Louise Bennett-Covelly, a Jamaican icon, is an ebullient performer, folklorist, playwright and poet. She has spent her life furthering Jamaican language, raising the patois dialect to an art level. This short portrait of “Miss Lou”goes back and forth between her later years in Canada and her early days in Jamaica, then a British colony.

With a wink, she tosses off the cultural condescension experienced by Jamaicans from their colonizers. What makes the English language superior to the language of her native island, she asks. Singing and a shrugging her shoulders, she asserts the vitality and relevance of Jamaican culture before a Caribbean audience in Canada, whose hearts she has clearly touched. Her words in patois may not always be clear to an English-speaking audience, but her meaning is. Clips of her televised interviews show she has admirers in both white and black cultures. We hear from Prof. Errol Hill, University College of West Indies, on her significant contribution to Jamaican culture.

For Jamaica, Louise Bennett-Coverly, better known as ‘Miss Lou,’ is one of most influential and fondly remembered living national treasures.
Anthropological Review Database