“Giving Back” to Jamaica: Experiencing Community and Conflict while Traveling with Diasporic Heart

It was their undeniable happiness, and sense of tranquility, that stood out to me when I first met the African American women of Girlfriend Tours International (GFT) in Negril in 2003. GFT is a U.S. tourism company dedicated to travel to Jamaica. Owned by Angelia Hairston and Marilyn (two African American women from Atlanta and Memphis, respectively), the tour group specializes in designing group vacations and bonding experiences for women. Williams and Hairston established the tour company for women who did not want to travel solo and to avoid many of the exorbitant single supplement fees all-inclusives force tourists to pay if they are traveling alone. During my fieldwork experience with the group, GFT was comprised predominately of African American heterosexual cis gender women from all over the United States, ranging in age from twenty-two to their early sixties. Some members were married or partnered, while most were divorced and/or single. Many declared that they did not need husbands, boyfriends, or some other male escort to travel internationally; they were fine navigating unfamiliar streets on their own. In fact, it seemed that most of these self-proclaimed “Jamaicaholics” were enticed by the tour group’s focus on women and the opportunity to build “girlfriendships,” or deep friendships, with one another. The group’s composition changed with each trip, with various combinations of first-time travelers, those on their first trips to Jamaica specifically, and women who frequently traveled to Jamaica.

Each time I traveled with the women of GFT, it was abundantly clear that the bonds they had with one another were not the only significant relationships during these trips. I realized that their sometimes tense, yet desired, connections with Jamaicans were also paramount. The tourism practices they participated in, and the sites the women decided to visit, took place within the context of what I call “diasporic contact zones.” In spaces like airports, hotels, restaurants, and on the beach, Girlfriends and their Jamaican interlocutors were able to test the elasticity of shared notions of blackness, while also interrogating power differentials within African diasporic relationships. In this article, I expand Mary Louise Pratt’s concept of a “contact zone” to examine moments where the imagined diasporic community Girlfriends held on to are both fortified and These encounters demonstrate the multiple ways race, class, gender, and nationality are salient in imaginings of the African diaspora. As an example of these imaginings, I highlight the Girlfriends’ attempt to “give back to Jamaica,” engaging in a form of strategic tourist consumption with the intention of economically empowering Jamaicans viewed as diasporic kin. Additionally, I present one Jamaican interviewee’s notion of the “master’s complex”—a critique of African American participation in Jamaica’s tourism economy, and an analysis of nationalized and classed differences within the African diaspora. This discussion draws attention to how the Girlfriends’ ability to travel, their access to American dollars, and their assumptions about (American) blackness mark and emphasize asymmetries in their diasporic connections.

When I inquired as to why first time travelers had such strong desires to visit Jamaica, or why these tourists repeatedly returned, I noted that many of the Girlfriends held on to three important ideas regarding race, diaspora, and their travels. The first was that because Jamaica is a country with a predominately black population, many of the tourists saw it as a geographic escape from U.S.-based racism. Traveling to Jamaica was akin to visiting a black paradise, where they could connect with other black peoples and blacknesses, while enjoying the sun, beach, great food, and good music. Jamaica became the center of their black paradisical thinking because, according to them, they did not feel the burden of American racism there, and it was not as industrialized (or “Americanized” they would say) as other Caribbean countries such as the Bahamas or Trinidad.

The second notion was that for many of the women, the Jamaica Tourist Board’s call to “Come Back to Jamaica” was truly a beckoning to “return” to an imagined homeland filled with diasporic kin. Although one or two of my interviewees searched their family tree in hopes of finding Jamaican heritage, none of the African American women I studied had any Jamaican family ties. However, in their interviews and group discussions, it became obvious that they felt a deep sense of diasporic connection and kinship to Jamaicans, and expected that because most of them were black, Jamaicans felt the same. Girlfriends assumed that Jamaicans experienced similar bouts with institutional racism and racialized prejudice, and they saw this as indisputably connected to the ever-present history of African enslavement and exploitation of labor that African Americans and Jamaicans shared.

