From Harlem to China: how an African-American tracked down her Chinese grandfather
When Paula Williams Madison traced her family history, it took her from her home in New York to Jamaica, and on to southern China. Her documentary tells an amazing story of the Hakka diaspora in the early 20th century
When she was six years old, African-American Paula Williams Madison resolved to find her mother Nell’s family because she thought it would make her mum happy.
“I would meditate and look at the sun, asking it to take me to talk to my grandfather,” Madison recalls. “I’d say, ‘How come I can’t find you?’ and I felt him say, ‘Just look for me’.”
Sadly for Madison, her mother died in 2006, five years before she embarked on a journey that would take her from the New York district of Harlem to the southern Chinese province of Guangdong.
When they were children, Nell Vera Lowe had revealed to Madison and her older brothers, Elrick Jnr and Howard, that their maternal grandfather was a Chinese man who had spent time in Jamaica. His name was Samuel Lowe. Stringing together information Madison gleaned from her mother and further research, an intriguing and complex family tale emerged.
In 1905, Lowe travelled to the Caribbean island from China to labour on sugar plantations. Chinese workers usually went there on three-year contracts, but Lowe stayed on. He became a successful businessman, setting up several grocery shops and buying land on the island.
He also hooked up with a Jamaican woman, and Madison’s mother was born in 1918. But when Nell was three years old, her parents split up. Lowe had found another woman, Emma Allison, who bore him two more children: a girl, Adassa, and a boy, Gilbert.