Jamaican Ethiopians comprise

Jamaica Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At , it is the third-largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, west of Hispaniola (the is ...

n emigrants and expatriates residing in

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

Migration history

The settlement in Shashamane traces its roots to the 1948 Shashamane Land Grant by Emperor

Haile Selassie I Haile Selassie I (born Tafari Makonnen or ''Ethiopian aristocratic and court titles#Lij, Lij'' Tafari; 23 July 189227 August 1975) was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. He rose to power as the Ethiopian aristocratic and court titles, Rege ...

to members of the Ethiopian World Federation in gratitude for their defence of Ethiopia during the

Second Italo-Ethiopian War The Second Italo-Ethiopian War, also referred to as the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, was a war of aggression waged by Fascist Italy, Italy against Ethiopian Empire, Ethiopia, which lasted from October 1935 to February 1937. In Ethiopia it is oft ...

. Most of the initial settlers who took advantage of this offer were

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

, but Jamaicans began coming in the 1960s. They quickly came to form a notable presence in the Shashamane settlement, earning it the nickname "Little Jamaica". By 2001, roughly 200 families of Rastafarians lived at Shashamane. However, a 2011 fact-finding mission by Steven Golding of the Universal Negro Improvement Association's

Kingston Kingston may refer to: Places * List of places called Kingston, including the six most populated: ** Kingston, Jamaica ** Kingston upon Hull, England ** City of Kingston, Victoria, Australia ** Kingston, Ontario, Canada ** Kingston upon Thames, ...

branch discovered that there has been ongoing confusion over land title among later migrants, particularly because Ethiopian policy no longer permits the alienation of land to foreign citizens. Furthermore, as Ethiopian nationality law does not incorporate the concept of ''

jus soli ''Jus soli'' ( or , ), meaning 'right of soil', is the right of anyone born in the territory of a state to nationality or citizenship. ''Jus soli'' was part of the English common law, in contrast to ''jus sanguinis'' ('right of blood') ass ...

'', the children of Jamaicans living in Ethiopia are not citizens of the country and cannot access certain public services reserved for citizens. The Jamaican diaspora in Ethiopia have pressed the Jamaican government to establish an embassy in

Addis Ababa Addis Ababa (; ,) is the capital city of Ethiopia, as well as the regional state of Oromia. With an estimated population of 2,739,551 inhabitants as of the 2007 census, it is the largest city in the country and the List of cities in Africa b ...

in order to represent their concerns more effectively to the Ethiopian government; as of 2010, Jamaica was represented in Ethiopia solely by an honorary consul. In 2017, the Rastafarian community were granted identification cards and resident status by the government, although officials were quick to stress that this action did not amount to granting them citizenship.

Migration history

See also

References

Further reading