Tracing roots of the Chinese Jamaican diaspora
Sept 19, 2021 13:21:28 GMT -5
Post by helen on Sept 19, 2021 13:21:28 GMT -5
ith over 50,000 Chinese-Jamaicans residing on the Caribbean island, how did such a unique community form?
Nandina Hislop
04 SEP
When my maternal great-grandfather Baker Chung-Yu migrated from Hong Kong to Jamaica over a hundred years ago, he probably didn’t expect that a few generations later, there would be over 50,000 Chinese-Jamaicans residing in the land of wood and water. He arrived as a businessman in the 1920s, after Hong Kong was snatched by the British Empire in 1842, seeking financial comfort for his future. This move allowed him to meet my Afro and Indo-Jamaican great-grandmother May Ranger and unknowingly spark the beginning of a growing Chinese-Jamaican family that would live to continuously explain our unusual heritage.
Growing up, I didn’t fully grasp the meaning of what it meant to be a Chinese immigrant in Jamaica. I am fourth generation Chinese, mixed in heritage and Black in racial identity. Born in Jamaica, raised in the Turks and Caicos Islands, and now living in the UK, my hop-scotching residential reality had meant I was isolated from most of my extended family, a significant portion being those of Chinese descent. Now that I’m older, I crave details about my Chinese ancestry and am now exploring a cavernous story rooted in struggle and resilience that I never knew existed.
But how did a whole Chinese diaspora end up in Jamaica? According to historian Patrick Bryan, Chinese and Indian people began to migrate to Jamaica and other Caribbean countries like Trinidad back in 1854 after slavery was abolished, to replace the unpaid labour of Afro-Jamaican slaves. Called indentured workers, they were contracted in a labour system to work on the sugar plantations in exchange for boarding, health provisions and food – a promise often violated.
gal-dem.com/tracing-roots-of-the-chinese-jamaican-diaspora/
Nandina Hislop
04 SEP
When my maternal great-grandfather Baker Chung-Yu migrated from Hong Kong to Jamaica over a hundred years ago, he probably didn’t expect that a few generations later, there would be over 50,000 Chinese-Jamaicans residing in the land of wood and water. He arrived as a businessman in the 1920s, after Hong Kong was snatched by the British Empire in 1842, seeking financial comfort for his future. This move allowed him to meet my Afro and Indo-Jamaican great-grandmother May Ranger and unknowingly spark the beginning of a growing Chinese-Jamaican family that would live to continuously explain our unusual heritage.
Growing up, I didn’t fully grasp the meaning of what it meant to be a Chinese immigrant in Jamaica. I am fourth generation Chinese, mixed in heritage and Black in racial identity. Born in Jamaica, raised in the Turks and Caicos Islands, and now living in the UK, my hop-scotching residential reality had meant I was isolated from most of my extended family, a significant portion being those of Chinese descent. Now that I’m older, I crave details about my Chinese ancestry and am now exploring a cavernous story rooted in struggle and resilience that I never knew existed.
But how did a whole Chinese diaspora end up in Jamaica? According to historian Patrick Bryan, Chinese and Indian people began to migrate to Jamaica and other Caribbean countries like Trinidad back in 1854 after slavery was abolished, to replace the unpaid labour of Afro-Jamaican slaves. Called indentured workers, they were contracted in a labour system to work on the sugar plantations in exchange for boarding, health provisions and food – a promise often violated.
gal-dem.com/tracing-roots-of-the-chinese-jamaican-diaspora/