Tamu McPherson:

Hi, Jacquie. Thank you for coming to Tamu's Cafe.

Jacqueline Greaves:

Thank you. I'm so happy to have this invitation.

Tamu McPherson:

I love our time shared across the world, and now we're finally seeing each other in New York. We knew it would happen though. We always said it would happen, and it's nice that we got to make this obscene dessert together.

Jacqueline Greaves:

I'm glad you like it. Oh my gosh.

Tamu McPherson:

I want to start by talking about your background, because what I've experienced personally as a Jamaican living abroad and having lived in multiple countries, is that people don't really know that we're a multicultural country and we have a lot of ethnicities impacting and influencing our national culture. Tell us about your background.

Jacqueline Greaves:

My background is pretty big. I've never done a DNA test, the testing for your family, because I already know we obviously, Africa is number one, and then there's Scottish-Irish. My mother's mother, she was half Chinese and half white, but she was German, English Jamaican. And she met my great-grandfather off the boat. She was a missionary, and 14 children later, there's me, you know, and the next generation.

I found out yesterday from my mom, just in a conversation, she brought up the fact that my family on my father's side, the Greaves actually, some of the Greaves came from Barbados. So maybe I'm, I also have Barbadian heritage. I'm constantly finding out things about my family, but the main ones basically are African, Chinese… I assume Ghana, Nigeria, something like that. West Coast.  And then Chinese, German, English, Scottish-Irish, and then somehow I've heard also that there is Sephardic Jewish. I don't know. But I don't care, I grew up in a very multicultural family. My Chinese relatives were really, really important. So I, I'm used to being always in a very mixed environment. And of course, I went and married an Italian, so, there you go.

Tamu McPherson:

Can you share some of the traditions that your family observed that you basically exported with you into the world after you left Jamaica. What are, what are some of the traditions that you hold nearest to your heart?

Jacqueline Greaves:

It’s something very much also a part of the Italian world. I just like the whole idea of family, about the table, about meeting around the table, talking multi-generations around the table, and just sharing our stories. I like that my family are all big talkers. And I loved hearing the stories. And I loved my great uncles sitting there and, and my grandparents, my parents, my uncles, my aunts, and just listening to the stories. And when I went to Italy, that's what I found. That's what made me feel so comfortable in Italy, was my husband's family had that same sort of vibe, you know? And I also like taking my food with me. As a matter of fact, it became even more important to me to eat Jamaican food when I moved to Italy, and going back and forth to Italy now, I think that food becomes a really important part of you. Because that's how you share who you are. That's how you share your culture, your traditions, because that's all you have left. Your memories, your memories of your family, and food is one of the major ways in which you can share. And it's important to share your story.

Tamu McPherson:

Absolutely. One of our early guests, Sophia Li, she said that food is the ultimate love language. And it absolutely is. Another thing that I love, that we've spoken about, is the kitchen conversation. And how important the kitchen conversation is in preparing us for life.

Jacqueline Greaves:

I think one of the things that the generations, the younger generations today are missing are those kitchen conversations. The last 30 years, things have changed so much. Before, it was natural. You would never move. You would stay in the same country. You would stay in the same town, the same city, whatever. And so the families would get together. There was much more of an idea of the grandmother, the great-grandmother, even sometimes would have a lot to say about how children were raised. And so children would sit around in the kitchen as the food was prepared, and they would hear conversations. So you'd learn the stories about your family, you would learn the names, the last names where, where the roots are, where your roots were. And now that's kind of missing. So, you know, I try very hard with my own children to talk about it, but it's hard to do that because we're, you know, I've got one living in Milan and I have another one living in Manhattan with us. And then another one lives in Brooklyn. And you'd be surprised, the one in Brooklyn is the one that I see the least of.

