They Never Looked Back:The role of the Hakka women in Jamaica

Abstract

The notion that Hakka women played a pivotal role in the establishment of the Chinese in Jamaica during that group's first wave of immigration from China to the island between the mid 1800's and early 1900's, perhaps often quietly acknowledged but rarely publicly declared, stands up to scrutiny. The Hakka woman's reputation of being hard-working is unshaken within the Chinese Jamaican community, and is a truth that brings solemn acknowledgement to the faces and tongues of their descendants. It is a known historical fact that the Hakka women in China did not bind their feet, as was the tradition for China's women up to the early 1900's. This has been taken as a sign of their strong sense of independence though the exception was made for practical reasons. As members of a sub-class, Hakka women were expected to work in the fields. But hard work was merely one thread in the fabric these women wove to protect, nurture and hold together their young families in Jamaica. Indeed, the survival and success enjoyed by Chinese Jamaicans today can be linked directly to the personal sacrifices made by these Hakka daughters, wives and mothers. Their sacrifices had little to do with superficial Theirs was the sacrifice of self. Simply put, these women rendered invisible their personal dreams, hopes, even personalities - the very things one is now taught to cherish and value as fundamental to one's personal happiness. They buried these as if knowing that indulgence in such things would rob them of the energy they needed to raise happy children with better futures. Even their former life in China would also become an unspoken memory. Indeed, it is ironic that the survival and prosperity of their descendants rested on the foundations of a past these women never spoke of, but which bestowed on them a culture of unconditional commitment. For the purpose of this paper, over a dozen descendants were interviewed. Each was asked a set of standard questions, but allowed to deviate in the direction to which their memories took them. The Interviews In order to collect as much undiluted information as possible, interview subjects were restricted to the first generation children of immigrant Hakka women. The only exception was a granddaughter who had spent much of her life with her Hakka grandmother. Discussions were held both in person and on the telephone, and all were conducted in 2000. The following excerpts have been selected to demonstrate the spirit of these women, and to show the general content of these interviews from which the summary was compiled. For the sake of privacy, pseudonyms have been used. On a note of interest, each subject was asked what his or her mother's favourite colour was. Favourite colour?, exclaimed one interviewee. You don't understand, there was no time for such luxuries. Indeed, not one of the interviewees could answer this question. Lily was a spirited 16 year-old when she married and began her family of six in the 1930's. Her husband set up their tiny family shop and home in downtown Kingston. Literally a corner shop with the living quarters at the back, the operation was so small, it had no name. Her son, Clayton, describes his mother as formidable. She never indulged in self pity, he insisted. Not when she went deaf after delivering her third child, not when my father disappeared for days on end, not even when he brought his girlfriend to the house for breakfast. Nothing seemed to bother her. Unable to read or write English, and unable to rely on her largely absent husband, Lily would at first rely on her housekeeper to write out the wholesale orders they needed to restock the narrow shelves. Eventually she taught herself to write by carefully drawing the letters she saw on the labels of those items she needed. While there were few physical signs of her affection for her children - even many birthdays forgotten amid the day's work - she focused on bigger issues like equal opportunity: Everyone must turn doctor - even the girls, she would command. …