Djamil Ninsoo, Afro-Indo Jamaican cultural advocate

In this bonus episode of The Moreish Podcast, Hema chats with Djamil Ninsoo, also known as douglabwoy on social media, an Afro-Indo Jamaican cultural advocate and anthropologist. Djamil, who has authored a children's book 'Eva My Nani-Ji', shares his experiences of promoting Jamaican culture and heritage, specifically focusing on the contributions of indentured Indians. They discuss the nuances of Afro-Indo Jamaican identity, the historical context of indentured servitude, and the integration of diverse cultural influences. Djamil shares insights on terms like 'dougla' and 'coolie', their offensive and reclaimed usages, and the cultural intersections with the Chinese indentured laborer community. He also speaks about his personal journey of reconnecting with his roots and the impact of diaspora on cultural identity. The episode wraps up with Djamil talking about his upcoming books and his efforts to preserve and celebrate his heritage through storytelling.

Resources

Connect with Djamil on Instagram and TikTok

Eva My Nani-Ji by Djamil Ninsoo

Article: Putting the Half-Stories Back Together Again with Djamil Ninsoo

Article: Do Jamaicans Dream of Dhal Puri?

The Last Kantraki

Pardes Chale, Beverly Panchan Ramprasad

Finding Samuel Lowe

Black Cake (book)

The Cutlass Podcast

Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/andrey-rossi/jerk-sauce

Transcript

Hema: On this bonus episode of The Moreish Podcast, I talked to Djamil Ninsoo known affectionately by his social media handle douglabwoy. Djamil is an Afro-Indo Jamaican cultural advocate and anthropologist, whose mantra is education through representation and the author of Eva My Nani-Ji, a children's book with two more books in the works. Djamil utilizes his platform to promote and educate others on the richness of Jamaican culture. History and heritage. With special note for the contributions of indentured Indians. 

Hi, Djamil. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on and talk to me a little bit. And before we get into your background, I sort of came across your TikTok account during the, the lockdown situation, right? When we were all at home scrolling a lot more than we would normally.

And it really sort of spoke to me because you were sharing information in what I felt was a easy to understand kind of way for people who may not have sort of any indication about the history of Jamaica and the people of Jamaica. 

And then I came across, is it Savour the Indo?

Djamil: Yes, Savouring the Indo-Caribbean.

Hema: Thank you. I saw their post that you are the Director of Cultural History and Research. Um, and I thought, okay, this feels to me like a sign that we need to have a conversation to talk about some of the things that you talk about on social media. And before we get started, why don't you introduce yourself?

Djamil: Boy, that's always a hard thing because I never know what to say, what to leave out, but hi, you know, my name is Djamil Ninsoo. I am a proud son of Jamaica. I am proudly the descendants of the Africans brought to harvest the sugarcane and the Indians brought to replace them. And...what can I say? I'm an anthropologist by hobby, by major, family historian through and through.

I recently published a book about my Nani-Ji that covers the first 20 years of her life in a, set in like a children's story aspect. So different stories that she would tell me, I just put to paper. And I think anything else would just come out as we have this conversation.

Hema: You're currently in the U. S., correct?

Djamil: Yes. So I'm currently based in South Florida,

Hema: Were you born in Jamaica? Were you born in the U. S.?

Djamil: Born in Jamaica, moved straight to Florida at the age of 10. 

Hema: I'm going to start with your social media handle. Can you tell us what that is?

Djamil: Yes, so my social media handle is douglabwoy, um, B W O Y, the very Jamaican parlance way of spelling, and How do I even say, like, describe the origin of that? I want to say Definitely when I had started TikTok is when I made that switch. So like I had like a different social media handle, but it came about because one, I had just made TikTok and I needed a username and I was like, what can I put?

And I was like, douglabwoy. It also came up because like, that's something my Nani-Ji has called me like quite frequently. Like ever since I was a young child, we were running around and like, that was one of her nicknames for me. And you know, like Caribbean people have multiple different nicknames. Some of them are based off how you look. Some of them are based off of who you are, what you do. I just ended up with douglabwoy, so like, that just made sense, and I shifted that, or like, most of my social media handles are that now. And so like, it's one, it's a way of honoring my heritage, it's a way of honoring my Nani-Ji, that Jamaican culture that we have, which is similar to many other Caribbean countries.

So, that's the back story of douglabwoy.

Hema: You know, you, you mentioned Caribbean people having nicknames and I tell you, it surprised me when like, I've known people, my aunts and uncles who are not really my aunts and uncles, but you know how that goes. Who I know for years and years and years and it's not till like 25 years later that I recognize or understand that the name that I've been calling them is not actually their name or anything close to their actual name.

Djamil: Yeah, no, so your aunts and uncles, I have first cousins who, because I'm the youngest, you know, I grew up knowing them by one name. But I look on Facebook and it's a whole other name. And I'm like, Oh, that's right. I have to look for you by what's on the birth paper, not what we call you. 

Hema: Your, your government name. Okay. So you said douglabwoy. Um, and not everybody's going to know what that term, what dougla means. Can you explain that?

Djamil: Yes. So dougla is a term that I'm not going to lie to you, like is offensive in some circles, right? I'm not going to sit here and act as though the, the history of that word doesn't exist. And so what happens is it's a Hindustani term. Um, most of our ancestors who came to the Caribbean would have been Bhojpuri speaking from Uttar Bihar…Uttar Pradesh or Bihar, sorry.

Um, those two States in India. And so dougla would have originally meant mixed caste, right? So if your father was a Brahmin, your mother was a Chamar, maybe you might've been known as dougla. However, when you come to the Caribbean, you find that you had a lot of Indian and Afro Caribbean um, relationships coming about, right?

And therefore producing these new children who were half African, half Indian in origin with no like official term. And so eventually dougla was the term that was applied. So like it does, you know, in some contexts, it means two faced. In some contexts, it means bastard, but that's where that term comes about.

And then you have. I'd say like in this generation, maybe a couple generations before and definitely generations after, a reclaiming of it and, and people being proud in their dougla-ness and their dougla-tude, as, as some might call it.  

