Winter in Florida is a bit of an oxymoron. Like winter in LA, only warmer and more humid. And, well, Florida. My parents had purchased a large faux-Mediterranean home in a gated community in north Broward County with manicured bike paths and picturesque waterways and the occasional gator sighting; for years it was all my kids knew of America, and it made them happy. Disney World and Walmart and Costco and supersized everything. The antithesis of our lives in Europe. I imagine they thought of the entire peninsula as one big flat amusement park with a beach. But to them, it was Nana and Poppy’s home. Sun and fun and frolicking with their cousins. And a heavy dose of Jamaican culture.
Three days before Christmas, the extended family convened. Following a curry goat dinner, the adults lingered in the dining area downing Uncle Warren’s potent eggnog and Mummy’s black cake. Conversation flowing on a range of subjects from politics to entertainment, the upcoming primaries, and the rise of anti-immigrant sentiment. Dialects sliding from the Queen’s English into full patois and back again. Engelbert Humperdinck crooning in the background.
I grew up on a mix of Bob Marley and Engelbert Humperdinck’sgreatest hits. Those two, sprinkled with some Johnny Mathis, Nat King Cole, and occasional soca were the backbone of all Chen gatherings. I wasn’t certain if it was my parents’ eclectic tastes, or all Jamaicans of a certain age and socioeconomic group, but there was very little American popular music played on their sound system. No R&B. And certainly, certainly no hip-hop. Because as much as my parents were happy to be in the US, pursuing the dream, there were many elements of the culture they eschewed. Hip-hop was one of them. They didn’t like the swearing. They didn’t like the braggadocio. They didn’t like the dress.
“Is wha’ kind of dungarees dat?” my father questions, when Julien enters the dining room, empty plate in hand, searching for seconds.
“These, Poppy? They’re just pants.”
My father takes a moment to scrutinize them, removing and then replacing his glasses. From across the table, Andrew, newly arrived from London with his partner, Colin, in tow, gives me a knowing look.
They were not “just pants.” They were dropped-crotch trousers, this season’s slightly more refined version of my generation’s Hammer pants. A look Donovan Chen did not approve of in their original iteration and is not likely to approve of now.
“Is that what you wear to school in Los Angeles?” His pronunciation of the city rhymes withdungarees.
“Sometimes.”
“Hmm. You kids should have uniforms. At KC, we wore uniforms, and we went to school looking crisp and tidy, with our hair combed and our pants fitting. I don’t know how studentsh’inAmerica get away looking like that.”
“Like what, Daddy?” I intervene.
“Like…” He stops to choose his answer. “Like Kanye West.”
Fran elbows me under the table. Unbeknownst to Julien, there’s a pair of new Yeezys hidden in the back of our closet, waiting to be wrapped and placed beneath the tree for him.
“It’s just so undignified.”
“Daddy, he’s fourteen. He doesn’t need to be dignified.”
“I just think it’s important that he knows. Julien, I don’t know how they do it in France, but in this country, if you want to ascend theladder of success, you need to look the part. You need a good haircut and nice-fitting clothes. You can’t dress like a rapper. And that should go for school, as well.”
“Oh boy.” Andrew snorts. Beside him Colin’s eyes go wide.
Seth and Jane exchange looks across the table.
My brother and I have heard this lecture numerous times. I can’t imagine Colin—half Guyanese, half English, green eyes, dry wit, Paul Smith suits—was not subject to his own version of it. The delicate balance between assuming enough of your adopted country’s culture to fit in, but not so much that you might bump up against what was acceptable back home. A limbo, in multiple senses. Both in being stuck in a midway place and the feat of bending oneself backward to not upset the virtual bar above, yet not succumb to crashing to the ground below. A space I’d inhabited for as long as I could remember.
My parents, I assume, were not subject to such contortion. In Florida, as they had in their New York enclave, they found a community of Jamaicans and other West Indians. Trinis and Bajans and Guyanese. All former British colonies. And so they’d escaped the pressure to assimilate into both mainstream America and African American culture by sticking to their own. At work, my father’s friends had been mostly Jewish. A group he respected and with whom he felt aligned. He perceived them as having strong familial ties and a focus on education, which spoke to both his Jamaican and Chinese sensibilities. I never saw him or my mom doing the balancing act of trying to fit in the way Andrew and I had. Their circles were constricted, but their identities were whole.
“Daddy, wearing proper trousers is not going to solve everything. He’s still going to be Black,” Andrew says.Proper trousers. Sixteen years in London had leaked into his dialect.
“It’s not a question of being Black, it’s about being presentable. He couldn’t get a good job with those pants. Like he couldn’t work at a bank in Kingston with dreads down his back.”
“Okay, Baba… okay,” Auntie Gem says. Baba was the nickname my father’s siblings had given him as a child. Every Jamaican has a nickname. Some have two. Mummy had a great-uncle named Watah Eye. We imagined he cried a lot. Or had allergies.
“You’re so bourgeoisie, Unc,” Sylvie adds, amused.
Julien has squeezed in between the two of us at the table. Our son is too intent on finishing his plate to be truly put out by my father’s words. François reaches out to comfort him anyway, ruffling his curls.
“He’s not applying for a job at a bank, Daddy,” I say. “He’s having dinner with his family.”
“I just want to make sure he knows that dressing a certain way says a lot about you. And when I see these young boys with their pants hanging low… it looks disrespectful.”
Brooklyn Seth excuses himself to play with the kids in the family room. I am reminded of the Schubert piece. Instruments dueting, dueling.
“Disrespectful to whom, Unc?” Sylvie says. “The man?”
“You know, Baba,” Auntie Lolo interjects. “I think maybeyouare the man, now.”
