Thoughts of a Third Generation Jamaican Immigrant: A Commitment to Continue the Culture

 

2020 has been a crazy year. Like we’re in a never-ending episode of Black Mirror. These ‘unprecedented times’ have been tough on everyone, I’ve had friends who’ve lost their jobs, struggled with mental health issues or simply found it exhausting and disheartening to cope with the day-to-day reality of not being able to do those little things we all look forward to in life. As we head towards the end of the year, many of us are reflecting on our recent experiences and wondering what lies ahead.

For my family, this year was made all the more difficult by the recent passing of my Nan. She was the backbone of our family, someone we all loved dearly and a key figure in all our lives. Born in St. Elizabeth, Jamaica in 1929, she was adopted by a family friend at a young age and grew up in Kingston, where she later met my Grandad whilst working at the famous Jamaica Gleaner. Just a few days after the wedding, my Grandad left for England, where he would get settled and soon send for my Nan to join him. She landed here on 1^st December 1960 and they ended up in Luton. I can’t imagine what must have been going through her head when she first arrived and I don’t know much about their early experiences here, but I do know that their strength, determination and love gave them over 60 years of marriage and a family of five children and seven grandchildren.

When I think about my Nan, I think of one word – strength. From her early life experiences, to moving to England and dedicating 30 years of her life to working in the NHS, to her often stern attitude shouting at me and my cousins to keep it down as we ran around the house insisting the whole family watch another one of the dance routines we had spent the whole day choreographing, or insisting I mustn’t leave the house without a woolly hat on in September. She battled dementia for twelve long years and somehow bounced back from so many scares, where we all gathered at her bedside wondering if the time had eventually come to say goodbye. Her life was by no means easy but she never gave up, she carried on for as long as she possibly could. As we all come to grips with her passing and as we enter a new year, I’ve been reflecting a lot on the impact she had and how we can continue her legacy.

As well as being a general inspiration and source of strength, my Nan was also the main connection I had to my Jamaican heritage. The main way was through food, I always remember her in the kitchen cooking for all of us; it was the way she demonstrated her love and care. Sitting in that front room, eating her chicken, rice and peas, looking up at family photos and scrolls paying homage to Jamaica on almost every wall, I felt connected to the homeland of my grandparents. I’ve been thinking a lot about how much I want to uphold that connection to Jamaica and how I will eventually pass it on to my children and so on. This is something that is really important to me in my own life, it’s something I’ve always thought about but it’s been at the front of my mind lately. I don’t want the connection to Jamaica and the West Indies in general, to be diluted in future generations.

It sounds cliché but my first trip to Jamaica aged fourteen was pretty lifechanging. Before that trip, I was an awkward, shy teenager struggling with my identity in a nearly all-white private school. My Mum recognised the difficulties I was having and decided it was time to take me. I remember stepping off the plane, being hit with the humidity and a sense of connection to this place I had never been to before. I developed an understanding of where half of me had come from and I gained so much confidence from that. I can’t emphasise enough how important that trip was for me at that stage in my life and how my sense of self and identity might have been different if I hadn’t have gone. This timing is even more ironic as my family had been planning a big trip to Jamaica this Christmas. This would’ve been the first visit for some of my cousins and I was so excited for them to have that same experience; we were also planning to travel to some of the places where my Grandparents grew up, to learn more about what their lives would’ve been like before they came to England. 

My first trip to Jamaica, 2007

The experience of every generation will obviously be very different; I think of my Grandparents’ experience, compared to my Dad’s experience, compared to mine…I have grown up as a mixed race woman in the multicultural environment of the UK, integrating with individuals from all backgrounds and walks of life, my taste in things from fashion to food to music, a reflection of all this. This also means there’s a high chance of dating someone of another race. The dating dilemma is a common topic of conversation with some of my friends; I recently brought up how I was once dating someone who said “well, our children would really just be white wouldn’t they?” and how I argued this wasn’t true, that they’d never lose that connection to their Black heritage. It made me think about other family set-ups where this might be the case, where the Black would just ‘fade out’. I remember watching the BBC’s Soon Gone: A Windrush Chronicle some years ago, the final episode featured a white-passing great-grandchild of a Jamaican who arrived on The Empire Windrush. She starts looking back at her family tree during a school project, considering her own heritage and identity, and relating this to the wider implications for the Caribbean community in Britain. This episode posed the question - how much longer will this community survive with a discrete identity?

