When I attended Dartmouth College between 1965 and 1968, I spent most of my vacations in Brooklyn, New York. I spent the whole summer of 1966 in Brooklyn, living in the basement of a home owned by the late Eric Card and his wife, Consie. I worked part time jobs through Manpower, Inc.
Weekends were a time for partying where British Hondurans in New York were concerned. There was a young Belizean who was famous at these parties for speaking in the most insulting way about Belize, which he called “the swamp,” and speaking in the most glowing, praise-filled way about America, which he called “the eagle.” This young Belizean was known as “Ticks,” and he came from one of the well known, middle class Giao families in B.H.
Dartmouth College and the Belizean community in New York were worlds apart on most issues. Most of the Dartmouth students were from wealthy, white American families, while the Belizeans in New York were, if you wanted to put it bluntly, refugees.
The issue on which Dartmouth students and New York Belizeans probably differed most radically was the issue of the Vietnam War. American college students were trying to figure out how to avoid being drafted and sent to fight in Vietnam. The military draft was mandatory in America in those days, and as soon as you became 18 and you were healthy, you were eligible to be drafted. I think most of the New York Belizeans saw the Vietnam War and the American military as opportunity. The opportunity was to regularize their status in the United States, many of them or their parents having entered the U.S. illegally.
America is a magnificent and complex reality. I do not hate the American government or people. Because of a legend on my mother’s side of the family, I grew up with an emotional attachment to the Sioux Indian tribe of the Dakota Black Hills, and I grieve at the crushing of the Native Americans by immigrant Europeans. I understand the history of the world to be violent and confrontational, however, so survival often becomes a matter of adaptation. Crazy Horse did not adapt, therefore he was killed. I honor him for his heroism. But as he was killed, so he himself had killed. This is the way of the world.
As a person of African ancestry, I have reasons to resent America’s treatment of African people. But America has also been the world power where African people have been the most successful in the post-colonial era, and I have found that almost all African Americans are loyal to the United States. So, I do not hate America.
But, I love Belize. The main reason I love Belize is because I was raised, to a great extent, as a child of the Barrier Reef, and the sea around Robinson Point, Grennells Caye, Spanish Caye, Homes Caye, Goff’s Caye, English Caye, and Rendezvous Caye truly represented paradise on earth in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
I also love Belize because here I was somebody, whereas in America I was nobody. There are many Belizeans who have become somebody in America. For them to love America is understandable. It is logical. In New York between 1965 and 1968, I was a minority voice. I loved Belize and wanted to go home. Almost all other Belizeans in the Big Apple were determined to make it in the United States. They dreaded the thought of having to return to “the swamp.”
In seeking to satisfy my science requirements for graduation from Dartmouth, I took a course in geology in the winter of 1967. One day in class the professor explained something which made it evident to me that Belize had oil. He said that where there are contiguous bodies of water with different salinity, this was a perfect environment for the creation of petroleum. In Belize, the waters outside the Barrier Reef and the waters inside the Barrier Reef, which are contiguous bodies of water, have a different salinity. The rivers along the coast of Belize which are constantly emptying fresh water into the sea inside the Reef, make it so that the waters inside the Barrier Reef are less saline than the waters outside the Reef.
As luck would have it, when I came home to spend the summer of 1967 in Belize, I worked at the oldest and most powerful law firm in Belize – W.H. Courtenay and Company. I didn’t do much. The Courtenays only gave me the job out of respect for my father, who was the Postmaster General. It happened that I saw papers for the Ariel and Ajax oil companies which confirmed for me what I had conceived in geology class the previous winter – Belize had to have oil.
I think it is for sure that the oil companies discovered oil here during their seismic explorations in the 1950’s. Smokey Joe says they discovered petroleum in Belize from the 1930’s. It then became important for the white supremacists to get the Giao out of Belize, because we were educated and we were troublesome. We felt we had rights in Belize. But our people did not see any beauty, resources or future here. So it was easy to entice us away. We rushed away from Belize into the inner cities of New York, Chicago and Los Angeles during the 1960’s. Our people rejoiced at their escape from “the swamp.”
But essentially what we did was, we gave up potentially the richest little country in the world to become illegal aliens in a crowded and racist society. The Giao are a minority in Belize now, and we will never be a majority again. Many of us refuse to accept this reality. Accept it, Jack. Believe it, Ticks. Belizeans gave up the bone for the shadow.
Power to the people.