Of late I have made an interesting observation..... The younger people, (than me)and even some of the older people (than me),by the way I'm thirty,have become, oh sorry that's wrong, ARE "Jamericans".
Now I know what you are thinking " Aye,he mad or wha!!!! he talking real shit.... I proud ah mih culture an me and nobody I know is ah Jamerican".... but really what is your culture? Right now your culture is defined by your age, your role models and the environment that you grew up in.
The older you are increases the chance of you knowing the true essence of the trinbagoian culture which is that you are born in the land that gave birth to calypso and steel pan with its OWN unique culture based of the multicultural influences of our ancestral roots. Our pride is strong and resilient and when ah soca playing.... oh gosh we could wine whole day, whole night. Our women KNOW that they are the sweetest in the world, sweeter that condense milk...lol And all the men know that too.
The younger you are is the greater that your culture is a mix of what you see on cable by what you hear on radio. now cable holds the mostly American culture... so you would imitate Cris Brown and other entertainers cause you wanna look and be like them aka they are the new role models, and radio, atleast the radio that the youth listens to holds mostly the Jamaican culture which is Reggae and Dub. Thus their Jamaican influence. And oh gosh let's not go into the Passa Passa culture from Jamaica that overtook all and everything that the youth look like and think about.
Now when you mix the both of these cultures being the American and Jamaican with little influence from the Trinibagoian then you get ah Jamerican.....
This is a fitting description of the culture of the youth at present. Apparently when Trinibagoians of my generation and the generation directly before mines made children they automatically had Jamaican citizenship and an American Visa. They mostly dress metro with these extremely tight pants below their waist constricting the parts that God gave them to hang freely on the outside and making themselves targets for men who like to rape men ( that have happened before in Trini eh). Then wearing a crucifix to beg God to save them from those invaders who may drag them into a corner and..... invade them while singing "I is ah Bad Man!!!!"
People don't get me wrong eh.... I listen to all types of music from chutney to alternative and as a matter of fact my favorite music is alternative. I watch cable and live with alot of different cultural influences surrounding me everyday. I went to a local university and every theorist was a foreigner, not one local one. But in all that i have not lost my soul to their cultures. I am just an advocate that you should know your own identity before you learn about others.
The truth is all generations since the emancipation of slavery and the end of indentureship are to blame for the loss of our cultural identity as they had started to loss theirs. This was then passed on to their children like a hereditary disease until our culture was bred out of us....But that is a topic for another day... ah hope this makes you think.
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