Hema: You know, it's interesting that you say that in some circles or for some people, it's an offensive term because for me, it's never been offensive. It is just a term, that I've known growing up and that I've probably used myself. But there's another term that comes from the indentured servants, coolie. Do you know that one?

Djamil: Yes, so coolie, with that word, and it's funny because, so I've experienced that word in nothing but a positive sense as a Jamaican, right? However, and so like, I'll take a step back. So coolie was the term that was applied to the indentured Indians. I know in some of the countries where the indentured Chinese were brought, it was for them as well.

I think, however, nowadays you see it mainly applying to Indo Caribbean people. I live in South Florida where we have not just various Caribbean groups, but also various American groups and other groups. So it's interesting because I've seen people who are not Caribbean use those words, like, like the word coolie to describe somebody, and because I'm coming from this context that coolie specifically refers to Indo Caribbean, I've seen them use it for people who are Bengali, who are mainland Indian.

So yeah, like I used to work at a Walgreens and I remember a guy came in and was referring to a coworker and he didn't know how to like, like, he didn't know the coworker's name. So he's just like, Oh yeah, the guy with the coolie hair. And I was like, no that's not what we're not doing this. Right. Um, but I also say that I had a friend who is a dougla from Trinidad. Well, Trinidad and Tobago. One parent was from each island. And I remember like her and I being like the only two people in our friend group of both African and Indian descent. I jokingly made a, a, a, like a, I forgot what the exact joke was, but it was like, like connecting us on like the levelness of us being coolie descendants.

And she started crying flat out boohoo crying and was like, I've never said anything to offend you. Like, and I, and I for a moment had to take a step back and be like, okay, like in Jamaica, yes, like, sure, oftentimes we use the word and it's a term of endearment and it's a positive thing and, you know, like, it was never anything like, my grandfather's nickname for my grandmother was coolie gyal, like, that was just that, but I had to take a step back and be like, okay, you know what?

Trinidad and Jamaica, different histories, different, you know, similar cultures, but different cultures at the same time. It's like, I have to take a step back and be like, okay, honor and acknowledge how she's feeling, but. So like that, and I've also started to meet more Jamaicans too who are not necessarily fond of that word.

So it's interesting because you, you do end up having these conversations like, okay, well, I, like this person might say coolie, but they come from a family that never says it, or this person never says it. And they're always having conversations with their family who do. And I think it's just one of those things that's part of our, our legacy as descendants of indenture, where we have to kind of grapple with that word. You know, my mom, who I consider to be a pacifist, used to tell me stories that she would fight kids at school because having an Indian grandmother, people like, there were a lot of like derogatory statements people would say about Indians and they'd use coolie as like, it was never like Indians wear red, it would be like coolie wears red.

And I don't know what's necessarily wrong with wearing red. I get where association comes from, you know, Hindu brides, the, the, the tikka, you know, the bindi, like I get why they say it, but like, that was the insult, right? Or, or barefoot coolie, because a lot of Indians didn't wear shoes, or bore nose coolie, because a lot of Indians had nose jewelry.

So like, I get it. And you know, when my mom tells me these stories and I look at her and she's like, yeah, like me and you, you, me and your mousey them. We used to like fight the other kids at school because they would say those things. And I was like, wow. I never would have thought that about you, but it's also like, again, it goes back to that history of that word, you know, for some folks, it's a positive because it was associated with certain features and for others, a negative because of the historical context that it came out of.

Hema: And you know, you mentioned, so dougla and coolie both being for some people, a positive, some people a negative. And coolie is a word again, for me, that has been part of, my lexicon since I was a kid, my entire family, is Trinidadian of Indian descent. And that's a term that my father would use quite often just with his friends, right?

Just in, camaraderie, instead of calling their name, he would say, Hey, coolie. But I don't know what he would have felt if somebody he didn't know very well who would have called him that? I'm just not sure.

Djamil: Sometimes it's, it's, it's not the word, but the person using the word of the relationship. So no, that's, you're absolutely right.

Hema: So I'm going to take a big step back because we just kind of dove right into the conversation because a lot, a lot of the work that you do and the history and the things that you share on social media are around Afro Indo Jamaican culture in history. And that's really not something that I find is talked about I    n mainstream in a wide way. So, can you maybe set the stage for what indentured servitude is or was?

Djamil: I think to do the like the spark notes right is indentured servitude like in a whole right is the basically I'm gonna say renting right but like allotting yourself out for a period of time to do certain work in exchange for money or land or whatever the case might be right? So in the case of the Caribbean by 1834, there's the abolition of slavery.

You have a four year period known as apprenticeship, which for those of you familiar with the slavery system of America, think sharecropping, right? So you're free, but not really free. Because like, if you read the fine print of that act, it said that everyone was free under, over the age of seven, what's a seven or under year old child going to do?

I'm going to stay with their parents. So basically we have not really freed anybody. Um, but I say this because then from 1834 to 1838, that's when this period runs. So 1838 is when abolition really kicks in, folks are really free. Mind you, this is August 1st, 1838. May 5th 1838, Guyana receives its first importation of Indians or people from British India.

So before folks even had their freedom, their replacements were already on their way, right? In Jamaica, you're looking at the 10th of May, 1845. And in Trinidad, you're looking at the 30th of May, That same year, 1845, right? Suriname would also follow suit, as well as Martinique, Guadeloupe, some of the other French, Dutch, and English colonies, um, were really big on the importation of people from South Asia.

And the reason why, like, I don't say specifically India is because that whole region was British India, and then, you know, partition kicks in, and you have, like, Pakistan, East Pakistan, then which becomes Bangladesh. So, like, it's even in conversations about, like, that, right? Like, people say, like, I'm Indian, right?

But then if you're maybe they look back and their ancestors were actually from what is now Bangladesh, so like, that's its own thing. But that's what like apprenticeship, um, sorry, that's what indentureship looked like. So you had these people moving into these plantations, the Africans are not being paid of a livable wage, right?

Many of them are being moved off of these estates, the Indians were moving in, so their very same estates, actually, let's take a step back, the very same ships that would have brought some of those last Africans brought the first Indians to the Caribbean. Those same estates that were worked by Africans were now being worked by Indians.

