"DE COUNTRY GONE THROUGH": Trinidad East Indian `Refugees' to Canada.

"DE COUNTRY GONE THROUGH":Trinidad East Indian `Refugees' to Canada.

(A development of a paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association,

November 19th 1989, Washington DC.)

Niels M. SampathInstitute of Social Anthropology

University of Oxford

Abstract

In [late 1980s] Trinidad, an economic recession and a(re)alienation from government power have created socialanxieties manifested in a cluster of mass emigration.Colloquialisms compare the country's condition withconceptions of madness and an incapacity to rehabilitate.These factors encouraged the use/misuse of `loopholes' inCanadian `refugee' status laws. This paper examinesthe motivations and perspectives of one social network of East Indians, in Trinidad and in Canada, suggesting that `refugee' psycho/sociological concepts of (inter)national identity can reflect a bounded variety of ethnocentric values.

print/amendment date: April 7, 2023

Speculating about this, he reviewed his situation. He was the father of four children, and his position was as it had been when he was seventeen, unmarried and ignorant of the Tulsis. He had no vocation, no reliable means of earning a living.........he would have to make a decision. Yet he felt no anxiety. The second to second agony and despair of those days at Green Vale had given him an experience of unhappiness against which everything had now to be measured. He was more fortunate than most people. His children would never starve; they would always be sheltered and clothed. It didn't matter if he were at Green Vale or Arwacas, if he were alive or dead.

-from V.S. Naipaul's A House for Mr. Biswas (1985 [1961]: 303-304).

Introduction:

In July/August of 1990, a black Islamic sect attempted and failed a coup

d'etat on the West Indian island of Trinidad. For both numerical and

cultural reasons, the Muslimeen, as the sect is known locally, can be

considered well on the fringe of what is locally thought to be `normal'

Trinidadian society. However, Trinidad suffers from what has been

termed `the absence of an image of the people at large' (Segal 1987:

173) and so one can suggest that the coup attempt partly reflected a

common Trinidadian alienation from general nationalist objectives and

power structures and that different ethnic groups will respond to this

alienation in different ways.

By far the most notable recent example of this alienation includes

those East Indians who, in 1988, chose to leave material possessions and,

in many cases, immediate families, by applying for so-called `refugee

status' in Canada. Much of the impetus for this action was motivated by

the impending closure of Canadian immigration/refugee law `loopholes'.

But it is the combination of these `loopholes' with factors inherant in the

general Trinidad East Indian situation that provides an interesting insight

into the potential difficulties of both refugee definition and East Indian

diaspora conceptions of (inter)national identity.

In late 1988, in order to collect additional anthropological data for a

dissertation on masculine values, I returned to a village in southern

Trinidad called Indian Wood (pseudonym). The village and the

surrounding area are inhabited entirely by people of Hindu East Indian

descent who depend largely on rice and vegetable farming, as well as

sugar cane cultivation on an adjoining government-owned plantation.

Many of the people are also employed in nearby towns.

Upon my return, I discovered that 20% of the 150 households in the

village had family members who had recently departed for Canada. Most

of these people had, as the villagers said, `gone refugee'. According to

the Trinidad press at the time (Dec. 1988), national emigration of this

sort was on the order of some 3,000 to 4,000 from a total population of

1.3 million. This was not a statistically significant number, but it had a

growing profile in the media and in local conversation (by March of 1990

some press estimates had raised the refugee figure to 15,000). There

was a running debate as to whether these people were victims of

circumstance or traitors giving the country a bad name. The situation

was made immediately apparent by the friend and informant who met

me at the airport upon my return. `Look', he said. `Plenty people

travelling, but notice is mostly Indians leaving.' And so the question

arose: Why were these people leaving?

Although the Trinidad/Canada case can be considered a mass

migration only in a very local and clustered context, it did exhibit the

classic dual forces of emigration pressure, i.e. a push away from the

indigenous country, and a pull towards the receiving country. It was the

peculiarities of the combined forces which determined the scope of the

migration.

The `push' factor and the roots of alienation:

Trinidad and Tobago is a twin-island republic and former British colony off

the coast of Venezuela's Orinoco basin. It has a multi-ethnic population.

In the 1980 Trinidad and Tobago census figures (Ministry of Finance

1987), East Indians were the second largest ethnic group with 40.7% of

the population, just behind those of African descent who made up 40.8%.

The other groups include, with 16.3%, a `mixed' category (largely

African/European Creoles); whites with 0.9%, and a Chinese population of

0.5%. If birthrates (Harewood 1978:65) are maintained, one can project

that the 1990 census, unless distorted for political reasons, will show East

Indians as the largest ethnic groupi.

A variety of historical influences have gone into importing and then

transmuting the constituents of the post-colonial cosmopolitan society

which exists today. The chief effects came from the sugar industry and

its demand for cheap labour. The abolition of slavery in 1834, and a

relative lack of success at recruiting/retaining the freed African slaves,

resulted in a search for a replacement plantation work-force. Eventually,

following the importation of free American and Caribbean Negroes, as

well as Chinese and (Madeiran) Portuguese, the indentureship of Indian

labourers, primarily from the Uttar Pradesh and southern or `Madrassi'

regions, proved the most successful alternative to slavery. The Indian

indentured migration to Trinidad continued until 1917.

Descendants of the original labourers from the sub-continent often

appear as Indian in their cultural traits today, as one might imagine the

first labourers in their plantation settlements must have appeared.

