Jamaica Diaspora Annual Roundup 2016

Annual Review | Published: 31 December 2016 | Jamaica Homes News

Key Takeaways: 2016 in Six Lines

• Brexit: UK Votes Leave 52-48 on 23 June, Reshaping British-Jamaican Futures
• Trump Defeats Clinton: Caribbean Diaspora in the US Faces a New Reality
• Holness and JLP Defeat Simpson Miller in Jamaica’s February Election
• Bolt Wins Third Consecutive Rio 100m Gold Then Announces Retirement
• 7th Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference: Resilience Amid Global Turbulence
• Jamaica Remittances Reach US$2.3 Billion: Steady Growth

The Year in Review

2016 was the year of two political earthquakes and one athletic farewell. The Brexit referendum of 23 June — which produced a 52-48 Leave majority on a turnout of 72 percent — was the most consequential political event for British-Jamaican communities since the Nationality Act 1981. The campaign had mobilised anxieties about immigration, sovereignty, and identity that had deep implications for communities whose presence in Britain was itself the product of the Commonwealth migration frameworks that the post-Brexit immigration architecture would reconfigure. Caribbean communities’ voting patterns were predominantly Remain; the Leave majority was driven by demographic and geographic constituencies that were not the same as those of the British Caribbean diaspora. But the outcome was shared by all. David Cameron’s resignation the morning after the result, and the subsequent Conservative leadership contest that produced Theresa May as prime minister, opened a period of constitutional and political uncertainty whose effects on British-Jamaican community life would unfold across the years ahead.

In the United States, Donald Trump’s election as president on 8 November — defeating Hillary Clinton in the Electoral College while losing the popular vote by nearly three million — produced shock and anxiety in Caribbean-American diaspora communities whose concerns about immigration, racial equality, and international diplomacy were directly engaged by the Trump campaign’s themes and rhetoric. The new administration’s early signals on immigration enforcement, healthcare, and civil rights were of immediate practical significance to diaspora members and their families navigating the US immigration system. Andrew Holness’s JLP victory in Jamaica’s 25 February election — winning thirty-two seats to the PNP’s thirty-one — brought a new administration to office with commitments to economic growth, crime reduction, and diaspora engagement. Usain Bolt’s third consecutive Olympic 100m gold at Rio de Janeiro, and his subsequent retirement announcement, concluded the most remarkable individual athletic career in the history of the event.

Jamaica Diaspora Annual Roundup 2016 | Jamaica Homes News. Compiled from four quarterly editions published April, July, October 2016, and January 2017.