Reflective Journal • Caribbean Culture and Identity
Dante Saunders

My Caribbeanness

This journal traces how my understanding of Caribbean identity moved from simple geography to something deeper: memory, resistance, family, music, contradiction, and pride. Each entry opens one more layer of the story.








From the course 

Identity is layered. The journal should hold memory, contradiction, fragments, and what I am still claiming for myself.

From my notes

The Caribbean is defined by the people, shared history, stories, struggles, memories, and accomplishments, not by geography alone.

From my own growth

Across four months of class, I stopped trying to give one neat answer and started paying attention to how culture lives inside ordinary things.

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Entry 1 • What Is Caribbean, Culture and Identity?

Beyond the Map

 from Caribbean as a region to Caribbean as  lived feeling shaped by history, memory, and people.

Sea → Island → Self
Jamaica
Grenada
Trinidad
My response from class

My understanding of the Caribbean started changing when we were asked to define it for ourselves. I realized that I do not understand the Caribbean as only islands on a map. I understand it as people, shared history, struggle, memory, and the stories we keep passing down. It is the region, yes, but it is also the way culture survives through language, food, music, and resilience.

So when I think about Caribbean culture and identity now, I think about something made by us rather than something handed to us. It is shaped by African roots, colonial pressure, migration, celebration, and resistance. In class we kept returning to the idea that identity is layered, and that helped me understand that being Caribbean is not one neat answer. It is a living mix of history and everyday life.

Question from class: What is my understanding of Caribbean?


The Caribbean is our Food

what we stand for create our identity 

images ackee.jpg

The Caribbean is our Music

creates unity and cultural bonds

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Entry 2 • When Mi Feel Caribbean

When Mi Feel Caribbean

A smell, sound, phrase and the contradiction dem weh mek mi feel Caribbean, some feelings needs to be express in the language that carries them.

Hear dis yah

come hear dis yah, just a likkle story mi a tell. 
one tune, one saying, one smell, contradiction deh deh tuh yes, but a it remind we a we caribbean self 
Grandma voice a sing old-time music while she a wash mi clothes, clean di house or any chores. she a sing but not loud-loud, just steady like one prayer weh know exactly how fi move roun mi ears. Dat sound feel like childhood because it never rush mi; it hold di day together. It teach mi seh culture nuh only pon stage, it deh inna chores, rhythm, and quiet place.
come hear dis yah, just a likkle story mi a tell 
one tune, one saying, one smell, contradiction deh deh tuh yes, but a it remind we a we caribbean self 
One one coco full basket, everybody know seh dat mean patience and build-up, no big overnight glory, just piece by piece till life full and sturdy. A phrase like dat carry ancestor wisdom inna small words. It show how wi survive, save, plan, and trust seh growth can humble but worthy.
come hear dis yah, just a likkle story mi a tell 
one tune, one saying, one smell, contradiction deh deh tuh yes, but a it remind we a we caribbean self 
Sunday dinner weh mommy a cook, steam rice and peas and chicken just can imaging seh it ago finga licking, ackee a glow and di pot dem sing, every likkle scent start pull pon mi string. Dat smell draw mi back to yard and grace, remind mi seh love have a seasoning and a place. It mek mi feel di labour and di care, how wi turn simple tings to feast and share.
come hear dis yah, just a likkle story mi a tell 
one tune, one saying, one smell, contradiction deh deh tuh yes, but a it remind we a we caribbean self 
Dem did tell wi Columbus discover, but di song seh plain seh him a liar and mi feel dat sting, because yuh cyaan discover people land when people deh deh living, naming, planting, and reasoning. Next contradiction: brochure sell paradise, but plenty people a fight rent, pressure, and old colonial bruising. Caribbean pretty, yes, but it also carry burden, and mi journal haffi tell both beauty and bruising.
So when mi seh mi Caribbean, mi mean memory, sound, truth, contradiction, and care. Mi identity nuh perfect or tidy, but it real, and it grow stronger every time mi dare fi name it.
This entry also connects back to the first one by proving that identity is not abstract. It comes alive through smell, sound, sayings, and the courage to challenge false stories.
clothes a wash.jpg
ONE ONE COCO FULL BASKET BUT NOT DAH BASKET YAH WE A TALK
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Food Just Steamy suh
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affi scratch mi head caz dis sh** crazy
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Entry 3 • How We Ago Sustain Cultural Identity Inna The Caribbean

Carry It Forward

After reflecting on what identity feels like, I started asking how we keep it alive. This entry pulls from the presentation on African retention through Anansi stories and from the course focus on transmission.

an example of an anasi story 
 

Anansi and the Tar Baby

Anansi step brave and chatty till him hail up di tar baby fi manners.
When di figure answer nobody, him temper jump and him box it hard.
One hand stick, next hand stick, foot stick, pride stick too.
From struggle him start think smarter than before.
Dat story still teach wi: wit save yuh, but pride can trap yuh first.
My collected class notes
These sticky notes remind me that Caribbean identity was not taught in one straight lecture. It came through class voices, questions, side comments, and mapping thoughts over time.
hear this deh

How storytelling sustains identity

Traditional stories like Anansi carry morals, humour, speech patterns, and African retention all at once.
When elders tell stories, they pass on worldview, not just entertainment. The story teaches how to survive, read people, and laugh through pressure.
In the Caribbean today, that same cultural work happens through dub poetry, dancehall, theatre, kumina, and social media storytelling.
So culture is sustained not by freezing it, but by carrying old wisdom into new forms without losing its spirit.
What class helped me notice
March 18Our presentation on African retention through Anansi made me see storytelling as inheritance.
Guest lectureThinking about African Caribbean religion, ritual, language, and spirit widened my idea of what counts as culture.
NowI see cultural identity as something we practice, remix, and protect.
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Entry 4 • What Does It Mean To Be Caribbean?

