The International Engagements of Working-Class Jamaican Women: Listening to Louise Bennett and Her Routes Women

Abstract

Migration is a fundamental constitutive element of Caribbean life, culture, and identity, made so by colonialism, local and regional economic insecurity, and educational opportunities abroad. A plethora of scholars, filmmakers, poets, and novelists have indexed the migrant experience’s beautiful-ugly complexities. As we discuss transnational migration as an element of Caribbean identity, though, we should consider the international engagements and worldviews of those who do not or cannot migrate “infact,” but do so “by metaphor,” to use Kamau Brathwaite’s terms (1993). Attending to them is especially important because those who are unable to physically travel or migrate for work—those left behind—have often been women.In the interest of establishing additional avenues for recognizing women’s voices, the present essay examines international engagement that takes place in the absence of physical migration. It builds on and beyond the extant scholarship on Jamaican patwah poet Louise Bennett Coverley, widely known a Miss Lou, by indexing how her speakers’ references to places and events outside Jamaica and to non-Jamaican people (routes) constitute a core dimension of her and her speakers’ conceptualizations of Jamaican identity (roots). Miss Lou’s poetry offers valuable departure points for critical recognition of the international interest, awareness, and saavy of Jamaican working-class women who migrate metaphorically rather than physically.