Is It Worth It?Deokie Deonarine's Journey to America
Is It Worth It? Deokie Deonarine's Journey to by ddeonarine
What is the biggest thing you’ve ever had to sacrifice in your life? Why did you do it? How did it make you feel?Deokie Deonarine is a person who sacrificed for others her entire life and still continues to do so, for the benefit of the people that she loves.
Deokie Sankar was born on October 26, 1962 to her parents in the small island of Trinidad and Tobago. She was one of seven children and was the youngest of the group. As a child she was very active, taking on the persona as a tomboy. She hung out with the boys and did a lot of physical work and activity. She originally lived in a house
Location of Trinidad and Tobago on a map
Flag of Trinidad and Tobago
of dirt and grass until her family finally saved up enough money to finally build a house of wood and bricks. She describes, “I grew up in a village. We grew up, we had no running water and no electricity. We grew up in a dirt house covered in grass. We had animals that we fed and we did our own gardening. We took care of animals we had a farm. Eventually, as I got older we ended up building a house made of bricks.” There, her family started up a family business. They built a farm that she worked on most of her life there. She would feed the chickens, milk the cows, and bring them to the market to sell. Deokie began working at the age of 11 and has nonstop since then. Trinidad and Tobago had experienced an economic boom after World War II, but hit a downturn in the 60s. Their labor force was unusually unionized, something very uncommon for a small island in the Caribbean. Therefore, as economic growth slowed, demands for better working conditions and more equitable distribution of wealth began to increase. Also, the high unemployment rate (15%) and growing resentment over foreign control intensified the deterioration of the economy.
As a child, Deokie loved school, even though it was extremely difficult to get to. She had to walk two miles every day to school and
Deokie (left) and her classmates at school
two miles back, in the sweltering Caribbean heat and the heavy down pours. She was so intelligent that she skipped a grade. Being one of the top students in her grade, she had such high hopes for her future. Unfortunately, her parents were not financially stable enough to send her to college so she had to settle for what was the equivalent of a high school degree so she was unable to pursue her dream career, accounting. In Trinidad, the mean years of schooling in the 1980s only accumulated to about 7 years, much less than the intended.
Education years in Trinidad
Deokie and Hemanchal’s Wedding
In her early 20s, she met Hemanchal Deonarine (nicknamed Dave) through mutual friends and they were inseparable ever since. After dating for 4 years, they finally got married on June 3, 1990. As they began discussing and planning out their life together, they realized that she couldn’t have the life she imagined here. She knew it wasn’t what would be best for them or the life they would want to start.
She had never had never been to New York before, not even America. Not many West Indians moved to America until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 ended racial quotas and people were able to move freely on their own accord. However, her parents had their lives rooted in Trinidad at the time and just didn’t have the ability or money to leave unless she did it on her own. Also, chronic unemployment in the Caribbean Islands had been on the rise for much of the 80s, reaching 17% in 1987.