Cultural Significance and Legacy
Louise Bennett's poem “Colonization in Reverse” (1966) provides a historical context for many minorities living in the UK in post-colonial times. Her portrayal of the Jamaican experience of dislocation and racial inequality parallels that of South Asian people living in London. Additionally, in both cases issues of cultural specificity and identity are salient. Both Jamaican and South Asian people shared a similar experience in their move to England for employment and a better life while also implying the complexities of assimilation and dual identity.
Bennett pinpoints her concept of cultural disloyalty when she writes about Jamaicans on their quest for better job opportunities: “Dem a pour out a Jamaica/ Everybody future plan/ Is to get a big-time job/ An settle in de mother lan.” Her reference to the “mother lan” here has an irony to it in that she is applying that England is the new mother land as opposed to Jamaica. By her referencing to England in this way it implies that her fellow Jamaicans are assimilating to England’s culture and leaving behind Jamaica, or the “mother lan.”
A similar notion of assimilation is expressed by the South Asian hip-hop group Hustlers HC through the lyrics in their song “Big Trouble in Little Asia”. Similarly to Bennett, they combat the idea of colonisation; only their music references it through the lens of India’s relation to Britain. They express the variety of oppressions experienced in Britain, yet refer to Britain as a land of opportunity. Additionally, they reveal the struggles of mindless “bum jobs” just as Bennett does. Throughout their music, Hustler HC struggle with their cultural history of oppression: “colonial displacement, capitalist work relations and racial oppression” (Sharma 46). These struggles are shared by Jamaicans due to the similarities in their experience of colonisation. Moreover, South Asian and Jamaican music aesthetic merged in many music scenes in the UK. In essence, Jamaicans and South Asians in London both struggled in similar ways to claim a culture and identity—music formed as a tool to achieve this.
In honour of Miss Lou and her achievements, Harbourfront Centre, a non-profit cultural organisation in Toronto, Canada, named a venue after her as Miss Lou's Room.
Read more about this topic: Louise Bennett-Coverley
Famous quotes containing the words cultural, significance and/or legacy:
“A culture may be conceived as a network of beliefs and purposes in which any string in the net pulls and is pulled by the others, thus perpetually changing the configuration of the whole. If the cultural element called morals takes on a new shape, we must ask what other strings have pulled it out of line. It cannot be one solitary string, nor even the strings nearby, for the network is three-dimensional at least.”
—Jacques Barzun (b. 1907)
“History is the interpretation of the significance that the past has for us.”
—Johan Huizinga (18721945)
“What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 14661536)