Miss Lou had the instinctive wisdom to relate
language to identity. As a people who have long since lost our identity, we
continue to search for it.
There is an interrelationship between language – the
words we use – and our identity. In that regard, Miss Lou helped us to remember
who we are. However, mental slavery is still with us. While we continue to deny
our own language, our way of expressing ourselves, there is no escaping the
fact that our language is part of our identity as Jamaicans.
Although a lot of our unique cultural DNA
disappeared during the Middle Passage, Miss Lou had the wisdom and the courage
to grasp what remained of that DNA and give voice to the voiceless. She did it
with such decisiveness that I have lived to see the day when Patwa, or Jamaican
Language as it is properly called, has taken its rightful place as an important
part of our identity.
That is Miss Lou’s legacy.
—Beverly Manley-Duncan