Perhaps, because most Indians continue to live in rural areas (Malik

1971:12), such first impressions are deceptive. Instead of a superficial

rural representation, recent studies have focused on the way in which the

plural natures of both East Indian society (with regards to caste,

language background, religious tradition, etc.) and Trinidadianii society as

a whole, have contributed to a perceived emergence (Nevadomsky 1982)

or transformation (Vertovec 1987) of many elements of Trinidad Indian

ethnic identity. This is in contrast to the museum-like transference and

retention of Indian culture, as was previously suggested in ethnographic

literature (e.g. Klass 1961, Niehoff and Niehoff 1960)iii.

Following the national mottos, `Together we aspire, together we

achieve' and `For every creed and race: an equal place' in a literal sense,

Trinidad has no permanent official race relations committee or any such

equivalent. This is in spite of complex local hierarchies of racial

terminology and prejudicial attitudes which continue to confuse attempts

to tackle the country's social, political, and economic problems. Studies

by Trinidad's academics into social issues involving race are often

lambasted by some local media commentators as attempts to keep the

country divided from `the national interest' (i.e. see mottos above).

To many East Indians, `the national interest' has always been interpreted

as the interests of the Creole (or, formerly, white) e'lite and of their urban

African power/employment base.

In general, it is the visible social features of a particular situation

which are important to Trinidadians. However, depending on one's

perspective, this situation fluctuates between conditions of apparent

cultural pluralism, a situation whereby political domination by one ethnic

group is maintained in equilibrium by an institutional division (of labour

etc.) among ethnic groups (Charlotte-Smith 1986:225), and a situation of

cultural heterogeneity, meaning that institutions can function as

integrating influences (following Despres 1967). With respect to the

Indian population, this situation allows a tourist guidebook to

simultaneously describe them as having farming as their `chief

occupation' and that `small and medium businesses' are `owned mainly

by Indians' (Hodge 1987:69).

Deep-rooted attitudes based on race and ethnicity can either

diverge from (i.e. ignore) or, depending on the circumstances, combine

with (i.e. utilize), separate economic factors and class interests. `Group'

consensuses do result and support for them is attributed to either class,

race, or both, depending, once again, on the circumstances. This

situational flexibility with regards to race relations may be the reason

why two writers have, albeit at different times, reached apparently

opposite conclusions. V.S. Naipaul has written that `Trinidad in fact

teeters on the brink of a racial war' (1985[1962]:86), while Selwyn Ryan

writes that `The odds that there can be a racial war in Trinidad and

Tobago are slight indeed' (Trinidad Sunday Express, April 8th, 1990, p.3).

While it would be too presumptuous to point out and tie together

the relative optimism and racial backgrounds of Ryan and Naipaul

themselves, it is fair to point out that such expressions of optimism, or

lack of thereof, can be linked to the degree of conviction or alienation,

respectively, an individual feels for a given society. In Trinidad, because

social change has come to reflect the residual effects of managing a

series of sugar, cocoa, and oil-based boom and bust cycles, politics has

proven to be the most salient arena for expressing such alienated or

nationalistic feelings. For when times are bad, both the relatively isolated

country farmers, and the `wheeling and dealing' small businessmen

realize (or imagine) their potential political power and act accordingly.

For example, any proposals or grievances brought about by

organizations or institutions with an observably (ethnically)

homogeneous membership (e.g. an Indian village council) are often

viewed as serving purely marginal and/or minority interests even if the

issue is utilitarian or mundane in nature and is otherwise `in the national

interest` (e.g. street-lighting to deter crime). Three factors have gone

into creating a situation whereby political views have synthesized

elements of national conviction and/or alienation, packaged them into

development policy, and then, in trying to justify this national

construction, reinforced the original patterns of alienation and conviction.

Firstly, the political parties in Trinidad, overtly or covertly, have

seen any social group or definable socio-geographic area as potential

sources of both patronage and antagonism. Secondly, the population en

masse, as in many other countries, consistently sees the political process

as an inter-group competition with elections judged more as the finishing-

line for ambitions, i.e. an end-result, rather than the start, or

continuation, of social development. Finally, for whatever group of

individuals is attempting to influence developments, the reactions of the

rest of society following the above tendencies regularly reinforces the

sense of alienation, and so the members of the group themselves

contribute to these tendencies when given the chance, and a perceived

need, to do so.

Integration of Trinidad ethnic group participation in local

institutions does not occur spontaneously but is, following Despres (op.

cit.), brokered as each situation demands it. Importantly, in the light of

Trinidad attempting to proceed with stable political development on the

Western model (a process which is thought by the Trinidadian elite to

reduce alienation and conflict), the conceptions of cultural pluralism and

heterogeneity remain the foundations of government ideology with the

important elements of basic democracy, such as free and active debate

and participation, continue to exist. Yet, according to Despres, these

conceptions are inadequate `for an assessment of sociocultural change

or for predictive purposes' (1967: 27).

The socio-economic framework in Trinidad has, until recently at

least, been well-suited to the fluctuating tendencies described above.

Trinidad's internal economy is based heavily on oil revenue and

government expenditure (Auty and Gelb 1986, Mulcharsingh 1971, Black

et al. 1976) with the former having declined dramatically in the past

decade while the latter had, until 1987, been steadily increasing. The

wealth created by oil production has been the pre-dominant factor

influencing society in Trinidad in the last fifteen years, following the world

oil crises of the early 1970s. Despite corruption and misspending, much

of the wealth managed to trickle down to the lowest social strata which,

in the case of Indian Wood, meant a transformation from a case of classic

peasantry, to virtual middle-class economics and entrepreneurship.

