Culture Of Jamaica
Jamaican culture represents a combination of cultures that have inhabited the Greater Antilles island, Jamaica. The original Taino Settlers, followed by their Spanish conquerors (who were in turn conquered by the British), all made major contributions. However, it is the blacks and slaves who became the dominant cultural force as they suffered and resisted the harsh conditions of forced labour. After the abolition of slavery, Chinese and Indian migrants were transported to the island as indentured workers, bringing with them ideas from the Far East. The official national language is English, with heavy use with local idiom. The official local language is English, however a local dialect called Patois is spoken.
Read more about Culture Of Jamaica: Arawak (Taino) Natives, Religion, Dance, Theatre, Literature and Writing, Film, Woodwork, Furniture, and Metalwork
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“To be a Negro is to participate in a culture of poverty and fear that goes far deeper than any law for or against discrimination.... After the racist statutes are all struck down, after legal equality has been achieved in the schools and in the courts, there remains the profound institutionalized and abiding wrong that white America has worked on the Negro for so long.”
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“So in Jamaica it is the aim of everybody to talk English, act English and look English. And that last specification is where the greatest difficulties arise. It is not so difficult to put a coat of European culture over African culture, but it is next to impossible to lay a European face over an African face in the same generation.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)