Regional Footprints: The Travels and Travails of Early Caribbean Migrants is a collection of articles tracing the socio-economic and cultural impact, on both sending and receiving societies, of over one hundred and fifty years of intra-regional migration of Anglophone Caribbean nationals. Using a multi-disciplinary approach, it combines academic discourse with personal testimony to tell the stories of early West Indian migrants to Panama, Cuba, Costa Rica, Colombia, Haiti, Nicaragua, Belize and Honduras. The essays speak to the hardships faced by those early migrants, such as racism, poverty, and cultural displacement, as well as to the contributions they made to the development of their host countries in projects such as the construction of the Panama Canal, the Costa Rican Railroad, the Cuban sugar industry, the Costa Rican banana industry, among others. The themes of hope, loss, and regeneration are common threads as each contributor explores issues of power and resistance, economics, identity, and cultural transformation to reconstruct the migrant experience and the forging of new Caribbean diasporas.

Proceedings from the Caribbean Intra-regional Migration Seminar Series

First in the Series, “West Indian Participation in the Construction of the Panama Canal”, traces the contribution of approximately 50,000 West Indian labourers to this remarkable feat which constitutes an important chapter in our history. (2001)

Second in the Series, “Intra-Caribbean Migration: The Cuban Connection (1898-present)”, traces the socio-economic and cultural impact of approximately 90,000 British West Indian labourers who went to Cuba towards the end of the 19th century to work with the United Fruit Company on Cuban Plantations. (2002)

Third in the Series, “The Socio-economic and Cultural Impact of West Indian Migration to Costa Rica”, traces the impact of West Indian migration to that country, including the migrants’ contribution to the construction of the railroad. (2003)

Fourth in the Series, “The Socio-economic and Cultural Impact of West Indian Migration to Colombia”, traces the historical links between the English-speaking Caribbean and Colombia. (2004)

Fifth in the Series, “The Haiti-Jamaica Connection”, traces the socio-cultural and economic links between Haiti and Jamaica. (2004)

Sixth in the Series, “The Socio-economic and Cultural Impact of Caribbean Migration to Nicaragua”, examines the anglophone Caribbean presence in Nicaragua and highlighted the historical links between Jamaica and that country. (2005)

Seventh in the Series, “The Socio-economic and Cultural Impact of Caribbean Migration to Belize and Honduras”, examines the Anglophone Caribbean presence in Belize and Honduras and historical links between Jamaica and those two countries. (2006)