Dahlia Walker-Huntington | Who is a Jamaican?

My Ancestry.Com DNA test results tell me that I am 81 per cent African and 19 per cent European. Like so many Jamaicans, my DNA is from different parts of Africa and Europe, even with a little Jewish ancestry for good measure.

I came to America in 1979 and that is when I began to identify by colour. All my life in Jamaica I was a Jamaican. I have green eyes and so yes, children (I reiterate children) used to tease me because most eye colours were brown or black. I would be told that my eyes were the same colour as a cat – in not as many nice words. By the time I became an adult people were actually buying colour contact lenses to acquire green eyes.

I went to Convent of Mercy Alpha Academy in Jamaica in the 1970s and our students were from all races and socio-economic backgrounds – Chinese, Indian, Middle Eastern, European and Afro-Jamaican. Even as an adult I took this for granted because they were just my classmates. It wasn’t until my father’s funeral in 1997 when classmates from law school who attended the funeral remarked on the tapestry of my Jamaican high school friends.

In Jamaica my headmistress was mixed, my priest was mixed, my prime minister was mixed, my rime minister’s wife was black, the head of the NDTC was black, the deputy prime minister was black, and so on and so on.

Now, fast forward to 2024 and I see blatantly racist, below-the-belt disparaging remarks about the leader of the Opposition regarding his colour. The minister of finance labelled the leader of the Opposition (LO) with a derogatory title in Parliament in 2023. Now, in 2024, another member of the minister’s party, and an elected member of Parliament, not only is reiterating the derogatory label, but she doubled down and said that she had more rights to this land called Jamaica than the LO because her ancestors died fighting to own the land, that the LO “can never be more Jamaican than any black Jamaican”.

There is an American television programme on PBS that features Professor Louis Gates, Jr, Finding Your Roots, in which many African-American celebrities are surprised to learn of their white ancestry, so I do hope that the minister has proof that her ancestors actually fought in rebellions for Jamaica’s liberation and that she is 100 per cent African. But, is that what makes a person a “Jamaican”?

In Jamaica where we celebrate, ‘Out of Many One People’, can an elected official truly mean what she said? Does she rate her constituents based on the percentage of African blood in their veins to determine if they are Jamaican enough and how they should rank in her eyes and for representation? If your ancestors were not enslaved people and did not fight for emancipation, does that make you less of a Jamaican?

What about the Hakka Chinese who began coming to Jamaica in the late 1800s onwards and those Chinese who fled Chiang Kai-shek and came to Jamaica in the middle of the 20th century and started Jamaican families? What about the Indians who began arriving in Jamaica in 1845 as indentured servants to take the place of the Africans who left the plantations after emancipation and started Jamaican families? What about the Jews, Syrian and Lebanese who came to Jamaica in the 20th century as merchants and started Jamaican families? Are their descendants not “Jamaican enough” for the member of Parliament?

This in the run-up to the 10th Biennial Diaspora Conference where Foreign Affairs is traipsing – literally – all over the globe inviting Jamaicans to return to Jamaica for a diaspora conference? To what end? When PICA goes all over the world to sign up second-, third- and fourth-generation Jamaicans to apply for Jamaican citizenship and Jamaican passports! To what end?

WHO IS A JAMAICAN?

The venom spewed about the LO because in a press conference he called for the removal of the restriction against dual citizens being able to serve in Jamaica’s Parliament during the constitutional revision process, and the false equivalency that because he is a British citizen that is the reason why he wants dual citizens to be able to serve in Parliament.

Newsflash! It is not a new proposal to call for dual citizens to be able to serve in Parliament. The LO is voicing what he has heard from members of the diaspora and now that the constitution reform is being discussed, what better time to make this part of the discussion. By all accounts the CRC has been considering allowing Jamaicans who also hold non-commonwealth, dual citizenship (post Republic – all dual citizens) to be able to serve in Parliament because it is a plea that the diaspora has been making for more years than I can count. Minister of Constitutional Affairs made the remarks in Parliament – seen in a video recirculating on social media – that the committee through its discussions thought it best to include dual citizens to serve in Jamaica’s Parliament (after a year of residency and a test of allegiance) “to attract the best public servants to produce the best outcomes for our nation”.

I am not here to defend the LO, he is quite capable of doing that himself.

I am here to decry as disingenuous the racist remarks levelled against the LO and all Jamaicans who are not 100 per cent Afro-Jamaican, who are members of mixed families and those in the diaspora who have a desire to serve their country.

We cannot continue to pay lip service about the Jamaican diaspora and not be willing to give them an opportunity to engage in the governance of the country beyond the remittances they send home, and the donations made to alumni associations and other charitable foundations.

I am not asking for an apology from the member of Parliament for the blatant prejudice displayed, but I want to hear the prime minister decry the statements and make it clear that he is the prime minister for all Jamaicans – at home and abroad, and of all races; and to come out in support of the removal of the barrier that would prevent all dual citizens to serve in Parliament. If he does not support the removal of the barrier, he needs to say why. The upcoming diaspora conference in June would be the perfect time for him to let all Jamaicans know where he stands on this issue of who is a Jamaican and who should be eligible to serve Jamaica.

Dahlia Walker-Huntington is a Jamaican-American attorney who practises immigration law in the United States. Send feedback to info@walkerhuntington.com