Jillian Sunderland shares her personal exploration of the effects of colonialism in this First Self CBC News column. [Many thanks to Peter Jordens for bringing this item to our attention. For more information about CBC’s First Person stories, please see the FAQ.]
I’ve been back many times to the bustling streets of Bridgetown, Barbados, but I still feel out of step with the pace of life. Despite being my father’s homeland and the fact that I hold dual Canadian and Barbadian citizenship, Bridgetown has never felt like home to me. Growing up in Canada, my father never fostered an interest in our Bajan roots. We avoided dining on the traditional dishes of oxtail and pig’s feet and didn’t listen to the syncopated rhythm of calypso music.
Instead, in most of my childhood memories, my father is dressed in a three-piece suit, reserved and quiet. His accent sounds more British than the soft rhythmic tones of the Creole dialect, more colonizer than colonized. Instead of regaling us with stories of his youth or sharing with us the rich cultural heritage of Barbados, he seemed intent on instilling in us the values of steely competition, conformity and glorification of authority. His influence continues to haunt my academic work, where I usually fall into a rigid defense of the rules and the status quo, despite not being a “real” doctor as he had hoped.
I thought my father had turned his back on his life in Barbados and adopted Canadian customs to succeed as a black immigrant to Canada, but that is only partially true. I now understand that his assimilationist ambition stemmed from his upbringing when Barbados was still a loyal colony of the British Empire.
Once called “Little England”, Barbados was Britain’s first slave colony and was under British rule from 1625 to 1966. Slavery in the Caribbean was unique in its brutality as plantation owners chose to work enslaved people to death and decided it was more profitable. buy newly imported slaves than to ensure their own survival. Profits from these sugar plantations helped line the pockets of English settlers and the monarchy.
Although slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1834, Britain still ruled Barbados until 1966 and attempted to “correct” the culture of freed West African slaves. With the right to attend schools for the first time, black youths like my father, dressed in crisp school uniforms, were taught “correct” deportment, English customs and loyalty to the royal family. Through his formal education, my father imbibed British values and customs and became deeply devoted to the Crown. These were the values he imparted to me and my brother.
However, these distinctly English values didn’t insulate me from the racism I experienced growing up in the Canadian heartlands. In my lily-white classroom, my schoolmates still called me “monkey.” The teachers would insensitively comment on my tightly coiled hair, causing audible laughter. My “friends” declined my party invitations, claiming that their parents had labeled me a “weed.” Despite sharing a typical Canadian upbringing, race still served as an insurmountable barrier to inclusion. That was the result of British imperialism – and it followed my family from Barbados to Canada.
Driven by a desire to belong, I frequently visit Barbados and search for traces of my family ancestry. But I have been thwarted by my father’s past life secrecy and forced me to try to reconstruct my family history on my own.
I was able to trace my ancestry back to one of my enslaved ancestors before hitting another wall of colonial legacy. Before slavery was abolished, enslaved people were stripped of their names and forced to take the surnames of their English owners – as if they were property to be owned.
In 2021, Barbados severed ties with Britain. It removed the Queen as its head of state and became a republic. My father, being a man of tradition, condemned this move. He apparently has no ill feelings towards the Crown. Ultimately, he believes his English-based education enabled him to thrive and build a successful life as an Afro-Caribbean immigrant in Canada.
However, in my mind, the brutality inflicted on my enslaved ancestors was too great a cost to pay. Even after the end of slavery, the imposition of British customs and upbringing on my father led to his alienation from his roots, customs and practices.
And while he may not feel this loss, I certainly do. [. . .]
For the full article, see https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/first-person-colonization-my-family-1.6515342
[Shown above: Jillian Sunderland, as a toddler, sits in her dad’s lap in this photo taken in Winnipeg in 1995.]