What It Mean Fi Be Caribbean?

By this point in the course, the question was no longer “where am I from?” but “what in my everyday life actually identifies me?”

Hmm? 💭

Sometimes I think being Caribbean means living in a constant conversation between pride and pressure. It is not only nationality, not only race, and not only performance. It is the way history sits in ordinary life and still shapes how we speak, move, dream, and represent ourselves.

This connects back to entry 1, but now the answer feels more personal and less theoretical.
quick memory 


I remember walking to school and passing a zinc fence that rattled every time a truck rolled by. Behind it somebody always had music playing, somebody always had food on the fire, and Damino a nak pan table. Looking back, that lane taught me more about Caribbean identity than any polished tourist image ever could. It showed me working-class struggle, creativity, and community in one frame.

Keznamdi's point about Zinc Fence stayed with me because it framed Caribbean identity through struggle, resilience, community, and lived experience rather than colonial ideals.
Class thread

Words that identify, but do they define me?

Dr. Meeks asked whether words like truths, rights, African, Blackman, Jamaica, reggae, dancehall, Rastafari identify me as an individual in the Caribbean. My answer is yes and no.

  • Yes, because those words point to histories and cultural energies that shaped me.
  • No, because none of them alone can hold the whole of who I am.
  • Being Caribbean is bigger than one label; it is a layered self made from many inheritances.
Personal conclusion

To be Caribbean, then, is to represent where I come from without pretending the story is simple. It is reggae and dancehall, but it is also silence and survival. It is blackness, Africanness, language, humour, migration, and community memory. It is a people still naming themselves in their own terms.

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Entry 5 • How Do I Feel As A Caribbean?

To be honest 

This entry leans into feeling. identity is not only inherited, it is chosen, so here I reflect on what I am unlearning, what I am claiming, and what still feels unresolved.

How I feel

Proud, complicated, connected

I feel proud as a Caribbean because there is brilliance in how we create from pressure. We turn memory into music, pain into humour, and struggle into style. Even when the region is misunderstood or simplified, our culture keeps proving its depth.

At the same time, I also feel tension. Sometimes Caribbean identity gets marketed as only sunshine, beach, and entertainment, and that leaves out the weight of history and the realities people still live through. So my feeling is not shallow pride. It is a more conscious pride, one that knows beauty and burden can exist together.

Unlearning and claiming
UnlearningThat the Caribbean can be explained by one image, one race story, or one tourist idea.
ClaimingThat my identity can be both Jamaican and Caribbean without one cancelling the other.
Still askingHow do we protect what is sacred while still letting culture evolve?
Class connections
  • Norris Man's  song Persistence made me feel proud as a Caribbean, the course feel like a journey through endurance and self-definition from the very first class.
  • The Bad Bunny reflection reminded me that Caribbean identity can enter global spaces without watering itself down.
  • The poems and videos pushed me to think about language, race, and embarrassment in more honest ways.
Connection from previous entries

Entry 2 showed me that Caribbean identity lives in memory. Entry 3 showed me it survives through transmission. Entry 4 showed me it is shaped by lived experience. This entry gathers those threads and turns them inward: Caribbean identity is something I feel in my body as pride, questioning, and belonging all at once.

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Entry 6 • Final Reflection

Final Thoughts

My final thoughts on the course: what I learned, what I still disagree with, and why I am proud to be Caribbean after these months of reflection.

What I learned
  • I learned that Caribbean identity is layered, not singular, and it has to be approached with honesty rather than performance.
  • I learned that student voices matter because identity is not only found in scholars and texts; it is also found in lived response.
  • I learned that stories, songs, food, ritual, and language all work as cultural archives.
  • I learned to pay closer attention to contradictions instead of avoiding them.
What I question and why I am proud

One thing I still push back against is any version of the discussion that makes Caribbean identity sound settled or easy to define. I do not think it can be reduced to symbols alone. It has to include history, class, migration, race, spirituality, language, and the everyday realities people carry.

I am proud to be Caribbean because our cultures keep creating life in difficult circumstances. We preserve memory, challenge lies, celebrate loudly, and still make room for reinvention. That is not weakness. That is power.

If someone reads this journal in three months, I would want them to understand that my thinking changed from giving surface answers to asking deeper questions. I am leaving this course more conscious of how identity is felt, performed, inherited, challenged, and chosen.
Final thought: I do not leave this course with one perfect definition of Caribbeanness. I leave with sharper eyes, fuller memory, and more pride in the fact that Caribbean identity is alive enough to keep unfolding.