Those same, you know, huts, those, those, those logis, depending on like where you're from and what they were called, which were once occupied by Africans, were now being occupied by the Indians. In some cases they were working side by side. In other cases, estates had switched over from one system to another.

And you have this thing where originally it was for one year, then it was for five years. Then it was like the, like the conditions were constantly changing. So at one point the condition was you had to have been indentured for five years, but then been a resident of the island for ten years. What do you do for the other five years that you need the residency in order to return back?

Maybe you re-indenture yourself. Some folks didn't have to, they had skills, they had trades that allowed them to, you know, market goods, but many people ended up having to re-indenture themselves. So to say like, what is indenture? What does that look like? That's what that looked like, right? Of course, similar with slavery, you had a lot of this emphasis on, well, this is hard labor work because it's sugar, it's banana, it's plantain, sorry, not plantain, but more so, um, I was going to say coconut, right? And then chocolate. So you had a lot of male dominated, dominated labor. And of course, if you've ever been in a classroom with a bunch of boys, hormones kick in. So now they have to start bringing in women, you know, to try to suit, like, you know, soothe over the, but then again, there's like this gender discrepancy where there's a bunch of men and not a lot of women.

You're also disrupting centuries worth of tradition and culture, right? Where there's the caste system at play, there's religion at play, there's purity at play. And so now you have a bunch of young men and women, different religions, different languages. You know, in some of the documents I've looked at for archival research, I've seen where a ship stopped in Kolkata, which would have been North India, where folks would have spoke Hindi, Urdu, Bhojpuri, Awadhi. And then it stops in Southern India, in the ports of Madras, where folks would have been speaking Tamil, Telugu, some of the other South Indian languages, and they're all on the same ship. And they're all being brought, and then divided, and separated, and put together on these plantations, which is where you end up getting things like Caribbean Hindustani being birthed, where depending on, you know, what your ancestors would have been speaking back in India, maybe you say neela if you're North Indian and neelam if you're South Indian for blue, right?

Or you know, so because I don't want to I could get I could talk about this all day, right? But like so like that's just some of like when we talk about indenture and what does that look like? That's what that some of that history looks like.

Hema: That was a really good explanation 

Do you know, in terms of living conditions. I think you alluded to the people from the indentured servants essentially taking over the same lodgings or living situation that the enslaved Africans left. Is that, is that correct?

Djamil: Correct. So in, depending on where, right, so some of these estates might have built new lodging, but it would have been in that same bracket of what had been there for the Africans. So in some cases, they were literally moving the Africans out Monday, and by Wednesday, Thursday, Indians were being moved in.

In some of these other cases, it was nothing but a dirt road. Like, and not even necessarily a road, more like a beaten path. That separated the housing of the Africans and the housing of the Indians. And then a lot of those housings might have been two families in one, or if it was a bunch of bachelors or bachelorettes in another, right?

So it wasn't even necessarily one housing per person, but kind of this mixed hodgepodge of, okay, we'll put two families here. We'll put a five men here, six women there. Um, so that's, that's what that looked like. Right. And, and, uh, essentially, they really stepped into that role that the Africans had once served, right?

So I've read where some of these estates were being sold and included in the inventory was, you know, five hectares of Guinea grass and, you know, five acres of banana and three bulls and one oxen cart and 16 coolies and it's like, oh you know, like, I buy the property and I get 16 people. What do you know?

You know, and sometimes it would even say that they were 16 indentured and 5 who were, had like finished their indenture, but were now working for the property, right? And, and they, and it would specifically make that distinction. Um, and I've seen that, you know, my family's from St. Mary in Jamaica, so I would see a lot of that at some of these estates, like Nonsuch, Tryall so, and yeah, like they've moved into these lodgings in, in a way where, again, you know, mix and matching the families, mix and matching people.

Hema: Were the indentured servants, were they paid a wage?

Djamil: So they were paid a wage, men were of course paid a higher wage than women, and children as young as three were working and able to make a couple of coins, you know, doing things like such as pulling weeds out of certain, um, the, like the sugarcane fields. Of course, children who are not old enough to work, you oftentimes had an older indentured women who would sit on the sidelines with these children and be a nursemaid to them, a nanny, and watch as the mothers and the fathers were working in the house and in the fields.

So they were paid a wage, definitely not a livable one, and, and in the extent of everything, you know, of course indenture. Towards the end of indenture, what you saw was instead of this quick to repatriate, it was a lot of, okay, we'll split the difference, right? We can either give them money or we can give them land.

So I like the example I always give people is like, they were like, we either give you 50 pounds or you'd be 50 acres or hear me out, 25 acres and 25 pounds. And, and so you'd see where some families, they, you know, again, making that journey across the Kalapani, which is the Hindustani term for that dark waters, the Atlantic ocean, basically, right there, there was a lot of taboo about crossing that water.

So for some people, they knew that if I cross this water, I'm not going back. Like I literally cannot go back. I will not be accepted if I go back. In some cases, people came to the Caribbean, got their ability to repatriate, went back. And there was a stark culture shock. Values were different. You know, one of the things that I remember hearing the late Brinsley Samaroo talk about was that during like the holidays, sometimes the plantation owners would give out bonuses in the forms of rum.

Now, Muslims traditionally do not drink alcohol, right? So if you are now this indentured Muslim who has a, I don't know, a affiliation, right? Or this really has a real fondness of alcohol and you go back home where your strict, observant Muslim family is there, I think you might have some some clashes, right?

I think if you are a Brahmin who develops a taste for beef steaks on the estates and you go back home, how does one explain that to their community, right? So you found where some people had to stay, right? Or they realized it was better to stay, not necessarily better in terms of like they had a better life in India compared to the Caribbean, but because of some virtues or values they had picked up in the Caribbean, right, that culture clash was going to be there when they went back. 

Hema: They moved across the water, got to a new land, they had to adapt, right? Because everything was different. The language was different. The people were different. The foods that they could get were different. Religions, everything. After four or five or ten years, everything that they know about their life probably would not have been compatible with going back. 

