Open Thread

BDSM, you used to live in Jamaica?

There is a strong Arabic and Jewish presence in the Carribbean. Most of the Jews are sephardic. In Jamaica we had a Syrian Priminister. A lot of the large business owners in Haiti are jewish or arab. When I was a child all the big department stores were owned by Jews, now they are owned by Chinese Jamaicians. If I remember my history correctly, the first mosques and synagague in the new world are in the west indies..

I have a friend from El Salvador who tells me that the poorer people on the coast came up started naming their kids with a new popular name at some point in the 20th century. They would look out on the ocean and see these amazing ships with something written on the side so they used it to name their kids.

The name: Usnavy. (pronounced oos-nahv-ee)

Buenos Aires is freaky because it is SO white. No Chinese. No blacks. This is freaky but there are not many indigenous people either (they were killed). There are no blacks because blacks were brought from Africa to work in sugar and tough agricultural labor and Argintina is a gaucho culture Grassy plains made it great for cattle and ranching. Farming too but wheat, soybeans, cotton and corn. Some sugar in the north, not much.