Hakka Migrants and Chinese Catholics in Jamaica

Abstract

<p>In today’s Jamaican society, Chinese Jamaican is a significant group whose ancestors arrived in Jamaica around 1854 as indentured labors. Many of these Chinese labors went into retail trades and business after the expiration of contracts, accumulating wealth quickly. Since then, an increasing number of Chinese migrants began to settle in Jamaica. A majority of these early Chinese migrants were Hakka people from Dongguan, Huiyang, and Baoan counties of Guangdong province. As a distinct migrant ethnic group in Jamaica, Hakka Chinese, however, have developed a strong community accommodating themselves into a predominantly Black society.</p><p> </p><p>The significant roles that ethnic Chinese have played in Jamaican society have drawn scholarly attention, especially on their ethnic negotiation and (re)construction of ethnicities among the Chinese community. An important yet neglected aspect in the current scholarship is religion, in particular Catholicism. Our preliminary research shows that the largest denomination for Chinese Jamaican is Catholicism, followed by Anglican. It is curious that other popular Christian denominations such as Baptists and Pentecostal churches are less attractive for Chinese Jamaican, even though both have retained a very strong connection with the Blacks. After the 1980s, some Chinese Protestants settled in Jamaica and established their exclusive church for ethnic Chinese, but they have had little connection with the majority of Jamaican Christians, or Chinese Jamaican Catholics. The intricate relationship between the so-called “old Chinese” (Catholic descendants of the early Hakka migrants) and “new Chinese” (Chinese Protestant immigrants in recent three decades) is closely linked to their religion and negotiation between different Christian traditions and Chinese identities of different roots.</p><p><br></p><p>This project aims to study Chinese Jamaican’s identity construction through the lens of Catholicism. It explores the negotiation between Catholicism and Creole Chinese ethnic traditions, such as <em>Gah San</em> (Hakka-based ancestor worshipping) and inter-ethnic marriage. The contemporary Chinese community in Jamaica is far from its monolithic stereotypes, and Catholicism is a crucial factor that contributes to their changing ethnicity and construction of identity.<br></p>