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Out of many one people" by George Graham

Foreigners are often startled when they hear me talk. The unmistakable
lilt brands me as Jamaican, but my appearance does not fit their racial
profile.

"Where are you from?" is nearly always followed by, "You don't look
Jamaican."

So what does a Jamaican look like?

True, most Jamaicans have dark brown complexions, a combination of a West
African heritage and the island's sunny climate. That brings us to one
myth: people with dark skins tan, just like people with lighter
pigmentation. You should see how much paler some of my friends became
after living in Toronto for a while.

Historians tell us many Jamaicans ar e from such tribes as the Ashanti, the
proudest and fiercest of West African warriors. It stands to reason that
prisoners of war would make up a large part of the captives shipped in
chains to work on Jamaican sugar plantations. It was customary for
prisoners captured during battle to be enslaved. The Egyptians did it to
the Jews, the Romans did it to other people all over Europe, and somewhere
in the world someone is probably practicing the same heinousform of human
exploitation right now. We just don't hear about it.

Many owners of Jamaica's estates were not Jamaican but British - absentee
landlords. They spent part of the year on the island, but their homes and
hearts were back in England or Scotland. In the days of the tall ships, a
journey across the Atlantic would take months, and a land owner would be
reluctant to spend all that time getting to Jamaica only to turn around
and sail right back. They would spend months in Jamaica before heading
home. Men being what they are (most of us, anyway); some of these
landowners would establish second families in Jamaica. Their mates were
invariably slaves.

To protect their children from being sold into slavery, they would declare
them legally "white" - hence the expression "white-by-law".
Landowners could count on their offspring to protec t their interests in
Jamaica while they were back in Britain.

That would account for at least some of today's "Jamaican white"
islanders. Others, of course, are descended from colonial civil servants
who came to Jamaica and founded families there. A few came from America
and other countries as clergymen, missionaries or businessmen - or for
some other reason.

A significant part of Jamaica's heritage is Jewish. Sephardic Jews fled
from Spain and Portugal to escape the Inquisition, and remained in the
island after the British drove out the Spanish in the mid-1600s. You can
see this heritage in many Jamaican surnames. One of my great-grandmothers
was a Miss Salomon, a distinctly Jewish name.

With the abolition of slavery in the 1800s, large numbers of indentured
servants came from India, with a sprinkling from Ireland and other parts
of the British Isles. Traders from China, Lebanon and Syria (and from
other countries) also migrated to Jamaica in search of busines s
opportunities.

It's no wonder that when Jamaica achieved independence in August 1962, our
leaders chose as our motto: "Out of Many One People."

On this, the 45th anniversary of Jamaican Independence, I would like to
propose that we declare the existence of a Jamaican race. Not black. Not
white. Not Asian or Middle Eastern. But simply Jamaican.

My late mother had blonde hair and blue eyes. My cousin, Kathleen, has
tawny skin and black hair. Her father, a distinguished schoolteacher, had
chocolate-colored skin. His ancestors were from West Africa. It would be
preposterous for me to think I belong to a different race from Kathleen or
her children and grandchildren. They are my flesh-and-blood.

Another cousin's married name is Chin. Is her daughter Chinese? Of course
not. Her daughter is an American of Jamaic an descent.

Yes, Jamaican. We are a race apart.

We might look European or African, Chinese or Indian, Jewish or Syrian,
but make no mistake: we are Jamaican. We share the indomitable pride, the
intolerance of injustice, the irrepressible spirit that distinguishes
Jamaicans wherever in the world our destiny sends us.