Last, I observed that Girlfriends traveled with what I call a “diasporic heart.” As African Americans who sought belonging and shared identity with Jamaicans, they desired to “give back” to their diasporic kin. Their choice to travel to Jamaica, and their decision to repeatedly return, was based in the notion that their U.S. dollars could impact Jamaican lives, if they were targeted and invested in the right places. They understood that their American citizenship allowed them to be mobile in ways some Jamaicans could not, and have access to economic resources they assumed many Jamaicans did not have. In this way, Girlfriends attempted to acknowledge and address the power and status differences embedded in their diasporic encounters, while holding onto a deep sense of connectedness to Jamaicans as black people and members of the African diaspora. Still, they were often shocked when their notion of a shared connection was troubled or disavowed by Jamaicans. Subsequently, it became evident that the diasporic contact zones highlighted during GFT’s tours were rich sites for demonstrating how both connections and fractures, similarities and differences, harmony and conflict, are embedded in African diasporic relationships.

Diasporic Contact Zones and Imagined Communities

In Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation, Mary Louise Pratt studies the descriptions of non-European areas of the world (such as the Caribbean and Central Africa) in the travel writings of European tourists and conquerors from the mid-16th century through the late 20th She defines “contact zones” as “social spaces where disparate cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in highly asymmetrical relations of domination and subordination—like colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they are lived out across the globe Several scholars interested in the politics surrounding transculturation, border crossings, migration, and other forms of local and transnational interactions have engaged Pratt’s idea of “contact zones” to investigate the relationships between power, cultural exchanges, and identity formation.

Pratt argues that in these spaces, where “peoples [that have been] geographically and historically separated come into contact with each other and establish ongoing relations, usually involving conditions of coercion, radical inequality, and intractable conflict,” both non-European and European identities are Although Europeans focused on their imaginings of the “rest of the world” in these travel writings, Pratt points out that these narratives actually display how Europeans constructed and reconfigured their own identities through interactions with She asks, “How have Europe’s constructions of subordinated others been shaped by those others, by the constructions of themselves and their habitats that they presented to the Pratt answers this question by concluding that, “the entity called Europe was constructed from the outside in as much as from the inside Here, she points to the long history of cultural transformation (for both the oppressor and oppressed) that results as groups define themselves in opposition to one another during acts of conquest and colonialism.

Similar to Pratt’s commentary on European conquests, much of the research on contact zones focuses primarily on the power dynamics between people racialized as “white” (Europeans or North Americans) and those “Others” racialized as black, Asian, or Latino (“non-Europeans”). However, I employ Pratt’s concept of “contact zones” to explore what Tina Campt and Deborah Thomas call “diasporic Here, Campt and Thomas apply a feminist transnational analysis to the African diaspora, drawing attention to the ways racialized, classed, gendered, and nationalized differences are marked and interrogated within African diasporic communities. I contend that the Jamaican tourist industry is useful for investigating how African Americans hold on to hegemonic ideas of blackness that provide insight into how they see themselves, and how they imagine their diasporic kin. Brent Hayes Edwards points out in The Practice of Diaspora that the diaspora is configured and reconfigured through miscommunication and Diasporic contact zones enable us to examine those critical moments when individuals are aware of “the ways transnational black groupings are fractured by nation, class, gender, sexuality, and language,” and to observe how these disidentifications or misidentifications are constitutive of diasporic

The relationships that African American Girlfriends have with one another, with Jamaica, and with specific Jamaicans can be described as an imagined community similar to those theorized by Benedict Anderson. Theorizing nationalism and the nation state, Anderson argues that a “community is imagined if its members will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the mind of each lives the image of their Community is often imagined “because, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal However, Anderson’s theorization does not actively account for the racialized dimensions of imagined community and the tensions different experiences and interpretations of race (and racism) may generate. The community created by GFT members illuminates the possibilities and limitations of Anderson’s concept, by demonstrating the importance of diasporic imaginings and potential ruptures generated by diasporic realities. How might imagined communities shift and transform if at times diasporic peoples view commonalities as shared, and at other times, this imagining of sameness is rejected? During Girlfriend tours, Jamaicans and Americans mobilize blackness and the African diaspora as concepts to both shine light on difference and desires for unity. However, in many of these encounters, African American tourists and Jamaican hosts are not coming to the interaction with similar positionings within systems of power, or unified notions of what the diasporic community means to them. Subsequently, this imagined community is fraught with the dilemmas that arise as individuals navigate the increasingly complicated terrain of identity and community formations.

