Thank you Monica for writing this piece. I went to St. Thomas when I was 11 or 12, around 1981/82. I was probably only there for 10 days.
My grandfather (a child of the depression, WWII Veteran, and born New Englander) had retired from the IRS after 30 years of service and had been asked to come out of retirement to head up the IRS office in St Thomas for a year. He and my grandmother had been down there for a number of months when my aunt, uncle, 3 year old cousin and I went down for a visit and stayed with them.
In fact just last week a friend said she and her daughter were going to St. John for 10 days, which reminded me of my time in St.Thomas.
I remembered stopping over in Puerto Rico’s nice airport on our way down and switching from a large plane, to a small commuter type plane. Then we landed in St. Thomas and I swear to you my memory of the airport was a large metal quanset hut, open on both ends. I can’t remember flooring, but there were rows of seats and most especially I remember the goats 🐐 roaming freely around the airport everywhere! Our luggage was 3 hours and 2 flights behind us! 🤪😂🥴 But I was 12 and found it all fascinating.
Until reading your article I only remembered the airport, the beauty of the place -plants, fish, beaches, etc- but your focus on the other conditions, the economics, the politics, brought up some other things I had long forgotten and probably didn’t fully grasp at 12.
I remember my grandfather had been asked to come out of retirement to “fix” the IRS department down there, but I didn’t understand how or why. I think I remember him saying the people who worked in the office were lazy(?) and other conversations that my grandfather and uncle had, where grandpa seemed totally exasperated, and I do remember him lamenting how corrupt EVERYTHING was down there. I think too he was all go, go, go, and the culture down there was slow, slow, slow! 🥴
I remember fresh water was extremely limited and precious and we could only take 5 min showers and then the water was automatically cut off from somewhere in the system outside the apartment. Then you had to wait for a certain time before the next person could shower. I got into trouble because I didn’t get all of the soap out of my long hair before the cut-off and grandpa was so mad! Uncle had to sneak me down to the pool (it was nighttime) so I could jump in (this was a big NO NO 🤦♀️🙄)I do think I remember at least one night when my grandma had to light candles because of no electricity. But I didn’t remember electricity shortages as much as water shortages!
There were lots of black people in jobs and residences all over the island and while there was an obvious sense of poverty in many places, it also somehow seemed to be a part of the laidback culture too. I was from sounthern Maryland and was kind of more used to all that. However this was admittedly much more “exotic” away from home.
I remember the houses were somewhat dilapidated but brightly colored and I remember the open air market with the white latticework over and all around to give shade and definition to the market and its stalls. I remember a little black boy about my age (9 or 10?) calling out in a song-song way in an island-accented voice, following us down the middle of the market, trying to sell us fruit from what I assume was his family’s stall. He was successful. I sold fish with my dad back on the mainland in a similar way so I wanted to talk to him some more, but we needed to leave. Some of what you described seems almost endemic after 43 years, but worse because of two catagory 5 hurricanes, Covid/ supply chain issues, and inflation. My grandfather is rolling over in his grave about the lady’s tax refund taking 5 years! However I have a sneaking suspicion that he would say it wasn’t mainland America’s fault, he would likely fault the same frustrations of corruption he lamented 43 years ago. It’s quite possible her refund was held up on the island! 🤦♀️🤷♀️ I also found it interesting that the taxi driver was earning money on BVI but was going to take the $ back to the Dominican Republic where it seems that things were cheaper. But it seems he couldn’t find a good enough paying job in the Dominican Republic? Idk, it’s all very interesting and I’m going to keep an open mind, but your article brought back more than I had remembered. Thanks!
It sounds like Hudson County in New Jersey in the late '60s and '70s. There were few employment opportunities, and most fellow students left for greener fields.
