In this article I offer thoughts on my recent conceptualization of culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP) (Paris, 2012a), building from empirical work with youth of colour in US contexts, and consider what this conceptualization might mean for Jamaica and other countries where Creole Englishes are widely spoken as the lingua franca. Beginning with my own learning about Jamaican Creole and language variation as a child visiting my father’s native Jamaica, I move to sharing some of my research findings from studies of African American Language among youth in California.