I, so I was having a conversation with Melissa of West Indian Diplomacy,  and she's, um, Trini and Guyanese and was sharing a story with me about, somebody on her, in her family speaking about, not ever wanting to leave Trinidad because she was afraid of leaving the island because of her experience of crossing the ocean from India as a young child. And the story she was told, Melissa was told, was that, as a child, her relative was tricked into getting on the ship with the, the reward of candy, if you got on the ship. 

What have you learned about, did people go willingly? Were they tricked? Were they forced? Were they coerced? Uh, what was that situation?

Djamil: So, this question is always one where I bring out this word, nuance, right? Because it's real easy for me to be like, no, indenture, like, indenture literally means you have to make that choice and there's paperwork that shows where folks signed with their thumbprint and, like, I can go that route. I can also say, no, they, it was all forced because the conditions or circumstances that would have caused anybody to even enter into indenture was out of their control and ergo they were forced, right?

So, it's like two very big extremes. I walk this middle path where everybody's story is a bit different, right? So like Melissa's grandmother has her story. There's, uh, there's a documentary, The Last Kantraki, about a woman who was taken to Suriname and she straight up tells you in the interview, she says, I was kidnapped.

I was walking from one village to another the wagon pulled up, the man was sitting there, there were women in there, and they basically forced me in there and they kidnapped her. I've read articles in the Gleaner, the Jamaican Gleaner, which is our newspaper that talked about you know, a woman who was taken and she was put into a depot where they were holding the people to send on the boats and she's like, she was like calling and screaming and calling and screaming and calling and screaming.

And eventually they were like, okay, we can't deal with this anymore. And they let all the women go. Right. But you also hear of cases where young men, they hear there's a place where they can go and make money and come back in a certain amount of time and it's like, okay, why wouldn't I go and work that money?

Now, again, some of those men were told, oh, you're going to go shift sugar. Well, shifting sugar and cutting sugarcane is two very different things, right? Um, of course you have the whole thing where it's like you're going to the land of Sri Ram. But it's really Suriname, um, if you've ever heard the song by Beverly Pancham Ramprasad, that is, Jamaica of Pardes Chale, which basically sings about, you know, like the children of Ram being promised this land of milk and honey and gold, and they get there, and it's a lot of backbreaking work, right?

So for me, I even look at my own family story, so like I look at my my great grandmother and her family, and she was four. She came with her parents, her three siblings, that's who boarded that ship. When they got off the ship, her mother was no longer alive, right? She had passed away on that passage. And so they came off missing one family member.

So it's hard to say for me, like, yes, a family of, what is that? Four children and six. It's hard to say a family of six was forced or kidnapped. Right. But also like, I don't know the full circumstances of what pushed them to come. 

And it's funny, cause I have a friend who's Pakistani and lives in Canada. And I remember one time I made a comment where I was like, when my, when, when my people left, and she said, it's funny that you would say your people left because her father has talked to her about the history of indenture. And her father always uses the terms like, they were taken. And I was like, no, hear me, hear me out. Like, I'll say people were taken too. I just know in the case of my family, it's hard for me to conceptualize them being taken because I'm like, again, it's a family of six, but I know in like an individual, single man, single woman, the children that were taken, they were definitely taken because you know, a small child saying they want candy, like they want candy, they don't realize the bigger scope of what's happening when they get on that ship.

You know, of course you hear about brothers where one gets on a boat and the other brother's like, okay, I'll get on the boat tomorrow, but his brother's already in Fiji and now he's in Guyana, right? 

So that's, that's, it's, it's one of those things where it's like, people always say like, well, like, were they forced? Were they taken? You know, cause in, in, when you talk about African slavery, everybody was taken. There was no choice. There was no signing their name. But with indenture, one of the things that I do know about indenture was that when it was proposed, there were many people who pushed back and were scared that it would become another chattel slavery.

And so even the signing of these forms is really just a formality to say, okay, this is where we're different because they signed their name and they're keeping their name for the most part and there's their thumbprint and the back would have had it translated in English, Hindi, and Urdu. Again, how many of these people were literate, much less literate in Hindi, Urdu, or English?

Hema: You know, nuance is a really good way of putting it because we are very clear that the people from all over Africa were taken. That's, that's not in question whatsoever, but there are nuances when it comes to the Indian or South Asian indentured servants. And so far we've been talking all only about the people from India, but there were other people who were indentured servants or laborers, um, specifically in Jamaica, but all over the Caribbean. And there I think is one particular large group. that we haven't talked about yet is people, the Chinese people.

Djamil: Yes.   So, funny enough, my neighbor in Jamaica is Jamaican Chinese, right? And so, like, that whole history was, again, following, uh, the abolition of African slavery, the British wanting to find a cheaper labor source, and they started bringing in predominantly a lot of Chinese men, specifically of the Hakka ethnic group, right, that were brought to the Caribbean.

And so, one of the things that's always interesting about that, and I think it's because they were all predominantly one ethnic group. So they, there was a lot of cultural values, religious values that they shared as opposed to the Indians who would have been different religions, different castes, different areas is the way they were able to, I almost want to say like, go around the indenture system.

So I know like in Jamaica, a lot of them would work, they'd make their money, they'd buy a little shop, and then they would buy out the indentureship contracts of other Hakka Chinese that came, right? So it'd be like this one man is like, oh, I remember when I used to do that, buys them out, right? So now this young man that he buys, essentially buys his freedom, can work for him, can go back to China, whatever the case is. One story particularly that I always tell people to look into is Finding Samuel Lowe, where Paula Madison is, she's the granddaughter of a Chinese Jamaican who did not grow up with him.

Her mother was half Afro Jamaican, half Chinese, looked very Chinese in, you know, phenotype, and she basically goes on this hunt to find her grandfather. She doesn't find him because, you know, he had passed away. before she was able to, because she does this journey like in her 50s, but she's able to find her aunts and uncles, some of whom were also half Afro Jamaican, half Chinese, who had left Jamaica and others who were fully Chinese, which brings into the story where a lot of these Chinese men would marry women from China and bring them to Jamaica and that's how you get some of these fully Chinese families.

