A Story of Heritage

For our fourth installment of Where We Belong, we hosted Naiomi Abiola Israel — a Jamaican-American singer, songwriter, and actress. Naiomi shared how her family keeps her connected to her heritage, her experience returning to Jamaica for the first time in her life, and what it feels like to be both an outsider and an insider in the same place at the same time.

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Jalen:
So how do you navigate the duality of your identity as a Jamaican born in America?

Naiomi:
I would say I never thought about the fact that I had to navigate something. Growing up in Jamaica, Queens, I was in a household with, like, 12 people, including my grandma, my grandfather, my mom, my aunts, my uncles on both sides for my mom and my dad, and like, I was always around the Jamaicans. I feel like for some people, when they come to America, they might not be around people who are their culture like that. Like for me, I knew mostly Jamaicans. Everyone was there!

I will say the one thing was like... I had never been there. Like, I didn't go to Jamaica until last year. Being Jamaican, but never having been to Jamaica is kind of crazy. And it just feels weird cause I'm like...I feel like I know so much about being Jamaican because I am Jamaican. My family's Jamaican, like I can speak patois. Not well! Not well, but I can, though. I can though.

It was really interesting. Just not feeling like I didn't belong, because [Jamaican culture] was so much a part of everything that was my life.

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Jalen:
When you visited Jamaica, when you went back, did you feel kind of like an outsider while you were there, or did you feel like "I just belong here"?

Naiomi:
That was the weird thing, cause it felt like I was like an outsider-insider. Like, I would meet people and they'd be like, "oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you speak...whatever", but, they can tell I'm not from Jamaica. But they can tell I'm Jamaican.

So it's like they know that I'm not from there. Like, I can't say I'm from Jamaica because, like, even though my blood, like...

Jalen:
So it's like, you're kind of associated with it, but not.

Naiomi:
Yeah, yeah. So interesting because the place itself is Jamaica and like, I feel like I got all the things of Jamaica – except for the place. Very interesante.

I guess when I went there was when I realized I didn't feel like I was home. Like it did feel like a foreign place, because it was a place I had never been to before. It's like as if I studied all the books on Jamaica before going, and so I was like this Jamaican scholar who had just never, ever...went.

Jalen:
Then you got the field experience!

Naiomi:
Right! Right, right. It's like I went to college for it, and now I'm finally there. Like I'm discovering things about the actual place of Jamaica, but the culture of Jamaica, I felt –and feel – so... in.

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To watch the full interview, visit us @dspraofficial on Instagram and TikTok. To learn more about Naiomi, visit her page @naiomi.israel on Instagram.