Submitted by Guyana Consul Norman Faria
There is much talk these days of the “Diaspora” and how they relate to their birthplace. These are Guyana and other CARICOM born people residing mainly in US, Canada and the UK…
There is some balance. Their diplomatic and consular missions highlight the contributions of a sterling few to their newly adopted homelands and mention of integration. Heads of government and Ministers regularly visit . But the message is always sent: ” Don’t forget to keep sending home the money. It helps the economy”.
There is a need to go beyond the symbolic awards. How many of our people overseas really get involve in social work, community affairs and local and national politics ? How “socially active”, or “civic minded” to use a more mainstream phrase, are we when we settle in the three main countries (and by extension other places like Barbados) ?
More needs to be done, perhaps more pressing at this conjuncture with the worldwide and apparently deepening financial contraction in traditional destinations. More “civic mindedness” may be unable to overcome “done deal” measures such as “local friendly” anti-migrant legislation. But more activism/commitment an help reduce , maybe stop them in their tracks, the opportunist and sometimes brutish effects of trends where scapegoats are made of the newcomers, particularly the visible ethnic minorities (those who stand out on basis of colour) by decision makers and opinion makers. In recent periods, both Canada and the UK have “tightened up on immigration” while one hardly expects new US President Obama to change much of his predecessor’s “guest worker” programme. Immigrants and those affected by any new regulations, curtailment of sponsorship of families, restrictions/ cutbacks on contract work (work permit programmes) and other difficulties need to join with longer established residents, who happen to be white, in community, church, labour an other peoples’ organisations as traditionally allowed in the liberal democracies of these great nations.
Thee have already been outstanding, emulative examples. While in New York last September , I learnt of several people with Guyanese roots running for public office. More were campaign workers for other candidates and are involved in neighbourhood and tenants groups. In Canada, a Guyanese have been mayor of Owen Sound, a town in Ontario province.
But how extensive is it ? How much more time, energy and financial outlay in placed on “we ” activities, however commendable as they may be ? In New York I witnessed the really wonderful Caribbean style carnival parade on Labour Day. I was invited to a “duck curry competition” at a park near Liberty Avenue where many Guyanese live. We need to remember our roots and enjoy ourselves, but “jumping and wining” won’t deal with the ever present and probably increasing worries such as high cost of living, working long hours and job and immigration cutbacks and security.
As an aside, there have been questions of “the Diaspora” being permitted to vote in elections “back home”. This should not happen. So called (actually non-existent) “overseas voting” was used in Guyana to help rig elections for 28 years until the 1992 poll. It goes against the grain of the integrating in newly adopted homelands argument.
The “Diaspora” ( I never use the word myself because it has connotations of people being in limbo, uncertain of themselves and adrift and unwanted in strange lands which is far from the truth) has its organisations. Guyanese in New York have dozens, maybe hundreds. Some are a few ex-members of a particular school or government department. Same with Barbadians and other CARICOM nationalities including the growing Haitian presence.
Traditionally, there have been a need for such groups. When the main nationalities starting arriving in New York in the early 1800s (the Italians, Irish, Jews, for example) they had to stick together. Their essential self help bodies assisted with for instance providing jobs and advice on immigration and legal matters . There were also social needs including linking up with members for sex and companionship to combat the cruel loneliness and alienation all newly arrived migrants experience under capitalist type of societies. This is all understandable , or was a “constant” as Marx would say.
Now, with increased assistance programmes from the appropriate government departments of the host country , there may however be less pressure for such organisational ghettoisation. Some however can still provide valuable advice and practical help to newcomers to compliment governments’ programmes. Last
summer , New York’s Mayor Bloomberg , following a campaign from immigrant groups, stipulated that key municipal documents must be printed in Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Korean , French Creole (Haitian) and Italian to reflect the still necessary difficulties recent new comers may have. More importantly, people are also urged to learn English.
Against this background, I commend Barbadian institutions such as the Labour Department, Child Care Board and others for their kind outreach to newcomers including Guyanese.Advice should nevertheless be sought from their Consulates, by the undocumented especially, which also provide advice and assistance…
As with other urban areas like Chicago in the US, New York has seen overtly political immigrant organisations.Part of their work is to mobilise support for, or opposition to, developments “back home”. These are the solidarity groups. They include the “support organisations” for all the major CARICOM political parties. They have their value in raising people’s consciousness and also provide practical assistance.
There are sometimes focal issues. In the 1920s in New York and other cities worldwide there were mass campaigns on behalf of two Italian born labourers Bartolomeo Sacco and Nicola Vanzetti to save them from the gallows. A wide cross section of left, social democratic and liberal was in the solidarity leadership.
Some groups have been backward. German and Italia organisations who praised the dictators Hitler and Mussolini were, correctly, ordered disbanded.
The Sacco and Vanzetti campaign underscore the need for collective action against scapegoating (or blaming them unjustly for national ills) of ethnic or national minorities. The Italians and Hispanics in general were treated terribly including racist stereotyping by the media and otherwise. The Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 in Canada evoked another tactic used by opportunists in an uncaring capitalist society that essentially treats migrants as non-persons to fill a labour shortage. Some of the strike leaders were branded “Bolsheviks” and “alien radicals”. Problem is, they couldn’t be deported to (the then socialist) Soviet Union. They were in fact mainly British and Scottish immigrants. Indeed, a banner at a massive demonstration at the height of the strike noted: “BRITONS SHALL NEVER BE SLAVES”. They were as white as the average longer established residents in the Canadian city. That case had nothing to do with race, as we hear in some countries like the UK and European countries from the far right about migrants and contract workers bringing in “racial problems”. In the 1930s, during the justified labour upsurges throughout the Caribbean and then British Guiana, colonial authorities in Barbados deported “alien radical” Clement Payne to Trinidad. In fairness, authorities clearly had Intelligence that he had been sent by a pro-Soviet Union Marxist group in Trinidad to help Barbadians. Today, Payne is a Barbados national hero.
In immigrant life —and I experienced it having spent 14 years in Toronto in the 1960s and 1970s working in several occupations including welder and office cleaner— you need to adjust. While newcomers, including those on work permits and the undocumented, should stand up for their rights and freedoms, we have to be sensitive to the feelings of longer established residents. It may sometimes be difficult but one will find —as I did with the Canadian working people—that peoples worldwide are tolerant, democratic minded people welcoming newcomers. These include Barbadians who are embarrassed by the handful of xenophobes on lawless blogs which need controlling.
The need for sensitivity is especially true in small island societies like Barbados. A group of Guyanese residents (not on work permits) in Barbados once asked me to help them participate as a “Guyanese band” in the local Crop Over carnival-like festival. I politely refused, advising them to march with other “Bajans” in their bands and build friendship and understanding that way.
Being “socially active”, “civic minded” or whatever term you use, includes raising your specific issues and remembering your roots.. But only through working with others and with their support can there be effective combating of any backwardness from misguided or wilful decision makers and opinion makers including right wing fringe groups and even mainstream parties in places like Europe. .Only that way can there be a just and lasting solution, including practical advances and neighbourly love, as we work together in this changing and challenging global village to make it a better for all of us.
For the legal immigrants, Guyanese or Barbadians, “home” is where they are now. We do not blame them for this. That is their freedom to travel to try and find the so called “greener pastures”. Maybe they have. In the main, they will never settle back or perhaps only as retirees, in their birthplace.They have a new home now. As Italian-American community leader Dominic Castore said in the NY paper City Lights: “My inheritance is Italy but my culture is New York city. That’s America !”
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