The younger generations, in particular, began to describe

themselves as having `the same life-style as what they have in America,

Canada, England and them places'. Superficially at least, this is a fairly

accurate comment. The amount of money in circulation provided much of

the population with the feeling that they were masters of their own

destiny, and that the government existed only to rake in their own share

for ambitous and corruption-riddled construction projects. The former

prime minister, Eric Williams, made his famous comment that, `Money is

no problem!' One Indian Wood villager recalls further that `Nobody could

say nothing against you. All you have to do is reach in your pocket and

take out your stack of hundred blue notes [i.e. 1000 dollars]. And in them

days it was nearly one-to-one exchange [against the U.S. dollar] you

know!' Through their wealth, Indians happily continued to be alienated

from government.

Unfortunately, the truth was that the government effectively relied

on the trickle-down effect to keep the population dependent on its

patronage, rather than trying to resolve the problems of development

with any long-term strategy. When the price of oil on the world markets

fell in the mid-1980's, the country rapidly became short of cash, and the

lower and new middle classes soon began to suffer financially.

Additionally, the wealth disparity within the oil boom and bust cycle was

far greater and more widespread than what had previously been

experienced with the sugar and cocoa industries.

General elections were held in December of 1986iv. With the

economic let-down, Indian support for the government was non-existant.

Faced with the added burden of corruption charges so widespread that it

cost them the support of their usual African middle and lower class

power-base, the African-dominated government party, the People's

National Movement (or PNM), which had held office since independence

in 1962, lost by a 33 to 3 parliamentary seat landslide. A large number of

the voters had known no other government, so there was simply no

emotional experience or practical cynicism which could handle a

complete change in government at the national level. People's

expectations were extremely high, and the results produced widespread

euphoria. For example, on the night of the election, when the television

and radio commentators announced that the government had, for all

intents and purposes, fallen, the people in Indian Wood, ran out into the

street, started banging on garbage can lids, set off firecrackers left over

from Divaliv celebrations the month before, and generally started making

as much noise as possible. The political alienation which had been felt for

years seemed to have been vanquished at last. Over and over again, the

phrase `Is we government now, yes?' was heard. This soon proved to be

wishful thinking.

Economic recession and the re-alienation process:

The winning coalition, running under the guise of a united party banner

called the National Alliance for Reconstruction (or NAR), was made up of

long-disaffected PNM members, largely Afro-Trinidadian, and the long-

standing group of Tobago, rural Indian, and middle-class (or suburban)

based parties which had been in opposition all along.

The coalition soon began to fall apart. Following a series of cabinet

shuffles, which resulted in exclusion from many of the important

ministries, most of the Indian members in the coalition re-grouped to

form a political clique which they called the `Committee for Love, Unity,

and Brotherhood, 1988', or CLUB-88vi. At the same time, inheriting what

they claimed was a surprisingly empty treasury, the new NAR

government was perceived as being unable to fulfill some of its most

basic manifesto promises of infrastructure development in the previously

deprived rural, i.e. Indian, areas. In the end, it was forced to arrange

financing with the International Monetary Fund, and by 1988 the IMF's

budgeting dictations had resulted in wage reductions and a virtual

doubling of unemployment to top 20%, all in the face of a matching (20%

+) inflation rate due to a series of currency devaluations. Trinidad was,

and still is, in a severe economic recession.

Throughout 1987 and 1988, the people in Indian Wood were

becoming more and more bewildered. Politically, they felt they had done

everything correctly, including continuing support of the NAR party in the

1987 county council elections. Nevertheless, job losses accelerated, as

did the prices of basic commodities. Without too many people admitting

it directly, the people of Indian Wood had looked forward to government

patronage of the same style that the lower-class African PNM supporters

had enjoyed in the form of `make-work' programs, etc. Although they

knew in advance that their Indian political party leader would be

occupying a deputy position, they had put aside some of their prejudices

and voted for a coalition. But the African prime minister, A.N.R. Robinson,

managed to displace calls for many of the political patronage programs in

favour of austerity budgeting. It was not the implementation of austerity

throughout the society which led to near-total Indian political alienation

from the new government. Rather, it was the interpretation of it by

Indians as a continuation of the neglect they had faced as long as they

could remember, that increased their frustration.

As unemployment grew, crime rates began to soar, and the people

in the country areas such as Indian Wood who, for so long, had felt no

need to bar their doors and windows the way the people in the towns did,

became the victims of armed robberies. With suggestions of racial

discrimination, the government was blamed for the decline in law and

order. The print media began to voice objections to the government's

complaints over news coverage. In the summer of 1988, one of the

leaders of CLUB '88 suggested, in a characteristically animated speech in

parliament, that the government would soon have some Trinidadians

becoming refugees, implying a parallel with the Ugandan Indians under

Idi Amin's dictatorship.

Basically, there was a complete loss of confidence in the ability of

the government, the traditional benefactor, to rehabilitate the country

and so, ironically, people throughout Trinidad blamed the new

government for all of the trouble. National opinion was reinforcing Indian

alienation. It seemed to be the PNM style of government all over again

with the added touch of a sense of betrayal. As one young man told me:

`You know how they say, "there is no hope in dope"? Well, there is no

hope in dopes either.'vii

People could not understand how their living standards had eroded

so quickly. Despite patience and an adaptation of traditional religion and

culture towards social and economic changes (Vertovec 1987), in the

minds of rural East Indians Trinidadian nationalism had become an even

more ambiguous construct than what it was before (see Segal op. cit.).

