Carry On Friends: The Caribbean American Experience
Carry On Friends has an unmistakable Caribbean-American essence. Hosted by the dynamic and engaging Kerry-Ann Reid-Brown, the podcast takes listeners on a global journey, deeply rooted in Caribbean culture. It serves as a melting pot of inspiring stories, light-hearted anecdotes, and stimulating perspectives that provoke thought and initiate conversations.
The podcast invites guests who enrich the narrative with their unique experiences and insights into Caribbean culture and identity. With an array of topics covered - from lifestyle and wellness to travel, entertainment, career, and entrepreneurship - it encapsulates the diverse facets of the Caribbean American experience. Catering to an international audience, Carry On Friends effectively bridges cultural gaps, uniting listeners under a shared love and appreciation for Caribbean culture.
Carry On Friends: The Caribbean American Experience
Starting Points Matter: Lens 1 of the Caribbean Diaspora Experience Model (CDEM)
"When someone asks you where you're from, what's the first thing that comes to mind?" This seemingly simple question opens a window into the complex world of cultural identity for Caribbean people living in diaspora communities. Your answer likely depends on who's asking, where they're asking, and your unique migration journey.
The Caribbean Diaspora Experience Model (CDEM) provides a way for understanding how our cultural identities form and evolve outside the region. Unlike academic theories, this model emerges from real lived experiences – my own family's migration story, countless conversations with community members, and insights gathered through years of podcast interviews. It offers six interconnected lenses that help us articulate what many have felt but struggled to express about our complex cultural journeys.
In this deep dive into the first lens – "Where You Start Shapes the Journey" – we explore how your starting point profoundly influences your relationship with Caribbean culture. Whether you migrated as an adult with established cultural connections, came during formative teenage years like I did at 14, arrived as a young child with few concrete memories, or were born in the diaspora with varying degrees of cultural connection, each starting point creates a different foundation with unique challenges and strengths. The model acknowledges that even within families, different starting points create entirely different relationships to culture. My brothers and I all left Jamaica together, yet our age differences mean we each carry very different connections to our homeland.
The model also considers what was happening when your cultural journey began – the decade, political climate, and social context that shaped how freely Caribbean culture could be expressed in your new home. Someone who migrated during the dancehall explosion of the 1990s had vastly different opportunities for cultural expression than someone who arrived during earlier decades when Caribbean cultural visibility was more limited in diaspora spaces.
Understanding your starting point isn't about determining who is "more Caribbean" – it's about gaining clarity on your unique journey and extending grace to others whose experiences differ from yours. As we continue exploring the remaining lenses in future episodes, you'll discover how location, cultural anchors, identity shifts, professional expression, and embracing multiplicity all build upon the foundation established by where you began.
How has your starting point shaped your cultural journey? Reflect on this question as we continue unpacking the language and framework that helps us make sense of our beautiful, complex Caribbean diaspora experience.
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A Breadfruit Media Production
When someone asks you where you're from, what's the first thing that comes to mind? For me, it depends on who's asking, where they're asking me, and this nuanced answer started the moment when my family and I moved to the US. Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of Carry On Friends the Caribbean American Experience. In this episode I will be going deeper into the Caribbean diaspora experience model, which I call CDEM, and CDEM was created by me through Carry On Friends. It is a simple yet powerful way to help us better understand how Caribbean cultural identity forms, evolves and expresses itself outside the region and in diaspora communities. Now, this model is grounded in real-life experiences mine, my family's experiences, my friends' experiences, my community's experiences and stories heard through the podcast. Seedm offers a simple, relatable way to explore the complexity of identity within our community, and it breaks down a complex topic into six relatable real-world lenses six relatable real-world lenses. So SEDAM reflects what many of us already know deep down but haven't had the language to describe. This isn't theory, as I said before. It is a lived experience model built from years of observation, reflection, introspection of my life, my family's life, my immigrant journey, conversations with friends and community insight. This model doesn't tell you who you should be. It helps you see who you are, where you've been and how your identity has grown across time, place and relationships.
Speaker 1:A few episodes ago I introduced the Caribbean Diaspora Experience Model, sedem, to the audience. If you missed that episode, not to worry, I'm going to do a quick overview of the six lenses within the model. Lens one where you start, shapes the journey. There are six starting points identified in the model. So whether you were born in the region, migrated at a young age or were born in the diaspora, your starting point influences and shapes how your identity develops and evolves. There's a sub-lens and that sub-lens 1 1.1, is what was happening when you started. Lens two is where you live plus what you seek, equals how you connect. This lens examines how your location and personal drive to connect or disconnect influence your access to and engagement with Caribbean culture.
