A 45-minute flight from San Juan, Puerto Rico, the sunny Brit- ish Virgin Islands, some 60 in all, are viewed as part of the "un- spoiled" tourist world. They are famous in yachting circles for some of the world's best sailing, as well as their "natural beauty." Untouched by some of the famil- iar signs of tourist development-- big seaside hotels, hamburger stands-the islands of Tortola, Virgin Gorda and Jost Van Dyke are to visitors the ideal place to "get away from it all." Tourism in the British Virgin Is- lands began with Laurence Rock- efeller's construction of Little Dix Bay. With the birth of tourism in the 1960s, the British Virgin Is- lands took their place alongside most other Caribbean islands in the competition for tourists--and for cheap labor to serve them. 46 That labor, part of the migrant chain that extends throughout the Caribbean, has come largely from from the Eastern Caribbean ("down-island"), as it has in previ- ous periods of capitalist expan- sion in the region. To many residents and immi- grant workers in the British Virgin Islands, however, tourism is sim- ply a new form of slavery. You know in the next world white people going to be slave? You ever had any white people were slave yet? All white on top all over the world... White people going to die on top.* Nobody going to treat me like a slave...my grandfather came from India to grind cane as a slave.. .he said don't be like me; do better than me. Too much work.. .man on his face workin'. My father used to *These quotes, as well as the headline, are all from remarks made to the author by a wide spectrum of workers in the British Virgin Islands. NACLA Reportupdate 9 update * update * update have to work hard...He used to cut sugar cane... Well I was go- ing to school until I was sixteen years old and when I sixteen years old I would stop and go and get a job. But I would not have get it easy. I would have had hard time to get it...I would like to come a teacher. .. They saying now that only Tolian [from Tortola] they want to work here. Only like my brother who born here would get any kind of job he want... What they give me I would have to take it. . .It is easy for the Tolian dem but not for the outside-one dem...They treat them bad because they can't get what kind of job they want. They give them outsiders...to mind someone's baby or to clean out the house... First claimed by the Dutch, the islands were seized and colonized by Great Britain, in 1673, as part of the lucrative British West Indian "triangular trade" in sugar and slaves. The European demand for timber, sugar, cotton and rum pro- vided the British Virgin Islands (BVI) with a brief period of pros- perity between 1750 and 1815, but the islands were used primar- ily as hideouts for pirates and smugglers. After the abolition of slavery in 1834 the sugar plantations were abandoned by English planters, whose profits depended on con- tinued slave labor and the mercy of their Liverpool creditors. The islanders, mostly former slaves, purchased or squatted on avail- able land and began to produce vegetables and fruits and raise animals, continuing on a larger scale what they had begun as slaves. Despite hurricanes, rocky soil, and steep cliffside farming, they expanded throughout the 19th century, so that by the early Mar/Apr 1983 Tourism came late to BVI. Here, the Lord Nelson Inn, Virgin Gorda. 20th century these petty produc- ers had become the main sup- pliers of beef, poultry, vegetables and fruits to their neighbors, the Danish Virgin Islands. In 1917, the United States pur- chased those islands from the Danes for $25 million. U.S. inter- ests were primarily strategic, but island residents soon saw the tourist advantages; hotels as well as military installations mush- roomed in the next two decades. The boom created an attractive market for U.S. mainland produc- ers. BVI farmers were unable to compete with mainland food sup- pliers for the U.S. Virgin Island markets-though some tried to survive in the margin that re- mained. With no industry and little help from Great Britain, the BVI offered them few alternatives. Those who could not compete faced the choice of subsistence farming on the rocky soil or mi- grating to other Caribbean islands for work. The main source of work was the tourist industry on the U.S. Virgin Islands. Thus as tourism flourished in St. Thomas, St. Croix and later, St. John, it drew the unemployed and impoverished from St. Kitts, Nevis, Anguilla, Antigua as well as the British Vir- gin Islands. Migration was not new to the British Virgin Islanders, however. Many of them had had to leave