Daily Archives: 02/07/2013

Chinese: Margery Kirkpatrick reflects on her ancestors

02/07/2013 – 9:07 pm

Chinese: 160th anniversary of the first immigrants to British Guiana.

Margery Kirkpatrick reflects on her ancestors

By Oluatoyin Alleyne – Stabroek News-  February 5, 2013 

This year marks the 160th anniversary of the arrival of the first Chinese in Guyana. Stabroek News commemorates the occasion with the publication here of some historical features (reprinted from earlier editions of our newspaper) and an interview with a descendant of the original Chinese immigrants, as well as with a representative of more recent arrivals to these shores.

Margery Kirkpatrick

Margery Kirpatrick

When Loo Shee left her homeland China in 1861 it was in desperation and to ensure that she saved the lives of her three children and herself as her husband and many others had been killed. 

She arrived in Guyana on May 12, 1861 and quickly remarried, interestingly, to a man who was once part of the group that slaughtered Chinese back in China but who later fled because he himself was being sought. With him she bore more children.

Continue reading →

By guyaneseonline | Posted in Guyana, History, Personalities | Tagged , , , , | Comments (9)

Chinese: How a disastrous fire in 1913 aided integration

02/07/2013 – 9:02 pm

Chinese: 160th anniversary of the first immigrants to British Guiana.

Note: Integration started early. ” These first immigrants were exclusively male; women were not brought in until 1860, when the Whirlwind and Dora arrived from Hong Kong carrying 61 and 138 female passengers respectively. According to Cecil Clementi, who wrote a history of the Chinese in Guyana in the early 20th century, the percentage of women in the total Chinese immigration was only 14.2 per cent. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the vast majority of Chinese men had to seek partners outside their own ethnic grouping”. [from blog entry: “The Chinese in Guyana”]

How a disastrous fire in 1913 aided integration

Stabroek  News – February 5, 2013 –    By Margery Kirkpatrick

This is an edited version of a column which was first published by Stabroek News on July 7, 1991 under the caption ‘The Charlestown fire and its effect on the Chinese community.’

After the Chinese had completed their terms of indentureship on the sugar estates, they left the estates. Those who had been landowners back in China opted to make their homes in the Chinese agricultural settlement at Hopetown, in the hope that one day they would be granted title to the land. The others had banded together in an area from Leopold Street to Harel street, bordered by High and Cornhill Streets, where they formed their own “country within a country,” in a closely knit community much like those that have been established all over the world.   Continue reading →

By guyaneseonline | Posted in Emigration/Immigration, Guyana, History | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (1)

Chinese: Indentureship: “The Chinese in Guyana” – 2 articles

02/07/2013 – 9:00 pm

Chinese: 160th anniversary of the first immigrants to British Guiana.

British Guiana’s immigration: The Chinese experiment

Stabroek News:  Cecilia McAlmont – February 5, 2013  

This edited article was first published by Stabroek News in the History this week series (No 2003/5) on January 30, 2003. It formed Part I of a two-part feature.

Introduction
By the time the ship Glentanner, on January 12, 1853 disembarked the 262 Chinese labourers, the first of the 13,533 who were eventually to arrive in British Guiana, the local plantocracy had all but won the battle to persuade the colonial authorities that not only the survival of the sugar economy but the survival of civilization in the colony of British Guiana was dependent on their being allowed to import large numbers of immigrants restrained by long indentures. Immigrants from China were to be an integral part of this survival process. Not only were they regarded as equal to the Blacks and superior to the Indian immigrants in their capacity to support the labour of sugar cultivation, but also as part of the entire process which could be used to discipline and control the newly freed Blacks to suit the requirements of the plantation system.    [more]

The Chinese in Guyana         <click for second article Continue reading →

By guyaneseonline | Posted in Agriculture, Business, Guyana, History | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Cricket: Windies fall 0-3 vs Australia in ODI 5-game series

02/07/2013 – 5:45 pm

Windies fall 0-3 behind despite fireworks from Bravos

February 7, 2013 · Stabroek News
CANBERRA, Australia,  CMC – Up tempo half-centuries by the Bravo brothers, Darren and Dwayne, were not enough to prevent West Indies falling to a 39-run defeat in the third One-Day International, as Australia took a winning 3-0 lead in the five-match series here  yesterday.

Asked to chase an imposing 330 for victory on an excellent batting surface at Manuka Oval, West Indies were bowled out for 290 off 47.3 overs, with the left-handed Darren top scoring with 86 and Dwayne stroking 51.      Continue reading →

By guyaneseonline | Posted in Caribbean news, Sports | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (2)

Medical Revolution Using Smartphones – Dr. Eric Topol – 2 videos

02/07/2013 – 5:02 am

Medical Revolution Unfolding: Using Smartphones   –  Dr. Eric Topol – 2 videos

Published on Jan 24, 2013

Dr. Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute, chief academic officer of San Diego-based Scripps Health and digital health’s rock star, was featured Jan. 25 on NBC’s Rock Center with Brian Williams. In this interview with NBC’s Dr. Nancy Snyderman, he showed off a number of technologies and gadgets that can provide better care at lower cost, often using little more than a sensor connected to a smartphone.  For more, including names of the products Topol demonstrated, see my story in MobiHealthNews: http://mobihealthnews.com/20032/topol…

See second video below:  Continue reading →

By guyaneseonline | Posted in Medical, Personalities | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (2)

The protection for Amerindian rights in the Laws of Guyana

02/07/2013 – 3:50 am

The protection for Amerindian rights in the Laws of Guyana

Stabroek News – February 4, 2013 Features,In The Diaspora | 

— the case of Isseneru Amerindian Village

By Janette Bulkan

Janette Bulkan was Coordinator of the Amerindian Research Unit, University of Guyana from 1985 to 1999 and Senior Social Scientist at the Iwokrama International Centre from 2000 to 2003

The High Court has recently found in favour of a rentier gold miner against obstruction of work by the Akawaio Amerindian community of Isseneru, situated in the middle Mazaruni River. (A rentier is a person who has a licence, does not himself or herself operate that licence but rents it out to a third party or parties). The immediate argument is whether there is an overlap between the boundaries of the mining licence issued to Ivor Chang in 1989 and of the communal title of Isseneru Village Council (IVC), the latter issued in 2007.    Continue reading →

By guyaneseonline | Posted in Business, Commentary, Environment, Government, Guyana, History, Mining | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (9)

Eastern Caribbean elections – commentary

02/07/2013 – 3:05 am

Eastern Caribbean elections

 By Stabroek News – February 6, 2013 – Editorial |

Prime Minister Freundel Stuart of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP), Barbados has eventually called the long-awaited date for general elections in his country and the citizens go to the polls on February 21. Amidst continuing political turmoil, with a government virtually under siege from its own elected members for the better part of its five-year tenure, Grenada’s Prime Minister Tillman Thomas has surrendered to the inevitable, and has announced elections for February 19,  the last elections having taken place in July of 2008.

And in the federal state of St Kitts and Nevis which last had general elections in January 2010 that gave the St Kitts and Nevis Labour Party 6 seats to 2 for its St Kitts opponent, deepening turmoil in the ruling party suggests the possibility of an early turn to the polls, as the government with only a 6-5 majority if the Nevis seats are included, shows increasing internal fragility.   Continue reading →

By guyaneseonline | Posted in Caribbean news, Commentary, Politics | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (1)