Speaker 1:Lens three cultural anchors keep us rooted. So we have tangible elements of cultural anchors like food, music, language, celebrations, family structure, church, even podcasts, TV series, plays, movies, these types of things. These tangible sensory visual experiences help maintain continuity across generations and borders. They preserve memory and identity across time and place and they ground us when everything else shifts. Lens four your identity will shift. That's the point. And our identity evolve as we evolve. As we grow through life stages, the way we connect with and express our culture naturally shifts. That evolution isn't a loss, it's just a recalibration and for this we have a sub lens 4.1. And that sub lens is how you show your identity also changes.
Speaker 1:Lens five is cultural identity influences how we show up at work. This lens explores how our relationship with work is deeply tied to how we were raised, what we were taught to value and how we express identity in professional spaces. And lens six is you are not either or you're both, and so being Caribbean and American, or Caribbean and Canadian, british, etc. It's not a contradiction, it's a reality. This lens affirms that our identity is complex, it's layered and valid in every way. Complex, it's layered and valid in every way. This lens affirms the multiplicity of the diaspora identity and helps people feel confident in the complexity of who they are. This was a high-level introduction or overview of Caribbean Diaspora Experience Model, cdem, which I will call. See them from here on out. Today we're diving deeper into lens one and its sub lens.
Speaker 1:Where you start shapes the journey and what was happening at the time matters. I opened the episode asking when someone asks you where you're from, what's the first thing that comes to mind? And for me I said it depends on who's asking where I am when they're asking this question. So for me I'm going to say Jamaica, because I was born there. But for my kids, some friends and some past guests on the show, they might say I'm born in the US but my parents are from Jamaica, which is what I know.
Speaker 1:Many born in the diaspora say For me my family's unique migration experience. I didn't realize that it was unique until it was much later in life. So, unlike a lot of friends who I grew up with or went to high school with, grew up with or went to high school with, I came to this country the same time my mother came. So my mother and my three brothers and I all arrived in the US at the same time. Traditionally the parent comes, gets settled and then they send for the kids. That was just not my experience, because this was my experience.
Speaker 1:This shapes how I view culture, how I view my identity and, as I mentioned before, we're diving deeper into the first lens of sedum and where you start shapes everything that follows. So there are six starting points in lens. One Point one you're a Caribbean born adult migration, which was my mom. You're a Caribbean born nine to 17 migration, so this was me and my brother, who immediately follows me in birth order. And then you have Caribbean born under nine migration, and these were my other brothers. Then you have diaspora born and connected to culture, so these were my cousins. And then there was diaspora born and disconnected, and I've met some people who are like this mostly, as I started, carry on. And then you have transnational or multi-location, and I'm going to dive deeper into what this is because we all know someone within these categories. So why do these starting points matter?
Speaker 1:Each starting point creates a different foundation and different sets of challenges. It influences how we move through all the other lenses of the model and how we even look at cultural identity. It sets the tone for our entire cultural journey. So for Caribbean-born adult migration, which is essentially people who moved as adults from the Caribbean into the diaspora, they have a very strong understanding of Caribbean life and cultural norms, and migration is a conscious experience and a choice right. Compared to me, when I moved, I didn't have a choice right. So when people ask me, why did you move here? I didn't have a choice. My mom said we were moving, so we were moving.
Speaker 1:The challenge that Caribbean-born adult migration have is what is generally known I didn't make this up is the awareness of race. So typically you're coming from predominantly black countries where race is very different, and how they experience that in the global North countries America, canada, the UK, elsewhere is very different and it's usually very hard to adjust to because now they're aware that they are, not that they didn't know that they were Black, but a negative experience associated with that. And then the challenge is adapting their established identity which was, yeah, I'm a black person in this country, it's not a big deal, you know to this new location, to wherever they move to, and so a lot of time you say you know you grew up in Jamaica and you moved to New York when you were in your 20s or 30s. You know, you know, or even you know late 30s or 40s whenever you moved. And now you have to adjust how you were back home into this new place and that's a very hard transition to make, especially when you can't name what you're experiencing, and I think that has been the challenge. People have been experiencing it but they haven't been able to name it. Or they've said, well, auntie so-and-so, mama so-and-so, this person come America, donkey, years long before me, and they didn't have to deal with this. So you know, maybe it's just me Right, and so a lot of times that's how they are not brushing it aside, but trying to justify not addressing it because they don't know that it's something to address, right, but it is a common challenge.
