The “Spanish” immigrants in our midst

Dear Editor,
The Cubans and Venezuelans are certainly here and isn’t their presence felt? Yes, they are here making a significant contribution to our country’s social and economic landscape. They are here due to sanctions imposed on their country by the United States of America, but they were not daunted by that deprivation; theirs is the spirit of survival against all odds. They’ve come with their culture: the food, their music, and their work ethic, the Spanish influence is felt all around us. On any given day the Spanish presence can be felt be it around Demico, in Regent Street, in Berbice – in every region of Guyana the Spanish Folks are there.
They are here to earn a living – simply put, they are here to survive in another country other than their own. Now, the single most common factor that distinguishes them from the local work force is their work ethic, it is the principle that hard work is intrinsically virtuous and worthy of reward. They have grasped the opportunity to eke out a living with tenacity, that is, to manage to survive with very little money, often through hard work and careful frugal use of resources.
Isn’t this the principle that governed us when we ran away from our home country to seek refuge abroad?
Yes, it is, we worked hard and made for us a comfortable life, whether we domiciled abroad or we sent back remittances to Guyana and built our homes here, this is the guiding principle that dictated our stay in another man’s country. That conservative mode has kept us alive and made us a successful people.
In any discourse where living abroad is the topic of discussion, Barbados readily comes to mind, I must remind my readers that this is one of the countries Guyanese ran to when fleeing the harsh realities of PNC rule. Now, you must be reminded that the Barbadian Government did not take too kindly to the Guyanese immigrant population in their midst and in that regard we were subject to all the abuse there is, even to the point where we could not send money back to Guyana, Barbados had no Moneygram or Western Union wherewith you could have sent money back home, or even if they had, remittances to Guyana was forbidden; that was the law.
Our woes did not end there, because persecution for Guyanese came as a result of their penchant for hard work and frugal management. A case in point was Barbadian contractors’ preference for Guyanese construction workers in that they got the work done in record time, and this became a serious problem for the locals. By 10.00AM Bajan workers took these long mid-morning breaks while the Guyanese workers worked through that period; this brought more hostility from The Bajans.
Our women were called prostitutes and our men wife stealers – the very same thing Guyanese at home want to call the Spanish Immigrants in our midst. It is the same hostility our local people are stereotyping the Venezuelans and Cubans.
I see pretty “Spanish women” (muchachas bonitas) as charwomen, cleaning our municipal markets while Guyanese contemptuously remark that they “cannot do that kind of work for that kind of money.” The opposition, for their part, openly accused the Government of harbouring foreigners here for the purposes of voting in an election. These are the very same things that Guyanese were subjected to in another country, right here in the Caribbean.
In conclusion, we must be welcoming of our Caribbean neighbours who are fleeing hard times, we need to get back to the same principle of hard work and to be more sparing and economical in the management of our finances.

Yours sincerely,
Neil Adams