People have long associated anchor babies with Mexico, but that association is obsolete. Get ready for anchor babies from around the world. Ah, the joys of diversity!
And those births will be greeted by the obligatory emotional, celebratory news stories from OBL traitor-reporters.
Even in Trinidad, people know all about the anchor baby scam. While we were there for 20 days in late July through mid-August on our annual visit to my wife’s family, two separate Indian couples informed my wife that they planned on going to the U.S. to have their babies. One woman, who looked to be in her late 20s (her husband, a builder, appeared to be in his thirties), was already five months pregnant. The other woman, who is about 30, is not yet pregnant, but plans on getting knocked up and coming over next year. Her husband has a decent government job as a painter, also does “PJs” (private jobs), and built his wife a house.
(The country is officially named, “The Republic of Trinidad & Tobago,” after the two islands which it is composed of, off Venezuela’s northeastern coast, and also called “TT” and “T&T,” for short. We never go to Tobago, which is a tourist trap—even when white tourists aren’t being raped or butchered out of purely racial motives—and follow the Trinidadian practice of speaking of the country as “Trinidad.” The government created the barbarism, “Trinbagonian,” but no real people use it. Although TT has a national government, relatively wealthy, sparsely populated Tobago enjoys its own, semi-autonomous government. As of last month, TT’s population was estimated at 1,229,953.)
I wrote, “even in Trinidad,” because few people there have Internet service. But they have cellphones, and a great many TTers talk to relatives and friends who have already moved, by hook or by crook, to the States.
Since TT has socialized health care, it has no public health care. In the public hospitals, the staff steals most of the supplies, including crucial medicine like antibiotics, so you have to bring everything your loved one might need.
If you take ill and want to live, you must ante up for a private “nursing home” (read: clinic) or private hospital, where you have to pay cash up front, or they let you die. And “cash” means just that. No plastic, no checks.
While we were visiting, a beloved sister-in-law of mine, who had just had her gall bladder removed, almost died of a bile duct obstruction that her doctors had missed the first time around. At one point, my sister-in-law needed to be moved from a private nursing home to a private hospital, for the bile duct procedure. But it was 5:30 p.m. by the time the doctor scheduled her 9 p.m. procedure, hours after the banks had closed, and so, when the ambulance (an independent, private service) brought her from the nursing home to the hospital, and her husband didn’t have the necessary $5000 TT cash for the procedure, the hospital staff refused to admit her. So, the driver took her back to the nursing home, only when he brought her back to her room, he demanded $1,800 TT, not the $1,200 he had agreed to in advance. Unfortunately, I wasn’t there at the time, and he was able to bully L’s daughter-in-law into paying the $1,800. (Which was a complete waste.)
For an alternative description of TT’s public health system, in the entry in The Pretend Encyclopedia, aka Wikipedia, one reads,
Public Healthcare is free to everyone in Trinidad and Tobago and is paid for by the Government and taxpayers. Healthcare services are offered on a walk-in basis. There are a few major hospitals throughout the country as well as smaller health centers and clinics located regionally throughout.
The Ministry of Health is mandated to provide a functioning health-care system to benefit all citizens. This had led to the reforming of the entire health-care system in the country.
In addition to TT’s relative poverty, its health care system, or lack thereof, makes America doubtless terribly attractive to TT women. But that’s not America’s problem. For approximately 5.5 billion people, health care is as bad or worse than it is in TT. And if Trinidadians know about the anchor baby scam, the whole world does.
(The exchange rate has for years fluctuated from $6.20-6.30 TT to $1 US, with TT banks giving you an even $6 TT, but that rate means nothing to locals who earn their money in TT dollars.
The CIA World Factbook ranks TT 112th in world purchase power parity, between Botswana and Senegal. Affluent North Korea ranks above it at 95th, with Tokelau last at 228. The U.S. is ranked a very close second overall, due to the expedient of misrepresenting the European Union as one country.)
It's clear you have a jaded view of Trinidad, if not an outright dislike. I wasn't going to leave a comment until I got down to the part where you make it sound like Trini's are desperate to leave and live in the states, i believe you put it as 'through hooks or crooks'... I'm living in Trinidad and can tell you the vast majority have internet (please don't be alarmed) and yes of course cell phones. We like many countries do have family that live in the states, mainly because they go/went to school there. And this is the main reason why many caribbean countries find it attractive to have children born in the US, because then they can get a good university education at a fraction of the cost. And any tourist destination you will find crime, so saying tourists are butchered and raped like its a frequent, regular, and expected occurance is alarming to me.
ReplyDeleteOnce every nine or ten years I get an idiotic, dishonest letter from someone claiming to be a Trini which, when you get down to it, is a splendidly low percentage. You’re so full of shit, it’s coming out of your ears.
ReplyDelete1. The vast majority of Trinis do not have Internet service. From whom would they be getting this vaunted service? Most young people have to go to Internet cafés to use the computers and servers there to access the Web, and most older people don’t care. I’m not “alarmed”; I deal with liars all the time;
2. Trinis have cell phones out of necessity, not prosperity. TSTT’s worthless residential landline service has forced the entire country to switch to cell phones;
3. “We like many countries do have family that live in the states, mainly because they go/went to school there. And this is the main reason why many caribbean countries find it attractive to have children born in the US, because then they can get a good university education at a fraction of the cost.” Gimme a break! I’ve met hundreds of Trinis in America, and not one of them had come over to go to the university. A university education costs a fortune here, but is free in TT. Over 90 percent of the women came over on tourist visas and initially worked as baby sitters. Indeed, I met one three years ago, who left to return to TT, because she had been accepted at UTT. They “find it attractive to have children born in the US,” in order to exploit them as anchor babies!;
4. So, you’ve not only misrepresented TT, but laughably misrepresented America (“get a good university education at a fraction of the cost”) as well; and
5. That white tourists are being butchered in Tobago is the alarming part, not your stupid feelings about the truth coming out.
Lady, what a dunce you are! I’m pissed off at you for the following reasons: 1. You’re a liar; 2. You’re a really stupid, pretentious liar, in trying to portray a third-world nation, as if it were wealthy, and trying to pass yourself off as some kind of frigging aristocrat; and 3. Worst of all, your hostile, snooty denial of the simplest facts, and false claim that I am hostile towards Trinidad has put me in the position of appearing to actually be hostile towards the country that I love second only to my own.
Are you really a Trini? Where were you born, where do you now live, and where did you go to school? I have never in my life come across a Trini as pretentious as you, neither in Trinidad nor in the States, no matter how educated a person was. You do have a familiar sound, however: The sound of a social climber.
Angling to get a scholarship to come over here, are you? Well, American academia is full of morons who routinely fall for your sort of scam. You could easily parlay their stupidity and affirmative action into a Doctor of Dunceology degree, and a career as a “Caribbean Studies scholar.” Since “Caribbean Studies” involves never telling the truth about the Caribbean, you’re perfectly qualified!
An alternative theory beckons: You’re not a Trini at all, but a dumb, pretentious American kid doing a very poor job of posing as one. In any event, it’s extraordinary how much fictional content a brief comment by someone claiming to be a citizen of a country could contain about that nation.
Nice reply Nick, I enjoy you more each day.
ReplyDeleteNot so anonymous - Mark