The transnational factors influencing relationships between African Americans and Jamaicans are also salient. Studies of transnationalism have been conceptualized as political examinations of movement and mobility, recognizing that power and privilege are embedded in the ability to cross national borders and geographic lines. Identifying who has access to global mobility and movement frequently aligns with who has access to economic wealth and political capital. Moreover, race and gender become significant factors in understanding transnationalism and tourism because these subjectivities are increasingly salient for how people are able to become mobile. While a few studies of tourism focus on the travels and desires of white American and European women, fewer have focused on the pleasure-seeking activities or movements of African American women and other women racialized as Often, black women are narrowly viewed as sex workers, hotel staff, entertainers in tourist areas, or the left-behind partners of men who travel for fun. While participating in international travel may be a way for some black women to experience what it feels like to be powerful or at least privileged, the women of Girlfriend Tours also used travel and mobility as methods for escaping American racism and sexism.

Centering this analysis of transnationalism through the lens of tourism allows me to demonstrate how tourist experiences can emphasize the power differentials embedded in flows of the transnational. Tourist spaces highlight the ways community and culture are produced; who belongs in the community and how belonging feels; and who is able to pay to consume another’s culture. Airports, hotels, and other tourist spaces are useful for observing how historical and contemporary flows of people, ideas, and capital affect the cultures and communities present. But the shared and divergent imaginings of community—the fantasies and ruptures of diasporic connection—are also at play.

Finally, we recognize that diasporic peoples create their understandings of diaspora within the context of social, economic, and geopolitical Therefore, it is important to consider that the relationship between the United States and the Caribbean, and Jamaica specifically, has always been one of economic and cultural exchange, and labor extraction. Jamaica sits prominently on the United States’ social radar due to the history of the Trans Atlantic slave trade, the long-term marketing of export crops to the United States, and the massive advertising of Jamaica as a nearby tourist destination that is both familiar and strange. Increased access to the Internet enables fast and spontaneous booking of vacations, while the popularizing of reggae and dancehall music throughout the United States makes Jamaican culture feel accessible. These features work together to make Jamaica the ideal location for the Girlfriends’ pursuit of leisure and imagined diasporic

Giving Back: Traveling with a Diasporic Heart

I was intrigued by what the Girlfriends decided to spend money on during their trips to Jamaica. Most of them were lower middle class or middle class, working jobs such as high school guidance counselors or postal workers in the United States. The common assumption by many Jamaicans and other Americans I spoke with was that the women were wealthy, and this was how they could afford to travel to Jamaica so often. To pay for individual and group trips, many of the ladies made economic sacrifices, including working extra hours at their jobs, or taking on a part-time job just to pay for their Jamaicaholism. Some women did without fixing their homes and major appliances, remodeling their kitchens, or using their heat only if absolutely necessary, until they could pay for another trip to Jamaica. Others avoided social-life expenses in the United States, choosing to devote their entertainment budgets and “disposable” income for leisure costs in Jamaica. Finally, some made a vow not to travel domestically or to other countries besides Jamaica.

Most of the Girlfriends understood the economic value their American dollars had in Jamaica, and believed that making smart consumer decisions as tourists not only saved them money, but also enabled them to empower those they felt they could most effectively help. In fact, they viewed their decision to repeatedly return to Jamaica instead of visiting other Caribbean countries, as a way to empower individuals in the Jamaican economy. This strategic form of tourist consumption and spending practices is what I call traveling with a “diasporic heart.” After several conversations about “giving back,” I surmised that Girlfriends included the word “back” for two reasons: First, some of the women expressed a desire to pay Jamaica back for feelings of comfort, happiness, and affirmation they could not find at home in the United States. Subsequently, they sought out opportunities to put as much money as they could afford directly into the hands of those they thought needed it. I noticed that they often gave money to those that facilitated and encouraged the fantasy of Jamaica as second home or black paradise. Drivers who embraced the Girlfriends’ obsession with Jamaica, or servers at hotels who enthusiastically welcomed them back, benefited from big tips or GFT members’ return business. Jamaicans that provided a sense of belonging and made the women feel seen (countering their invisibility in the United States) oftentimes benefited more from giving back practices.

