According to census figures, in 1960 there were 8,511 residents in the Cayman Islands. That year, Cayman’s legislature passed several laws that would send the island country on a path to becoming an off-shore financial giant. Forty-eight years later, the Cayman Islands’ population was estimated at just over 57,000, an increase of about 570 per cent since 1960.

The vast majority of the population increase occurred as a result of immigration to the Islands, as people arrived to provide labour for Cayman’s rapidly developing economy. The large influx of expatriates brought with them their own cultures and, to a certain degree, the dilution of what was traditionally known as Caymanian culture.

Former Cabinet Minister Frank McField doesn’t begrudge the resulting cultural diversity in Cayman.

“I’ve already become culturally diversified myself because of my travels, my training and my experiences,” he say, acknowledging that he also married a German-born woman.

McField thinks traditional Cayman culture retains its potency because of nostalgic nuances, and really refers to the past. “Caymanian culture is almost like an ornamental culture that is put on a shelf. It is the ideal; it’s not corruptible; but it’s not something of the present or the future,” he says.

He sees modern Caymanian culture as a result of a globalised existence. “It’s not as clearly Caymanian and something that can be separated from something else,” he says.

“It’s shared culture now; a mishmash.”

However, McField believes there is still an accepted understanding of what it means to be Caymanian “if you look at culture as a way of life - the way you think, dance, sing, speak and pass on information. Sometimes you don’t have to see it; you feel it, you hear it,” he says. “Culture doesn’t have to have a practical application; it’s more spiritual.”

McField believes the arts are a good way of allowing Caymanians to connect with the emotional aspects of their culture and that education plays a key role in promoting culture. “It is important for the education system to have the cultural component, and not necessarily only the parochial component, but the cultural idea,” he says. 

Because of the pressures emitting from Cayman’s diverse population, McField believes it’s more important than ever for Caymanians to feel a sense of their culture.

“Perhaps there has been no other time in our history when we need this feeling of cultural identity as we do now. And it’s to bring people together.”

Despite the many cultures present in Cayman because of its diverse population, McField doesn’t believe there is true cultural diversity. “Diversity can only exist where there is freedom,” he says. “It is the result of freedom and has to do with integration, interaction and assimilation. It has to be more dynamic than what we have in the Cayman Islands.”



University College of the Cayman Islands President Roy Bodden, who is also a former Cabinet minister, believes true diversity must be accepted here if the country is going to grow and remain prosperous.

“Unless we find a way to amicably bridge the divide, we cannot remain strong,” he says, noting that all too often at 5pm every workday, the various cultures all go their separate ways.

“We have to be careful that we don’t become a society of Philistines where the only common thread is making money and counting money,” he says.

Bodden calls the divide between Caymanians and expatriates “a dismal failure of the politicians. No one has made any attempt to mend the bridge,” he says. “No one speaks of Cayman as a society made up of all these different nationalities.”

With the right leadership, Bodden believes the divide can still be bridged. “Are established Caymanians ready to embrace expatriates? The answer is a resounding ‘yes’.”

A key to social harmony is education and understanding that a change from segregating immigration policies is inevitable, Bodden says. “The sooner we come to grips with the fact that [Cayman’s immigration policy] is holding us back, the better off we’ll be,” he says. “The worst enemy we have is a culture of entitlement.”

Bodden says everyone came to the Cayman Islands as an immigrant. “Cayman is a totally imported population,” he says, adding that difference between people who call themselves Caymanian and recent immigrants is really only that they came earlier and became established.

In addition, he points out that Cayman has a Diaspora of its own, with many of its people emigrating to Honduras, Cuba, Nicaragua and the United States. “We went where they would take us,” he says. “I’m not saying we should take in everyone who wants to come here, because we can’t; but we shouldn’t forget.”

In the long run, Bodden believes the Cayman Islands needs to contrive an immigration model similar to the ‘melting pot’ of the US or the ‘mosaic’ of Canada. He says citizenship should be a privilege bestowed, and not something that can be bought. He believes new citizens must be Caymanian first, just as new US citizens must be Americans first.

Although he also believes there is still such a thing as Caymanian culture, Bodden says immigration only adds to the culture.  “Expatriates make the culture more dynamic. Culture doesn’t remain static; it feeds off exposure to other elements.” 

Bodden says that to him, being Caymanian encompasses history, culture, ethnicity and dialect. “It means that I’ve come from a place, which although it has in common many features with many places, it has features that make it unique. It’s a place that holds a special feeling of belonging to me, but not to the point that I believe that feeling is exclusive to me and the people with me.”

Many expatriates have indeed come to have similar feelings about Cayman, even if they weren’t born here.

