Jamaica

Brown, cardboard barrels, nearly four feet tall and two feet wide, can be found in basements and pantries throughout Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, where 80 percent of foreign-born residents are from the Caribbean.

Along with packaged food, clothing and household supplies, each barrel tells of the obligation and loyalty the neighborhood’s immigrants feel toward the families they left behind.

“Family bonding was linked in large measure to any form of remittances, but particularly the barrel,” said J. A. George Irish, a Caribbean scholar and professor at Medgar Evers College. (For a Q&A with J.A. George Irish, go here.)

But the recession has made it difficult for Brooklyn families to fill barrels, at a time when Caribbean nations also are feeling the effects of the weak economy.

“Instead of sending two barrels [a year], we have to send one, none,” said Jamaican-born Grace McKnight, a Brooklyn restaurant owner.

Sharing a ‘New Culture’

When large numbers of Caribbean immigrants began arriving in Brooklyn in the 1960s, many also began to send American products, packed in barrels, back to their relatives.

At first, the popular items, like logo T-shirts, were “a taste of this new culture,” said Donna Fleming, who coordinates the Brooklyn Public Library’s Caribbean Literary and Cultural Center.

As immigration boomed from the 1970s to the 1990s, and the Caribbean economy stagnated, barrels became critical to survival, and food – especially canned and packaged goods – comprised the bulk of the shipments.

“Some of these things cost three times the cost [in the Caribbean] that it sells [for] here,” said Kamal Aleen, who owns KBB Shipping on Nostrand Avenue. (For an Q&A with Kamal Aleen, go here.)

Cereal Killer

Cereal is one popular item that is prohibitively expensive in the Caribbean.  A 10.9-ounce box of Kellogg’s Corn Pops costs $7.70, or JMD$693 (Jamaican dollars), at Super Plus Foods, a supermarket chain in Jamaica.  A 17-ounce box of the same cereal costs $4.69 at a New York supermarket.

Families usually pack barrels gradually, picking up items during regular shopping trips.

“You catch the Macy’s sale, the Key Food sale,” Fleming said.  “Every week you commit to spend so much, and it becomes manageable.”

But it’s getting harder for relatives in the U.S. to spend as much on items when their loved ones in the Caribbean need the care packages more than ever.

The World Travel & Tourism Council expects Caribbean tourism to earn nearly $40 billion in 2009, or 14.5 percent of the Caribbean gross domestic product.  That is a projected drop of nearly eight percent from 2008.

Last year, five hurricanes at Category 3 and above caused millions of dollars in damage in the Caribbean, according to the National Hurricane Center.

“The recession is definitely the case,” said Chris Kennedy, president of the Customs Brokers and Freight Forwarders Association of Jamaica.  “It is significant.  A number of persons who used to send their relatives barrels, we have seen a decline in that.”

‘Mommy’s Hungry’

McKnight, owner of the Four Seasons Restaurant on Nostrand Avenue, is feeling pressure from her loved ones in Jamaica, who depend on her shipments of rice, flour, oil, canned food and clothes.  But business at the restaurant has been slow, limiting her ability to help her family.

“It makes us feel bad,” McKnight said, “especially when they call and we can’t send.”

“They say, ‘Mommy’s hungry,’” added her sister, Laverne Hudson.

Not being able to ship as often, or at all, takes a psychological toll on both senders and recipients.

“It raises that feeling of inadequacy,” Fleming said.  “You also want to make your relatives set their minds at ease, that your emigrating has not been in vain.”

Shipping Slowdown

Fewer barrels sent has meant less business for Brooklyn’s local shipping companies, mostly independently owned.

Many families send barrels around Christmastime, said Dwight Wisdom, who owns Trans Jam Express Shipping on Rogers Avenue.  His busy season, from September to December, is months away and business is slow.

Kennedy estimated that the volume of barrels coming into Jamaica has declined by 0ne-third over the past few months.  The last Christmas season was markedly slower than the previous year.

“Based on the increase in cost of customs and inability for a lot of people to send the barrel,” he said, “it has affected a number of people here who rely on their relatives.”

The expense to clear a single barrel from Jamaican Customs ranges from $70 to $100, he said, or about JMD$6,000 to JMD$9,000.  A family in Jamaica earned an average $7,400, or JMD$555,000, in 2008, according to the CIA’s World Factbook.

