29720: Durban (comment): On Emmigrating and Opportunity (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

Lance Durban <lpdurban@yahoo.com> comments:

In post 29688, Haiti resident Philippe Clerie opines:
    "every evening I go to sleep wishing I could just leave."

My first reaction is that the grass always looks greener on the other
side of the fence, but let me add some other thoughts.

I would argue that for people with an education, good health, and a
positive work ethic, Haiti offers every bit as much opportunity as the
United States.  For people without an education and dependent on the
social safety net then, granted, the U.S. or Canada is probably a
better place to end up.  And of course GETTING a good education may be
easier in the U.S. or Canada with their free public schools, and that
may be one legitimate incentive for a Haitian to want to leave.  But
that is thinking about your children, and my impression is that far too
many Haitians feel that a U.S. or Canadian visa is the only way that
they, personally, are ever going to make it.

The irony is that there have been plenty of IMmigrant success stories
in Haiti over the past 100+ years.  The Haitian Arab community dates
from the late 1800's and most of these people arrived in Haiti with
little more than the shirts on their backs.  Suffice it to say, they
have, as a group, done very well in the intervening years.  And this
group is still expanding as recent arrivals from the turbulent Middle
East are brought in by Haitian relatives.  Unfortunately, in my view,
many 2nd and 3rd generation Haitian-Arabs are joining the quest for
that U.S. work permit... Have they become too Haitian?

Another nationality that has begun to arrive in surprising numbers are
Filippinos.  Not just U.N. peacekeepers, but true immigrants many of
whom will probably remain in Haiti.  A female Filippino industrial
engineer that we employ tells me that there are now well over 200 of
her countrymen in the Port-au-Prince area alone.  They have their own
social organization and threw a big Christmas party just last week.
Indeed, they can be found working in grocery stores and other retail
establishments in Petionville, employed as industrial engineers and
technicians in industry, as teachers in schools, etc. etc.  Do these
people see something that many Haitians, scrambling for a U.S. visa,
are missing?

The bottom line is that there is opportunity regardless of your country
of residence.  Sorry, but the hand-wringing heard on the Corbett group
about the plight of illegal Haitian immigrants detained in the U.S.
doesn't get much sympathy from me.  Most of these folks, who apparently
had sufficient energy to make it to the U.S. mainland, could have
better used that energy creating a life for themselves in Haiti...
excepting of course, those less fortunate souls who were looking for
that social safety net funded by the tax-paying American public.

Lance Durban