Article 6 – A Cry to My Countrymen

Sandreka Kaczoroski

Away from my land
No regrets that I’m feeling
Just the hope, prayer, and desire
For strength and self-healing

My Island, my home
Out of many, we are one
but how could this be when we lack brotherly love and suffer greatly because of a country misrun

One love and one heart
It is the mantra we teach
But it is all for nothing when we
don’t practice what we preach

Undeniably
Irreparable damage done
When we shoot, hurt, and kill each other
Then we think that we’ve won

Nineteen sixty-two
We raised our flags, proud and free
Blessed nation, one under God and yet
I am not proud to be

The Black, Green, and Gold
Tell a tale of unity
But today’s people only learn by
Means of impunity

Upon resistance
Our forebear flees colonies –
and British chains ensuring better
lives for their progenies

It is time to act
gratefully for our privilege
We are our ancestor’s wildest dreams
The ancestors are our sacrilege

Our strength came from them
Children of wood and water
I do not deny my heritage
They are my roots, and I am their daughter

Though in a strange land
I pray and hope that my Island heal
From their learned wickedness and trauma
For the impact it leaves behind is quite an ordeal

My people need oneness again
A kinship to which they feel they belong
A total reset of our land will have us
Dancing to the redemption song

Bob Marley did see
Marcus Garvey too
Of what we can achieve as one
If only you knew

Our National heroes and heroin fought
To see us bonds free men
Living in unity and enjoying our children
Not being sold as Pigs in a pen

Let us keep the peace and unite
I’m for us, now let’s end the corruption
All for one and one for all
And heal Jamaica land with a total reconstruction

Bibliography
Kentico Kontent. “Jamaican Flag Wallpaper.” Wallpapersafari.com, 3 Jan. 2018, https://wallpapersafari.com/w/0QFvc4

Author’s Bio: Sandreka Kaczoroski is an Afro-Caribbean woman from the Island of Jamaica. Coming from humble beginnings, she has always aspired to be a teacher, though as an adult, the very thought was wavering at times. She is an English major enrolled in the Bachelor of Arts Integrated Stream Program at University College of the North. Sandreka is the first of eight siblings, and therefore, has always tried her best to lead a life that her younger siblings can model and look up to. In the future, God spare life, her goals are to ensure each of her siblings attends university. Land for Sandreka means a collective place of belonging, where there is identity, love, support, and cultural heritage being taught and lived up to. The land is a means of survival.

Instructor’s Remarks: Connections to one’s home land is different for immigrants to Canada in that they prefer to leave their native land to be embraced by the new land. Therefore, their complex of their homeland is full of contradictions: while they are identified by their native land, and want to pass on their cultural heritage to their descendants on the new land, they also want to integrate themselves to the new land. Sandreka Kaczoroski’s “A Cry to My Countrymen” expresses her unforgettable connections with her homeland. (Dr. Ying Kong)