Caribbean American Passport News Magazine - June 2018

FREE Your Passport to the Caribbean American Community

9

June/July 2018

6

In defense of immigrants: Here’s why America needs them now more than ever!

Orlando Carnival Downtown 'Makes History' at the Amway Arena

Op-Ed by Richard V. Reeves

(This article was featured in Esquire )

At the very heart of the American idea is the notion that, unlike in other places, we can start from nothing and through hard work have everything. That nothing we can imagine is beyond our reach. That we will pull up stakes, go anywhere, do anything to make our dreams come true. But what if that’s just a myth? What if the truth is something very different? What if we are…stuck?

I. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE AN AMERICAN? Full disclosure: I’m British. Partial defense: I was born on the Fourth of July. I also have made my home here, because I want my teenage sons to feel more American. What does that mean? I don’t just mean waving flags and watching football and drinking bad beer.

(Okay, yes, the beer is excellent now; otherwise, it would have been a harder migration.) I’m talking about the essence of Americanism. It is a question on which much ink—and blood—has been spent. But I think it can be answered very simply: To be American is to be free to make something of yourself. An everyday phrase that’s used to admire another (“She’s really made something of herself”) or as a proud boast (“I’m a self-made man!”), it also expresses a theological truth. The most important American-manufactured products are Americans themselves. The spirit of self-creation offers a strong and inspiring contrast with English identity, which is based on social class. In my old country, people are supposed to know their place. British people, still constitutionally subjects of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, can say things like “Oh, no, that’s not for people like me.” Infuriating.

(Article Continued on page 7)

Orlando Carnival Downtown made his-

tory presenting Machel Montano and the full Monk band along with Raymond Ramnarine, Menace, Serani, and Tony Matterhorn and local performers and DJ's inside the Amway

Arena for the 1st time. On May 27th, soca, chutney and reggae performers presented the cultural diversity of the Caribbean inside the Amway Arena. Thousands came out to enjoy and celebrate this...Cont on Pg 10

Bronze Kingdom Opens in Fashion Square Mall

2

www.caribbeanamericanpassport.com

L I F E S T Y L E

Guenet Gittens-Roberts, Publisher/Editor

Celebrate the Life you Live and Live the Life you Love !

We just finished an amazing season of management, marketing, planning and implementing and the journey was unbelievable. From Project Management with Hurricane clean-up in Polk County, to the Holi Fest in March at Turkey Lake Park, to CAFA 'Caribbean Fusion' in Kissimmee in April, while also planning and implementing the Orlando Carnival Downtown...all this while still running the Caribbean American Passport News Magazine, GGR Marketing and PR and taking on new clients...weh what a ride!!!

Samuel J. Roberts, Publisher/Editor

This season, although not over, made us as a team, a family, a company, a committee, and a community.

Together we realized that when you're doing what you love and doing it for the right reason...it becomes the most rewarding experience. We made new friends and established new business associates, we built stronger ties with key members of our community and grew as a company in ways we never expected.

For those who aren't familiar with our company's history...let me put this in perspective. In 2004 we launched Roberts and Roberts Management Services, LLC to serve as our property management and construction management company. Our focus started off managing our own rental properties and soon we were managing properties for friends and family from across the world.

Most recently, we secured and managed the Hurricane Irma debris clean-up project for Polk County, which included 16 other municipalities from Winter Haven to Fort Meade, from Lake Wales to Haines City, and from Auburndale to Kathleen.

In 2008 we launched GGR Marketing & PR to help small businesses, primarily Caribbean businesses, maneuver the intricacies of doing business in or with main stream America and grow at the same time. We worked with local Caribbean restaurants, law offices, barber shops and supermarkets to help provide an affordable marketing strategies to grow their business. We established community partners with many Caribbean non-profit associations and community organizations while building our network. We attended community events across the State of Florida, in Georgia, and as far as New York and Texas. Over these years we've built our clientele, our reputation and email database to over 45,000 active email addresses. We do a weekly email blast to this database with an industry high open rate of over 23.73%. GGR Marketing & PR has been recognized by the Orlando Business Journal as one of the top 25 Advertising and Marketing agencies in 2017.