And so it's hard to share those stories. So now I'm sending like Instagram stories. I follow a lot of Caribbean programs, and I send them these posts because I want them to learn things that they won't learn because they don't have that opportunity to be in our country to learn the things I didn't even know, because I left Jamaica when I was 10. So, you're constantly shifting because you are a double immigrant. You're an immigrant in the United States, and then you're immigrant living in Italy. You're constantly trying to balance that. We live in New York now, but we have all these different cultures in our lives, because now we have Italy as well. And I'm sure you have the same issue, trying to balance all these cultures, and giving your child everything because your child needs to know everything.

Tamu McPherson:

I do think that our children are comfortable with their third identity. Because, my son, even though I grew up in the United States, he really considers himself Italian and Jamaican. And that was surprising to me because, it's clear that I lived here for 23 years, and I moved here when I was six. The thing I love about the United States, even though it's such a complex place with just a such a complicated history, is that I feel one hundred percent Jamaican in America. But I'm also very American.

But he always tells people, well, in fact I'm half Jamaican and I'm half Italian. And he can explain to you that he identifies with being Italian, but he'll tell you why. He's like, I was born in this country, I live in this country, and this is what I see and hear around me. And it’s as simple as that, you know. And I feel like if we went to a new country, he could just find himself within a space that was just practical and pragmatic. I don't know if your children are the same way.

Jacqueline Greaves:

My daughter who lives in Milan, she's very much about meeting people from all over the world. Her friends are from all over the world. She loves that aspect of her life–being international, being multicultural, multiethnic. That's really, important to her. My other two children, one is in her own world, she's a writer, so she doesn't really need all that other part. But she really is drawn to Jamaica. She wants to work on the storytelling in Jamaica. That's really important to her. My son, on the other hand, he's the one who really speaks perfect Italian. He studied Italian, he reads and writes very well in Italian. And so, in some ways, he is very Italian. I think he's the most Italian, even though he's the one who spent less time in Italy. He has sort of these ways about him. I always called him the 19th century southern Italian gentleman. That's the way he behaves. But he I think he considers himself American, but he's very strongly pulled also to Jamaica. I think he's very happy to be Jamaican. But he's now he's thinking about moving to New Orleans. I think that's where he feels like the rhythm of life as an American. That's where he feels the most comfortable.

Tamu McPherson:

So, they're all really open minded. This is the other thing that I think is so important for us to always remember and emphasize with people that we meet along the way. You know, BIPOC people are not a monolith here. You have three children who are multicultural, multiethnic, all along the spectrum of how they identify themselves. And they embrace their cultures. But I think how they live them, even though they came from the same household, is something to look at. Same mother, same father, same household, always the same influences, always the same aunties always the same guy. Because I know that your family is a really tight-knit group. Your international family, your local family. I know that people have been in your lives for a really long, long time.

When you moved to the U.S., what was your impression about the culture here? About the relationship between African Americans and BIPOC immigrants? What were your first impressions?

Jacqueline Greaves:

I have to say that I was very shocked.  Coming from a multicultural, multiethnic family in Jamaica, for me, it was when I kind of realized I was Black, you know. I mean, I didn't think about race per se. I was a child, number one. But I was used to being with people of different colors and different ethnic backgrounds. I didn't think about it. And then coming here and being told by other kids in school that you must choose. You must choose: are you Black or are you going to be mixing with other people? And I thought, why wouldn't I mix with other people? I decided I would mix with other people. I was not going to reject what I was used to because you think that I should do this. I'm very independent that way. I will do what I want to do. And so I decided that I preferred being in a very mixed ethnic and cultural group. Rather than being in one group. I did not want to be African American per se.

I'm Jamaican. I love my culture. I love my country. I want to be Jamaican. I live in America. I'm happy to live in America, but I'm Jamaican. And I'm very proud to be Jamaican. I'm going to die Jamaican.

Tamu McPherson:

I had a similar experience coming from the prep school that I came from in Jamaica when I arrived in the United States. When I arrived, it was in a period that we had not acquired the social credibility that we acquired after the 80s and the 90s. When I came, it was rough for me, because I had an exotic name–even though my last name is Scottish, because my grandfather was Scottish. But my first and my middle names, they're African and Middle Eastern. Because my middle name is middle Eastern. And my name is Tamu, so it's similar to Shamu.

