During the Civil Rights Era, there was a huge influx of immigrants from Caribbean countries. My grandma, Dorothy was one of them. In 1967, she moved to Manhattan, New York from Jamaica and then in 1968 she moved from Manhattan to the Bronx where she found a vibrant Caribbean community.
When my grandma came over she already had a B.A.in Nursing. The first thing she did was go back to school and she attended Long Island University and received her Masters. Education has always been very important to my grandmother. In fact, it was her who taught me and my 2 sisters how to read. The value of education is something she instilled in my mother who in turn is trying to sow the same values into me.
In 1970 she married my Papa Tony who is also from Jamaica and then in 1972 my Mother was born and in 1974 my Uncle. Family, has always been very important to my Grandma and, as a result, she would move with family whenever they moved as to not be too far away. She hated the idea of her children being far away. My Grandma didn’t let my mother didn’t let my mom go on school trips, or see Broadway shows. Now, this wasn’t because she was trying to be difficult, but rather Jamaica and New York City are very different, and she didn’t know how best to protect my mother so her solution was to simply not let her go out too much.
Along with the sheer increase of people my Grandma had to adjust to the wide range of temperatures. The blizzards she experienced in New York were in sharp contrast to the warm weather of Jamaica that she was used to all year-round. However, thanks to the tight community around her (whom she still knows and visits to this day) she adjusted rather smoothly with some bumps along the way.
In 2007, my grandma and papa moved with my parents, sister and I to Durham, NC. Since then she has retired from being a nurse and taken to her role as a grandma. Whether it be dropping me off at a sports practice, nursing me while I am sick or cooking me a delicious dinner with the same Jamaican flair that she brought over in 1967, Grandma Dorothy has been an integral part of my life.