In 2010 we created the Caribbean American Passport (CAP) News Magazine to provide a platform to showcase the strength and diversity of Caribbean American community and therefore show our readers and mainstream America all the positive things that we, as Caribbean Americans, are doing within our Community and beyond. We launched CAP News Magazine in 2010 with 5,000 copies distributed in Central Florida. In 2013 we took the Caribbean American Passport News Magazine to be a Statewide distributed publication with over 20,000 copies printed and distributed in Tampa, Jacksonville, Central Florida and South Florida. Today we are the ONLY Caribbean American publication with a STATEWIDE distribution footprint. In our 8 year history as a publication we have never and will never publish anything negative about any Caribbean person. We believe in showcasing our community with the pride of our diversity, with the strength in our culture and with the passion of our heritage.

We are one Caribbean separated only by the waters of the Ocean and the flags of our birth places.

I am constantly 'Celebrating the Life I Live and I will continue to Live the Life I Love'. Please feel free to join me on this journey!!!

1969 Alafaya Trail • Orlando, FL 32828 Office: 407-427-1800

Fax: 407-386-7925

Toll Free: 877-220-8315 For Media Information email: Publisher: sroberts@caribbeanamericanpassport.com Info: .Info@caribbeanamericanpassport.com

Should you desire to review past copies of the publicationgo to http://caribbeanamericanpassport.com and click on the 'Print Archive'.

Editor & Publisher............................................................... Sam Roberts Publisher ........................................................... Guenet Gittens-Roberts Graphic Design & Layout .................................................Samuel Roberts Contributing Writers: ............................................................ Tony Dyal ................................................................................................Ryan Davis .............................................................................................Sandra Fatmi ...............................................................................................Gail Seeram ...........................................................................................Sasha Watson ..........................................................................................Kamal Abdool Contributing Photographers ............ ...................................Ted Hollins ..................................................................................................Dilia Castillo .............................................. .......................................Nancy-Joe Brown Central Florida Distribution...................................................Roy Benn South Florida Distribution ...........................................Norman Williams NorthFlorida Distribution ......................................................Theo Jack Jr. Tampa Distribution ...........................................................Kadeem Roberts Copyright (C) 2016 GGR Marketing & Public Relations. All rights reserved.

www.caribbeanamericanpassport.com

3

From beaches to business summits: Why Jamaica is attracting top investors -

by Harry Owen

"BIG UP!” were the inevitable first words at this year’s Jamaican Investment Forum (JIF), announced by Senator Don Wehby as he opened the event in Montego Bay last week.

“I usually take the credit – I’m a politician, I can’t help it,” Holness joked. “[But] the real drive for this came from our energetic minister, the honourable Audley Shaw.”

Far from being the only heavy-hitter at this year’s bi-annual conference, now in its third year, Wehby was joined by a range of Jamaica’s top business figures and politicians – including Prime Minister Andrew Holness, fresh from an historic invitation to speak at the G7 in Canada.

Shaw’s own measure of success included the fact that “I now see hundreds of cranes outside my office in Kingston! We are literally building Jamaica, confidence is high – we are the regional poster child for fiscal prudence.”

There was, however, a note of caution. “We don’t want to fly in the tourists and also have to fly in everything they need whilst they stay here.”Shaw added: “A private sector partnership approach by the government is paramount...

Our role is to create the environment to support you, the private sector. We must utilise Jamaica’s under resourced assets – if the best management of these lies within the private sector, this is where it should managed.” - The private sector was well-represented in the room.

“We do not shy away from the Jamaican brand,” Holness said. “We are in the business of fun and we will continue to develop that market – we are very proud of [Jamaica recording 4.3m visitors in 2017] but we are also in the business of fiscal stability.”

Michael Lee-Chin (Canada’s 20th richest individual) was present; he is chairman of Portland Holdings and has heavily invested in Jamaica since acquiring the National Commercial Bank of Jamaica in 2002.

Wehby is chairman of JamPro, a government agency promoting business and investment into the Caribbean island. He is also a serious businessman, heading up GraceKennedy, one of the region’s largest conglomerates with nearly 100bn Jamaican dollars (£580m) in annual revenues.

Around 300 global investors were individually handpicked by JamPro to descend on the Montego Bay Convention Centre and hear the case for pumping more money into Jamaica.