Speaker 1:So, as I mentioned before, I'm in the 9 to 17 migration group and I moved here when I was 14. And at that age I moved here when I was 14. And at that age I had already gone through high school up until the ninth grade in Jamaica. So I have very strong memories and connection to Jamaica. When I moved here, because my mom did not come here and establish herself in advance, I had to figure out how I was going to navigate America. At the same time my mom is also navigating America. So just figuring out how to make it fit, I'm still deeply connected to Jamaica, my friends, like I said, I went to high school. I had very strong ties in church. I still have those friendships, while also building relationships with the cousins that I didn't really know until I moved here and, of course, going to school, because we're younger, we navigate the disruption to identity very differently. In the development years we adapt maybe a little quicker. But depending on where we live which I don't want to go too much into, which is why I said the lens builds on each other the adaption may be smoother. So I'll just give a quick peek in here.
Speaker 1:Moving to Brooklyn, new York, I didn't have to adapt that much. I just didn't Versus someone who may have moved maybe to the Midwest right. So it's a very different experience. It wasn't until I went to school that I understood this idea of barrel children Not that I didn't see it growing up in Jamaica, but I didn't know that there was this term for it where the parent, whether it's the mother or the father or whomever, migrates first and then the children follow. They'll have a very different experience. Most of the time barrowed children are left home or left back home with extended families, while one parent or both parents migrate. For barrowed children, in addition to their starting points, their experience in the diaspora and maybe how they see themselves is going to be based on their relationship with the parents, or lack thereof, and the situation they come into. So for instance, I've heard this story Many barrel children come here and there's a sibling born in America or foreign, and so how does that impact the relationship with the diaspora born sibling versus the mom? So, again, just layers.
Speaker 1:My experience is very different from my brother's experience. So my brother, who is two when we all got off the flight, has a very different relationship with Jamaica. He was too young to remember a lot of things. A lot of his connections are based on the stories we've told or when he's gone back and that in and of itself is just a different experience. And we'll get into where he maintains connections and that's typically liking the anchors, the food, the music, et cetera. Right, and for the other Caribbean born younger, it's just obvious that the younger you are, sometimes the memories aren't as strong as you moved later and there's this emotional connection to a place that they have very few memories of that place. But there's a connection emotionally and as we go through the other lens in Seedem you have like cultural anchors. So, as you can see, my mother, my brothers, we all had different cultural connections and we're in the same family and that's all because of where we were in life when we made the move to the US.
Speaker 1:So you have diaspora born and connected to culture. You all know it, you all see it. That was my cousin. You know, when I came up here, I remember one cousin asked if I knew how to do the butterfly and my uncle said she just come from Jamaica, she should be asking you if you know to do the butterfly. But you know, my cousins were a big dancer, dance by head top butterfly. They were really connected to culture, the food, the dance, everything, the way they spoke. Sure, sure, you understood that you could hear that they had American accents but they were talking the Patois. Same way, right, the diaspora born, connected.
Speaker 1:You know, they're raised in homes. So inside the house they're Jamaican, they're Trini, they're Bayesian inside the house and when they go outside it's America. They have a clear awareness of the cultural difference from mainstream society, even though there is always one incident that brings this to their awareness. Michaela has talked about the lunch that she would bring to school. Or a past guest, malaney would say that people would ask her why her mom spoke funny and she didn't think her mom spoke funny. Her mom sounded normal. So they have a clear awareness of the cultural difference in mainstream society. After one inciting incident or one incident that brings this awareness to them, they're often comfortable, you know, going back and forth in cultural context, because this is just how life is. And they visit back home periodically, often, maybe more when they were younger and, you know, as they get older, maybe not as much, but often enough, or vice versa, but they go back home.
Speaker 1:And then, in terms of multinational, I wanted to take some time to explain this. So you might have cousins who were born in the US and at some point they were sent back home to go to school and then at some point they left back home and came back to America. Or you had some who were born back home, came up here for one reason or another, they got sent back home and they commute back and forth. So this is what I call transnational, because they've spent significant time in the diaspora and back home, wherever back home is, and I'm not judging the circumstance under which they were sent back home. Every family is different, for whatever reason. You know, sometimes the parents had to work and you know, to grow up in the Caribbean life or to have somebody watch them. It was better they got sent back home so grandma, auntie or somebody could watch them. And you know, sometimes I've heard people feel like they could get a better schooling back home. So there were a variety of reasons why this back and forth movement was happening when people were younger. I just gave an example.
Speaker 1:As for children, but even as adults, maintaining homes and moving back and forth in the space, and I get it, not everyone has that luxury to do that, but it does happen. And there's a very different experience for people who have lived in both places and they've experienced it differently. And they're doing it I don't want to say simultaneously, but it's for short bursts of time and it's interchange. It shapes their experience much differently. Recently I had Stacey Liebert on the podcast, who is the CEO of Grenada's Tourism Authority, and Stacey, I want to call her out here because she had very interesting journeys. So she migrated from Jamaica during her youth, so that puts her in Caribbean, born the 9 to 17 migration, and she's evolved into transnational because she's returned to the region first Anguilla and now Grenada for work and life. And her story illustrates how identity isn't fixed. It's evolved across location, roles, responsibility, and so the important takeaway here is starting points aren't permanent categories. You can, aside from where you were born, you can find yourself in the transnational category and you know this evolution based on life choices and circumstances show the dynamic nature of cultural identity.