Their ideal construct of nationhood which, in a complicated fashion,

incorporated prejudices of their own racial superiority into espoused

official egalitarian values, had been shattered. The situation became

curiously analogous to Naipaul's (1985[1961]) famous Mr. Biswas

character, abandoning one home and embarking on the acquisition of

another. With a weary shrug of the shoulders, people began to say; `De

country gone through'.

There is an anthropomorphism to this comment which is also highly

revealing. When a man is `gone through', it usually means that he has

suffered what we might call a `nervous breakdown'. In my field

experience, it was most often used to describe a young man's condition

after his first attempt at courtship was rejected. Appearing to be unable

to recover, such a person would soon become the butt of black humour

and would be told; `Keep away from the gramazone'. Ingesting the

defoliant gramazone (known elsewhere as paraquat) is the favoured

method of suicide among rural East Indiansviii. So if Trinidad was

consistently and seriously being described as being `gone through', one

can expect that, in the absence of some form of national suicide, the

serious Indian social malaise (in terms of ruling party/nationalist

enthusiasm) which had made itself known in similiar economic conditions

prior to the Black Power revolt of 1970 was re-emerging in force.

In fact, national suicide in the form of Indian civil unrest was, once

againix, out of the question since, apart from the impracticality of

organization and a lack of available weapons, it was enthusiasm for any

form of Trinidadian nationalism that had been destroyed. As one person

told me; `There would never be a civil war in Trinidad because no

Trinidadian would ever fight for his country. They would have to be

mad!'x

Although the economic process of wealth distribution was now in

reverse and becoming one of poverty entrapment, the malaise and the

rapidity with which the economic downturn had taken hold, following a

decade of increasing prosperity, was in part belied by the infrastructure

and general business activity which remained outwardly the same.

Therefore, one might assume that, in a country which had recently

undergone a peaceful and democratic change of government, it might

have been premature to expect any analytically-inclined Canadian

diplomatic staff in Trinidad at the time to note any connection between

economic hardship and political/ethnic persecution (whether real or

imagined), in the same manner as the Trinidadians who sought refugee

status. Despite the latter's Canadian-based immigration lawyers stressing

the word `persecution', in late 1988 a Canadian High Commission official

announced on Trinidadian television and in newspaper statementsxi that

the people under discussion were to be categorized as `economic

migrants, not refugees'.

`O Canada': the `pull' factor

Part of the reasoning behind a developed countries immigration/refugee-

host policy is its own ethnocentric conception of its appeal both at home

and to those in undeveloped countries. Faced with the political pressures

of Canada's adhering to an untried `Multiculturalism Policy' (Berry 1984),

managing fluctuating unemployment figures, and supposedly dealing

with the lingerings of entrenched racism, it might seem to be

advantageous to create as much distinction as possible between what is

considered `regular immigration' on the one hand, and `refugee

acceptence' on the other. But, as this section will show, this objective

cannot be met without problems and, in this particular case, it

heightened the importance of the `pull' factors that made Trinidad

Indians aware of Canada as a viable alternative to the alienating

conditions at `home'.

The first of these `pull' factors is the one that many people were

exposed to in childhood. Much of the rural East Indian population has,

directly or indirectly, experienced an education based on the work and

textbooks of the Canadian Presbyterian Missionxii. Thus, even the

youngest children will often be as knowledgeable of the ten Canadian

provinces as they are of the rest of their own Caribbean region. The

important factor to remember in this case, is that the influencing images

of `Canada as benefactor' came directly through the high status persona

of the Canadian or, as is more likely for recent generations, Canadian-

trained, school master, teacher, church minister, or successful friend or

relative who had done well by them. Related to this `schoolmaster factor'

is also the important introductory element of Canada being seen as an

origin of social, moral, and personal discipline.

Secondly, in examining the refugee case, it is important to note

that there is a long history of regular emigration to Canada. Canada is

one of the first countries one will hear mentioned as being prosperous,

often ranking ahead of the United States. This is no surprise considering

the large extent of Canada's involvement in both Trinidadian and

Caribbean development (Chodos 1977). In fact, in the period 1971-1975,

at the start of the oil boom, Trinidadians came 10th on the list of

`business immigrants' to Canada with 20,000 individuals and/or

familiesxiii. Some of these well-to-do immigrants were later to prove a

mixed-blessing to their refugee cousins by acting as self-proclaimed

`immigration consultants' and running illegal-immigrant employment

agencies, raking in high fees and commissions, respectively.

The prosperity of the oil boom in the 1970s and early 1980s also

meant that many people, even the traditionally poorer rural villagers,

could travel and see for themselves how their relatives had fared.

Generally, despite some disparaging comments, these Trinidadian

visitors were impressed by their cousins success as `Canadians' yet

flattered by the their retention of `Trini' values in `multicultural' Canada.

One older lady in Trinidad told me that she was very impressed with her

visit to Toronto because you `could cook anything there just like in the

country in Trinidad' and that `Canada [sic] such a rich city that it have

white people to pick up garbage!'

This also introduces a more sinister contrast between the perceived

images of Canada with Trinidad. Trinidad is considered as a former white

colony `ruined by Creoles'. Canada is perceived of as being white and

successful. Among rural Trinidad East Indians, especially among those

who grew up in the officially hierarchical colonial atmosphere, and who

would be the family heads making the decisions to emigrate as refugees,

racial prejudice and colonial bias of this sort cannot be ruled out as a

motivating factor. It surfaced dramatically in the Trinidad press when

rumours were flying that Indians were on Canadian television saying that

they were refugees because their daughters, wives, and mothers were

`being raped by black men`.