Additionally, their diasporic hearts felt a responsibility to give to other black people as frequently as they could. Girlfriends’ choices about where to stay and from whom to buy were intentional political choices connected to racial identification and their desire to “help other black people out.” They saw their attempts to economically empower Jamaicans as cultivating a sense of diasporic connectivity, and addressing the classed and nationalized privilege they had as American citizens. Instead of residing at all-inclusives that were frequently owned by American and European foreigners, Girlfriends usually stayed at hotels that were locally owned by Jamaicans. They ate at locally owned establishments and used Jamaican-owned transportation companies, putting money into the hands of those they viewed as diasporic kin.

It was during this practice of “giving back” that I saw Girlfriends interact the most with other Jamaican women, filling their suitcases with toiletries, necessities, and clothing for women staff at the places where they stayed or ate; the moms and sisters of their Jamaican male friends; or local orphanages or specific families they had built relationships with. They also sought out businesses owned by Jamaican women, which were sometimes far and few between depending on the city they were vacationing in.

In an interview, I asked Jacqueline, a veteran American traveler, why she kept returning to Jamaica, and how she came to make decisions about where to put her money. She stated:

I don’t care what anybody says, you could go somewhere else, or you could just stay home. The minute you step in this country you impact the economy. The minute you come here you’ve contributed a little bit. Whose hands it falls in is not really under your control, but you are coming, you are a repeat visitor. All the Jamaicans I talk to, when they find out how many times I’ve been here, they seem to appreciate that I come back, and back, and back. I think it’s good for the economy.

According to the Caribbean Tourism Organization’s website, Jacqueline’s sentiments are right. In 2004, Jamaica depended on U.S. tourists for 70.4% of their tourism market, which continues to contribute significantly to the country’s Gross National The practice of giving back was an attempt by Jacqueline and other Girlfriends to engage in strategic consumption that had some control over whom their tourist dollars empowered. In particular, their decisions related to transportation and tipping are useful for demonstrating and examining diasporic heart, as these spaces are also prime diasporic contact zones in the tourist industry.

The Airport

For some of the Girlfriends, Sangster International Airport, located in Montego Bay, was considered the first “tourist” site they visit in Jamaica. As one of the two major airports in the country, Girlfriends often chose to fly into Sangster because it was closest to Negril, their most frequented destination. Sangster also became the first site of giving back for some visitors, as they donated money to the (mostly women) singers who welcomed them, or decided which vendors and drivers (mostly men) they wanted to support. In many of her trip reports, Jacqueline would gush over the singing ladies that welcomed her back to Jamaica each trip. The singing group of four to six women would sing songs and entertain tourists as they deplaned and headed to customs. Dressed in clothing similar to the traditional wear of black peoples who labored on plantations in Jamaica’s past, these women would draw the attention of some visitors who would stay for a few minutes and enjoy the music, while others moved quickly past them. After seeing these performances a couple of times and being disappointed with the insufficient tips that the singers received, Jacqueline began to put money away for them while she was in the United States. When she returned to Jamaica and deplaned, she would place an envelope of bills into each singer’s hand. To provide the group with publicity, she also began to post pictures of their performances in the virtual community of which many Girlfriends were members, describing her ritual of giving back and thanking the women for making her feel so welcome.

As other tourists took notice of the singers in these virtual trip reports and during their own vacations, several Girlfriends and web-board members began to take part in Jacqueline’s efforts, giving their own donations and gifts to the ladies when they traveled. Some of the Girlfriends made this their first stop on the GFT tour, pausing to talk to the singers, thanking them for the nice welcome, and taking pictures. The singers became an integral part of the homecoming experience for Girlfriends and acted as catalysts for a ritualized form of giving back during each visit.