The event was crafted to highlight the government’s commitment to engaging active direct, foreign investment into Jamaica.

The investment strategy of Jamaica is directed into six key areas, including BPO (business process outsourcing), logistics, manufacturing, agribusiness, tourism and, importantly, energy.

Conference organisers believe it has proved successful, with JamPro encouraging £300m of investment in the country since 2012.

Wesley Edens, chairman of New Fortress Energy, is a relatively new investor in Jamaica, who also attended. His company has billions of dollars under management, focused on renewable energy. Fortress invested 1bn Jamaican dollars into energy diversification in Jamaica last year.

The first two Jamaican Investment Forum were credited with creating 7,000 jobs through £300m of investment, raising the benchmark for 2018. Confidence in the room this time around was palpable too.

It may be time for business folk to forget the Jamaica they think they know – that of poolside rum punches – and start to think of the country in a different light.

www.caribbeanamericanpassport.com

4

Guyana delivers 1st ever Carnival

5

www.caribbeanamericanpassport.com

www.caribbeanamericanpassport.com

6

In defense of immigrants: Here’s why America needs them now more than ever!

(Continued from page 1)

Americans do not know their place in society; they make their place. American social structures and hierarchies are open, fluid, and dynamic. Mobility, not nobility. Or at least that’s the theory. Here’s President Obama, in his second inaugural address: “We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else because she is an American; she is free, and she is equal, not just in the eyes of God but also in our own.”

Politicians of the left in Europe would lament the existence of bleak poverty. Obama instead attacks the idea that a child born to poor parents will inherit their status. “The same chance to succeed as anybody else because she is an American….”

Americanism is a unique and powerful cocktail, blending radical egalitarianism (born equal) with fierce individualism (it’s up to you): equal parts Thomas Paine and Horatio Alger.

Egalitarian individualism is in America’s DNA. In his original draft of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote that “men are created equal and independent,” a sentiment that remained even though the last two words were ultimately cut. It was a declaration not only of national independence but also of a nation of independents.

The problem lately is not the American Dream in the abstract. It is the growing failure to realize it. Two necessary ingredients of Americanism—meritocracy and momentum— are now sorely lacking.

America is stuck.

Almost everywhere you look—at class structures, Congress, the economy, race gaps, residential mobility, even the roads— progress is slowing. Gridlock has already become a useful term for political inactivity in Washington, D. C. But it goes much deeper than that. American society itself has become stuck, with weak circulation and mobility across class lines...Cont on page 8

7

www.caribbeanamericanpassport.com

In defense of immigrants: Here’s why America needs them now more than ever!

(Continued from page 7)

The economy has lost its postwar dynamism. Racial gaps, illuminated by the burning of churches and urban unrest, stubbornly persist.

In a nation where progress was once unquestioned, stasis threatens. Many Americans I talk to sense that things just aren’t moving the way they once were. They are right. Right now this prevailing feeling of stuckness, of limited possibilities and uncertain futures, is fueling a growing contempt for institutions, from the banks and Congress to the media and big business, and a wave of antipolitics on both left and right. It is an impotent anger that has yet to take coherent shape. But even if the American people don’t know what to do about it, they know that something is profoundly wrong.

II. HOW STUCK ARE WE? Let’s start with the most important symptom: a lack of social mobility. For all the boasts of meritocracy—only in America!

—Americans born at the bottom of the ladder are in fact now less likely to rise to the top than those situated similarly in most other nations, and only half as likely as their Canadian counterparts. The proportion of children born on the bottom rung of the ladder who rise to the top as adults in the U.S. is 7.5 percent—lower than in the U.K. (9 percent), Denmark (11.7), and Canada (13.5). Horatio Alger has a funny Canadian accent now.

It is not just poverty that is inherited. Affluent Americans are solidifying their own status and passing it on to their children more than the affluent in other nations and more than they did in the past. Boys born in 1948 to a high-earning father (in the top quarter of wage distribution) had a 33 percent chance of becoming a top earner themselves; for those born in 1980, the chance of staying at the top rose sharply to 44 percent, according to calculations by Manhattan Institute economist Scott Winship. The sons of fathers with really high earnings —in the top 5 percent—are much less likely to tumble down the ladder in the U. S. than in Canada (44 percent versus 59 percent). A “glass floor” prevents even the least talented offspring of the affluent from falling. There is a blockage in the circulation of the American elite as well, a system-wide hardening of the arteries.

benefits is taken into account. What economists call “market inequality,” which exists before any government intervention at all, is much lower—in fact it’s about the same as in Germany and France. There is a lot going on under the hood here, but the key point is clear enough: America is unequal because American policy moves less money from rich to poor. Inequality is not fate or an act of nature. Inequality is a choice.

