Plantains represent my cultural identity because they are a food that Jamaicans always eat, especially in the morning with an egg, a slice of hard dough bread,&tea. This is important to me because even though my grandparents& parents left Jamaica, our culture stayed with them &they passed it down to the next generations. Plantains are easy to make, which got me into cooking. Because plantains are so easy to cook, the recipes remain the same as they are passed down through the generations. My family history has a long connection with plantains. When my grandmother was a child, she lived in Spanishtown with her seven siblings. At this time they were very poor because my great-grandmother was a single mother who worked as a seamstress. Because they were living in such poverty, my grandmother had to take up a job to help support the family when she was 14. Every morning she ate plantains&an egg to prepare for a long day at school&work, because plantains could be purchased in bundles at a low cost. After my dad was born, he ate plantains every morning as well,&they became his favorite food. When he came to the US at age 8, he continued to eat plantains even though he was no longer in Jamaica. This is a tradition he shared with me, because as a child I had plantains every Saturday morning. My mom loved plantains as a child as well. As a teenager she ate plantains everyday after school. At the age of twenty, my mom moved to NY to pursue Law. In NY she was tight on money, so she used to eat plantains frequently, frying and boiling them every weekend. 

– M.E

Relationship:  Im/migrant Im/migrant