However, the final and deciding impetus in the case of the Trinidad

refugees and the `loophole' factor mentioned in the introduction to this

paper, was the announcement, at that time (1987-88), of the forthcoming

Canadian legislation; Bills C-55 and C-84. Briefly put, Bill C-55 would

streamline the process of determining genuine refugees from those

deemed to be `bogus', while Bill C-84 would basically `encourage'

refugee claimants to obtain this status before arriving in Canada

(Documentation 1987; Grey 1989; Naidoo 1989). Ironically, the way this

legislation was formulated proved to be the source of a new flow of

refugees from countries from which there had been no previous claims

for refugee status.

The legislation was held up for two years as the Canadian

government sought, unsuccessfully as it turned out, to include a

provision to prevent potential refugees from using the United States as a

so-called `Safe Third Country' point-of-entry. This delay allowed the word

to spread that in order to enter Canada, one had to be fairly quick or else

the so-called `loophole' of entering the country posing as a tourist,

declaring refugee status at the end of the time limit stamped on the

passport, and then having a long wait for a hearing, would be sealed.

This systematic use of loopholes was presenting formidable

problems for the Canadian government. The sense of urgency for the

potential refugees was heightened by rampant rumours which suggested

that a general amnesty would be declared for all those arriving in Canada

before the new legislation became law in January of 1989. Needless to

say, this only increased the flow of people. In other words, one can

conclude that the majority of the Trinidadians involved definitely did not

constitute the initial wave of refugee-immigrants, but did react to the

amnesty possibilities opened up by a steadily increasing number of

asylum seekers.

At this point, it is necessary to illustrate, from the point of view of

Trinidadians planning to leave for Canada, the logic that went into sorting

out the confusion of immigration terminology. Officially, Canada did/does

not want any `illegal immigrants'. It was understood that those who had

legally immigrated in previous years, known as `landed immigrants' in

Canada, were either sponsored by close relatives or had secured a job

prior to departure. The rumour of an eventual amnesty was considered

applicable only to those who had declared themselves to be `refugees'.

Since the possibility of legal immigration was open only to a few

families, it made sense to maneuver one's way into the refugee system,

and then to mimic the actions of legal immigrants, i.e. via self-sufficiency,

in the hope of gaining sympathy from a hearing judge. One must note

that this description does not imply a cold calculating move, directly

insensitive to the needs of so-called `genuine refugees'. It was simply felt

that Trinidad had run out of possibilities, and that if Canada was to be an

alternative, this was the time for action.

A bonus of this method was that even if the hearing was

unfavourable, there would probably be a healthy savings of `foreign

exchange', i.e. Canadian dollars, to bring back home. It was generally

known that by the summer of 1988, there was a large backlog of people

awaiting hearings, with waits of up to two years.

It was deemed risky to declare refugee status upon arrival at the

airport. If the screening interview went badly, the individuals ran the risk

of being sent back to the country from which they had arrived. Therefore,

one loophole which was exploited was to destroy all of one's documents

on the plane, or upon arrival at the airport, such that there was no proof

as to which country one had arrived from. This would also ensure a

lengthy hearing process rather than a quick deportation. Most people,

and in particular those who had `landed immigrant' relatives in Canada,

preferred to enter as visitors. This was especially true in the weeks

before Christmas in 1988, or at least until December 10th of that year

(see below) when tourist and relative visitations seemed, to the potential

refugees at least, to be believable alibis. But the numbers were already

large enough that the immigration people were suspicious and not

everyone succeeded.

Those who succeeded and were not sent back on the next flight

usually organized themselves with employment and housing in the

Toronto suburban area before venturing to the downtown immigration

office, when their tourist time-limit ran out, to declare themselves as

refugees. This action often carried the hope that should an amnesty

come, preference might be given to those who could prove that they

could fend for themselves. In either case, `genuine' refugees in most

countries can be presumed to prefer self-sufficiency over all-

encompassing patronage by the host country. This paradox of declaring

oneself as a refugee, which carries the stereotype of comparative

helplessness, while trying to prove self-sufficiency, illustrates the

confusion that existed and probably still exists for the `bogus' refugees. It

was this confusion that left people open to exploitation by immigration

middle-men.

For example, one group from Indian Wood, some of which were

already employed in Canada, were advised by a man they called a

`Guyanese immigration consultant', who charged them four figure sums

($TT)xiv. He had them arrive in Canada from Trinidad posing as visitors,

and then chartered a bus to take them to the U.S. border at Niagara Falls

where, not having a visa, they were, as expected, refused official entry

into the U.S. They then returned to the Canadian border post and

declared themselves to be refugees. Technically, they could not be sent

back to the country from which they had come from, in this case the U.S.,

because they had been refused entry there. In fact, some of the group

spoke of having spent the day walking through nearby downtown Buffalo,

New York although they had no idea how this was arranged.

Refugees from all over the world were arriving at Toronto airport in

such large numbers that neighbouring hotels were full of people, largely

those who had no travel documents, in so-called `detention', awaiting

further screening and more permanent accommodation. The Canadian

immigration officers were so overtaxed with work that they protested

with a `work-to-rule' action. This was the political pressure the

government required in order to impose a visa restriction on a number of

countries which had suddenly increased the numbers of refugee landings.

These countries included (Naidoo op. cit.: 8) Portugal, Turkey, Nicaragua

and, of course, Trinidad.