These are facts that should shock America into action. For a nation organized principally around the ideas of opportunity and openness, social stickiness of this order amounts to an existential threat. Although political leaders declare their dedication to openness, the hard issues raised by social inertia are receiving insufficient attention in terms of actual policy solutions. Most American politicians remain cheerleaders for the American Dream, merely offering loud encouragement from the sidelines, as if that were their role. So fragile is the American political ego that we can’t go five minutes without congratulating ourselves on the greatness of our system, yet policy choices exacerbate stuckness and ensure decline.

In Britain (where stickiness has historically been an accepted social condition), by contrast, the issues of social mobility and class stickiness have risen to the top of the political and policy agenda. In the previous U.K. government (in which I served as director of strategy to Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister), we devoted whole Cabinet meetings to the problems of intergenerational mobility and the development of a new national strategy.

(One result has been a dramatic expansion in pre-K education and care: Every 3 and 4 year-old will soon be entitled to 30 hours a week for free.) Many of the Cabinet members were schooled at the nation’s finest private high schools. A few had hereditary titles. But they pored over data and argued over remedies—posh people worrying over intergenerational income quintiles.

(Continued on page16)

Exhibit A in the case against the American political elites: the U. S. tax code. To call it Byzantine is an insult to medieval Roman administrative prowess. There is one good reason for this complexity: The American tax system is a major instrument of social policy, especially in terms of tax credits to lower-income families, health-care subsidies, incentives for retirement savings, and so on. But there are plenty of bad reasons, too—above all, the billions of dollars’ worth of breaks and exceptions resulting from lobbying efforts by the very people the tax system favors.

So fragile is the American political ego that we can’t go five minutes without congratulating ourselves on the greatness of our system, yet policy choices exacerbate stuckness.

The American system is also a weak reed when it comes to redistribution. You will have read and heard many times that the United States is one of the most unequal nations in the world. That is true, but only after the impact of taxes and

www.caribbeanamericanpassport.com

8

Miami-Broward Carnival Mas Band Showcase for 2018 Pictures complements of TriniJungle Juice

Pictures complements of TriniJungle Juice

9

www.caribbeanamericanpassport.com

Orlando Carnival Downtown 'Makes History'

www.caribbeanamericanpassport.com

10

11

www.caribbeanamericanpassport.com

Bronze Kingdom 16,000 Square Foot African Art Gallery opens at Orlando Fashion Square Mall

Owners Rawlvan and Iantress Bennett lead their guests into the gallery after cutting the ribbon.

12

www.caribbeanamericanpassport.com

ImmigrationINFO

TM

Immigration News For Our Community Asylum Seekers Who Fear Domestic Abuse or LGBTQ Persecution Ineligible for U.S. Asylum

By Attorney Gail S. Seeram, Gail@GailLaw.com 1-877-GAIL-LAW @GailSeeram

Asylum seekers can no longer seek asylum in the U.S. citing fears of domestic abuse, gang violence or fear as a LGBTQ individuals. On June 11, 2018, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions referred a Board of Immigration Appeals case to himself and issued a decision stating members of particular “social groups,” including domestic violence victims and LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) individuals cannot file a petition for asylum. He reversed an immigration appeals court ruling that granted asylum to a Salvadoran woman who said she had been sexually, emotionally and physically abused by her husband (Matter of AB-, 27 I&N Dec. 227 (A.G. 2018)).

Asylum, the right to remain in the country, requires proof that an immigrant faces persecution because of his or her race, religion, nationality, political views or membership in a particular social group. It includes private abuses that the home government is unable or unwilling to control.

“The asylum statute does not provide redress for all misfortune,” U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said. “The mere fact that a country may have problems effectively policing certain crimes — such as domestic violence or gang violence — or that certain populations are more likely to be victims of crime, cannot itself establish an asylum claim.”