And in my generation, Shamu was well known, and they were like, your brother is the killer whale. Tamu-Shamu. It was devastating for me. I'm a summer baby, so I was a year ahead, because our system (in Jamaica) is a year ahead. And I don't think that six-year-olds should have to ever think… I can't change my name because I didn't know that you could change your name at six years old. So, I was like, I can't change my name, but what I can do is I can lose my accent. And in the shortest period–like within a year–I had an American accent.

I was like, I, these kids are not going to make fun of me because I'm a West Indian person, and I need to fit in. Because I was immature. I just arrived. I had no older siblings. In fact, I came to depend on the friends that I met who had older siblings, to kind of shield me.

But that, that was my experience when I came. And of course, I had this very open view of who I was supposed to be and spend time with. But I had to identify a survival mechanism to survive elementary school without being like bullied or othered. Within a community of BIPOC people.

Jacqueline Greaves:

I was not in a BIPOC situation. I was going to schools where it was mainly Jewish. But then you had the advanced classes and the non-advanced classes. And I was lucky because I was put in advanced classes. Which made it hard because then there would only be one or two BIPOC people in those classes. And I could never understand that, because that wasn't the situation in Jamaica. So it was really hard.

In the lunchroom where there was the question of where do you sit? And I was like, well, I'm obviously going to sit with my friends from my class. One situation that I did have, my best friend was Chinese and I felt so bad for her, and I still to this day. She lived near the school and she took me home for lunch. And it was really sad, because she didn't think about it because we didn't think about it. Neither one of us thought about it and her parents like, no, no, no. She can't come in the house. Oh, wow. And for both of us, that was the first kind of like real situation of–

Tamu McPherson:

–An eyeopener–

Jacqueline Greaves:

Yes. She was so happy because she knew that my great-grandfather was Chinese. So she was teaching me Chinese and we would spend time at lunch working on Chinese. She was so proud to introduce me to her parents. But this all comeds back to that whole idea of what happens in America, you know, with the different groups, and everyone trying to protect themselves. And immigrant parents who don't really know what the situation is. Because yes, they're reading in the newspaper: ‘Black people are this way”. They don’t know. I'm sure there were lovely people because she was a lovely person.

Tamu McPherson:

It doesn't help when the culture is demonizing one group when you come. Because everyone is basically trying to fit in to assimilate and be that good citizen.

But recent generations, maybe they lost the tradition of sitting at a table and knowing that the conversation at the time and the time spent at the table should be a time of bonding, should be a time of respect, should be a time of learning about all of our family. But in the U.S., the prejudices, the biases, the othering, you're right. The lunchroom is where it happened. And it was a sophisticated level, because the children who were on subsidized lunches: othered. The popular kids over there.

Jacqueline Greaves:

We were divided by the advanced class and the regular classes. So already it was like, oh, you're one of the smart ones. There was a systematic division, in every sense of the word.

Tamu McPherson:

Then you arrive in Italy later in life. How did this like formation, this foundation in understanding cultures here in United States, impact the way that you settled there and the things that you saw and any of the experiences that you may have had with bias, and with ignorance particularly?

Jacqueline Greaves:

Well, first, I went to Spain. This was my college years and my first graduate school, and what I learned in Spain was the fact that it wasn't me personally. I learned that they had just been opening to democracy basically. They'd had the whole closure of the government under Franco. He had just been dead, I think three or four years. And they did not know about foreign women. So there I was with all of my friends, all these American girls, and we're walking on the street. And one of the things I realized was that I was okay to them, because they thought I was Cuban.