A lot of them would also have relationships and marriages with Afro Jamaican women. Black Cake is another um, if, what, I know it's not in Canada but like if you have Hulu in America, Black Cake is a series that talks about it. It's also a book that talks about a Chinese Jamaican woman and funny enough my neighbor growing up in Jamaica, is Chinese Jamaican and her children actually married a Chinese, like a mainland Chinese person.

So like it's interesting watching those two different cultures because like talking about like Han Chinese and then Hakka Chinese. And I know there's like a large population of Hakka Chinese in Toronto as well. So you know, it's a, it's a story that's oftentimes not told. You know, people don't realize that Byron Lee who is a well known Jamaican musician is actually, again, like half Hakka Chinese, so Jamaican Chinese, and half Mainland Chinese.

Hema: You mentioned Black Cake. I read the book. I didn't know that there was a Hulu series because. I'm Canada and I don't get it. Um, the, the Chinese, would you call them indentured servants? Would you call them laborers? What would you, how would you classify them?

Djamil: So I would classify them as indentured laborers, the same way I'd, I'd, I'd classify the the Indians as indentured laborers, because a lot of the, the, the archival records, is one and the same, right? So it's a bit different because it's not asking them for their caste or their village or their thana or things like that, but there are records showing that this person did indenture themselves to come to the island, that these people did work on these estates.

Now again, I think because they were majority from this one region, this one ethnic group, this one collective culture, it was easier for them to kind of come together, right? So like in Jamaica, we have the Chinese cemetery. We have the Chinese Benevolent Association. We have, there's a cemetery, the association, there's a temple right, in Kingston, where those Chinese Jamaicans who still practice their ancestral faiths go and offer prayers, you know, I, there's even like an oral history component that you can find online where they've interviewed elders in the Chinese Jamaican community and they share their family stories of their fathers or their grandfathers who came, you know, and it's interesting because many of them have like that similar story.

My grandfather used to, you speak to us in Hakka and now I only remember numbers, right? Or, Oh, I can name these couple of things. And so it's, it's an interesting thing. A lot of them, you know, let's talk about, you know, their, their father, their grandfather came, they were, they were born in Jamaica and then they actually went to China as part of like a cultural immersion.

They learned the language there and then they came back to Jamaica. Right, so it's like they went to, to, to China to pick up the values and the culture and they came back to Jamaica to, you know, prosper whatever family business had been established.

Hema: And, and, you know, there is the, you can speak to this having grown up in, for a part of your life in Jamaica is the, sort of ubiquitous corner store being owned by a Chinese family, right? Seems be quite, quite predominant. And I don't know if that is, that still holds true today, that they own a, they, you know, the Chinese immigrants, indentured servants, laborers, whatever you want to call them, are now established in their own businesses.

Djamil: Oh no, definitely. So even I think one of the richest men in Jamaica is of Chinese descent, right? And when they talk about like some of these like the bigger families in Jamaica wealth wise, you do see a couple of, you know, Chinese surnames. And again, like the Chinese shop, which is that corner store is like, we even like, there's literally a term, the Chinese shop, right?

Like that is what it is known. And even I think if it is not run by a Chinese person, just like they have been associated with that. And, and their business acumen is one where like my mom is very like business minded, numbers minded. And, and she has a friend who will say to her like, Oh, your mother must've been married to a Chinese the way you're able to work numbers and business like that.

And I'm like, wow, like. If we're talking about like the stereotypes that are associated with the different groups, like having a business, you know, I even have some co workers who have Chinese Jamaican descent, and like we'll be having conversations, and I'm like, we're from two different Jamaicas, like they were born and raised in the States, but when they tell me about where they went to back home, I'm like, was it a laundromat? Was it a store? And was like, it was a grocery store. I was like, yeah, I know.

Hema: We talk about this, and I think you and I both sort of know and understand this just based on understandings from our family. But for a lot of people, it's quite eye opening to know that not only, Black people of African descent, Indian people, Chinese, White, and then of course there were other people who came to or were brought to the Caribbean as indentured servants, as laborers, or for whatever reason. But that I think makes up the culture of many of the islands, Jamaica specifically, but many of the islands. And I'd love to know from you what your thoughts are on how all of these people really influence what the culture is today.

Djamil: I know, so that, that is a great question. And it's one where I was almost going to say nose blind, right? Like, you know, people talk about like, like every house has a smell, but you don't smell your house, right? And for me, that's what it was. I'll never forget, you know, I was in maybe seventh or eighth grade in middle school and a bunch of us were in the media center.

We had media aid so like we did like the morning announcements and stuff. We're sitting down and we're having this conversation right so you're talking about Jamaican, Haitian, and Trinidadian and we're talking about like the Haitian kids were like oh like you know there's a thing that we call and it's called voodoo and I was like oh well we have something that's called obeah and my friend who was Trinidadian was like you have obeah? Trinidadians have obeah too and I was like wait Are you saying that there are things that exist outside of the Jamaican purview? Like I'm not, and this sounds really silly, right? I'm exposing myself. But like I got to high school and found out that other people ate mangoes beside Jamaicans. And I was just like, Oh. I didn't know, you know, now, as I got older and I started actually like studying my family history, understanding the context of like the Caribbean and Jamaica as a whole, I, I, I was no longer surprised when I found out that like my Trini friends and my Guyanese friends also ate roti. That wasn't a shock anymore.

Right. But again, we're talking about these things that, that are, how they influence the culture. So you talk about like obeah, which is an African faith based tradition. That my Indo Trinidadian friend was able to be like, we have that too, right? Or we're talking about mango that was brought by the indentured Indians, that all of us collectively can say, we know mango, we like mango.

That my friends who are Trinidadian and Guyanese and I can have the playful jest of chicken curry versus curry chicken, and all go collectively and get curry and get roti and nobody's really you know, like we have the joke and then that's it. Now we're eating, right? You can't argue with your mouth is full.