Sessions’ decision is binding on immigration courts, but could be challenged in the federal appeals court in Richmond, Va. Doctors Without Borders, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization that provides medical aid to refugees, called Sessions’ ruling “a death sentence” for many of its patients.

Asylum is a protection granted to foreign nationals already in the United States or at the border who is unable or unwilling to return to his or her home country, and cannot obtain protection in that country, due to past persecution or a wellfounded fear of being persecuted in the future “on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” Congress incorporated this definition into U.S. immigration law in the Refugee Act of 1980.

Copyright © Law Offices of Gail S. Seeram, 2018. All Rights Reserved.

Homestead center operating as emergency shelter for migrant children

By Glenna Milberg - Reporter

A South Florida facility is housing migrant children as the controversy rages on over the government's "zero tolerance" immigration policy that forces the separation of children from their families.

Property near the Homestead Air Reserve Base is heavily guarded as it has been reactivated as an emergency shelter for migrant children stopped at the southern border.

The Department of Health and Human Services operates two shelters in Miami-Dade County. The center in Homestead is a temporary emergency shelter that can only accommodate 1,000 people. The Homestead facility was opened two years ago to house unaccompanied minors fleeing gangs and violence in Central America.

About a thousand children are at the Homestead center, with Local 10 learning the newest arrivals were flown in just last week. Administrators at the Department of Health and Human Services refuse to say whether the children crossed the border as unaccompanied minors or were separated from family members, or both.

Local 10 was able to see dozens of workers heading in and out of the facility while wearing shirts that say Comprehensive Health Services. The Central Florida-based company is contracted to provide physical and mental health services to sheltered young migrants.

On May 4, a government order requested 500 more beds for the Homestead facility. The order was placed one month after Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered the "zero tolerance" policy in which people crossing the border illegally are detained instead of possibly being released during the immigration process.

Children and adults are placed in separate facilities, which has created the burgeoning consequences of dividing families. www.caribbeanamericanpassport.com

13

Tourists can help Puerto Rico get back on track after Hurricane Maria - by JOSH LEW

Can tourism really speed recovery?

Unlike manufacturing, tourism can bounce back quickly after a disaster like Maria. Hotel stays, restaurant trips and shopping excursions can provide a steady stream of cash. This is why the acting director of the PRTC, Carla Campos, released a statement saying that "one of the best ways people can support Puerto Rico is by visiting — staying at hotels, eating at restaurants, enjoying our Island's activities, and buying from local businesses…"

Travelers have slowly started returning to Puerto Rico.

(Photo: BrendaLee Quiles Alvarado) To call Puerto Rico's recovery efforts after Hurricane Maria slow would be an understatement. Some people in this U.S. territory went months without electricity and other basic services, and work continues in some of the more remote regions.

Getting back on solid economic footing after the storm has been complicated. Not only did Puerto Rico have to deal with infrastructure damage, but it was contending with debt issues even before Maria hit.

The slow rebuilding process and prolonged economic doldrums have led to at least 200,000 people leaving the island and resettling on the U.S. mainland, mainly in Florida.

Now, officials in the territory are looking to travelers to help jump-start the economy and quicken the pace of recovery.

It's not all doom and gloom - Media coverage has focused on Maria's aftermath and the slow recovery.

This type of coverage may reflect reality, but it's focused on one aspect of a larger reality. The media reports may actually be hampering the tourism industry because people who don't follow the situation closely are not aware that the recovery effort has already yielded results, as CNN explains. Even if things are not 100 percent "back to normal," much of the island is open for business and ready for visitors. In fact, resort towns and cruise ports that dodged the worst of Maria were operating again only a few weeks after landfall.

Thus far, most post-Maria visitors have been Puerto Rican travelers who are well aware that hotels and restaurants in popular San Juan neighborhoods like Condado and Isla Verde are open for business. The Puerto Rico Tourism Company (PRTC), a government-run entity in charge of travel promotion for the territory, wants to build on this initial influx of tourists. Their ultimate goal is to make tourism a larger part of Puerto Rico's economy.

