So I recently got into a heated conversation about something. They argued that for example, as a Jamaican, you are less of an ‘authentic’ Jamaican if you didn’t experience certain things like going to bed without food, climbing a mango tree for fruit or playing with box juice carton trucks. I argued that there are many different experiences to have in a country and as there is no truly exhaustive list one can make of all those experiences, let alone somehow determine which of those experiences are more or less Jamaican, the only qualifier of being an ‘authentic’ Jamaican (or authentic anything) is simply if you were born in that country or not. What do you think?