This first-person column was written by Gillian Sunderland, a PhD student at the University of Toronto. For more information on CBC’s first-person stories, please see the FAQ.
I’ve walked the busy streets of Bridgetown, Barbados many times, but I still feel out of step with life. Despite it being my father’s homeland and the fact that I hold dual citizenship of Canada and Barbados, Bridgetown has 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 we didn’t listen to the syncopated beat of calypso music.
Instead, 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 colonizer than colonized. Instead of regaling us with stories from his youth or sharing with us the rich cultural heritage of Barbados, he seemed intent on instilling in us the values of steely competition, conformity and glorification of authority. His influence continues to haunt my academic work, where I usually fall into a staunch defense of the rules and the status quo, despite not being 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 leaned against them. (Submitted by Gillian Sunderland)
I now understand that his assimilationist ambition stems from his upbringing when Barbados was still a loyal colony of the British Empire.
Once duplicated “Little England,” Barbados was the first British 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 buy newly imported slaves than to care for for their survival. The profits from these sugar plantations helped line the pockets of the English settlers and the monarchy.
Although slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1834, Britain still ruled in Barbados until 1966 and tried to “correct” the culture of freed West African slaves. Eligible to attend school for the first time, black youths like my father, dressed in clean school uniforms, were taught “proper” behavior, English customs and loyalty to the royal family. Through his formal education, my father imbibed British values and customs and became deeply loyal to the Crown. These were the values he passed on to my brother and me.
Yet 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.” The teachers callously commented on my tightly coiled hair, prompting loud laughter. As an adult, Gillian Sunderland wears her curly hair with pride. She was bullied for her tight coils as a child. (Gillian Sunderland)
“Friends” declined my party invitations, claiming that their parents had labeled me a “bad seed.” Despite sharing a typically Canadian upbringing, race still serves as an insurmountable barrier to inclusion.
This was the result of British imperialism – and it followed my family from Barbados to Canada.
Driven by a desire to belong, I visit Barbados often and look for traces of my family lineage. But I was hindered by my father’s secrecy in his past life, and this forced me to try to reconstruct my family’s history myself.
I was able to trace my lineage back to one of my enslaved ancestors before running into another wall of colonial legacy. Before slavery was abolished, enslaved people were stripped of their surnames and forced to adopt those of their English owners – as if they were property to be owned.
In 2021 Barbados severed ties with Great Britain. He removed the queen as head of state and became a republic. My father, being a man of tradition, rejected the move. He seems to harbor no ill feelings towards the Crown. After all, he believes that his English education allowed him to advance and build a successful life as an Afro-Caribbean immigrant in Canada.
Yet in my mind, the brutality my enslaved ancestors were subjected to was too great a price to pay. Even after the end of slavery, the imposition of British customs and education on my father led to his alienation from his roots, customs and practices.
And while he may not feel that loss, I certainly do.
Although he has condemned the demolition of statues of the Queen and calls for her to be removed as head of state, I support him. He cannot understand why I feel the need to trace my heritage or want to talk about the legacy of the colonization of Canada and the mistreatment of First Nations.
WATCH | 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 will encourage Barbadians to take control of the country’s future and be a step towards receiving reparations from the British for the atrocities of slavery.
Even now, in conversations with my father, there are insurmountable barriers to us understanding each other’s points of view.
Although this has happened in the past, I am left with the residual effects of the legacy of the unrestrained imperialism of the British monarchy. For me, the legacy of the Crown is loss, displacement, brutality and generational trauma that has turned relatives into strangers.
It’s a legacy the royal family doesn’t seem to want to deal with, offering only regrets but without apology or compensation.
Maybe someday me and my dad will get along. 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 in the black community – see Being Black in Canada, a CBC project that black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.
Being Black in Canada highlights stories about black Canadians. (CBC)
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