PRTC is keeping would-be tourists informed by offering information about what attractions and destinations are open. The website even has a page with counters showing the number of open hotels, restaurants, attractions and travel agencies. The site also has a live chat feature so that prospective visitors can get first-hand information while planning their trip.

14

Before the storm, tourism accounted for about 10 percent of the territory's GDP. Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló Nevares had hoped to expand that and made tourism a part of his economic development agenda. So the idea of tourism development in Puerto Rico is not a new one, but the storm has thrust it to the forefront.

Coupling recovery with renovations and re-branding Hotels and resorts, especially historic boutique hotels in and around San Juan, have used the storm recovery effort to perform renovations and upgrades. Insurance payouts and federal aid have not only given the territory and its businesses a chance to rebuild, but also provided an opportunity to do so without having to worry about the current state of the economy.

The renovations and promotional efforts are giving Puerto Rico a chance to present itself anew. Of course, "new" is a relative term for a place defined by 16th- to 19th-century architecture and pre-Columbian sites. But Puerto Rico has a chance to promote its historic sites, attractions and vacation experiences to people who might not otherwise be aware of the travel opportunities in the largest U.S. territory.

Tourism can provide cash for local businesses. (Photo: Dora Ramirez)

Tourism isn't going to be a cure-all for Puerto Rico. The economic situation is complicated, and the fix will require systematic changes — but that would have been the case with or without Maria.

As Anne Krueger of Johns Hopkins University writing for CNBC, explains, the territory has a once-in-a-lifetime chance to get it right. Tourism income is important for the recovery effort, not just because it can provide an immediate injection of cash and provides jobs, but because it's an opportunity to increase tourism for the long run, which is something that could benefit the area in the long run.

www.caribbeanamericanpassport.com

15

www.caribbeanamericanpassport.com

In defense of immigrants: Here’s why America needs them now more than ever!

(Continued from page 8)

Why is social mobility a hotter topic in the old country?

Here is my theory: Brits are acutely aware that they live in a class-divided society. Cues and clues of accent, dress, education, and comportment are constantly calibrated. But this awareness increases political pressure to reduce these divisions. In America, by contrast, the myth of classlessness stands in the way of progress. The everyday folksiness of Americans—which, to be clear, I love—serves as a social camouflage for deep economic inequality. Americans tell themselves and one another that they live in a classless land of open opportunity. But it is starting to ring hollow, isn’t it?

III. FOR BLACK AMERICANS, CLAIMS OF EQUAL OPPORTUNITY HAVE, OF COURSE, BEEN FALSE FROM THE FOUNDING. They remain false today. The chances of being stuck in poverty are far, far greater for black kids. Half of those born on the bottom rung of the income ladder (the bottom fifth) will stay there as adults. Perhaps even more disturbing, seven out of ten black kids raised in middle-income homes (i.e., the middle fifth) will end up lower down as adults. A boy who grows up in Baltimore will earn 28 percent less simply because he grew up in Baltimore: In other words, this supersedes all other factors. Sixty-six percent of black children live in America’s poorest neighborhoods, compared with six percent of white children.

Recent events have shone a light on the black experience in dozens of U. S. cities.

Behind the riots and the rage, the statistics tell a simple, damning story. Progress toward equality for black Americans has essentially halted. The average black family has an income that is 59 percent of the average white family’s, down from 65 percent in 2000. In the job market, race gaps are immobile, too. In the 1950s, black Americans were twice as likely to be unemployed as whites. And today?

Still twice as likely.

Race gaps in wealth are perhaps the most striking of all. The average white household is now thirteen times wealthier than the average black one. This is the widest gap in a quarter of a century. The recession hit families of all races, but it resulted in a wealth wipeout for black families. In 2007, the average black family had a net worth of $19,200, almost entirely in housing stock, typically at the cheap, fragile end of the market. By 2010, this had fallen to $16,600.

By 2013—by which point white wealth levels had started to recover—it was down to $11,000. In national economic terms, black wealth is now essentially nonexistent.

Half a century after the passing of the Civil Rights Act, the arc of history is no longer bending toward justice. A few years ago, it was reasonable to hope that changing attitudes, increasing education, and a growing economy would surely, if slowly, bring black America and white America closer together. No longer. America is stuck.