Great piece, Monica. Travel is truly the best education and the best American diplomats I know spend a large amount of their time in between foreign assignments back home in rarely visited corners of the country. They do this because to be s good diplomat you must know your own country better than your foreign counterparts. If you don’t, you are blind and you make our country more vulnerable because of it. Of course local politicians also need to do the reverse. They need to travel to learn from places that work better and to adopt those ideas to bring a better life to the people they represent. Without commercial competition businesses get lazy and bad because they can get away with it. The same is true of political systems that lack competition. Our two parties are indeed broken. I have voted for Democrats my entire life and I even worked in Ohio to get President Obama elected. I voted Republican for the first time this year because I realized that the Democratic Party has stopped listening to me altogether and I felt there was only one way to send them a message to wake the hell up. I’m not sure that they have done that yet. All I know for certain is that it’s on us to make sure both parties are always wide awake and sharing important observations like you did here is helpful to that process. We must take more ownership of our self-governance, perhaps especially at the local level — because that’s where we can affect change the fastest and start the momentum.
We need our political parties to be healthy and highly competitive with each other in who can hear the the signals that matter the best. They will become that way again when we demand it. Thank God for Braver Angels!
Monica, I’m reading this piece in December based on a Substack recommendation. Excellent journalism! I can relate to your experience because I live in rural Mexico, 10km outside of a tourist town. The relative poverty of the majority of Mexicans is breathtaking. (Our power is erratic as well.)
Now the USA has chosen MAGA and the bellicose verbiage regarding deportation is frightening. I can understand securing the border, but rampant expulsion can lead to “Your papers, please”. All Mestiz@s and dark skinned, Haitian-looking Blacks will be suspect. Ouch.
I wish I had hope. Other than individual acts of kindness, the only solution is local control—folks don’t poop where they eat. But since the 1850s, political BIG has been seen as better, with people being managed as units of production.
Thank you Monica for writing about this. And thank you for pointing out that just voting for people who share our skin color or ethic background isn’t the answer. The native or minority leaders who supposedly represent and protect their communities from the white man are the very people who exploit these vulnerable communities for their own gain. And yet the people continue to keep those leaders in power without question. What a shame. How do you help a community that continues to vote for the people and policies that continue to harm that very community?
This is such an amazing article and a brilliant example of truth telling. I’m saddened and infuriated at what you’ve described, and also reminded why the original colonies went to war with England. I’m not sure whether they would be better or worse as states or as separate countries, but until they stop voting for people to do the same things I’m not sure there’s hope for any of them. This is gut-wrenching.
In 1976, I learned a new term- “Relative Deprivation.” Mr. Robert Meyer, Director of the Office to Combat Terrorism, newly created at the State Department, described the term in 3 examples: 1. A person living in D.C. & owning a color TV, complains because he does not have a remote controller. 2. A man living in Detroit complains that he has a B/W TV & a dial channel selector. 3. A father in an African wooden hut, with a fully thatched roof, warming yams under a hot fire, is content that his family is being fed, they are safe from animals outside their hut & will be well fed that night.
Monica, your writing did just as well in explaining “Relative Deprivation,” though in different settings. You dug deeper, and learned more. Thank you for illustrating how bad things can be - in a “relative” sort of way.
"a profound despair gripping the farthest edges of the American empire. A deep-seated resentment festering among a forgotten and unheard people. A paradise once found, but now lost to misery and hopelessness."
"In a hopelessly disempowering landscape, virtue signaling becomes the weapon of choice."
"Like all other U.S. Virgin Islands, the residents of St. Thomas are U.S. citizens — with a twist: they pay taxes, but they’re not entitled to representation. They vote for their local legislature, but not the U.S. president; and they elect a single non-voting delegate to Congress."
Gasp.That sounds gloomy for the seaquatoria project, the fifty first state of the U.S. !
But since we will deliver on our promise to help the freeworld wins over the rogue actors and the rogue "cuntries" who endorse those, I believe we will make one man on vote a reality in the U.S. and fuel the necessary momentum to reform the U.S. constitution as well! It may be a moonshot, but at least we have a roadmap. And you can be part of it, Monica!
I'll try to join you on the phone once if you agree.
It is quite gloomy, Francois. In the U.S. we have different problems: we can vote and be “represented,” but our electoral system lacks transparency. The right to vote is hollow when ballot harvesting runs rampant and third party candidates are forced off ballots through lawfare. But like you, I always maintain hope that we can turn things around!
