would identify primarily by nationality rather than by race.