13528: Laleau comments on recent boat people

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: NLaleau@aol.com
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Re whether a whole village could send 200 people to Miami and land on a
freeway
despite US "anti-terrorism" measures: I find it quite believable. It's a
condensed version of what's been going on since the 1960s. Families
collected
money to send one person to the States, to work, send money back, maybe
even
send for them. Other families sent one member to be a "friend" of
then-president Duvalier, to provide "protection" for them within Haiti.
And I
know 1990s "boat people" who grabbed whatever boat they found because they
had
to flee that very minute, got on it with whomever they could round up,
without
supplies, navigation skills or equipment,  and made it to Miami. Haitians
improvisation never surprises me, nor does North American insensitivity,
racism, and selfishness. --

nancy laleau