My parents were born in Jamaica. I was the first Canadian-born in our family. I guess that makes me Canadian.
For all legal intents, I am Canadian, despite being viewed as an immigrant for my entire life. I do not fit the standard stereotype of what a Canadian supposedly looks like. Sorry, but I am Canadian.
The fact that my parents hail from beautiful, sunny Jamaica has never been enough for me. I know about the Maafa, aka the horrific holocaust of enslavement. I know all too well about how our ancestors were stripped of their very identities.
They gave us a label… black. That’s all. Black people. We are not actually coloured Black, but that’s the label we were given. We were dehumanized and reduced to a colour which does not accurately describe our skin.
We were denied the right to identify as Akan, Igbo, Yoruba, Mandingo, Ewe, etc. We were stripped of our languages and cultures.
I have spent the past several years tracking down my true ethnicity. I learned that I carry the blood of Sephardi Jews who fled persecution in the Iberian Peninsula (today known as Spain and Portugal). I also carry the blood of Arabs from the Levant (a region that encompasses modern-day Syria and Lebanon). Those two ethnicities were from my grandfather and great-grandmother respectively.
I also carry the blood of West Africans. In fact, the majority of my ethnic makeup is African. My research has indicated that I am primarily of West African ethnicity as are 90% of Jamaicans. Unfortunately, due to poor record keeping of the colonialists, I am unable to trace my African roots down to any specific tribe.
After years of research, I finally decided to take a DNA test. Not knowing who you are will eat at your very soul. I thibk that I had no choice but to take this route.
I am awaiting my results and keep hitting that refresh button on the website.
Based on rese, most of my African ancestry is expected to be from West Africa, primarily Nigeria and Ghana.
I hope that they can identify deeper than nation level, especially since these borders were created by those damned colonialists.
I may receive the answers to these burning questions in as little as 10 days from now, or as long as one month. I will update as soon as I receive them.