There are some songs that do more than entertain; they seem to echo across time, threading themselves through the veins of a people scattered far from home. When Mikey Spice sang “I Am… I Said”, he captured the paradox of the Jamaican abroad—caught between the familiarity of foreign streets and the lingering ache of a homeland carried deep inside. For every Jamaican who has ever gazed out of a window in London, New York, Toronto, or Los Angeles, the words strike a nerve: here is life, but it is not home.
This sense of displacement—of being lost between shores—shapes the way many in the diaspora dream of Jamaica. It is why, despite building lives in distant lands, the call to return manifests not only in family visits and cultural festivals but also in real estate. A house, a piece of land, a patch of soil in Jamaica is more than property; it is the anchor that moors us to identity.
Dean Jones, founder of Jamaica Homes and Realtor Associate at Coldwell Banker Jamaica Realty, has long sai…
