The Freedom to
Create and be Celebrated
I am Natalia Downer.
This is me.
Hear my voice…
This is my voice, the voice of Natalia Downer, a Black, 22 year old young woman who has never stepped foot outside the Caribbean. They call me Oreo, because…
…
…
I am Natalia Downer, a Jamaican citizen, who struggles to speak patois. Who listens to rock, country, pop, chill step, alt, reggae, reggaetón, opera and music from all over the globe…but hardly any dancehall. They say I don’t appreciate my culture, because…
Listen to a snippet of the mixture of songs that I enjoy!
I am Natalia Downer, a lover of books, who prefers the genres historical fiction, sci-fi, fantasy, mystery and, above all else…period romance. They call me Europeanized, because…
I am Natalia Downer, a writer not confined by my location or heritage, my history or the struggles of my people. They call me White-washed…just because…
I am…
me.
I want to fight for the freedom to create and be celebrated right here in the Caribbean, starting with my little island, Jamaica.
I won’t give them an excuse. I won’t give you one either.
You can’t read my tongue? Then I’ll let you hear it.
You can’t understand my tongue?
I’ll let you see it… I’ll let you….explore me, as a part of the “Out of Many…”
and discover that I too am Jamaican, through and through.
I’ll help you to understand my purpose for this blog, and only then, will the rest of it make sense to you. Yes, I want to force you to explore because creating change doesn’t come easy.
I’ll show you how they’ve forced me to rewrite my story.
Then I’ll share with you a podcast, to allow you to hear another voice, one that’s just like mine, and maybe yours. The voice of an upcoming Jamaican writer and her thoughts about Jamaican-ness and the creative industry in Jamaica.
I’ll give you an archive of competitions that I’ve either entered or that I know of…those that have allowed writers like you and I to freely create and those that have tried to force us into a box.
On this page I will try my best to be the representative voice of the “foreign-voiced” Jamaican citizens.
Sylvia Wynter's Dream 