THANKS to Christopher Daley and Karelle Samuda, my wife and I were fortunate enough to be invited to a number of events in Washington, DC last week, mainly a CEO breakfast at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and a briefing session at the White House that covered Caribbean/American issues.

The events formed part of National Caribbean Legislative Week, an initiative of the Institute of Caribbean Studies (ICS), a community-based think tank established to advance the interests of Caribbean/ Americans and led by Dr Claire Nelson. ICS is also the campaign architect for the commemoration of June as National Caribbean/American Heritage Month in the USA.

It is people like Dr Nelson who prove that not everyone in the diaspora is all talk. In partnership with the Caribbean Intellectual Property Association (CIPA), a staff network at the USPTO, the CEO breakfast was an excellent set of sessions that provided critical information on protecting our brands in the Caribbean and brands created by Caribbean people in the USA. In-depth information about trademarks, patents, copyright as well how to register, what can be registered, what cannot be registered and the varying laws around the world is very important.

They even brought up Trinidad’s Cacao plant that they have pushing to be protected to avoid the Starbucks/Ethiopia problem that popped up a few years ago when Starbucks attempted to trademark the name of a famous coffeegrowing region in Ethiopia and the Ethiopian Government was trying to trademark it as well.

As an aside, it was surprising that one of the Jamaican members of CIPA — the uncle of a classmate of mine from high school — recognised me from this column. We never know the connections or impact we have until we travel somewhere and talk about our background. Jamaicans are everywhere, so each of us should leverage that.

The USPTO event also had a special guest to honour, Dr Henry Lowe, who has been in the news for his discovery of an active compound in ball moss that so far has proven an ability to attack six kinds of cancerous tumours. Dr Lowe was honoured because he received a patent on his discovery last year, a Jamaican making us proud.

The White House briefing was next, and we had the honour of interacting with Don Graves Jr, the deputy assistant secretary in the US Department of the Treasury; the executive director of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, the USAID’s Russell Porter; director of the Haiti Taskforce Team, Dr Garth Graham; a Jamaican who is deputy assistant secretary in the Office of Minority Health in the US Department of Health and Human Services, Russlynn Ali; the assistant secretary for Civil Rights in the US Department of Education; and Felicia Escobar, senior policy advisor on the Domestic Policy Council in the White House.

The event was mainly moderated by Michael Blake, the associate director for African/American and Minority Business Outreach in the White House Office of Public Engagement and the proud son of a Jamaican from Papine. He is another shining example of the achievement of Jamaicans in the diaspora who help to project a positive image of the country and fly the flag high.

Approximately 50 of us were invited to the briefing. Not only were we better informed about issues affecting Caribbean people in the USA, but also about some issues which impact the Caribbean directly. We also had a chance to ask questions and make suggestions, especially where the issue of deportees was concerned, learning about new initiatives being undertaken by the Obama Administration to reform a number of things.

They recently added more subject areas to the OPT programme — a programme where foreign students who graduate from a college in the USA can apply to work in the US for 12 months and gain valuable experience, in some cases being able to apply for extensions of up to 19 months. This work experience can only benefit the Caribbean when these students return.

Immigration reform that has been in the works but stalled by Congress was discussed, and we were asked to help mobilise people to help get legislation passed. This is the power of a diaspora, the ability to lobby the government of the country they now live in for or against policies that affect their countries of origin. A strong Jamaican Diaspora would be able to work with ICS and the White House to influence legislation affecting out-ofstatus immigrants (those who are documented but came on a different visa and overstayed) as well as people facing deportation.

The USAID overview of what has been done in Haiti was eyeopening and heartening, the USA having already sent US$1.1 billion to date, committing another US$1.4 billion over the next 18 months and also rebuilding their embassy to then rent it to the Haitian Government to use as the office of the prime minister for a mere US$1 per year. They explained how they were able to reach out to the Haitian diaspora for assistance right after the earthquake because of the strong organisations that Haitians have set up in the USA. It wasn’t perfect — a few hundred first-responders did not get access to Haiti as early as they wanted — but USAID was still able to bring in people with local knowledge who would obviously be assets.

In the same way, a stronger Jamaican diaspora, even with many separate groups, but each with a solid membership base, would be an asset to USAID when responding to disasters in Jamaica, especially hurricanes.

It was an honour to be invited to the White House, and the Institute for Caribbean Studies deserves major support because it is clearly about action not a bag of mouth. We have a direct line to the Obama Administration and Jamaicans in the White House and elsewhere, making the country proud and representing ‘Brand Jamaica’ very well as ambassadors in their own way.

Let us move forward, recognising that we can achieve anything we set our minds to. We need to set our minds to achieving a country with good governance, transparency, accountability and a diaspora movement that has strength in numbers, with the ability to lobby governments all over for the benefit of all Jamaicans.

David Mullings is the Future Leaders Representative for the USA on the Jamaican Diaspora Advisory Board. He is on Twitter at twitter.com/davidmullingsand Facebook at facebook.com/InteractiveDialogue