the subsistence plots of their ex-slave ancestors in the 19th century to carry coal on the docks of St. Thomas or cut cane in St. Croix. With other West Indians, BV Is- landers had also migrated to the Panama Canal and to the cane- fields of Cuba and the Dominican Republic in the early 20th century. So the pattern was a familiar one in the 1930s and 1940s- when the British Virgin Islanders, along with the rest of the "down- islanders," once again migrated to fill the lowest paid, least pro- tected jobs, this time in the ser- vice sector. For the low wages that St. Thomians migrated to the United States to avoid, immigrants worked, legally and illegally-as taxi drivers, ditch diggers, wait- ers, bartenders, cooks and do- mestics. Uncertainty created by the ille- gal status of most of their em- ployees caused problems for hotel and restaurant owners, who wel- comed the passage of the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act in 1952. This act secured the legal- ity of resident workers. Simultane- ously, it allowed for the entry of thousands more immigrants as "temporary workers"--guarantee- 47update . update * update * update ing the industry a virtually inex- haustible labor supply. Down-Island Labor Needed Then in 1961 the British Virgin Islands joined the tourist develop- ment scene. The economy had deteriorated to the point where an outside economist was called in. Her advice to the governor: pri- vate, i.e., primarily foreign owned, tourism. BVI businessmen were quick to point out that with so many British Virgin Islanders working in the U.S. Virgin Islands--as tem- porarily permanent residents-- they needed a new source of labor. This labor was most easily acquired from "down-island." Since the inauguration of tour- ism in the 1960s, hundreds of West Indians from Antigua, St. Kitts, Nevis, Anguilla, Montserrat, St. Maarten and Dominica have migrated to the British Virgin Is- lands-escaping the unemploy- ment and poverty of their own home islands in search of jobs and higher wages. Employed as electricians, plum- bers, waiters, bartenders, maids, mechanics, nurse maids, dock hands and waitresses, down-is- landers constituted 30.8% of the BVI labor force of 2,544 in 1976.* These figures, compiled from vol- untary employer responses to a questionnaire, underrepresent the number of illegal workers, if it in- cludes them at all. As a result, the very large extent to which the BVI economy depends on the supply of down-island labor is obscured. Other figures published by the government tourist board indicate that approximately 2,300 down- islanders enter the British Virgin Islands temporarily (as "tourists" or "visitors") each year. Of these, *The only publicly available statistics on migration come from the government publi- cation, Tourism in the British Virgin Islands. These figures come from the 1978 issue, the most recently published. 48 52% are men and 48% are wo- creased by the obligations of most men. Seventy-eight percent of this to send money to family members group are of working age: be- in their home islands. tween 20 and 50 years old, with All this is aggravated by the the average age 25. These figures, ideology of "Island People." In while obscuring the numbers of this socially sanctioned discourse, immigrants who come looking for Eastern Caribbean immigrants are work or who actually obtain jobs, ostracized and degraded, blamed dogivean indicationofthepoten- for the ills of BVI society and tial supply of down-island labor in viewed as untrustworthy and cri- the islands. minally disposed. This notion gains acceptance in part from BVI Mlfgrats' Needs Overlooked residents who feel outnumbered For immigrant workers, how- by skilled immigrants, and angry ever, the initial appeal of higher at the huge influx of foreign work- wages in the BVI tourist industry is ers, the increase in crime in the dulled by the conditions they find last 20 years and the reluctance there. In addition to the high cost of immigrants to take part in labor of living,* the legal status of many struggles. immigrants is extremely precari- These antagonisms between ous. Many enter illegally, are hired resident and immigrant workers in illegally (without a work permit) or turn create difficulties in union or- "overstay" their visitor passes ganizing. Employer opposition to while looking for a job. For all im- unions is continuous, and at- migrant workers-legal and ille- tempts at organizing in the 1960s gal--deportation without due pro- and 1970s have failed in part be- cess is an ever-present threat, cause of the inability of workers to one which aids in the