Closing Doors to Poor Afro-Hondurans who want to be Merchant Marines

Closing Doors to Poor Afro-Hondurans who want to be Merchant Marines

By Wendy Griffin

(Part 3 of 4)

Previously it was easy to get work as a merchant marine for Honduran Garifunas and Bay Islanders.  Some began because through a family member or a friend,they got a letter offering themwork as a merchant marine. For example,the uncle of Herman Alvarez of San  Juan, Tela got a letter offering work for Herman’s brother more than 30 agos, and this brother until now is still a merchant marine. Garifunas often work for indirect contractors like ship chandler’s companies. In recent years a woman in New York asks for payment to get or send these offers of work.

Others like Sabas Whittaker would go down to the port and present himself to the capitán and the capitán often accepted to take him aboard as a sailor. Even though originally most of the people who were sailors were Black English speakers and Garifunas, later many Honduran mestixos who spoke some English also applied and became sailors. Some eventually learned several languages, knew countries all over the world,and some were excellent cooks.  In Santa Fe, Honduras in Restaurante Caballero, an older Garifuna Pedro Caballero, previously a cook on a cruise boat, has his restaurant, and international tourists fromthe US, Canada, and Europe go to Santa Fe just to eat his food.

If one had a good record with the banana company on their ships, they helped the merchant marine immigrate to the US with his whole family reported Sebastian Marin, a Garifuna in Trujillo who worked 35 years for United Fruit’s Worldwide Shipping. According to the book on Afro-Central Americans in New York by Dr. Sarah England, almost all the families now resident in New York City started arriving there with a family member who was a merchant marine. According to Dorn Ebanks,currently the Mayor of Roatan in the Honduran Bay Islands, almost an entire generation of Bay Islander men were away working internationally as merchant marines like his father during decades.

The father of Dorn Ebanks returned to the Bay Islands, but other Bay Islanders and English speaking Blacks from the North Coast remained in the US, for example in Brooklyn or in New Orleans before Katrina. In the past the Bay Islander sailors built their homes they planned to retire to and to return home to on vacations in the Bay Islands,but with the high cost of real estate in the Bay Islands due to the invasion of the tourist industry and foreign residents there, many merchant marines no longer are able to build their own home on the Bay Islands.

Over the last 20 years there have arisen many obstacles to young Afro-Honduran men becoming merchant marines. For example, they are now required to pass a one week course in Omoa, Honduras. This costs almost $1,000 between bus fare, food, lodging, and the registration fee.  The young people are required to get an identity card and a passport, the last one they must pay for.  They have to travel to Tegucigalpa with all of those costs to get a Seaman’s Book, which is supposed to be free, but frequently government officials require a bribe to do it. The sailor also requires an American visa, which costs $130 just for the interview to get the visa, and visas for Hondurans are now extended in the US El Salvadoran Embassy.

Now the owners of ships require that merchant marines have finished high school and speak English and even sometimes European languages like Italian. Hondurans are now competing against Eastern Europeans to get a job.  There are no high schools which offer grades 10-12 in most Garifuna and Bay Islander communities, and also there were not courses on how to read, write, and speak English. The Honduran government has dealt with this problem by beginning to offer online English courses this year. Also the US Congress has passed laws that certain kinds of ships must use US citizen employees.   

The lack of the possibility to immigrate legally as a sailor has meant that illegal immigration of younger Garifunas has increased. In an article for HondurasWeekly.com Canadian sociologist estimated 50%  of the Garifunas between 13 and 21 years old had immigrated to the US. Since the boys can not get a good job like a merchant marine, they are not forming stablefamilies and maintaining their girl friends and their children. The actions of the Honduran government like trying toforce the Garifunas of various communities off their land also increases the likelihood of immigration to the US. Many of those who are immigrating have family members in the US, but after the 9/11 attacks on the twin towers in New York in 2001,processing of family reunification visas has almost ground to a halt.

Previously  Merchant Marines who learned English had the option of taking the GED exam for high school equivalency in the US. There were correspondence courses to prepare for this exam. In this way they could qualify to study in US colleges. This is what Sabas Whittaker did, eventually completing a Master’s degree. Now the US government does not permit people who are not Americans to take the GED, closing another door to young Afro-Hondurans.

Also now after 9/11there are more difficulties to get the visa which is only given for one year. There have been recent cases of Garifunas who were working as sailors, they were working well, the company wanted them to continue working,  but in the middle of the sea voyage the US did not renew their sailor’s visa and they had to return home to Honduras where there are complaints of serious unemployment.