Jamaican Till I Die!

Being a Jamaican is more than just the colour of our skin. Being a Jamaican is a shared experience, a culture passed down from generation to generation. Being a Jamaican is a blend of all the people who came and those who were brought here by force, mixed all together to create our own unique reality. One does not have to be black of African descent to be a Jamaican, that is not the "Jamaicanness" criteria. One Jamaican cannot tell another Jamaican that they are not Jamaican or not Jamaican enough, you do not have that right, who died and made you boss of all Jamaicans. Especially when we all live on this rock, sharing its burdens, hardship, couple gas riots and nightly merriments. Not to mention some hurricanes over the many centuries and decades.  I cannot imagine when I was going to school with my classmates who were either Black, White, Chinese, Indians or mix up-mix up, hanging out at various parties and fetes, teen jam or on the football field, telling them they are not...

This is not our first Chinese invasion, on July 30 1854, the first large group of 267 Chinese immigrants came from Hong Kong, later that year 205 Chinese workers demanded to leave Panama fearing yellow fever, arrived in Jamaica on November 1 and 18, one of the ships was called the Vampire. A decade later in the 1860s another set of Chinese arrived from Trinidad and British Guiana and two decades later, in the 1880s, another group of 680 immigrants arrived, this time directly from China. Most were not welcomed at first with open arms by the newly emancipated slaves who saw them as competition. Over the many decades since then we have seen several mini-invasion and several cases of Chinese leaving Jamaica in mass for greener pastures in The United States and Canada, some claiming discrimination by local Jamaicans and others using Jamaica as a stepping stone to get to more fertile grounds overseas. Out Of Many Cultures, The People Who Came: The Arrival Of The Chinese The Chinese ...