Speaker 1:I also want to acknowledge the diaspora born and disconnected, and there's usually a reconnection journey. I want to acknowledge that disconnection happens for a variety of reasons and under various circumstances. I'm not here to judge the why, but to acknowledge that it happens and each person's family or each person's situation is different. There is a growing reconnection movement, a trend where people are seeking to reconnect with heritage, especially through digital platforms. I'm not saying that that reconnection is easy, but just acknowledging that it's a trend and more and more people want to do it and oftentimes, you know, you find adults seeking connection to parent or grandparents or more connection to culture they never knew. This disconnection doesn't make someone less than. It's simply a different starting point with its own journey. So it doesn't make them less Caribbean or less, it just makes their journey very different.
Speaker 1:And so a quick recap we're in lens, one of Caribbean diaspora experience model SEDEM, and where you start shapes the journey, and in this you have six starting points Caribbean-born adult migration 9-17 migration. Under-9 migration. Diaspora-born connected to culture, diaspora-born disconnected from culture, and transnational or multi-location or multi-location. So now I want to go into the sub-lens lens 1.1. What was happening when you started?
Speaker 1:So, in addition to where your cultural journey began, this sub-lens considers the social, political and emotional context at the time. Were you born pre or post internet? Did you migrate during a time of political unrest or economic hardship? Did you come in the 80s or did you move to the us in the 90s, like I did? Did your family feel safe expressing culture or did they silence it to protect you? These historical and societal forces shape how families make decisions about expressing their identity and see them honors that layered complexity. So when I moved to Brooklyn, new York, in the 1990s, there was an explosion of dancehall culture. I mean it was much different than my uncles who came here in the 70s, his uncle before that who was here in the 50s and 60s, or other cousins moving here during the 80s.
Speaker 1:The decade of migration affects cultural expression and your opportunities to express yourself. I've had guests on the show who've said that their parents did not allow them to speak Patois or for some people, they couldn't speak Creole outside of the house, and this is why the sub lens is important. The decade you migrated what was happening at the time politically, economically, socially is going to impact how you express yourself, how you see yourself. In the different starting point For me, moving in the 90s and born in Jamaica, I expressed myself and culture in the level of confidence where I know other people who did not have that same experience. There is one other aspect that is going into lens two, but I want to mention it here. So, in addition to your starting point and what was happening when you started, the geographic location is going to impact your journey, right, and so I'll dive deeper into that, into lens two.
Speaker 1:So what does this mean for understanding identity? Starting points create different strengths and challenges. So no starting point is better or worse, it's just different. And understanding your starting point helps you navigate your cultural journey with more intention. And that recognition that, even within families, different starting points create different relationships to culture.
Speaker 1:As I mentioned, my mother, my three brothers and myself the five of us have very different experiences to culture. What I remember and my brother immediately after me remembers is very different from what my two younger brothers will even remember or have a connection to. All they have are the stories'm like oh, is Imkomir young, so certain things he's not going to remember. So I have a little bit more patience for when I have to explain certain things or with my kids. The starting points are a way to help us better also communicate with each other and give each other grace and some understanding, because we know that their context or how they see things is different. It's not the same. Even if we're in the same family. It is not the same. And so Lens One is where we are grounded, we're rooted. Everything else builds on lens one.
Speaker 1:What was your starting point? What was happening in the world when your cultural journey began? And by cultural journey sometimes it's just when you were born or when you migrated. Right? How is understanding your starting point help you make sense of your cultural experiences? What aha moments you've gotten from this, if any? So I'll be diving into each lens in individual episodes.
Speaker 1:So the next episode I'll be talking about geography and motivation, and each lens feeds or builds into the other lens. So we talked about again starting points and what was happening. This feeds into the next lens of geography and motivation. I would like you to reflect on how your starting point has shaped your journey. Now that you have this awareness, how has it shaped how you carry yourself in this world? If you're not subscribed to the Carry On Friends newsletter, please do and I think you'll enjoy it. Sedam is a life's work and I'm really proud and excited to share this awareness and this language, because once I understood I saw myself how I carried myself, it was very different. So I can't wait to continue to break down the lens and explore more with you. If you have questions, please send them and, as I love to say at the end of every episode, walk good.