Drivers and Tour Guides

For many Girlfriends, choosing the “right” driver/tour guide for their trip was significant for several reasons. First, having a driver who arrived on-time, would wait through flight delays, and knew how to get directly to their hotel meant that Girlfriends could begin their trip without the hassles and mishaps that other tourists often dealt with. Additionally, because some of the women were traveling alone, they were concerned about having a driver who owned a reliable vehicle and drove safely. Knowing that they were in good hands made many of the women feel welcome and more comfortable entering a foreign space. In some ways, the drivers and tour guides acted as social and cultural ambassadors for Jamaica, introducing visitors to the country if it was their first trip, or helping them discover new things if it was a return trip.

Second, the decision to put their American dollars directly into the hands of a particular driver or tour guide was one that most visitors saw as another method of giving back. For example, Angelia, one of the co-founders of Girlfriends Tours, told me that the owners made a conscious decision to utilize a certain Jamaican tour guide or driver for a consecutive number of group tours in order to provide with their consistent business for a number of years. This enabled him to buy a van or an additional vehicle and build up his business by employing other Jamaicans. After Angelia and Marilyn felt that he was well established, they would move on to supporting another person’s tour company. In this way, they saw themselves contributing economically to diasporic kin, providing that person with sustainability, and choosing how their American tourists dollars impacted a small sector of the Jamaican economy.

Oftentimes the arrangements for a driver were made online or on the telephone while Girlfriends were in the States, as the person received referrals for drivers from Marilyn, Angelia, or other Girlfriends. Most of the drivers who were hired were not part of a formal transport service (such as the popular Jamaican Union of Travellers Association, or JUTA), the women felt as though they could avoid bureaucracy and decide whose hands their money reached directly. On rare occasions when women did not arrange a driver’s service before arriving in Jamaica, they would pick a driver from outside of baggage claim. In those situations they would often choose a driver who was not affiliated with the JUTA organization—a practice that went directly against the advice of the Jamaica Tourist Board and guides like Lonely Planet, which suggested tourists only use drivers with JUTA certification and the signature red license plates. Again, this was a way that Girlfriends felt they could give back to Jamaicans who could not afford the expensive fees required to become a part of the union or to own their transportation vehicles outright.

Tipping

During each visit to Jamaica, there were frequent discussions about how to tip employees servicing Girlfriends at hotels and restaurants. The tipping discussion was part of the first-time visitors’ “training,” as veteran travelers made it a point to repeatedly mention that hotel staff made much less than the U.S. minimum wage. Veterans also encouraged first-timers to bring gifts for hotel staff as another way to give back, if they were in accommodations that discouraged tipping. Because all- inclusive resorts do not allow tipping and will sometimes terminate an employee who receives a tip, Girlfriends did their best not to patronize those hotels. Before each GFT tour, Girlfriends would remind each other to get one hundred American dollar bills from their banks at home, so they could tip drivers and other service workers without having to give the less valuable Jamaican money. This decision to tip with American dollars countered the “get the most for your American dollar” mentality that I saw some other American tourists use when exchanging money or acquiring services. Since African Americans have the reputation of being horrible tippers in Jamaica, Girlfriends worked diligently to fight against this stereotype.

Black Americans with a Master’s Complex

Although giving back and traveling with a diasporic heart were essential to GFT’s tour experiences, some of the women struggled holding the idea that black people in Jamaica had both similar and different relationships to blackness than they did. A key example of this was when Girlfriends stated that they thought all black people should get along, or at least recognize that they were “in the same boat” in their respective countries. This notion of “the same boat” sometimes gestured toward the literal ships Girlfriends imagined African American and Jamaican ancestors shared during Trans Atlantic slavery. Many times, it referenced the systemic racism African Americans presumed both groups experienced in the United States and Jamaica. Assuming that a shared diasporic history and their American conceptualizations of “blackness” and racism translated to those in Jamaica, some Girlfriends were troubled by Jamaicans that did not want to unify or rally explicitly around their racial identity as black peoples. While there seemed to be some shared understandings about how gender operated in the United States and Jamaica, there were different notions about what blackness meant, how it was utilized, and what it required of those racialized as black. Additionally, while Girlfriends were more open to recognizing the ways their American citizenship and economic status gave them access to privileges that Jamaicans did not have, some had a harder time seeing how they contributed to the oppression and exploitation of Jamaicans through tourist practices. These different conceptualizations and experiences of what blackness is sometimes led to moments of diasporic disconnect and mistranslation between Jamaicans and African Americans. The emphasis placed on race and racism by African Americans, while Jamaicans focused on class, added fuel to these fractures.