control and overcome these divisions. To discipline of the workforce. When date, only the teachers have a compared to prices, wages are union. barely at subsistence level; the In fact, in contrast to BV Island- average hourly wage for women, ers, many immigrants bring ex- for example, was $1.29 in 1976. perience of labor struggles in their The status of naturalized citizen, home islands. The desire to con- with its corresponding rights to tinue those struggles, however, is education and health care, is pos- frustrated by the restrictions they sible after seven consecutive face as immigrants and "tempor- years' residence. Before that, ary workers." Laws similar to the immigrants' needs can be over- U.S. Immigration and Nationality looked. And without land they Act were passed in the late 1960s. have no garden plots essential to Workers are bound to their em- offset the high cost of food. Thus, ployers by work permits and visa immigrants especially suffer the conditions, and they know they high cost of living, a burden in- can be deported for any behavior *According to a report by the Royal Com- deemed "improper" by immigra- monwealth Society in 1975, the following tion authorities-whose sympa- food prices and wage differentials existed thies generally lie with resident between the BVI and St. Kitts in 1974. St. Kitts BVI 1 doz. eggs U.S. $ 94 $ 1.50 In spite of these obstacles, pro- 4 oz. coffee $ 1.06 $ 2.63 union sentiment exists-however 1 lb. chicken $ .68 $ .80 infrequently or quietly ex- Monthly wages for a full time cook and pressed-among both BV Island- home helper $30. 19 $60.00 ers and down-islanders. This in NACLA Reportupdate . update * update * update part emerges from their common work experience. Both groups face uncertain health and safety on the job and an absence of an effective formal grievance proce- dure. Both also face the high cost of living from which resident work- ers' access to housing and land on which to grow food does not entirely exempt them. Shared Racial Oppression These bonds between residents and immigrants are expressed in community and family. Residents and immigrants intermarry, drink rum and play dominoes together and help each other in times of financial need. Living side by side in communities all over the islands, they establish deep friendships with one another. All of this con- trasts with the hostility expressed in the ideology of "Island People." Bringing them closer together is their shared experience of ra- cial oppression. To the expatriate North American and British hotel and restaurant owners, managers and tourists, both BV Islanders and down-island immigrants are merely black West Indians. For Mar/Apr 1983 the most part whites and blacks attend separate schools, live in separate neighborhoods and so- cialize in separate restaurants and bars. These divisions only reinforce the fundamental class divisions in society between white employers and black workers. They keep you down all the days of your life . .want you be a slave for them.. .one day [you] might say the hell with them. We have our hope; we build our hope. And when we read God's Bible, it strengthen our hope. I'm a revolutionary. . .a quiet revo- lutionary. I have influence on peo- ple...Jesus wasn't a colonialist, an imperialist.. .Baptists have al- ways been revolutionaries. Rasta talk about slavery . .it's up to Black people to change things .. I got my mind. One of the most outspoken groups against racism and ex- ploitation is the Rastafarians, comprised largely of young BVI nationals, sons and daughters of wage laborers and farmers. Rastas demand an end to the 400 years of political, cultural and economic oppression of Black West Indians by white Anglo Saxon culture, the U.S. dollar and British colonialism. Another community group puts forth more specific demands. It struggles for local control over re- sources, money for schools and housing and the fair treatment of immigrants. Frequently the target of harassment, one leader was recently jailed. Despite the divisions between resident and immigrant workers, these bases of commonality may yet provide the foundations of a working class movement. Those who struggle in the British Virgin Islands will not endlessly suffer the political, economic and racial brutalities of their daily existence. As one islander put it: "West In- dian man going to fight against you unless you treat him with dig- nity. .. We all Caribbean people." Elizabeth Oakes did research on Tor- tola, BVI, in 1980 and 1981. Her Ph.D. dissertation, in anthropology, is on class consciousness in the British Vir- gin Islands.
