Chinese Jamaicans

Chinese Jamaicans
Total population
50,228 (2011 census)[1]
Regions with significant populations
Saint Andrew, Saint James, Westmoreland, Manchester, Kingston Parish, Trelawny, Saint Mary, Saint Thomas, Saint Catherine
Languages
Jamaican English, Jamaican Patois, Hakka; recent immigrants and businesspeople also speak Mandarin
Religion
Christianity (primarily Catholicism and Anglicanism) with some elements of Chinese folk religion,[2] Buddhism
Related ethnic groups
Hakka people, Ethnic Chinese in Panama, Jamaican Americans, Jamaican Canadians

Chinese Jamaicans are Jamaicans of Chinese ancestry, which include descendants of migrants from China to Jamaica. Early migrants came in the 19th century; there was another moment of migration in the 1980s and 1990s. Many of the descendants of early migrants have moved abroad, primarily to Canada and the United States.[3] Most Chinese Jamaicans are Hakka and many can trace their origin to the indentured Chinese laborers who came to Jamaica in the mid-19th to early 20th centuries.

According to one study, approximately 4% of Jamaican men have a direct Chinese paternal ancestor.[4]

  1. ^ "2011 Census of Population & Housing, Population by sex and Ethnic Origin by Parish (P. 72)". issuu.com. Retrieved 12 April 2020.
  2. ^ Shibata 2006
  3. ^ Hemlock, Doreen (17 April 2005), "Out of Many, One People: Chinese-Jamaicans Treasure Their Roots And Their Communities", Sun-Sentinel, retrieved 26 August 2010[dead link]
  4. ^ Simms, Tanya (2012). "Y-chromosomal diversity in Haiti and Jamaica: contrasting levels of sex-biased gene flow". American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 148 (4): 618–631. doi:10.1002/ajpa.22090. PMID 22576450.