Girlfriends stated that they traveled to Jamaica because they thought black people there would feel familiar, while also seeking the “strangeness” of a different black culture and lived experience. However, a few seemed to get particularly frustrated when Jamaicans did not share their sense of racialized consciousness, “see” racist acts, or get angry with white people for racism. Back in the United States, veteran American traveler Gayle gave her perspective on this in an interview:

For instance, they don’t think racism exists in Jamaica. And yeah, you could say it doesn’t to some extent, and it’s really class. But it’s the same thing in the long run. [ … ] It is the method of choice that keeps a whole race of people down. And because it’s about one race of people, it’s racism. They may say it’s about class of people and all that. It’s racism. [ … ] And I think it’s because they just have not been exposed to it. People don’t talk about it. It’s not revealed in the way it’s been revealed to us. They don’t have the Martins, the Malcolms, the James Baldwins, they don’t have all of our history that has traveled all over the world and has come back and said, “Okay. This is what racism looks like.” [ … ] They don’t have all of that there. [ … ] But it is the same. I think [racism] is delivered the same way. They just don’t see it.

Gayle was frustrated by the argument some Jamaicans made that racism was a burden that African Americans brought to Jamaica, and not one that was indigenous to their country. Here, she argues that Jamaicans are ignorant, or at least less informed and educated about the ways racism operates because they do not have access to the worldwide observations that activists and writers such as James Baldwin and Malcolm X popularized to the black American public. Seemingly unaware of the activism and writings of Caribbeanists such as Marcus Garvey, Amy Jacques Garvey, Walter Rodney, and C. L. R. James, Gayle perpetuates a strong sense of African American ownership over the experience and understanding of racism and activism. She was not able to recognize that racism operates in a variety of ways, and may be differently connected to class, gender, and nationality in various locations. Nor was she able to push against “a homogenization of transnational black [American] identities,” as Clarke and Thomas

Partly backing up Gayle’s claim that Jamaicans do not “see” racism, Sasha, a friend of GFT members who was born in Jamaica and grew up in Florida, gave me some insight into conversations she had about black Americans with her family members in Jamaica:

[Black Americans] focus on being black too much, and focus on “the Man” too much. Yeah, ‘cause I guess in Jamaica you don’t really deal with racism too much, you deal more with classism. So, I guess that’s the whole big difference; [Jamaicans] just don’t see it. The white people that they see there are tourists and they’re acting friendly, smoking weed with you, talking with you, giving you money or something [interviewee emphasis].

Sasha’s and Gayle’s comments are especially meaningful as they point to an important disconnect between African Americans and Jamaicans. Shared experiences of racism and blackness were the lynchpin in African American imaginings of the African diaspora, and their connection to black peoples globally. However, Jamaicans hardly ever invoked this same notion of diaspora, or spoke about racism in the same terms as the tourists. Frequently, when Jamaican interviewees did invoke diaspora, it was usually a discussion about the “Jamaican Diaspora,” specifically their family members or friends that had moved to the United States or the United Kingdom. Rastafarians, or other Jamaicans I spoke to who held a deep connection to Pan African ideology, sometimes invoked the notion of a larger African diaspora. But more often than not, when discussing diaspora, African Americans and Jamaicans were speaking past one another, and were not speaking of the same diasporic community.