For the purposes of motivation analysis, the Trinidad refugee

phenomenon more or less ended on the 10th of December 1988, when

the Canadian government imposed, overnight, a visa restriction. There

were many stories of people who had travelled to and from Canada

during the year posing as tourists while secretly establishing themselves

there. When the visa restriction was suddenly imposed, some of these

people were stranded in Trinidad without their families. For in order to

obtain a visitor's visa to Canada, without which the airlines would not

grant a seat on the aircraft, one needed a bank statement, a letter from

a recognised Trinidadian employer, and a return ticket. Some people, and

not just those who were stranded, immediately began alternately pooling

their bank accounts, forging job letters, and getting friendly travel agents

to write supporting letters. Although a few of these attempts succeeded,

this is the point at which the refugee flow from Trinidad effectively

ceased.

The Trinidad media then began to concentrate on publicity about

supposedly bona fide visitors being denied visas. The relatively small

Canadian High Commission in Port of Spain became swamped with

applicants, and their treatment intensified public debate on the rights

and wrongs of what had happened. A focal point was the demeaning

nature of `decent and ordinary' Trinidadians having to line up for a

visitors visa and then being refused one, when Canadians, in order to

encourage their tourist dollars, technically didn't even need a passport to

visit Trinidad. Trinidad's self-image, so often dependent on what it either

perceived or touted itself to be on the world stage, had been shakenxv.

During one visit to the Canadian High Commission, I observed a

frustrated young Afro-Trinidadian woman, unsuccessful in charming her

way past the security guards to the head of the long and crowded line of

visa applicants, shouting angrily, `This would never be allowed if the PNM

was in power.!' As is usual in Trinidad, a reactionary calypso, sung by

`Trinidad-White' Denise Plummer, provided a popular catharsis to this

sort of emotion. Its main chant, after extolling the many virtues of `sweet

Trinidad' was: `Where you going? Nowhere! Where you staying? Right

here! ... My home is right here in Trinidad. For me to leave here I must be

mad!'

For those from Indian Wood who were in Canada and awaiting their

hearings, living in shared housing, and either working at manual labour

or as casual help, there was very little communication with the people

back in the village. They received hardly any phone calls from home, with

the people in the village deciding that if there was work in Canada the

refugees could afford to call home. This raises the issue of saving face.

The villagers decided that those who did phone back had found the

best jobs. In fact, these callers were often the most homesick and worst

off, but felt obliged to maintain an image of well-being and prosperity.

The effect of this was to reinforce the underlying alienation, both of

Trinidadians at home from their own country's nationalism, and of those

in Canada who could receive little comfort from home except for reports

about how things were getting worse. The entire issue, as far as

perceptions of success in the refugee venture by the people themselves

was concerned, was beginning to revolve around the type of job attained

in Canada.

The majority of the villagers who had left Trinidad had still been

employed or were financially viable up to the time of departure. This was,

ironically, something of a prerequisite in order to be able to afford the

cost of travelling and maintenance upon arrival as a `visitor'. However, in

economic terms they felt certain that staying in Trinidad would mean

being laid off in the near future and then facing financial commitments

which were already becoming increasingly difficult to manage. The idea

of going to Canada to get a job and earn money was, from the start,

never hidden or denied except at the behest of certain immigration

lawyers or consultants. As one person put it; `I don't know about being an

economic refugee. All I know is that I can't remain in Trinidad. Maybe if I

was a Creole in Port of Spain they would give me work, but [the

government] don't care about we Indians in South at all. We only getting

retrenchment and crime in our tails.'

In other words, there was never any shame in being a refugee and

`abusing the refugee system' did not enter into their minds. They were

there to earn money and to take jobs which, apparently, Canadians did

not want. Indeed, a walk through downtown Toronto in 1988 would have

revealed dozens of `help wanted' notices in retail and restaurant outlets.

This suited the young and/or single refugees, but families with several

school-age children faced a more difficult task finding adequate

employment. When this did not always transpire there were, of course,

regrets.

I visited one such family in May of 1989, living in a subsidized

apartment at the top of a 14 story building in suburban Scarborough,

east of Toronto. The father, a former truck driver for a soft drink

company in southern Trinidad, had expected to simply sign up with a

long-haul truck company and drive large tractor-trailers across Canada.

He was shocked to find that he would have to do another driving test for

a particular licence, and that simply to rent a truck for the test would,

with the insurance involved, cost a prohibitive $2000 (CDN) dollars. He

planned to stay in Canada, living on the welfare payments provided by

the Ontario government, saying that he was only doing so because he

felt one of his daughters was getting a better education than `at home'.

The younger generation had less of a problem fitting in, even when

they could not, or would not, find a job. In some cases getting welfare

payments only confirmed to them what a great place Canada was. As

recognised refugees and as Ontario welfare recipients, even a bottle of

aspirin came free of charge on prescription from a friendly Canadian (ex-

Trinidadian) doctor. Any hostility from local Euro-Canadians seemed to

have been drowned out through fraternization with the rest of the

immigrant community, or through receptive church and community

youth groups. Those who preferred to maintain traditional Hindu ties

could gain access to the Hindu social networks in Toronto, some of them

predominantly Indo-Caribbean although, as Paranjpe (1986: 87) has

observed, even this sort of activity can be seen as a potential agent of

`Canadianization'.

Given the choice, younger people preferred to stay in Canada saying,

within the first few months of their arrival at least, that the place was just

like what they had expected from looking at television, though perhaps a

bit dirtier. One young man had told me in Trinidad in 1987 that if he

didn't get out of Trinidad he would `probably commit suicide'. In Canada

in 1989 he said that if he had to go back to Trinidad he would `definitely

commit suicide'.

