How did this coin mange to empower the women who wore it? Through class, race and culture, it broke barriers as it passed hands. As gold coinage, and currency that was not made easily accessible tot the general public, it was a coveted… thus remaining in the forefront of society, something easily noticeable, something which was displayed proudly by my great grandmother… But how did this change once my grandmother came to own it, it not only represented all these things she hated, class and race division, but the switch from currency to jewellery pushed it to the background as it was taken for granted, my grandmother wanted to relinquish those notions of superiority and distain… as a mixed race WOMAN she wanted to let go of the passed shame she had felt in Jamaica… the stigma of being non-white.
1. Why converted to jewellery? (My great grandma married an Indian man, so maybe she wanted to also reject the ideas of race and class…but she displayed them proudly… conflicted?)
2. What did it mean when my grandmother dismantled the necklaces? (How does that speak to her sentiments of what that object represented?)
3. How does the advent of racism and the Indian influx into Jamaica speak to the understanding of what that necklace represented to not only my family but within society as a whole?
4. How did the coin(s) play along, or against, the normative constructs of what:
a) Currency was used for
b) Jewellery represented
c) Display of class
d) Gender
e) Race
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