But if I was walking with a white American girl, especially blonde, the women–especially the women–would cross the street and do the sign of the cross. And I thought, oh, okay. So I kind of realized that me being Jamaican, dressing more conservative, I wore very little makeup, all of that for the Spanish women, I was okay. And they would put me in your Cuban, so it's okay, you speak Spanish or you're Cuban, and they could deal with my color and all that. But the other women who were not Black, they just saw them as like she-devils, you know? To me that was kind of an eyeopener. So when I finally got to Italy, what I realized was that if I dress a certain way, I behave a certain way–which was the way I was taught, which is the way I was raised–I was acceptable.

I don't know if your son has this issue, but being Black in Italy, in Europe in general, I think that when you dress a certain way, more conservatively or more in fashion or whatever you want, you're more acceptable. Which is not necessarily the truth here. You could be dressed a certain way, and I still remember so many times–I've never had that happen in Italy–where I walk into a store and people look at me like, what are you doing here? I've had that happen so many times here, even now. Where I go into a store and the security guard is following me around. That's never happened there. I remember going to Gucci or Tiffany or something like that in Italy, no one's ever like, oh, she's here to steal.

I'm not saying that that doesn't happen. I'm talking about my experience. I've been very lucky. Perhaps it's the way I hold myself, I don't know. But I think that it's very important to feel, to have a certain security about yourself and to be proud of who you are. And not to necessarily rock the boat. I think a lot of times we're always trying to rock the boat. We're always trying to rebel against the system. And I don't think you need to rebel against the system. I think it has to be slow. Slow changes. Go for the slow changes rather than doing something that's going to shock them.

I don't think that's necessarily what my role is at any rate. I think my role is to go in there and say, here I am. I'm a Black person. I'm a Caribbean person. I'm a Black person from New York, from America, and this is what you get. You don't like it, you don't have to like me. I don't have to like you, but this is me. You can't shut the door on me because I'm not going to let you shut the door on me. And you need to respect my space and I will respect the space you occupy.

Tamu McPherson:

This is very important because intergenerationally, our generation, my generation, and your generation, we get criticized often by the younger generation, because this is more of our approach. You mentioned something important when we were in Milan last, you were talking about how inspired you are by the female entrepreneurs that you are meeting in Jamaica, or whose stories are coming across your radar.

They have a new approach; they are doing incredible things on the island that you felt that we didn't do. And I pointed out to you that you did them, you opened those doors in the way in your style and in your generation’s style. So your contribution was really important to getting them to where they are and for them to operate in the way that they're operating now.

Jacqueline Greaves:

I mean I agree with you. I just see that there's so much confidence, which I don't necessarily see with young women of color here in the United States. I'm seeing these young women and they're just so confident, but confident enough to talk about their vulnerabilities at the same time. They're vulnerable and they know they're vulnerable and they're willing to talk about it. They're willing to talk about the negative things, which says something new to Jamaica. Mm-Hmm. You hear these stories, you're like, wait a minute, that would never be talked about. Those would not be the kitchen stories. Those would be behind closed doors. And the older women would be talking about it. And maybe if you could sneak to the window and the window was slightly open, you could listen.

But they're talking about it openly. They're talking about it together. They're sharing their stories. And I think, wow, I don't really have that here. Even at my age, I don't have that really. I have all of my friends and I talk to certain friends about certain things and I talk to certain other friends about other things. But there's always that little piece that I don't give you, I don't give you, I don't give you, everybody gets their piece, but it's not the same. And I think that's the defense mechanism that I have.

Tamu McPherson:

That to a certain extent, we all do.

Jacqueline Greaves:

But I see these women just coming out with their stories about how they began, what they went through, what they have to do about helping young women to come up in the world. Now that it's their turn to help young women. I thought, wow, I wish I'd had that when I was young. We didn't have that. Not even our own mothers, you know. And I think about a lot of things that I wanted to do, you know… The fact that I cook! I never knew that I could be a cook, that I could be a chef. It would never have even dawned in my mind, because as an immigrant daughter, you're not supposed to be thinking about that. You're supposed to be thinking about becoming a lawyer, a doctor, a business woman, whatever. The idea of cooking, the creative arts. I mean, I studied opera for years and it was like, oh yes, well you will sing in church on Sunday. And I'm like, but I'm studying opera. There was nothing you could do to have a career as a creative person.

