WE DEH YAH, STILL

Interviews: Michael A. Henry | Artwork: Amanda Williams


‘We deh yah, still’ is a Jamaican patwah (Jamaican creole) phrase that means "we are still here" or “we are doing okay”. It’s often used as a response to the patwah phrase for ‘how are you doing?’. Jamaican patwah is spoken by a majority of Jamaicans as their native tongue, in addition to English, regardless of their ethnic background. Jamaican patwah is derived from an amalgamation of West African languages and English. This is one of the embodiments of the Jamaican motto “Out of Many, One People”. This exhibit will highlight that Indo-Jamaicans “are still here”.

Following the 1833 abolition of slavery in the British Empire, a new system of indentureship was introduced which brought bonded laborers from India to nineteen British overseas territories in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean to fill the labor shortage created by the departure of former slaves from the plantations. Recruitment began in 1834, and ended on March 20, 1917 with an estimated two million indentured laborers during this period. In Jamaica, from 1845-1917 for 72 years, 37,027 Indians were indentured resulting in the creation of a small yet vibrant Indo-Jamaican society that has woven into the larger Jamaican society. Reinforcing the Jamaican motto “Out of Many, One People”.

The Indo-Jamaican community, given its small population has historically been marginalized in the mainstream narrative of the South Asian diaspora regarding Indo-Caribbean’s. From an academic perspective, the majority of Indo-Caribbean scholarly research over multiple generations has focused on Guyana and Trinidad and delves deeply into multiple facets of their identity. However, there is very limited work focused on the Indo-Jamaican community. The descendants of indentured laborers in Jamaica have a large creolization rate given intermarriage and the cultural practice of shedding Indian names for Anglican/Christian names unlike other South Asian diaspora communities that have been able to retain their identity through surnames, religious, musical, and dance practices. These unique factors have created a distinctive Indo-Jamaican culture compared to other South Asian diasporic communities.

This exhibit will highlight oral histories with Indo-Jamaicans who are descendants of indentured laborers who have migrated to the United States with connections to the South Florida region. The intent is to document, preserve, & showcase the ways in which Indo-Jamaicans have retained their ancestral culture, traditions, and way of life although being twice removed from South Asia, a minority in the melting pot of the United States, with distinctively different cultural practices than the larger Indo-Caribbean South Asian diaspora.

Oral histories were conducted with 6 people ranging in ages from 29 – 86 covering a broad range of topics including first days in the U.S., the educational system and the role in which education played in shaping their life, religious/spiritual practices across the spectrum of Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam, folk dance styles such as Nachaniya, community gatherings centered around food and music, sports including tennis, horse racing, and the Kentucky Derby, as well as sexuality and LGBTQ acceptance. These stories represent a small segment of a diverse community. The hope is that by voicing our stories other Indo-Jamaicans will feel inspired to share their stories as well and build a grassroots movement, by the community, to preserve its history for future generations. If you are interested in sharing your story as an Indo-Jamaican please contact IJS@saada.org.

This project is dedicated to my ancestors, the original indentures of the Moonasingh & Paul families, that crossed the Kālā Pānī from India to Jamaica in the British West Indies and now their kin spread across the global south diaspora.

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