I’ve been back to the busy streets of Bridgetown, Barbados many times, but I still feel out of step with life. Despite being my father’s hometown and having dual citizenship of Canada and Barbados, Bridgetown never felt like home.
Growing up in Canada, my father never encouraged an interest in our Bajan roots. We avoided dining on traditional dishes of oxtail and pig’s feet and didn’t listen to the concentrated rhythms of calypso music.
In contrast, in most of my childhood memories, my father is dressed in a three-piece suit, reserved and quiet. His accent sounds more British than the soft rhythmic tones of the Creole dialect, more colonizing than colonized. Instead of regaling us with stories of his youth or sharing with us the rich cultural heritage of Barbados, he seemed intent on instilling in us the values of steely competitiveness, conformity and praise of authority. His influence continues to haunt my academic work, where I usually fall into rigid defense of norms and the status quo, even though I am not a “real” doctor as he hoped.
I thought my father had turned his back on his life in Barbados and adopted Canadian customs to succeed as a black immigrant in Canada, but that is only partially true.
Gillian Sunderland sits on her father’s lap as a baby at a Christmas party in Winnipeg in the early 1990s. Her brother leans next to the couple. (Submitted by Jillian Sunderland)
I now understand that his ambition for assimilation came from his upbringing when Barbados was still a loyal colony of the British Empire.
Just Compiled”Little England», Barbados was Britain’s first slave colony and was under British rule from 1625 to 1966. Slavery in the Caribbean was unique in its brutality, as plantation owners chose to work enslaved people to death and decided it was more profitable to purchase newly imported slaves than to secure the their survival. Profits from these sugar plantations helped line the pockets of English settlers and the monarchy.
Although Slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1834, Britain still ruled Barbados until 1966 and was trying to “fix” the culture of freed West African slaves. Entitled to attend schools for the first time, black youths like my father, dressed in crisp school uniforms, were taught “proper” manners, English customs and loyalty to the royal family. Through his formal education, my father imbibed British values and customs and became deeply committed to the Crown. These were the values he imparted to my brother and me.
However, these distinctly English values did not insulate me from the racism I experienced growing up on the Canadian prairies. In my lily-white classroom, my classmates still called me “monkey.” Teachers would insensitively comment on my tightly coiled hair, eliciting audible giggles. As an adult, Gillian Sunderland wears her curly hair with pride. She was bullied for her tight buns as a child. (Gillian Sunderland)
“Friends” declined my invitations to parties, claiming that their parents had branded me a “bad seed”. Despite sharing a typical Canadian upbringing, race still served as an insurmountable barrier to integration.
That was the result of British imperialism — and it followed my family from Barbados to Canada.
Driven by a desire to belong, I often visit Barbados and search for traces of my family’s origins. But I was hindered by my father’s secrecy during his past life and forced me to try to piece together my family’s history on my own.
I was able to trace my ancestry back to one of my slave ancestors before hitting another wall of colonial heritage. Before slavery was abolished, slaves were stripped of their surnames and forced to take the names of their English owners – as if they were property to be owned.
In 2021, Barbados severed relations with Britain. Removed the queen as head of state and became a republic. My father, being a man of tradition, disapproved of this move. He apparently harbors no ill feelings towards the Crown. Besides, he believes that his English-based education enabled him to move forward and build a successful life as an Afro-Caribbean immigrant in Canada.
However, in my mind, the brutality inflicted on my enslaved ancestors was too great a price to pay. Even after slavery ended, the imposition of British customs and education on my dad led to his alienation from his roots, customs and practices.
And while he may not feel that loss, I certainly do.
While he denounced the toppling of statues of the Queen and calls for her removal as head of state, I support it. He can’t understand why I feel the need to trace my heritage or want to talk about Canada’s legacy of colonization and the mistreatment of First Nations.
WATCHES | Barbados becomes a republic:
Barbados cuts ties with the Queen to become a republic
After more than 400 years of British colonial ties, Barbados is celebrating having an elected, black head of state for the first time. Many hope the change encourages Barbadians to take control of the country’s future and will be a step towards reparations from the British for the atrocities of slavery. Even now in conversations with my father, there are insurmountable barriers to understanding each other’s perspectives. While this has happened in the past, I am left with the residual effects of the British monarchy’s legacy of unfettered imperialism. For me, the legacy of the Crown is a legacy of loss, displacement, brutality and generational trauma that has made outsiders not kin. It’s a legacy the royal family apparently doesn’t want to face, offers only regrets but no apology or compensation. Maybe someday, my father and I will understand each other. But until then, I’m stuck doing the work of reconnecting with my roots on my own. For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians – from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community – check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here. Being Black in Canada highlights stories about Black Canadians. (CBC) Do you have a similar experience with this first-person column? We want to hear from you. Write to us at [email protected]