Jamaica-born Robert Hamaty came to Cayman in 1978 as a pilot and has never left.  In the 32 years he has been here, he carved out a life in Cayman Islands. He flew for Cayman Airways for many years, but now spends his days as the owner and president of Tortuga Rum Company, a company he formed with his Caymanian wife Carlene.  He has come to love the Cayman Islands.

“Jamaica is the land of my birth, but Cayman is my home and I love them both,” he says. “Is that so unusual?”

During the 16 years Hamaty spent as the honorary Jamaican consul here in the Cayman Islands, he was well aware of the animosities held by some Caymanians toward Jamaicans, but he says it’s not a new phenomenon. “It goes deep down in Cayman,” he says, noting that even back in the days before Jamaican independence in 1962 there were some anti-Jamaican sentiments here.

Although Hamaty understands that Cayman is a small place and that some Caymanians might feel threatened by the influx of a large number of Jamaicans, he believes the two nationalities share many things in common. “I think it’s a love-hate relationship,” he says.

Hamaty points out the importance of Jamaicans in raising thousands of children here. “A lot of Caymanians have trusted their children with Jamaican domestics,” he says, noting that the common English-speaking Caribbean dialect is one of the main things that makes Jamaicans the nannies of choice here.

Hamaty says many Caymanians have ancestry in Jamaica, and that a lot of the most prevalent Caymanian names came from Westmoreland Parish, of which the Cayman Islands were part at one time.  He also notes that nearly every Caymanian has a Jamaican family link somewhere, either by blood or marriage.  However, he acknowledges that Jamaicans, especially those from the cities, have more aggressive, extroverted personalities than many Caymanians, something he thinks is a source of animosity.

Looking toward the future, Hamaty sees an evolving Cayman society. “The next generation of Caymanians is going to be very mixed and look a lot different than today’s generation,” he says, referring to the many children of marriages between Caymanians and expatriates from far and wide. He notes that Grand Cayman is growing into a multicultural society similar to South Florida. “Some Caymanians say their culture is being overrun, but in truth and fact, the youth that are rising are the culture.”

Another long-time resident, England-born Peter Milburn, came to the Cayman Islands in 1965 as a 19-year-old bank employee.  He began working for Bob Soto’s Diving in 1969 and then, after getting Caymanian Status in 1975, branched out on his own in 1978, making him one of the longest-operating dive organisations in Cayman.

Having arrived in a much more innocent time, when Cayman’s population was between 9,000 and 10,000 people, Milburn says the society got along much better back in those days.

“I saw very few incidents of anti-expat feelings,” he says. “I saw hardly any at all.”

Part of the reason he believes had to do with more integration. “In those days, everyone knew everyone else,” he says. “The difference back in those days is that everyone had time for everybody else. These days, no one has time for anybody, not even their families. It’s a much more hectic way of life.”

Milburn says he became friends with many Caymanians, friendships he maintains until this day. He married not one, but two Caymanian women. “But not both at the same time, of course,” he says with a laugh.

Milburn says he was accepted into the Cayman society fairly quickly, and he speculates that his adopting a Caymanian accent and other culture mores helped. “I believe when you move to someone else’s country, you need to do as the Romans do,” he says. “To this day, I think if you asked people, most would think I was born Caymanian.”

Caymanians can sometimes be critical of outspoken expatriates, but Milburn says he has been expressing his opinions in public - particularly on environmental issues - since the early 1970s and that he’s heard little complaint about it. “I’ve always tried to fight for what I think is right for the country, especially for the environment,” he says.

“I care about the country. I love the Island.”

Milburn is of the belief that not only should immigrants try to assimilate into the society; they should contribute in a meaningful way, and not just monetarily.

Besides his environmental activism, Milburn was also a member of the Rotary Club at one time and he was one of the founding members of the Cayman Islands Sailing Club. He was also an active participant in football and cricket here.

Because of his sailing prowess, Milburn, along with Gerry Kirkconnell and Carson Ebanks, became the first people to represent the Cayman Islands in the Olympics when they participated in the 1976 Summer Games in Montreal.

Milburn assimilated into Cayman society, but he notes that many expatriates who come to Cayman now do not. “Everyone is in their own little cliques these days and there seems to be a shift toward a lack of integration,” he says, “I’m not sure why that is.”

He thinks the failure of expatriates to make attempts to assimilate is a source of animosity. “Some Caymanians find that kind of snobbish,” he says.

Milburn believes the rollover policy has led to some expatriates “going through the motions while being here, doing their stint, making their money and leaving”.

As for the friction between Caymanians and expatriates, Milburn thinks it worsened with the advent of political parties in 2001.

“I think you could probably put a mark next to when that happened and when the divide really started,” he says. “Once we started political parties, that divided Cayman’s population pretty much, and that spilled over to expatriates, who were caught in the middle of this political situation.”