IV. THE ECONOMY IS ALSO GETTING STUCK. New-business creation and entrepreneurial activity are declining, too. As economist Robert Litan has shown, the proportion of “baby businesses” (firms less than a year old) has almost halved since the late 1970s, decreasing from 15 percent to 8 percent—the hallmark of “a steady, secular decline in business dynamism.” It is significant that this downward trend set in long before the Great Recession hit.

There is less movement between jobs as well, another symptom of declining economic vigor. Americans are settling behind their desks—and also into their neighborhoods. The proportion of American adults moving house each year has decreased by almost half since the postwar years,

to around 12 percent. Long-distance moves across state lines have as well. This is partly due to technological advances, which have weakened the link between location and job prospects, and partly to the growth of economic diversity in cities; there are few “one industry” towns today.

But it is also due to a less vibrant housing market, slower rates of new business creation, and a lessening in Americans’ appetite for disruption, change, and risk. This geographic settling is at odds with historic American geographic mobility. From heeding the call “Go west, young man” to loading up the U-Haul in search of a better job, the instinctive restlessness of America has always matched skills to work, people to opportunities, labor to capital.

VI. AMERICA NEEDS IMMIGRATION.

ANOTHER

WAVE

OF

This is in part just basic math: We need more young workers to fund the old age of the baby boomers. But there is more to it than that. Immigrants also provide a shot in the arm to American vitality itself. Always have, always will.

Immigrants are now twice as likely to start a new business as native-born Americans. Rates of entrepreneurialism are declining among natives but rising among immigrants.

Immigrant children show extraordinary upward-mobility rates, shooting up the income-distribution ladder like rockets, yet by the third or fourth generation, the rates go down, reflecting indigenous norms. Among children born in Los Angeles to poorly educated Chinese immigrants, for example, an astonishing 70 percent complete a four-yearcollege degree. As the work of my Brookings colleague William Frey shows, immigrants are migrants within the U. S., too, moving on from traditional immigrant cities—New York, Los Angeles—to other towns and cities in search of a better future. Entrepreneurial, mobile, aspirational: New Americans are true Americans. We need a lot more of them.

This makes a mockery of our contemporary political “debates” about immigration reform, which have become intertwined with race and racism. Some Republicans tap directly into white fears of an America growing steadily browner. More than four in ten white seniors say that a growing population of immigrants is a “change for the worse”; half of white boomers believe immigration is “a threat to traditional American customs and values.” But immigration delves deeper into the question of American identity than it does even issues of race. Immigrants generate more dynamism and aspiration, but they are also unsettling and challenging. Where this debate ends will therefore tell us a great deal about the trajectory of the nation. An America that closes its doors will be an America that has chosen to settle rather than grow, that has allowed security to trump dynamism.

America, it seems to me, is not made to be a settled society.

Such a notion runs counter to the story we tell ourselves about who we are. (That’s right, we. We’ve all come from somewhere else, haven’t we? I just got here a bit more recently.) But over time, our narratives become myths, insulating us from the truth. For we are surely stuck, if not settled. And so America needs to decide one way or the other. There are choices to be made. Class divisions are hardening. Upward mobility has a very weak pulse. Race gaps are widening. The worst of all worlds threatens: a European class structure without European welfare systems to dull the pain.

Americans tell themselves and the world that theirs is a society in which each and all can rise, an inspiring contrast to the hereditary cultures from which it sprang.

It’s one of the reasons I’m here. But have I arrived to raise my children here just in time to be stuck, too? Or will America be America again?

www.caribbeanamericanpassport.com

16

17

www.caribbeanamericanpassport.com

What is Purple & Hums - By Tony Deyal "What's purple and hums?" An electric grape. "Why does it hum?" Because it doesn't know the words.

This quip was used by Marshall McLuhan, a Canadian professor who predicted the World Wide Web almost 30 years before it became a reality, to tell us how we were no longer into the very long shaggy-dog jokes that were common in the sixties and instead had switched to the short stuff.

Today, it is even clearer when we consider the extent to which one-liners have become the staple of stand-up comedy and the popularity of events like the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where 'short and snappy' is the norm and the winners include "My dad has suggested that I register for a donor card. He's a man after my own heart"; "Why is it old people say, 'there's no place like home', yet when you put them in one ..."; "I've been happily married for four years - out of a total of 10"; "I'll tell you what's unnatural in the eyes of God. Contact lenses"; and, "I've made a terrible spelling mistake in the wedding order of service. My stepfather, of course, is a COUNT." STING AND THE POLICE So what's yellow, sometimes black and hums? A honeybee.

