THE EDITOR, Sir:
'Alone in America' by Lolita Long tells the story of Jamaican children abandoned abroad. It seems to me that there is a larger story to be told about Jamaica's abandoned children, in general.
I recall that between the late 1950s to early 1960s, about 225,000 economically active Jamaicans (between the 25 to 45 age group) left Jamaica for "greener pastures," mainly to the United Kingdom. As early as the 1960s, enlightened social workers and trained university social scientists were beginning to see the darker side of this mass migration and warned that the large number of unsupervised children left behind would one day create a major headache for the nation.
Some parents sent for their children but many left them to fend for themselves. Many 'got into trouble' to use a Jamaican expression. The attitude then towards the warnings of the social workers and university persons was to deride such warnings and treat the matter as an 'intellectual' problem.
An October 25 Associated Press report from Spaldings, Jamaica entitled "Sniper suspect known as good student," in general, tells the story of a basically good kid who ended up in the wrong place and the wrong hands.
In my estimation, the sniper story represents the darker side of the Jamaican migration story. My hope is that the Jamaican people and government will see the story for what it really is and give the problem of child abandonment their immediate attention.
I am, etc.,
E. G. LECKY
buffbay7@aol.com
New York
Via Go-Jamaica