Um, so, and they really do have this big effect. Like I'll never forget. And again, like part of this is for me has been like this journey of knowing my culture, knowing myself. And so like, for example, um, bandanas, right? Little square piece of cloth that people tie on their heads and stuff. I've always known it as a tie head.

My mother always referred to it as a tie head. You know, and I'll never forget. It was like in the midst of the pandemic one day, it dawned on me. The word bandana is a Hindustani word that means to tie. And so my mother calling them tie heads is a, a, is a retention of that Indian heritage that we have.

And the funny thing is like right now I'm wearing like a madras cloth that is like the traditional Jamaican pattern. And even that, again, is like, what we classify as like the Jamaican national costume is of Indian descent, like it's of Indian origin, and was popularized by Afro Jamaican women, right?

You look at Rastafari, which is a very big thing in Jamaica and has spread across the world. It is a movement that, of course, is rooted in Black pride, African unity, you know, the, the holding up of Ethiopia and the Selassie Dynasty, but there's also like a lot of Indian origins in there, right? Even like the, the locking of the hair, which many linked to the jatari of the, the Sadhus, right?

The Ital diet that is linked to the, the vegetarian diet of the Hindus. You know, even, of course the consumption of ganja, which in and of itself is another Hindustani term. You see these connections throughout the culture, right? Pikki Pan, which is a game of chance gambling that we have in Jamaica, is of Chinese origin.

Of course, fireworks, Chinese origin. You look at something like gizzada, which is a coconut tart that is a direct descendant of tarts brought by Sephardi Jews fleeing Portugal and the Inquisition and, you know, the expulsion of Jews in Spain and Portugal. You know, the Jamaican patty is colored with turmeric, which is Indian, but it also has ground beef and is similar to things from England.

Our black cake, which comes from figgy pudding. You know, so our, and like, that's not like the Jamaican motto of Out of Many One People. Guyana's motto, the Land of Six Races. Like you look at some things in Jamaica and it's like, it never dawned on me, right? That curry goat may not be, quote on, and people might get mad, it may not be Jamaican, right?

Because like, curry is from India, and like that whole concept of cooking curry goat would not be in Jamaica had Indians not come. And it's one of those things where like, you know, sometimes you meet people from other islands and it's like, well, why don't you guys have this thing that we have? It's like, everybody eats this.

And you have to realize that if those people groups weren't brought, then that thing doesn't exist. And it's why, you know, my friends from the Spanish speaking Caribbean love Jamaican food because they love curry. And it's why, like, I can try certain things on the Spanish Caribbean and be like, Oh, if only Spain had held out a little bit longer, we would also be speaking Spanish and sharing some of these things, but we have Spanish Town.

And we have people in Jamaica with surnames like Hernandez. Well, Lindo was more of a Portuguese one, but like, again, even our surnames, right, you have people in Jamaica with surnames that you know, if you saw our name and you see Winston McDonald, you're thinking it's going to be this red hair Scotsman and it's this dark skin African looking guy.

And he's just like, yeah, I'm a McDonald, know, or, or, or you meet someone like me with a surname Ninsoo and it's like, Oh, that's not what I was expecting. And it's like, yeah wait do you see my great grandmother and her father, where we get the name from, you know?

Hema: Yeah, I mean, even your, your entire first name, and if you can just say that out loud so that people can what I'm talking about.

Djamil: No, definitely, so my full first name is Djamiladeen, which is Arabic, right? So, like, parts of my family are Muslim, right? So, Djamiladeen means, like, the beauty of faith, the beautiful way of life. Um, but it's spelled with a silent D in front, which is very reminiscent of Django, or, like, also, like, West Africans will spell their names like that, specifically West Africans from French speaking countries. My middle name is Kofi. which is a Ghanaian day name for boys born on a Friday. It's spelt the Ghanaian way, but pronounced the Jamaican way of Cuffy, like C U F F Y. And then Ninsoo is my great great grandfather's name.

And like, if you're familiar with the tradition of indentured Indians, a lot of them came with one name and that one name then became the family name.

Hema: Yeah, it's, it's, your name is definitely reminiscent of the mix up that is the culture all the Caribbean, right? It's, I mean, I think just in one, in one person and and, and it's really interesting, you know, there's, there's a lot more that I could talk to you about where, what I, what I find really interesting in some of the things that you share on social media, and I think very recently on TikTok is your knowledge of the different languages. And I think it's, uh, 

Djamil: Oh, 

Hema: Hindi that you know? Like you were, you were duetting somebody who was asking questions 

Djamil: Yeah. So was, 

Hema: H ow did you learn the language?

Djamil: So two ways. One, I grew up with like more, I would say closer to the Indian side of my family. My grandmother stayed in contact more with her mother's side of people just because that side had more relatives, more cousins, more people in her age group. So we grew up knowing, you know, like, like aloo was potato, channa was chickpeas, you know, roti was always like, at one point I just thought every bread was roti.

Um, I knew dhal and bhat before I knew that bhat was specifically cooked rice. I just always knew that dhal and bhat was dhal and bhat um, so like there's like that just growing up in that culture, growing up with that exposure. And then also like actively trying to learn the language, right? So like I realized that like when I came here, my mother never really spoke the language.

The cousins who did speak the language, again, were also like at me, where it's like, oh, like, we know food, we know certain items, but like to be able to hold like a fluent conversation, maybe we can't do that. So like for me, it was like actively trying to learn the language and then remembering that Hindi or standard Hindi and Bhojpuri, which is what our ancestors would have spoke, is very different, right?

There are some words that are interchangeable and I always found this funny. So like in Hindi, thank you is Dhanyavad. And you can hear that H in there. So it's dhanyavad , but in Bhojpuri there's an aspirated H, or like how we say, like a dropped H. And I always thought it was funny because in Jamaica people make fun of us dropping our Hs all the time.

And I was like, oh, would you look at that? Like my two ancestor languages both have this thing against the letter H and so in in Bhojpuri it would be dhanyavad. And so. For me, like it was making sure like I was very like consistent and very intentional in making sure that what I was practicing and what I was speaking, what I was learning in Caribbean Hindustani, but like more so Bhojpuri.

