Quarterly Jamaica Diaspora & Returnee Update — January to March 2012

Published: 2 April 2012 | Jamaica Homes News

Key Takeaways

• Portia Simpson Miller returns as Prime Minister: The People’s National Party’s victory in Jamaica’s 29 December 2011 general election — winning 42 seats to the JLP’s 21 in a result that confounded the close pre-election polling — returned Portia Simpson Miller to the prime ministership on 5 January 2012, making her the only person to have served twice as Jamaica’s head of government. The PNP’s landslide reversed the results of the 2007 election and gave the new government a commanding majority with which to pursue its economic and social programme. For the diaspora community, the political transition raised the familiar questions of policy continuity in the returnee and investment facilitation space — questions that the incoming government moved quickly to answer by confirming the continuation of the Biennial conference structure and the PICA returnee facilitation service.
• Trayvon Martin: a killing that shocked the community: The killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin on 26 February 2012 — shot while walking through a gated community in Sanford, Florida by neighbourhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, who cited Florida’s Stand Your Ground law and was not arrested that night — produced a wave of shock, grief, and anger across Black American and Caribbean-American communities. The case’s circumstances — a teenage boy in a hoodie, armed with a soft drink and a packet of Skittles, killed by a man who had been warned by a 911 dispatcher not to follow him — crystallised the community’s experience of racial profiling and the lethality that profiling could produce when armed with the legal protection of Stand Your Ground laws. Caribbean-American community responses ranged from grief to political mobilisation: the demand for Zimmerman’s arrest became a national movement.
• Jamaica’s 50th independence: a year of preparation begins: The year 2012 marked Jamaica’s 50th anniversary of independence from Britain, with the formal celebration date of 6 August approaching through a year of national and diaspora community preparation. The Holness government’s defeat had transferred the 50th anniversary planning responsibilities to the incoming Simpson Miller government, which confirmed that the celebrations would proceed with the full national commitment the milestone deserved — including major diaspora community engagement events in New York, London, and Toronto. The coincidence of the 50th anniversary with the London Olympics, where Usain Bolt was widely expected to seek a second consecutive sprint treble, gave the year an extraordinary potential for Jamaican national pride.
• 5th Biennial preparation: June 2012 approaches: With the 5th Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference scheduled for June 2012 — now less than three months away as this edition publishes — MFAFT’s diaspora engagement teams were finalising working group structures, diaspora community invitations, and the conference agenda. The new Simpson Miller government’s diaspora engagement priorities were being incorporated into the Biennial’s thematic framework, with particular emphasis on returnee facilitation, diaspora investment, and the digital platforms that would extend the conference’s reach to community members who could not attend in person.
• US: Obama’s re-election campaign and immigration: The US presidential election campaign was entering its Republican primary phase, with Mitt Romney’s emergence as the likely nominee and his primary campaign’s “self-deportation” immigration rhetoric producing dismay in Caribbean-American communities. The contrast with Obama’s immigration record — imperfect from the community’s perspective, including record deportation numbers, but explicitly committed to comprehensive reform — was framing the community’s November electoral choice in stark terms.
• Remittances Q1 2012: stable positive start: Bank of Jamaica data for Q1 2012 showed continued positive year-on-year remittance growth, with the US source market maintaining its recovery-period trajectory and UK flows remaining steady. Total 2012 annual flows were expected to approach US$2.1 billion, maintaining the gradual upward trajectory of the post-crisis recovery.

Introduction: New Government, Painful Loss, Golden Horizon

Q1 2012 brought Jamaica a new government, the diaspora a heartbreaking Florida killing, and the whole community the approaching golden horizon of the 50th anniversary and London Olympics. This update draws on Jamaica Gleaner, Jamaica Observer, Bank of Jamaica, PIOJ, MFAFT, and Caribbean diaspora media through 31 March 2012.

Trayvon Martin and the Community’s Reckoning

The Trayvon Martin case’s resonance in the Caribbean-American community drew on a deep well of shared experience. The “driving while Black” stops, the followed-through-the-store experiences, the taxi refusals, the police street encounters: every community member of Caribbean heritage in the United States had a version of the experience of being treated as suspicious, as dangerous, as less than fully entitled to occupy public space. Trayvon Martin’s killing was the most lethal possible expression of that treatment, and the community’s recognition of its own reflection in his story was immediate and devastating.

Outlook for Q2 2012

Q2 2012 brings the 5th Biennial in June, Obama’s DACA announcement (expected by many as a pre-election immigration measure), the Zimmerman arrest and its legal consequences, and the final approach of the London Olympics and Jamaica’s 50th anniversary. We report next from 2 July 2012.

This Quarterly Jamaica Diaspora and Returnee Update is researched and published by Jamaica Homes News. Sources include Jamaica Gleaner, Jamaica Observer, Bank of Jamaica, PIOJ, MFAFT, and PICA. All figures and developments are accurate as of the publication date, 2 April 2012.

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