# Gaining visibility  
Strong cultural memories are also enabling Afro-Asians to emerge from the periphery. A few years ago, a twelve-member group of Afro-Sri Lankans performed their traditional music - manhas - in Johannesburg. They were the only musicians representing Sri Lanka on her independence day celebrations in South Africa. Several generations of Afro-Sri Lankans were born on the island; they are nationals of Sri Lanka and are entitled to all its benefits, such as free education and free health care. Yet a latent consciousness of another belonging emerges when they meet Africans. However, this is not to be confused with a desire to return to Africa.  
Within colonial records, captives are seen as militia and treated anonymously. While enslavement was not exclusive to Africans, the incompleteness of historical records and the perception of colonial administrators weigh down studies of the African diaspora. Captives are categorized together with servants. But ethnic origins are blurred and cultural traits are omitted from the historical record. Occasionally captives are personalized, but their identity is often erased. Few African names are retained. A lack of ethnolinguistic detail makes it difficult to identify ultimate African origins, a problem exacerbated by changes to the boundaries of African territories over the centuries. Financial drivers behind trade and colonization dictated that captives be documented when there was a cost implication, as with the pension payments to emancipated captives by the East India Company Sumatra factory (de Silva Jayasuriya, 2010).