Tamu McPherson:

Mine was, now I'm going to get a PhD in literature. My mom was like, here's the law school applications. Fill it out.

Jacqueline Greaves:

We didn't have those choices as immigrant women. You had to like prove yourself. Actually there’s a book that I want to get a that that just came out in England by this man, Colin Grant. think the title is I Am Black, So You Don't Have To Be. He was going to medical school and he dropped out because he wanted to be a writer. And I'm just dying to get the book as soon as it's published here in in America, because I need to know his story because, in a sense, that's my story. Even though I'm in America. Because we, as children of immigrants, had to succeed. Yes. The idea that you could have a restaurant or you could open a store, you could decide to be a painter. You could decide to, I don't know, be a landscape artist would not have dawned on our families.

Tamu McPherson:

No, absolutely not. And we respected in an odd way, we respected business owners. And our parents collected art. But we couldn't partake in any of those things. They were a luxury that we could not partake in. We had to go to school and become professionals. Because who leaves their beautiful home to go to another country if it's not for specific opportunities. And so while they were doing the absolute best they could, I think it was up to our generation to kind of start dismantling that framework for our parents and show that we could do other things and also sustain ourselves. Because that was the other thing. I can't pay your bills!

Jacqueline Greaves:

I think that's one of the things that I did with my children was that you can do whatever you want to do as long as you're happy and you don't hurt anybody else. You can do whatever you want to do. And I love what my children are doing and, and I think that that's important to create the sense of security for them, that they can do what they want to do, but nothing's going to stop them. We didn't have that. We always had those walls that we had to push back. You know, there was a constant wall push. And then, but you would also create your own walls. There were the actual walls and then there were the ones that you created in your mind that you had to push back.

And so even today, I feel like now finally I'm like doing things and I'm like having fun and actually experimenting and already I was different, in my family. I mean, I was the first one in my family to say, oh, I'm going to go to school in Spain. That was like, what are you doing? And my mother let me do that, you know, which is so strange. And I'm sure my mom got a lot of criticism from her family because she did that. But I was allowed to go to Spain. That was huge. Yeah. And now, you know, it's like my nieces and nephews are now all going off to study in Vancouver, in Glasgow, or whatever they're doing. And I’m thinking, wow, you know, it was me. I was the first one.

Tamu McPherson:

But if you have a strong desire within you to shine creatively, to shine in a way that is unconventional to your family background, it will come out. And I think that we are wired to find the opportunities, and to exploit them. Because you're here, you prefer the idea of being a cook just because of what it entails and how you can express yourself.

So the universe will find a way to guide our path. And we will find a way to embrace a passion that fulfills us and makes us feel whole, and you found your passion in Italy, when you started cooking for and entertaining your friends at your home…. up to a hundred people.

Jacqueline Greaves:

I've done, in my apartment in New York, up to 120. I enjoy doing it. I enjoy feeding people. As you said, food is love on the table. I think the table is important. I think food allows us to relax. It allows us to share. And, and when people are, are eating, they, they're much more likely to open up conversations that they normally wouldn't before.

Tamu McPherson:

You, how did you find this part of your life?

Jacqueline Greaves:

Because we couldn't afford to take people out to restaurants.

Tamu McPherson:

And these are people that you entertained for work.

Jacqueline Greaves:

Yes, and you know, we couldn't afford to do like the typical Italian thing: huge table a restaurant.  So it just became this thing where we would invite people on Sunday afternoon and for lunch. And it just grew and grew and grew. And then we started having parties. And at one point before COVID, we were throwing three to four parties a year. Huge parties. Anywhere from 60 to a hundred people. I do mainly Italian, but as the years have gone by, more and more Jamaican comes into it. Some Chinese, some Spanish. It's very international. Although the base is really Italian in some sense. But I just I love it. I think it's really great. It's also a way of sharing. I think young people need to know it's great to cook.

