Who is a Jamaican?
What makes Jamaicans different and distinguishable from the rest of the world?
Why do others want to be Jamaican and speak like a Jamaican?
The answers to the first question is probably best summed up in the country’s motto Out of Many, One People for there are few countries in the world where so many ethnic groups – distinct or mixed-up – can claim with justification to being the true version of what that country is. The one unfailing factor that has knitted the Jamaican people closely throughout its relatively short but turbulent history has been the enthusiastic affection of one for the other. This enthusiasm has enriched the ‘pure’ Jamaican with the racial genes of Africa, Asia and Europe and it has proven extremely difficult for serious rifts to occur when all know they share a common stock.
This is in spite of the fact that 90% of Jamaica’s population is of African origin and therefore the Africa is at the centre of the story of the Jamaican people.
The African-Jamaican people laid the foundation for a rich national culture by retaining their sense of spiritual values, by creating a vivid creole language, preserving their natural love for drama, music, song, drumming – for laughter, sympathy and wit. They created religious cults and modes of self-expression and developed Jamaica’s internal market system based on provision grounds on marginal land and a network of Sunday markets and higglers. Later, they were to be joined by partners in the struggle for nationhood by peoples from India, China, Lebanon and Syria in addition to those including the Jews who chose to make Jamaica their home from the time the first colonizers ( the Spanish) left.
In spite of this polygot of races that have come together to make up the Jamaican people and in spite of the overwhelming dominance of the African strain, Jamaica has never had a racial problem, and is considered the exemplar of racial tolerance. The most relaxed Jamaican attitude to race is heard in the blunt ethnic references of everyday discourse. Any East Indian is a ‘Coolie’ – never mind that it was one a pejorative term. An oriental-looking person is a ‘Chiney’. Someone from the Middle East is a ‘Syrian’ and those of lighter complexion is simply a ‘Brown Man’ (or in reference to women a ‘Brownings’) or a ‘White man’ but no malice is intended or assumed.
Africa is present everywhere in Jamaica and reveals itself in the physical appearance of 9 out of every 10 Jamaicans in their body language, everyday talk, in their way with words, their crafts, customs, cults and in their attitudes and modes of self-expression.
DID YOU KNOW?
Jamaica is the world’s most populous mainly non-white, soley English-speaking country in the world?
Jamaicans are likable because they are a happy unpretentious people. True there are pockets of real poverty but Jamaicans interact with such vitality and humor that it is difficult to conceive of them as being fundamentally miserable or disgruntled. The national suicide rate is among the world’s lowest and polls consistently show a high number of Jamaicans claiming to be happy.
DID YOU KNOW?
The 2009 Happy Planet Index ranked Jamaica number 3 of 143 countries as being happy people.
What many visitors and non-Jamaicans like is the lack of pretense. This is not a land of ‘happy smiling natives’ . When people are feeling angry and miserable, you see it in their faces and hear it in their voices. But when feeling good about life they laugh and joke consistently. What you see is what you get.
One of the features of the Jamaican personality is his speech. Jamaicans delight in aggressive verbal duels and believe any opinion worth holding is worth holding at the top of his voice. The national penchant for being argumentative and direct comes through in the language; Jamaicans don’t believe in beating around the bush and are fond of injecting humor into proceedings and love to make fun of themselves and others. Given that life in Jamaica is essentially one long continuous conversation, it is no accident that deejay chanting, which is really talking in the natural rhythm of everyday speech over a beat, was invented in Jamaica, introduced in the US where it was transformed into Rap and then spread across the world.
DID YOU KNOW?
Clive Campbell a.ka. DJ Kool Herc from Trench Town Kingston, is popularly acknowledged as the first hip-hop DJ and is accredited with originating the musical genre in the US?
Read more about DJ Kool Herc in the chapter “Kool Herc: Trench Town Rocks Hip-Hop” in Making Waves: How the West Indies Shaped the United States.
Despite its small population, Jamaicans can be found everywhere and there is scarcely a place on earth where a Jamaican cant be found. No matter what the country, if you encounter a group of people talking excitedly at the top of their voices, gesticulating animatedly and erupting is raucous laughter, chances are you have come across a bunch of Jamaicans. A distinguishing feature of Jamaicans living elsewhere is a strong attachment to the land of their birth. They visit often and hold on tenaciously to their cultural identity. They send money back home regularly both to support families back home, or to invest in acquiring property and building homes because a high percentage return home to live when financially able. Jamaicans are adaptable and tend to get on well with others any place they go but wherever they go and live, they are always first and foremost Jamaicans.
YOU KNOW YOU HAVE MET A JAMAICAN IF …..
- The person tells you ‘soon come’ in response to the question when will you get here?
- The excuse for being late is ‘the bus left me’ or that ‘it was raining’ as the reason for not turning up for work
- The person says ‘Rhatid’ or ‘Kiss mi Neck’ to express shock and surprise
- The person goes to the newsstand in London or Brooklyn and asks for a Gleaner
- The person shakes the ice cubes in the glass when drinking rather than stirring them
- The person carries on a conversation with himself or herself muttering and occasionally ‘kissing teeth’ in indignation, usually at some remembered folly of their own
CAN YOU THINK OF OTHER TRAITS THAT IMMEDIATELY MAKES YOU KNOW THE PERSON IS A JAMAICAN?