So, you know, shout out to The Cutlass Podcast and Vinay, who's a good friend of mine for doing a lot of translations of songs as well, as well as also doing the names. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to figure out the meaning of Ninsoo, but we'll get there one day. But yeah, no, so like for me, it's been very intentional, you know, remembering and also like talking to my elders as someone who does family history and anthropology.

Talking to my elders is like, I'm gonna say, I might work 10 hours out of the day. So it's like the other 14 hours of the day. I'm talking to my elders trying to like, you know, document all of that knowledge because I know that like when we lose an elder we lose a library and so just trying to make up for that lost time as the youngest in my generation, like the youngest of my first cousins at least.

Hema: I love that you, you, you mentioned talking to the elders because, you know, in my research, and I'm going to go back to what you said is really being nose blind, and not really understanding the culture of the Caribbean as a whole, but just kind of knowing your own little space. So that's kind of how I was, right?

I grew up in, I was born and raised in Toronto. My family's Trinidadian. I knew the culture. I knew the things that we grew up with, but I also come from, you know, immigrants who came to Canada and, and adjusted their lifestyle based on what was available here, right? So my experience as a Trinidadian, uh, is very different than somebody who actually lives in Trinidad and I'm very, you know, I very much recognize that. But, um, you know, you talked about the different names and, and, when I was growing up, my last name, Ramsingh, was very unusual, right? Being in Toronto, people didn't understand that I am of Indian descent, but I'm Caribbean. Um, and I felt like I was sort of growing up in this sort of strange space where, you know, I'm not Indian. I'm not what people typically consider Caribbean, and it felt a little bit strange only to, you know, grow up and realize, that Ramsingh is like quite a popular name. 

Djamil: Super common.

Hema: So, Yeah, very 

But, but, you know, we, we live sort of these insular lives until we intentionally, as you intentionally were learning language, me intentionally learning more about the history of not only Trinidad and Tobago, but all of the Caribbean, not just for my readings, but for this podcast. And it's been really eye opening to learn a lot of the things that we're talking about.

As we wind down and wrap up, I want to ask you a couple of really sort of simple questions, I think is what do you, what do you say to somebody? This is something I hear a lot and I've read on social media a lot. And how do you feel about somebody who says, if, if, you weren't born in the Caribbean, you were born abroad somewhere else, you cannot claim that you are, in my case, Trinidadian or Jamaican or whatever. 

Djamil: So, I'll say this. I I get where they're coming from. Cause like, you know, they'll say like, there's the certain experiences there. So, but I also say like some of the experiences that they, they use, right? Like I've heard somebody say like, Oh, you never climbed trees. All right. So if climbing trees is the crux of what it means to be Jamaican, then anybody who climbs a tree right now in Florida is Jamaican, right? Like, like, how are we really defining that? But I'll also say that it's, I don't know. Cause like I used to be like, I, well, I'll still say that I'm very adamant that the child is still whatever that is, right? Because, and I'll even say this, I have cousins who are Jamaican and born here.

And, for example, their families might partake in Thanksgiving, but there's no turkey, there's no candied yams, there's no mashed potatoes, there's no things that would be classified as American Thanksgiving, probably not being served at their tables, right? Maybe there's a turkey, maybe it's jerk turkey, I don't know, right?

The same thing with Christmas, like how a Jamaican Christmas looks like. While there might be a tree, while there might be a getting together of family, it's still culturally different than how Americans celebrate Christmas, right? And so I always bring it back to that, you know, and sometimes even when we have like, you'll see people have these like diaspora wars about like the different groups and like I always bring it back to, you know, there are certain cultural things that I have as a Jamaican that my Haitian friend doesn't have, my American friend doesn't have.

That doesn't make us any less that thing, right? But like, those are our cultural hallmarks. So for example, my same bwoy and my Guyanese friend saying bhai, right? Whether born in America or in our respective countries, like that is something that is us. So like my thing again is always that if you are born in America, if you're born in the UK, if you're born in Canada, you're Jamaican, right? However, you have to like, Jamaica is born in you, right? Like if you take an ancestry test, it's probably going to say like, oh, connections to Afro or Indo Caribbean people of this country, right? But I will say like, you have to then make that choice to be Jamaican, right? And I say that in the sense where like, you know, it goes back to that nose blind thing where like, because you grew up in a household, you might, you know, you're like, you're like, Oh, like I'm Jamaican.

Right. But like you think Jamaica is only what exists in your household. And it kind of goes back to this conversation about the different groups of people in our respective countries. 

I remember one time I saw a video where somebody was talking about roti and curry chicken and they identified curry chicken as Jamaican, but they identified roti as Trinidadian and said the person who made it was confused.

I left a comment saying, well, they're actually, you can find both of those dishes in both of those countries, there's no confusion. And I had somebody come back to me and say, like, in a comment saying, no, I'm Jamaican and we don't do roti. So I asked a very simple question. Are you, like I said, are your, are your parents Jamaican?

It's like, yeah, my mom is Jamaican. I said, okay, cool. Is your mom a black Jamaican? And the person said, yes. And I said, and they said, my whole family is black Jamaican. And I was like, but roti is something Indo Jamaicans would make. Ergo. Unless you're black Jamaican family was in proximity to Indians, I would understand why and like they were able to say, Oh, you know what? You have a point, right? And so that's what I mean when I say like, you have to like, you have to know like, like it's one thing to be like, Oh, like I'm Jamaican, they even meet some Jamaicans. They're like, my mom never went to Dunn's River Falls until she came to America and went back to Jamaica as a tourist, right?

So even Jamaicans born in Jamaica. Need to choose to be Jamaican, right? Like, it's not just one thing to be born in the country. Like, you need to almost, like, know yourself. Like, know, you have to, you have to know yourself, right? So, like, so my answer in a very simple condensed form is if you are born out of the country, you are still Jamaican.

I don't want to, like, speak for other countries, but, like, I'll still say, like, you're Trinidadian, you're Guyanese, you're Surinamese, you're whatever, like, whatever that country is, like, that's still you, that's your culture, those are your values, those are the values that are instilled in you until you start going to school and you mix with other people, those are the languages you speak until you start mixing with other people, that's where, you know, your, your, your family is, that's where your history is, that's where your stories are, so that's still you.

