There comes a point when the concepts of nationality and ethnicity lose their meaning, becoming arbitrary and inadequate. It’s a point that more and more of us are reaching, in this post-(or at least trans-)national era. Take Andy Williams, born in England to Jamaican parents, resident in Canada. Trying to explain what he is, he is nonplussed: “I’m Anglo-Jamaican, I guess, eh? I guess I’m Afro-European. Is that right? Afro-Brit? I don’t know what to say… I’m a Canuck.”
He’s on much surer footing explaining what he likes. “I’ve always been a music lover, man,” he says, with no hesitation, no confusion; he’s a lifelong soccer enthusiast too. Would it not be simpler, then, if he could choose how he wants to define himself rather than having an ill-fitting nationality thrust upon him? Perhaps Andy would be most at home among the international brotherhood of football fans. Or, as a DJ, radio host, and record collector, maybe he would prefer to claim membership in the nation of jazz aficionados, that utopian non-state where residency is defined not by birthplace but by which records you own, where your flag is a poster of Trane, where the citizenship test is knowing when to applaud after a Jimmy Smith organ solo. Ah what a wonderful world that would be…