It's something that we can give. It's free. It's like giving your child a language. Cooking is a language. It's a way of sharing another culture. It's something that creates conversation. And I think the table, whether it's a buffet table or you were seated at the table, I think it's important to share. We need to show people that it's important to share. I find it's really great with young people.

When my children were in high school, I would always say to them, you're going out dancing, you're going out, whatever. I don't want to know what you're doing when you're not with me, but you're going to eat. And all of their friends would come over and I would set the table. They would sit–I wouldn't sit with them, but the table would be set. And they all knew they came to eat. It would be a three-course meal, and they were expected to eat, and they would not be allowed to go out unless they ate, because I needed to make sure that they had enough food in their bodies so that they could do whatever they were doing outside. You know, sustenance, sustenance. It was really important.

All these young people, they love eating. I remember the first few times I would come and I would put this huge spread, and I would even put potato chips or grapes, strawberries, whatever. Because I thought, okay, if they don't eat real food, at least they'd have that, and they eat. And then I just told them, my children, no, no, no. Your friends have to eat. You tell them they have to eat. Otherwise, they can't come anymore. Because to me, I'm giving them something. I'm nourishing them. I don't know what their parents do, but for me, food is important.

Tamu McPherson:

We’ve spoken before about spoke about the preconceived notions that people can have about you when they meet you. And here we are, you are expanding in the culinary circles. You're expanding because of your experience in Italy, because you’re learning your style or, you know, refining your style. The style of your kitchen in Italy. But you come into circles in an industry where food is the love language, where food is the thing that we're sharing. Where in our world, in our bubble, admittedly there is abundance. But that is not the behavior of some of the individuals who are, who are influential in the industries. Yes. And how has that surprised you?

Jacqueline Greaves:

I really have come to admire cooking at home. I really prefer that. I prefer restaurants where the family is involved, where there is the husband in the kitchen, or the wife in the kitchen, the mother in the kitchen, the aunt in the kitchen. I feel that restaurants where there is a family tradition, they're so much better. I just feel because you need that love. When you go to these top restaurants, yes, the food is great and it's wonderful and the service is magnificent. And, you know, all of that is magnificent. But that little pinch of love, which comes from someone in the kitchen who has a long family tradition of cooking, that's such a better ingredient than salt and pepper at the end of the day. And I've had Michelin chefs cook for me here in New York, coming from Italy.

And I keep saying to them, so do you realize that everything's different? The water's different, the ingredients are different. You can't make that same thing that you make in Italy. You need to know that. And they're like, no, no, no. We follow the recipe. I'm like, you can't follow the recipe because even the coffee tastes different. You can bring back your can of coffee from Italy, but if you are using New York City water, it's not going to taste the same. You go between here and Naples, the coffee doesn't taste the same. When you cook your pasta, the water's different. You have to know, you have to calculate. You have to think. And home cooks, those grandmothers, those mothers, those aunties, they want to make sure that you eat properly, that you are happy. That when you get up from the table, you are fulfilled, you are satisfied, you have the energy, the strength, to be creative, to do whatever it is you want to do.

There's a lot of love. And they can just look at what they're doing and make it. They don't need a recipe. They don't need to think about it. It's just natural to them. And I think that that's an ingredient that a lot of the restaurants have forgotten about. A lot of the chefs have forgotten about a lot of the critics. A lot of the critics have forgotten about this. A lot of the authors, we need to bring love back into our lives in every aspect. And I think that food is one of those because we need it. A lot of us eat because we love to eat, and a lot of us eat because we can eat. But food is essential. Food is our culture. Food is our tradition, and we need to share it. Food is very important because our roots, especially immigrants, the only root we have to our culture is our food. So, you know, the way your great-grandmother cooked it, you may never cook it like that. It'll never taste the way she did it. But you just try that trying connects you to your past and that gives you your future.