Editorial | Homage to Jamaican immigrants in New Jersey

The city of Paterson in New Jersey is paying homage to Jamaican immigrants for their decades’ worth of contribution in building that city. Approval was given in June for renaming a two-block portion of the popular Vreeland Avenue, Jamaica Way. The street name will become a reality this Labour Day weekend in the United States.

City officials agreed that Jamaica Way would be a symbol of recognition and honour to those individuals who followed their dreams to the US and “gave their lives for this country and paved the road for others and left a lasting footprint in the city of Paterson”.

There are an estimated 25,000 Jamaican residents in Paterson. They started to make their presence felt in the city from the 1960s and have been fulfilling multiple roles in politics, restaurants, construction, and healthcare ever since.

Jamaicans at home and in the diaspora need to savour this moment and understand the symbolism contained therein. It is especially significant that this recognition is happening at a time when anti-immigrant sentiments are running high in some parts of the US and elsewhere in the developed world.

Paterson is making a powerful statement about whose history the city wishes to celebrate, confirming what is generally known: Jamaica is a tiny island with a mighty reach. The people of Paterson are saying that Jamaicans have demonstrated a strong positive image by their historical, social, and cultural offerings. Jamaicans have made their presence felt in many other cities. The same is true of many other cities in the US, the UK, and Canada.

IDEOLOGY MEETS ASPHALT

Derek Alderman, a geographer at the East Carolina University who has studied and written extensively about the street-renaming trend, summed it up in this way: “Change a street name and you change the way people think about their city.” He added, “It’s where ideology meets asphalt.”

The tradition of naming public spaces, such as streets and highways, in honour of persons who have made sterling contribution to development has been going on for years in Jamaica, too. For instance, there are lasting monuments to our colonial masters. But the honour has mostly been reserved for politicians and sporting icons, with some recognition of a few international figures like Nelson Mandela, Haile Selassie, José Martí, and Ian Fleming.

There was a flurry of changes after Independence in 1962 when the nationalist sentiment called for erasing some of the markers of the colonial legacy. However, even today, we retain street names like King Street, Queen Street, Kingsway, Queensway, and East Queen Street. While we are not suggesting a renaming spree, we believe it is worth establishing guidelines within which we ought to continue the evaluation of some of the figures we honour to determine whether their actions in the past are consistent with the values we wish to celebrate today.

Many of the Jamaicans who bring great joy to the nation have emerged from the inner city. We see people in these communities celebrating their heroes by painting murals and erecting signs. We in this space believe the time is opportune for policymakers to establish a structured way in which we can truly honour our icons, with renaming public spaces and facilities as one way to recognise them.