In 2004, I met Mark, a driver employed by one of the women to chauffer her around Jamaica during her two-week stay. While providing his services, Mark became a constant presence in the group—he shared our meals, drove us to many of our outings, and sat on the veranda with the ladies in the early evening to converse about the day’s events. Throughout our stay, Mark saw it as his duty to teach us all about the “Jamaican” way of doing things. This included encouraging us to read the Gleaner Daily, Jamaica’s prominent daily newspaper, and keeping us away from “bad” elements while shopping in the market or dancing in the club. During our meal conversations, Mark was especially vocal about the power and privilege that he associated with American citizenship, particularly our easy access to international travel and the exclusiveness of U.S. immigration laws and procedures. It became clear that for Mark, the African American tourist was a privileged foreigner whose American citizenship allows for almost unlimited access to global mobility and economic prosperity. His thoughts provided insight on some of the politics surrounding the Girlfriends’ giving back practices, and how Jamaicans may interpret their behavior, particularly in service-oriented relationships.

I interviewed Mark shortly after GFT members left Jamaica, hoping that he would give me some insight into what some Jamaicans really thought about American tourists, and their impact on the larger economic and social contexts of Jamaica. Mark discussed the differences among black peoples, commented on the tourist gaze he felt black Americans placed on him and other Jamaicans, and introduced me to his concept of the “master’s complex.”

Mark: I think one of the main things, especially with black Americans, I think they think we’re [Jamaicans] all about money, hustling. And most times they come off as if they’re, even though we are all black people, as if they are like better than us, you know? We know economically, financially, maybe you guys earn a little more, but most times the Americans come off as if they are like, they want to be your master, even though you know you are providing a service, they want to be your master. I don’t accept that.

Author: So white Americans don’t have this whole, “I wanna be your master” complex?

Mark: No. I don’t see that.

Author: I’m trying to figure out why. … I mean it’s a [racial] issue, because you’re telling me that white Americans come open and chill, and black Americans don’t. I’m trying to figure out what it is that the black Americans have experienced that makes them critical of you guys.

Mark: This is why. If you really understand the whole black thing, right, sometimes you don’t even blame the black Americans because it’s like, it’s like how you just said. I would say it’s maybe a little phobia where from long time ago black people don’t want to take chances. It’s a mental black. It’s a mental block. So once you come up against your own, you know, it’s like you feel like “Oh my God. I want to walk the straight line because maybe you want to trip me or something like that.” Bob Marley and Marcus Garvey say that black people will never ever know themselves until their back[’s] against the wall. And you must free your mind from mental slavery. So a lot of black Americans, it’s like they come here, and their minds are not free. [ … ] White Americans come, they have an open mind. Black Americans don’t do that. They just come, “Oh my God. I’m better and I have my money.” They don’t understand. It’s like a lot of people see Jamaicans, they think Jamaica and they think that everybody lives in a little hut, you know what I’m saying. But I’m all right. I have a beautiful house, own my own home, and stuff like that.”

Mark echoes Gayle’s notion that African Americans and Jamaicans are “all black people.” But he points to the different relationships each has to their blackness, notions of freedom, and class status. Mark describes a sense of empathy or pity he has for African Americans, as he understands that their performance as the “master” is a result of the stress and paranoia caused by their historical and nationalized relationship with racism. Citing Bob Marley and Marcus Garvey, Mark turns Gayle’s previous comments about Jamaican ignorance of racism on its head, arguing that it is actually African Americans that are mentally enslaved and locked in by a newfound sense of class privilege.

In my interview with Jacqueline, she unknowingly supports Mark’s argument and attempts to provide an explanation for why African Americans perform class privilege the way they do in Jamaica:

Well, from what I heard from Jamaican people, they say black Americans don’t tip well (smiles). And that they’re very demanding. You know, ‘cause the thing with black Americans is we’re just now coming into our own. And we’re in the first generation, second maybe, of privilege. And we’re just now learning how to get manicures, pedicures, massages and feel like we, we deserve something. So we take it a bit overboard, ‘cause now we feel like we’re just the shit. You got to learn in this country to just chill! Stop rushing people! I may complain back home, but I will not complain here. I just wait. Whenever the hell it comes, that’s when it comes. To be honest with you? We probably come off as very obnoxious because we are probably just so damn glad that we can get two steps out the ghetto and can afford to go around the corner. [ … ] And probably Jamaicans are like “Oh God. Here come these African Americans. They are so obnoxious” [interviewee emphasis].

