Economic Migrancy

Haiti, in two centuries went from being “the richest colony in the world, ‘The pearl of the Antilles’, to the poorest country in the western hemisphere” (p.26) “Needed but unwanted” shows us the change being part of a context of isolation from other international nations, debts to France post-independence, land reform and the US occupation that we read about in Mary Renda's study “Taking Haiti” and natural disasters. All these factors affected the economic growth of Haiti.

Political and economic causes both play a role in the reasons as to why Haitians decide to migrate out of the country. Uncertainties and lack of security for Haitians act as motivations for leaving. I found the depiction of migration from Jamaica intriguing in “Life and Debt.” As an audience we feel the dichotomy of treatment between holiday makers; .treated in the airports with a sense of luxury and special treatment. Then we compare the experience of real Jamaicans making sojourns abroad, made subject to excessive checks on baggage and passport immigration. Vacationers benefit from the successes of globalisation, their currency gets them a great wad of notes. Whereas actual Jamaicans feel the disadvantages, and this, among other motivations, sparks civil unrest.

 Like Haiti, after independence, Jamaica fell victim to every kind of financial problem. In “Telephone To Heaven,” it is the economic conditions and subsequent migration that Cliff describes in Jamaica. The legacy of colonisation has left economic scars on the future prosperities of post independent countries, and it is this history that create difficult economic conditions.