Published: 2 July 2009 | Jamaica Homes News
Key Takeaways
- WHO Declares H1N1 Swine Flu a Global Pandemic
- GM and Chrysler Collapse, Threatening Thousands of Diaspora Jobs
- Michael Jackson Dies at 50 in Los Angeles
- G20 Leaders Pledge Trillion Dollars for Global Recovery
- Jamaica Economy Shrinks as Tourism and Bauxite Revenues Fall
- Remittances Under Sustained Pressure as US Unemployment Climbs
Introduction: A Quarter of Cascading Crises
Q2 2009 delivered an almost uninterrupted sequence of major events: a pandemic declaration, the collapse of two of America’s biggest corporations, a global leaders’ summit, and the death of the most famous entertainer in the world. For Jamaica’s diaspora communities, navigating all of this while managing the continuing weight of the global financial crisis, this was among the most demanding quarters in memory. This update draws on Jamaica Gleaner, Jamaica Observer, WHO, Bank of Jamaica, PIOJ, and Caribbean diaspora media through 30 June 2009.
The H1N1 Pandemic: The Diaspora on the Front Line
The World Health Organisation’s declaration on 11 June 2009 that H1N1 influenza A — the so-called swine flu that had first been identified in Mexico in April — constituted a global pandemic was the first such declaration since the 1968 Hong Kong flu. By the time the declaration was made, the virus had spread to 74 countries and infected more than 28,000 people, with the count rising rapidly. For Caribbean diaspora communities, the pandemic’s significance was both direct and professional: significant numbers of Jamaican-heritage workers were employed in the healthcare, care home, public transportation, food service, and retail sectors that were at the highest exposure risk and that served as transmission points for spread across urban populations.
In New York, the virus had spread rapidly through the Preparatory School for Immigrants and the Queens neighbourhood of Jackson Heights, then through the transport networks of the outer boroughs. The disproportionate toll on working-class, non-white, and immigrant communities — communities less likely to have paid sick leave, more likely to work in close-contact environments, and less likely to have accessible healthcare — was visible to community organisations from the first weeks. Caribbean community health advocates began immediately to document the disparate impact and to argue for equity-focused pandemic response measures.
Jamaica’s government confirmed H1N1 cases by late June, activating pandemic preparedness protocols that had been developed after the SARS experience of 2003. The Ministry of Health’s public communications campaign — hand washing, social distancing, fever monitoring — was amplified by diaspora community media in New York, London, and Toronto that maintained real-time contact with Jamaica’s public health authorities.
GM and Chrysler: The Auto Sector’s Collapse and the Diaspora
General Motors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on 1 June 2009, following Chrysler’s own Chapter 11 filing on 30 April. Together, the two bankruptcies represented the largest collapse of American manufacturing corporations in the nation’s history and the most visible single outcome of the 2008 financial crisis’s cascading effects into the real economy. For Caribbean-American diaspora communities concentrated in the Detroit metropolitan area, in Windsor across the Canadian border, in Ohio and Michigan industrial cities, and in the automotive supply chains that stretched across the eastern United States, the GM and Chrysler collapses were a direct employment catastrophe.
The Caribbean-American population in the Detroit metropolitan area — a community built across post-war decades of migration to the auto industry’s high-wage employment — had already been under pressure from years of industry restructuring. The bankruptcies’ plant closures, dealership network collapses, and supply chain contractions added tens of thousands of job losses to a regional economy already in severe distress. Community organisations in Detroit and the surrounding communities were reporting sharp increases in demand for employment support, mortgage assistance, and emergency financial aid as automotive sector workers and their families processed the collapse of employment they had assumed would be permanent.
Michael Jackson: The World Stops for the King of Pop
Michael Jackson died at his Holmby Hills home in Los Angeles at 2:26 p.m. on 25 June 2009, just six days before the close of this reporting quarter. He was 50 years old. The announcement of his death — by cardiac arrest following acute propofol intoxication, as the subsequent investigation would determine — stopped the world in a way that very few individual deaths have done in the modern media era. Internet traffic spiked to levels that crashed servers. Television networks abandoned their programming. In the Caribbean diaspora communities of New York, London, and Toronto, the news arrived as a collective shock that produced the spontaneous communal gathering that has historically marked moments of shared grief.
Jackson’s music had been present in Caribbean community life since the Jackson 5’s early 1970s recordings. His solo career’s arc — from ‘Off the Wall’ through ‘Thriller’ to ‘Bad’ and beyond — had provided the soundtrack to decades of Caribbean diaspora life in its adopted cities. Jamaican dancehall had engaged with his catalogue from its earliest years; his videos had been staple programming on Caribbean community cable channels; his 1992 visit to Jamaica, where he had filmed the ‘Remember the Time’ video’s conceptual inspiration, was part of the community’s shared cultural memory. The week between his death and this bulletin’s publication saw Caribbean community media dedicate the majority of their programming to tribute coverage.
The G20 and Jamaica’s Economic Crisis
The G20 summit held at the Excel Centre in London’s Docklands on 2 April 2009 produced a package of commitments totalling over a trillion dollars in fiscal stimulus, International Monetary Fund resources, and trade finance support. For Jamaica’s government, the IMF resources committed at the G20 — including the new Flexible Credit Line and substantial increases in Special Drawing Rights allocations — were relevant to the bilateral negotiations for a Jamaican standby arrangement that were under way through 2009.
Jamaica’s economic situation through Q2 remained severe. Bauxite production had fallen to its lowest level in decades. Tourism arrivals continued their year-on-year decline. Public debt levels were approaching 130 per cent of GDP. The Golding government’s fiscal management was under intense scrutiny from financial markets, credit rating agencies, and the international financial institutions. For diaspora investors and the remittance-sending community, the macroeconomic environment created genuine uncertainty about return migration timing and the wisdom of Jamaican asset accumulation ahead of return.
Remittances through Q2 2009 continued to track below 2008 levels. The quarter’s Mother’s Day peak — the single largest transfer occasion in the remittance calendar — maintained its psychological importance to diaspora households but at reduced cash values as the recession’s impact on household incomes persisted. We look ahead to a quarter in which Bolt’s performance at the Berlin World Championships in August will provide Jamaica’s diaspora with something it urgently needs: a reason to celebrate. We report next from 2 October 2009.
This Quarterly Jamaica Diaspora and Returnee Update is researched and published by Jamaica Homes News. Sources include Jamaica Gleaner, Jamaica Observer, WHO, Bank of Jamaica, PIOJ, MFAFT, and PICA. All figures and developments are accurate as of the publication date, 2 July 2009.
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