A special report by Journal staff writer Lynn Arditi
and photographer John Freidah
FACING THE FUTURE: A homesick Ralston Brown, who works in the kitchen
at the Spring House Hotel, gazes at the evening sky on Block Island, two
days before his return home. Read
the complete story.
In the spring, thousands of Jamaicans leave their families
to work in America.
They come to hotels and restaurants in Rhode Island and
around the country to work as housekeepers, dishwashers, landscapers and janitors
-- jobs which often pay twice what they earn back home.
Their country gives up its workers willingly; Jamaica
can offer them nothing better.
For all its beauty, Jamaica is a paradise in poverty's
grip. So, they leave.
Their passage is aided by recruiters who negotiate the
bureaucratic channels between the Caribbean and America. The recruiters don't
advertise; they don't have to.
Word spreads on its own: the Americans have work and the
Jamaicans come. They come for the money.
This past spring, 14 Jamaicans journeyed to the Spring
House on Block Island to take jobs that, at $7 an hour, Americans didn't want.
One is a single mother with three children; another is
a young man following his older brother's lead. One will be invited back; the
other won't.