In her interview, Gayle adds:

I’m sure black Americans when they go [to Jamaica], whether they want to admit it or not there is on some level, a little appreciation, that finally, I am somewhere where I am superior to somebody. And we do feel slightly superior, and it’s because of the economic situation [ … ] So if everybody would really, really search deep and look at the truth there probably really is some truth to that, and [Jamaicans] feel it. White people don’t have to look for a place to feel superior because they know wherever you go, you are superior. White people think, “I can play with the natives. I can pretend that I’m down with you because I know I’m really not. I know I’m superior. There’s no question about it.” So, to me, that’s my theory [ … ] White Americans don’t sweat the small stuff, because the world is theirs [ … ] if they don’t get it today, they’ll certainly have an opportunity to get it tomorrow. So they don’t have to sweat everything [ … ] Black Americans, we sweat EVERYTHING [interviewee emphasis]!

Here, Gayle somewhat agrees with Mark’s initial comment that African Americans are locked into a “mental black” and “mental block.” However, she describes it as part of the armor necessary to fight off the burden of racism, and the wear and tear that comes with working twice as hard to be seen as average, or as good as a white person, in a racist society like the United States. For Gayle and the other Girlfriends, the shadow of American racism is never far away, even while on vacation in Jamaica. In fact, it is their awareness of racism that partly fuels their desire to travel with diasporic heart and give back. Although they find comfort and some relaxation in Jamaica (which is why they keep returning), they are always aware that racism may rear its ugly head at any time, particularly if their fellow white American tourists choose to remove their “masks.” And they know as they travel as African American tourists through Jamaica, interacting with Jamaican residents in these highly politicized tourist spaces, they are being compared to white Americans who travel with a different sense of freedom and privilege. With a diasporic heart, Gayle feels a responsibility to lift the mask and teach Jamaicans about racism. In other parts of the interview, she describes her fear that her diasporic kin in Jamaica could be hoodwinked, like she imagines her ancestors in Africa were before they were forced into a boat to endure the Middle Passage. Mark wants African Americans to recognize that they are acting like masters, and treating those they seek to have kinship with as less than. They are acting superior, exploiting and thinking lowly of Jamaican workers in the tourist sector, which Mark recognizes is how they feel themselves as black people in the United States.

Conclusion

For some Jamaicans in my research, the classed differences associated with the “American” in “African American,” and the subsequent access to class and geographic mobility, frequently caused the unity or the sameness of diaspora to become troubled. As Paulla Ebron writes, “[p]ower differences [ … ] are inscribed in different configurations of mobility,” and it was evident in the diasporic contact zones in Although Girlfriends were deeply committed to their imaginings of a shared diasporic identity with Jamaicans and to giving back, their embracing of the master’s complex and centering of hegemonic ideas of blackness made diasporic connectivity difficult. When Jamaicans held up mirrors to the ways African American tourists were implicated in U.S. based capitalist endeavors, the exploitation of Jamaican culture and peoples, or the mentality that those based in tourist destinations are only there to serve tourists, Girlfriends were frequently taken aback. Because racialized, classed, gendered, and nationalized power differentials are embedded in the practices of tourism, it begs the question of whether tourism can be an effective site for giving back or empowering those based in tourist destinations. Even when diasporic hearts and desires are present, do the structures and politics of tourism make efforts like those of the Girlfriends futile? The answer(s) to these questions are complicated. Despite tensions and fractures, there were also moments of amazing connection and a strong sense of belonging between the African Americans and Jamaicans present. During late night conversations in hotel rooms, shared bliss in dancehalls, hugs in the airport, or deep spiritual experiences near the ocean, these individuals and communities connected to one another based in this ambiguous thing many called “blackness.” It was these moments that kept bringing Girlfriends back to Jamaica and fueled their diasporic hearts.