How many descendants of West Indian immigrants my age even still have a direct connection to the region? What connection will their children have if we, their parents, don’t uphold cultural traditions? Will they just identify as British and no longer as Jamaican?

 I know this isn’t a specific issue to West Indian communities; however, a 2009 study revealed that 48% of Black Caribbean men and 34% of Black Caribbean women in the UK are in mixed-race relationships. This tends to be a higher rate than many other nationalities. The study suggested that, over time, some ethnic minorities in Britain may actually disappear, as mixed race families become more and more common. Those identifying as having sole Caribbean heritage in the UK may gradually decrease and the traditions of that culture may largely fade in subsequent generations. This has previously been referred to as “the evaporation of the Afro-Caribbean community”. I love my West Indian heritage; I want to have that same pride my Nan had in being a Jamaican, and I want my children to have that same pride and knowledge of where they’ve come from.

When I speak about knowledge, I’m referring to deeper understanding of our history as much as I’m talking about the food, the music, the dialect…In this context, it’s important to relate the specific West Indian experience back to the history of the region. We can’t get away from themes such as slavery and colonialism, and I think that education on this impact is so important to understand - but there’s so much more to it. Jamaica was the first country in the British West Indies to gain independence in 1962 and for such a small island, Jamaica has had a huge impact on the world. With Jamaica the island with the largest population of the former British colonies in the region, Jamaicans made up the majority of West Indian immigrants in their respective new homes and subsequently, their culture was spread with them. Reggae is synonymous with Jamaican culture and music originating from the island has influenced a range of genres that are celebrated all over the world, from grime and hip-hop, jungle and drum and bass. Across the UK, you hear “wagwan” from any nationality and ‘Multicultural London English’ is thought to have largely arisen from immigrants of Jamaican and Caribbean descent. As a ‘small’ island, Jamaica has undoubtedly had a massive international impact…“We likkle but we tallawah”

I guess my point is, it’s important for all of us to have a connection with our heritage; “If you don't know where you've come from, you don't know where you're going”. It’s imperative that my generation, and those that come after me, still feel pride and attachment to their West Indian heritage. The experiences, knowledge and culture cannot die out.

Celebrating Jamaica in The World Cup, 1998

 

It’s only a start, but I’m learning to cook more (shout out to my friend for suggesting I use this lockdown time to teach myself how to cook West Indian food). I’ve actively been trying to learn more about the lives of my Grandparents before they came here and I’ve even thought about applying for my Jamaican passport via descent. I’ve always sought to become more immersed in the culture and maybe thought it was something I’d been missing; it definitely contributed to me going to live in St. Vincent after the opportunity arose last year. Being immersed in Caribbean culture had me thinking how different it would’ve been for me to have that experience but in Jamaica, maybe even with the family over there who I’ve never met. I also found myself thinking, when looking out at the sunset, what a shame it was that my Grandparents never got to return to Jamaica together. They should’ve been sitting out on a veranda somewhere like I was, looking out at the world, proud of everything they’d achieved. As we prepare for the moment we have to finally say goodbye to our Nan, I promise myself that I will always try to channel her strength. I will remain grateful for the sacrifices that her and my Grandad made which provided us all with the opportunities we have today. I will continue the culture.

 

My Nan holding my cousin and I, Christmas 1993

  “Never you cry

Here am I

I'm here for you Jamaica

Dry your eyes

Girl smile

Smile for me Jamaica”

-        Chronixx

 

Written by Danielle Johnson

As a tribute to my Nan, Hilda Adassa Johnson