Most of the refugees had resigned themselves to the fact that they

might well be sent back in the next year or two, following their

hearingsxvi. There never was any announcement of a general amnesty for

refugee claimants. Only one man has returned to Indian Wood, and this

was just to attend the funeral of his wife who had died suddenly.

Ironically, the Canadian authorities demanded that his sister in Montreal

had to place a bond ensuring that he would return to Canada to resume

his refugee hearings. He returned in three days.

Trinidad Indians as marginal refugees

The Trinidadians described in this paper, have been pragmatic in the

interim period, saving `foreign exchange', and planning for an eventual

return to Trinidad following an unsuccessful hearing. This is the reluctant

decision of most of the people involved, although later correspondence

indicates that many who had previously considered the whole venture

temporary, do wish to stay permanently if given the chance. An example

from the wife in one family:

I feel that if we get a good hearing we should stay. Is true some things here worse than in Trinidad. R------ not free to move and lime in the area how he does back home. But if I get on the subway, in half an hour I get to Toronto and there is plenty things to see. I ain't have no trouble moving from one job to another. Right now I working in a car plant kitchen. Things kind of easier in a way. Different worries but less worries. I find it strange that with all the bad talk about Canada at home about how white children does run wild, I find the children does stay in the house and just watch TV, more here than back home. You can control them more easier [sic].

The above account compares well with Ramcharan's (1983:61)

figures for Indo-Caribbean immigrants to Canada and their positive

attitudes towards remaining there. Initially only 45% felt this way versus

80% `after a period of years'. It also corroborates with Gosh (1983) who

noticed that, once in Canada, Indian women (in this case direct from the

sub-continent) may prove more sentimental about `home' than the men,

but that their implicit role as `custodians of religious and cultural

convictions' allows them an adaptability or, more accurately perhaps, a

tolerance (through a maintainable social distance) towards their new

(and often working) environment. This is probably truer for younger

rather than for older women, but no older Trinidad Indians went alone to

Canada as refugees.

The men from Trinidad, such as R------ mentioned by his wife

above, must, in contrast to the women, shift their gender identities

towards new, and usually more subservient, power relationships at work

and while initially liming (the Trinidadian term for informal socializing). In

this respect, that group of people which has come to be known as

`overseas Indians' (Kurian and Srivastava 1983: passim) who, as in this

case, have made a second migration, may have some advantages over

those who migrate straight from the sub-continent, when faced with the

all-encompassing and racist `Paki' labelling applied by many Euro-

Canadians. Fijian Indians in Vancouver, for example, tend to be highly

optimistic about their prospects and positive in their outlook on

[Euro-]Canadians, in extreme contrast with Sikhs direct from the Punjab

(Buchignani 1983:87).

Despite problems with assimilating family values, many overseas

Indians see themselves, and perceive of being seen as, meeting

Canadians half-way in terms of culture. That is to say, they share

materialistic ambitions and have the capability to act towards those

ambitions largely within the rules of Canadian society (ibid.). Most

migrating Trinidadians firmly believe, for example, that the `civilized'

aspects of Trinidad have prepared them handily for life abroad.

Importantly, however, the reverse is not so true. During the oil

boom, Trinidad communities began to receive so-called `freshwater

Yankees' and other returnees, but many were never re-accepted socially,

became unhappy, and returned to North America, even before the

Trinidad economy turned for the worse. One man from Indian Wood has

spent the last 20 years living for a few years at a time in both Canada

and Trinidad, superficially happy, yet perceptably uncomfortable in both

locales.

Therefore, it would probably be too optimistic, not to mention

ironically ethnocentric, to suggest that the Canadian experience may

have adapted the Indian Wood refugees to a better future in a

modernizing, capitalistic Trinidad, should they have to return. As recently

suggested by Brown (1987) and Drew (1987), the Indian diaspora

consistently display elements of social marginality (as opposed to

marginality on a more personal, individual, or aggregate level). This

consistency is in turn held (ibid.) to disprove theories similiar to the

evolutionary model of a serial pattern of contact, conflict, accomodation

and assimilation (Park 1950). Furthermore, the degree to which Indians

find themselves in an `ethnic quandry' (Vertovec 1990), is, once again,

strongly affected by the vagaries of the particular social situation and

environment. Thus, it is possible that individual Trinidad Indians can feel

less `harrassed' and less `under pressure' in Canada (or Britain, or the

United States) than `at home', i.e. in Trinidad. McLuhan and Powers have

recently described the mixed blessings of `"the missing face" of Canadian

culture' (1989: 147 ff.) in what they call the `global village'. In light of

this, there may well be an argument that it is better to be marginal in an

essentially `de-nationalizing' Canada given the stress of fluctuating

alienation and conflict that goes with being marginal in a stridently

`nationalizing' Trinidad.

Clearly, Trinidad's colonial-induced cultural plurality has failed to

satisfy the successful expression of many East Indian, and Creole,

nationalist aspirations, most of which, as characterized by Naipaul (e.g.

1987 [1967]; 1985 [1962]), include patterns of Western modernization

and `lifestyle'. Despite oil boom financing, attempts at mimicked

modernization remained superficial. Instead, more viable and successful

Trinidadian national expression, or `true-true Trini-styles' as they are

somewhat ironically described, such as carnival, calypso, steelband, and

also the Trinidad Indian festivals such as divali and phagwa, have

developed their characteristics precisely because of their quasi-

spontaneous atmosphere and `marginal', i.e. ethnic, roots. Yet

Trinidadians always consider it a `good thing' when different types of

people are seen participating (or just as usually, observing) these events.

