Route du Rhum against meaning, the emigration of Caribbeans
On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the solo transatlantic race, the Route du Rhum, Geneafinder chose to share an article against the tide.
We will not talk about European immigration to the Caribbean, but rather the emigration of Caribbean to the great American and European powers.
Rum for the road
A l’origine de la Route du Rhum naît l’idée de relancer la filière du rhum, autrefois l’une des industries les plus importantes en Guadeloupe. Mais à l’origine de l’émigration de nombreux habitants des Caraïbes il y a la recherche d’une vie moins dure. Autrefois colonies, depuis le milieu du XXe siècle, l’émigration tient une place prépondérante dans ces îles. C’est désormais une région que l’on quitte, plutôt qu’une région dans laquelle on s’installe.
Different sources bring us that nearly 6 million in the Caribbean have left their country towards North America and Europe in the 20th century. Indeed, developed countries and their industries are growing and they need labor. This workforce will allow them, somewhere, to enrich themselves during and after the war (arms factories, flourishing and reconstruction automobile business). During the 1960s, the United States and Canada even set up laws to promote the arrival of these Caribbean migrants.
Discompressible or even unstable political climate, economic difficulties, desertification ... There are many reasons for pushing Caribbeans to go with the hope that the grass will be much greener elsewhere. Lots of puertic-writers, Cubans, Haitians, Jamaicans, Barbadians and Guyanese will leave for the United States while many West Indians, Guadeloupe and Martinique, will leave for France.
Go see elsewhere
La « première » vague d’émigration des Antilles vers la France arrive durant l’entre-deux guerres. Issus principalement des classes moyennes, ces nouveaux arrivants ont pour idée de travailler, d’étudier et de se former sur le continent avant de rentrer au pays. A partir des années 1960, leur nombre explose après, entre autres, l’effondrement de l’exploitation des plantations de sucre et la crise sociale qui en découle. Les migrants des Antilles représenteront même la 5e greater population of arrivals In the French metropolis, after the Portuguese, the North Africans and the Italians. This great wave of migration is also explained by the fact that it had been largely encouraged by French factories if the need for workforce, then facilitated by the French government at the time.
The slowdown in economic growth in France and the difficult conditions of the labor market in the 1970s explain the drop in the enthusiasm of West Indian departures to the metropolis. Many will return "to the country", moreover, there will be more than 20,000 to do so in the 1990s. In these same years, this work migration is found rather in low -skilled jobs and/or in public services which recruit on national competitions.
Find your place
However, the arrival of the West Indians in France will not be a long quiet river. Unemployment, financial difficulties, discrimination and racism punctuate the life of these overseas French people whose integration has not always been easy. In responses to these difficulties, the West Indians are mobilizing and have no other alternatives than to claim their cultural collective identity.
Et si finalement les Antilles finissent par les rappeler, le retour sur leur île n’est pas si simple non plus. Alors que les immigrés des années 60 rentraient avec fierté dans les îles, plus les années ont passés plus cela s’est avéré difficile. Certains codes de la culture antillaise (la langue traditionnelle, la cuisine, le style de vie…) qu’ils revendiquaient sur le continent ont évolué pendant leurs dizaines d’années d’absence. Ils ont parfois oublié quelques notions de créole et Also endure contempt of those who have never left. So how do you find your place over migration? This is the whole question.
In conclusion, humans are like plants: very attached to their roots, we sometimes have to move away from us to survive, to set up elsewhere, to acclimatize, to make a place to capture a little light, then again to leave ... This is not easy and there are many lessons to be learned from the history of these French overseas.
Pour aller plus loin :
History and memory of immigration in regions, Martinique - Guadeloupe
History of Guadeloupe, volume 1
French West Indies, particularly Guadeloupe, from their discovery to 1erJanuary 1823
New trip to the Isles of America. Volume 2
New trip to the Isles of America. Volume 5