For those who are still sending, it makes sense to ship barrels through local companies.  They are much cheaper than major shippers.  Some of Wisdom’s clients drive their full barrels from Philadelphia and New Jersey just to ship with him.

Wisdom charges $65 to ship a barrel weighing up to 200 pounds to Kingston, Jamaica.  Sometimes he adds a $20 pick-up fee, but $85 is still much cheaper than shipping the same barrel by UPS.

UPS will not ship packages that weigh more than 150 pounds, according to its Web site.  To ship a package weighing the maximum 150 pounds to Kingston costs nearly $1,100.

Hope for Survival

Despite the financial threat to the barrel shipping industry, Caribbean people in Brooklyn and the islands were confident that it would survive because of strong cultural and emotional ties.

“People plan this thing with precision,” Fleming said.  “Money’s short, but you have that commitment, too.”

Prof. J. A. George Irish directs the Office of International Programs at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn.  He was born in Montserrat, a small island in the Caribbean, and immigrated to the United States in 1986.  He is former director of the Caribbean Research Center at Medgar Evers.  Besides being an expert on barrel shipping, a strong tradition in the Caribbean community where families send food and other goods to their relatives still in the islands, Irish ships barrels himself.

Why did barrel shipping from the U. S. to the Caribbean develop?

Because of growth in population here since 1965, there’s so many more people committed to sending that the shipping industry in the Caribbean community blossomed.  In those barrels you could have a variety of things.  What the people back home look forward to first of all is food stuff.

What are the most popular items to ship?

One of the things children looked forward to was cornflakes.  You’re used to your cereal being flour, corn, rice, arrowroot.  So when a barrel came and it had a couple boxes of cornflakes, it was a major delicacy.  They looked forward to canned meats like salmon, hams.  In that barrel you’d also get clothing, because you used the clothing for tighter packing.  Occasionally they would get toys.  Or school supplies.  Because here you can get a pack of pencils for 99 cents.  These things became highly prized commodities because over there you have to pay much more for them.

Which islands are known for barrel shipping?

There are a few that are really known, but it has now become widespread.  Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Guyana, Trinidad and Barbados.

Why barrels instead of boxes?

In the cardboard box, it would be difficult to put too much heavy canned stuff.  So you were pretty much limited to clothes, rice, dried food materials.  Now the barrel has become more secure because boxes used to burst.

Why ship barrels instead of sending cash?

In terms of the social significance of it, it was not just the remittances and the support for the family.  It was the emotional bonding, because that was the only contact people had then.  The aspect of family bonding was linked in large measure to any form of remittances, but particularly the barrel.

Are those emotions universal among immigrants from different places?

Usually when people migrate, they migrate from a community or a family that pins its expectations on their travel to the U. S.  I’m sure that applies to the Irish, the Greeks.  I guess it’s true of all people who travel.  It’s a deep-seated commitment.  I think it’s more human than ethnic.

Have the items shipped changed over the years?

I just sent one last month.  The person I was sending the barrel to, I asked, “What would you like me to put the in the barrel?”  And I was shocked when she told me what she wanted.  She said toilet paper, paper towels, hangers.  No mention of food. But imported toilet paper, toilet tissue and paper towels are so expensive that it’s prohibitive to try to buy them locally.  Those and electronics.  People would slip in little radios, CDs.

How important is shipping to the local economy in Brooklyn?

Simply from the point of view of the businessman here, we have seen a significant increase in small business activity in the shipping sector.  Brooklyn was really the heart of the shipping industry, and that is understandable because Brooklyn has the largest concentration of Caribbean immigrants not just in the U. S., but anywhere in the world.  Caribbean people generally regard Brooklyn as headquarters of the Caribbean diaspora.

Don’t all those imports hurt the Caribbean economy?

Every shipment means there is a dent in the local grocery store.  Somebody’s getting something from abroad that they don’t need to buy here anymore.  It has that kind of economic impact, but I don’t think it’s significant enough to be a threat.

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The neighborhood, filled with shops and cafes run by immigrants from India, Bangladesh, Colombia and Mexico, was chosen last year as the first location of the U.S. office of Grameen Bank.

Grameen is a microfinance organization that began in Bangladesh in 1983. Since then, Grameen has lent money to millions of poor people around the world, helping them build businesses that improve their standard of living. Grameen’s founder, Muhammad Yunus, won the Nobel Prize for his work in 2006.

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