Bluntly put, satisfaction with Trinidad nationalism can only be

partial through these efforts so long as mimicry remains part of people's

aspirations. The alternative cannot, therefore, be something inherently

Trinidadian. Hence the link between nationalism and ethnic identity. This

is not an ethnocentric statement in so far as Trinidad's nationalistic

constructions are not unique in being mytholigized and egalitarian in

nature (Segal 1987: 176).

Conclusion

Compared with recent Asian, African, and European events, with their

cases of visible destitution, violence, and loss of life, the Trinidad/Canada

refugee case may have been a small phenomenon; a blip on the

statistical charts. Nevertheless, it can be seen to illustrate and highlight

two important general points.

First of all it highlights the continuing crisis of defining exactly what a

`refugee' is. This crisis is not merely one of pure definition but of whether

a definition can be either useful or just in the changing international

conditions. Refugees/migrants from a particular country may be `merely'

seeking economic improvements in one month, and the next month they

may be fleeing for their lives, or vice versa. As Appe (1989) points out,

further burocratic definitions may only serve to confuse the governments

which are attempting to draft permanent legislation and policies to deal

with individuals from a hundred or more countries, each with varying

situations.

Although the positive approach would be to constantly modify

policy (Nettleton 1989), it will no doubt continue to be the case that some

refugees are accepted while others are rejected as `(economic)

migrants'. So what will the rejected ones do?

Secondly, once people believe their own country is `gone through' and,

for whatever reason, the belief exists that there is another place

temporarily available, the attraction for an escape can incorporate itself

into any local cycle of social anxiety, reaction, and reinforcing alienation

from formerly acquiescent national allegiances.

It has been beyond the scope of this paper to examine in detail

many of the related issues of racism, ethnicity, nationalism, or whether

one can compare this refugee episode with the original departure of

indentured Indians from India. Nevertheless, it is clear that in the light of

recent events in Trinidad, in Eastern Europe, and elsewhere, it is not

advisable to dismiss cases of `economic migrants' in an offhand manner.

Further analysis is necessary. As local constructs of national identities

selectively incorporate and/or reject the values and symbols of a more

global mass consumption (Miller 1987, 1990) the production of refugees

of alienation will increase.

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Notes:

i.For religious statistics the 1980 census (op. cit.) showed Roman Catholics making up 33.6% of the population and Anglicans having 15.0% (both largely African and 'mixed'). Hindus have 25.0% (the second largest figure overall), Muslims 5.9%, and Presbyterians 3.9% (all three largely East Indian). An ambiguous 'other' category with 16.6% is made up of American evangelical and local cult/sectarian groups. Importantly, this is the only group figure to have grown appreciably (from 11.1%) since the 1970 census, indicating, in the case of evangelical movements, the strength of outside evangelical influences on Trinidad.

ii. Since this paper does not deal with Tobago, Trinidad's sister island with a minuscule Indian population, I shall be referring to the island of Trinidad as if it were the entire country.

iii. This division of attitudes towards Indian identity, as such, also exists in the historical literature on Indian plantation life in the Caribbean (Haraksingh 1985).

iv. For a more detailed summary of the political events leading up to the 1986 General election, see Yelvington 1987.

v. Divali, the Hindu Festival of Light, takes place in late October/early November of each year.

vi. In April 1989, CLUB '88 became the basis of a new political party, the UNC, or United National Congress.

vii. In the past few years, there has also been a dramatic increase in drug use, particularly involving 'crack' cocaine. As a result, there has also been a wholesale importation of North American anti-drug propaganda.

viii. The statistical suicide rate in Trinidad, in which adolescent East Indians figure prominently, amounts to one of the highest in the Western Hemisphere (Ministry of Health 1984: 23-24).

ix. see Ryan 1972; Nicholls 1971; Gosine 1987. The latter paper in particular reflects the sort of Indian intellectual pro-family/anti-Black prejudices which have contributed to an overall Indian alienation.

x. The events of July/August 1990 do not render this statement invalid. Trinidad Indians (of varying backgrounds and locales) I contacted during the abortive coup were indifferent to both the NAR government and the Muslimeem, and merely deplored the fact that the dispute would do nothing to improve the overall situation.

xi. e.g. Trinidad Guardian, Dec. 2nd 1988, p.1

xii. While there was a social revolt of sorts against the mission's work earlier in the century (Samaroo 1975, Campbell 1985), the Canadian influence had grown irreversibly.

xiii. Canada Today Magazine 22 (April 1989) Canadian High Commission, Trafalgar House, London.

xiv. This occurred despite frequent Trinidad press warnings of bogus immigration consultants (c.f. Sandesh Aug.7, 1987). It was often claimed that such persons had not managed to secure legal immigrant status even for themselves. The Guyanese reference reflects a general Trinidadian prejudice against Guyana (I am grateful to Kevin Yelvington and Brackette Williams for reminding me of this).

xv. This effect continued into 1990 ( for example see Trinidad Sunday Guardian 11/03/90 p.11), with the acceptence by the Canadian Immigration Refugee Board of the case of a 41-year old woman who claimed she had been harrassed by criminal activity in Trinidad but was refused police protection. It remains to be seen what effect this case, and the recent attempted coup, will have on the cases of other claimants.

xvi. Most of the 26 Trinidadians (Refuge 8(4), 1989:2) who had received an initial hearing, up to May 1989, had been sent back. This is from the (1988) press-estimated total of 3,000 to 4,000 who had made their way to Canada and who could expect a hearing.