Jamaican by Birth American by Choice: Third World Roots & Character Meet First World Opportunity & Contradiction

A poor boy of diverse heritage from the hills of rural Jamaica embarks on a journey through university in America, marriage, professional training in Italy and subsequent assignment as a manufacturing executive with a multi-national Fortune 500 American Corporation. He lives and works in the Caribbean, North America and Africa and accepts American citizenship without losing his Jamaican identity or compromising his commitment to his adopted country. He survives the murder of his father in a Jamaica on its way to becoming the murder capital of the world, confronts endemic bias in corporate America, witnesses a coup and endures cultural isolation and work permit woes in Kenya. He works through the early years of dramatic social and economic dislocation in Zimbabwe. Jamaican by Birth American by Choice explores interpersonal, institutional, and political relationships across the Caribbean, North America and Africa and examines the resurgence of brazen bigotry in post Obama America.

Owen Everard James is a graduate of the Mico Teachers’ College (now the Mico University) in Jamaica and an honors graduate of Howard University in the United States. Mr. James also holds a diploma in Production Management from the Institute for Advanced Technical and Vocational Training in Italy. He has been a teacher, civil servant, banker and restaurateur and worked for nearly thirty years as a manufacturing executive with a Fortune 500 American multi-national corporation. He has lived and worked in the Caribbean, Canada, the United States and East and Southern Africa. He is retired and resides in Florida.