"Why does it hum?" Because it can't sing, and besides, it doesn't know the words.

the ability to conceptualise nothingness as a numerical value that can be compared with more tangible quantities like one and two."

COME TO NOUGHT Some people have asked why all this fuss about something that really does not affect us directly and may all come to nought if, as some other scientists claim, the process may be honeycombed with flaws.

Several, including Clint Perry, a researcher on the subject of bee cognition, did not duck the controversy and insisted there could be other explanations for the bees' behaviour that make him "not convinced" that bees truly understand the concept of zero.

Still, James Gorman, writing in The New York Times, sees what the bees did as more than a zero-sum outcome: "This is a big leap. Some past civilisations had trouble with the idea of zero. And the only non-human animals so far to pass the kind of test bees did are primates and one bird. Not one species, one bird, the famed African grey parrot, Alex, who know not only words, but numbers."

"But if it knew the words, what would it sing?" Most likely, it would choose between Billy Preston's 1975 hit, "Nothing From Nothing Leaves Nothing" or Ben E. King's "I Who Have Nothing."

If it is into disco, it might probably go for Chris Brown's "Zero" with the line, "Ask how many nights I've been thinking of you, zero." No more Abba's hokey, "Honey, honey." Of course, if your bee is in a bad mood it might choose Sting instead and seeing that he went on his own a long time ago, you can't even call The Police. However, if the cops ever showed up on the scene and asked them what they were up to, the bees would quickly hum their equivalent of "Nothing, Officer. Nothing at all."

NEW BUZZ And they would be right. The latest buzz stirring up the scientific community is a report by Science Daily that bees understand the concept of zero. Smithsonian.com clarified the link between zero and the bee as hero, with the headline, 'Bees May Understand Zero, a Concept That Took Humans Millennia to Grasp: If the finding is true, they'd be the first invertebrates to join an elite club that includes primates, dolphins and parrots'.

The online magazine explained, "As a mathematical concept, the idea of zero is relatively new in human society - and indisputably revolutionary. It's allowed humans to develop algebra, calculus and Cartesian coordinates; questions about its properties continue to incite mathematical debate today. So it may sound unlikely that bees - complex and community-based insects to be sure, but insects nonetheless - seem to have mastered their own numerical concept of nothingness.

"Despite their sesame-seed-sized brains, honeybees have proven themselves the prodigies of the insect world.

Researchers have found that they can count up to about four, distinguish abstract patterns, and communicate locations with other bees. Now, Australian scientists have found what may be their most impressive cognitive ability yet: 'zero processing,' or

NOTHING TO CROW ABOUT Alex (short for Avian Language Experiment), who had an intelligence at the level of dolphins and great apes, was able to reason on a basic level and use words creatively. The other birds who show signs of remarkable intelligence are crows. They are said to have the reasoning ability rivalling that of a human sevenyear-old. Crows are the only non-primate species known to fashion tools, such as prodding sticks and hooks, which they use to winkle out grubs from logs and branches. Of course, they still have a way to go to catch up with the honeybees who can also be trained to sniff out drugs and explosives. However, until they work out the concept of zero and apply it successfully, they have absolutely nothing to crow about.

In fact, when around the 5th Century A.D. the use of zero (known as Shunya in Sanskrit), deemed one of the greatest innovations in human history, emerged in India, the Maharajah of Bakshali decided to have a huge ceremony honouring the wise and holy man who had come up with the idea. After much feasting and exchanging of equations, the Maharajah made a speech which summed up the achievement. Addressing the mathematical whiz who had zeroed in on the problems caused by not having zero, the Maharajah said passionately, "Thanks. Thanks for nothing."

- Tony Deyal was last seen saying that the bees in the study went around spreading the news by humming a song made famous by their favourite band, the Bee Gees, "You Should Be Dancing."

www.caribbeanamericanpassport.com

18

www.caribbeanamericanpassport.com

19

20

www.caribbeanamericanpassport.com