Hema: That's a, that's a really great way of putting it. and, and, you know, you say that you, you sort of have to look forward and actively be Jamaican or whatever, because it would be very easy to lose those cultures. For me, I'm speaking for myself it is very intentional and, you know, all of the work that I'm doing for this podcast is very intentional, and it's been very eye opening, and even today in this conversation, I've learned so much from you. So I really do appreciate you coming on and sharing some of this knowledge. 

Before we wrap up, I want to talk about, you wrote a book, you mentioned that earlier, and it is a children's book. Can you just tell us what the name of that book is?

Djamil: Yes, so it is Eva My Nani-Ji nani-ji being N A N I hyphen J I, and Eva is my, my grandmother's name. Nani-ji means maternal grandmother or like specifically respected maternal grandmother. That's what that ji honorific is. And it's available on Amazon and Barnes and Nobles. And it is, again, just a story of my Nani-Ji's life.

As a family historian, you know, she'd tell me stories about, you know, her cousins, her mousies, her mamu, and, or her aunts and uncles, sorry. Um, and I just wanted to share that. Originally, it was like an idea to share with the family, and then, you know, as other people started to buy the book, and they were saying, Oh my gosh, she looks like my grandmother, or the stories remind me of, you know, my grandmother.

I remember, I brought it to an Iftar during Ramadan last year, and there was an older Trini couple who was there as a guest, and the, the, the wife was skimming through the book, and she's like, she's like, you and I have a lot in common, and she was like pointing out the different Hindustani words, and she's like, oh, like, like, I, like, she identified with it, and it's something that, as a descendant of Indian indenture, shocked me a bit, to hear how many, like, I knew that Indians were brought to these different places, but to see us connecting via my book, via social media, via these other different platforms, and realizing, oh wow, you know, like, folks in Fiji, folks in, you know, 

 So yeah, I know you asked me to talk about the book, so like that, that's just a little bit about my book.

Hema: Is, is, uh, this the same grandmother, Nani, that appears in some of your TikTok videos? 

Djamil: Yeah, so that's the same grandmother that appears in some of my TikTok videos, um, and she actually just turned 85 this past Wednesday.

Hema: Happy birthday, Nani-Ji! So if you want 

Djamil: Thank  you, thank you.

Hema: connect and go see some of the conversations, and I tell you again, I'm going to say back in was 2020, I suppose, when I came across your, TikTok account, she reminds me of so many old people that I know that are, you know, old Trinidad, older Trinidadians or from Caribbean, very straightforward, very funny.

Um, so, go check out, Djamil's Instagram and TikTok. Tell us again where to find you.

Djamil: Yes. So you can find my TikTok. It's douglabwoy, D-O-U-G-L-A-B-W-O-Y. And it's the same on Instagram, but there's an underscore. So douglabwoy_ on Instagram.

Hema: And I will share all of these in the show notes so that you can easily find Djamil. What are you working on? Is there anything that we should keep an eye out for?

Djamil: Oh boy. So there are two books in the works. Currently working with an illustrator to finalize them, but there are two more books in the works. So, one is a ABCs, but instead of A is for apple, B is for banana, it's A is for ackee, B is for breadfruit. And, you know, just to, to give, so again, this is like one of those things I was saying, like, like choosing to be Jamaican, or like choosing to be Caribbean and acknowledging, that for us, like, A really would have been for ackee, right?

Because then apple, what we know as apple may not be what the American, like, what we in Jamaica know as apple is, um, oh my gosh, otaheite apple or Tahiti apple I think

Hema: Pomerac?

Djamil:  yes, yes, what Trinis call pomerac, exactly, right? So, you know, in Trinidad it would be P is for pomerac, right? So, like, even the whole alphabet then is, like, skewed because of, like, where we're coming from.

So, like, that's one and then the other book is a retelling of a Jamaican folktale known as yellow snake.

Hema: Interesting. And when will those be out?

Djamil: So those should be out by the fall. Still trying finalize some things, but by the fall, be on the lookout.

Hema: Is there anything else that you think people should know about Jamaica, Jamaican culture, that we haven't already talked about? 

Djamil: Boy, there is so much, you know, like, but to pinpoint. I think one of the things is just, um, I say Jamaica as well as the Caribbean as a whole is a very diverse place. You know, right now we're planning like a family reunion slash birthday party next month and I'm looking at like the invitations of like my to my cousins and my relatives and I'm like, well, like, You take a picture of us and it's really like out of many one people, right?

Because you have the Jamaicans, right? Who are either African or Indian or both. And then there's spouses who are Italian, white American, Colombian. And then the kids. And it's like, wow, like, you know, we're like, it's, we're like, we're a very diverse group. And so I think that's just one of those things to always keep in mind is how diverse we as Jamaicans, but also Caribbean people are. I was at an event yesterday where I was selling my book and a woman was talking to me and she was looking at the cover and she was, you know, we're conversating about the book. And then she said, let me ask you, is your grandmother Indian? I was like, yeah.

And she said, I could tell cause where she's from, there's also Indians. And when I asked her where she was from, she's from Suriname and I was like, Oh wow, that's crazy. You know? So, you know, one of those things is that we're all like, we're connected, right? And we're more connected than we might seem, right?

Again, like me and my Indo Trinidadian friend realizing that both of our countries had obeah, right? 

Or me realizing that other Caribbean people ate mangoes. Um, you know, we're, we're so much more connected than we realize.

Hema: We, we are. Djamil, I want to thank you again for coming on. We could probably talk for another couple of hours because you have so much knowledge share, but we really can't do that. 

Follow Djamil, read his book, go to his Instagram and TikTok, and I'm sure you will continue to learn. So, I appreciate you taking the time.

Djamil: Thank you for having me.​

Hema: That was such a fun episode. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. I'm going to leave a link in the show notes to Djamil's book, his social media handles. As well as some of the books, movies that he talked about. So check the show notes for all of those links and I will see you next time on The Moreish Podcast.