There is a lot of subjects we can cooperate together on. No man is a prophet in his country. We can use this, in this particular moment of history to push reforms in the U.S. that would otherwise have taken decades or centuries. We can help you bridge the divides, and also solve a few more issues, or at least define a consistent roadmap. One of our eminent team member is a doctor, and a feminist writer from India. You will certainly appreciate her. I'd really love to introduce you to our small team. Thanks Monica!
A timely reminder of the corruption of a uniparty system. See also, perhaps, Chicago (I think you basically said as much). A shame anyone, has to live this way, but especially Americans. Would proper federal representation actually help, or would it just send more money to be mismanaged?
Proper voting representation would be a good start. That would incentivize the federal government to recognize their existence. But what’s also desperately needed is help highlighting what’s happening. The media completely ignores this crisis. If the gross corruption of local government were put front and center for all to see, things would begin to change fast.
I guess one problem of having their own representative is and sense of proportionality ... in general congressmen (Congress person?) represent something like 750k people. Hard to give 100k people the same vote; ironically, easier to give them none.
Logically, we would let each congressman have a vote in proportion to the population of their district, but, that ain't gonna happen.
Very sad. But you see, Monica, the Seaquatoria project will bring jobs, growth and perspective for all those people. The last will be the first, you see.
Thank you Monica for writing this piece. I went to St. Thomas when I was 11 or 12, around 1981/82. I was probably only there for 10 days.
My grandfather (a child of the depression, WWII Veteran, and born New Englander) had retired from the IRS after 30 years of service and had been asked to come out of retirement to head up the IRS office in St Thomas for a year. He and my grandmother had been down there for a number of months when my aunt, uncle, 3 year old cousin and I went down for a visit and stayed with them.
In fact just last week a friend said she and her daughter were going to St. John for 10 days, which reminded me of my time in St.Thomas.
I remembered stopping over in Puerto Rico’s nice airport on our way down and switching from a large plane, to a small commuter type plane. Then we landed in St. Thomas and I swear to you my memory of the airport was a large metal quanset hut, open on both ends. I can’t remember flooring, but there were rows of seats and most especially I remember the goats 🐐 roaming freely around the airport everywhere! Our luggage was 3 hours and 2 flights behind us! 🤪😂🥴 But I was 12 and found it all fascinating.
Until reading your article I only remembered the airport, the beauty of the place -plants, fish, beaches, etc- but your focus on the other conditions, the economics, the politics, brought up some other things I had long forgotten and probably didn’t fully grasp at 12.
I remember my grandfather had been asked to come out of retirement to “fix” the IRS department down there, but I didn’t understand how or why. I think I remember him saying the people who worked in the office were lazy(?) and other conversations that my grandfather and uncle had, where grandpa seemed totally exasperated, and I do remember him lamenting how corrupt EVERYTHING was down there. I think too he was all go, go, go, and the culture down there was slow, slow, slow! 🥴
I remember fresh water was extremely limited and precious and we could only take 5 min showers and then the water was automatically cut off from somewhere in the system outside the apartment. Then you had to wait for a certain time before the next person could shower. I got into trouble because I didn’t get all of the soap out of my long hair before the cut-off and grandpa was so mad! Uncle had to sneak me down to the pool (it was nighttime) so I could jump in (this was a big NO NO 🤦♀️🙄)I do think I remember at least one night when my grandma had to light candles because of no electricity. But I didn’t remember electricity shortages as much as water shortages!
There were lots of black people in jobs and residences all over the island and while there was an obvious sense of poverty in many places, it also somehow seemed to be a part of the laidback culture too. I was from sounthern Maryland and was kind of more used to all that. However this was admittedly much more “exotic” away from home.
I remember the houses were somewhat dilapidated but brightly colored and I remember the open air market with the white latticework over and all around to give shade and definition to the market and its stalls. I remember a little black boy about my age (9 or 10?) calling out in a song-song way in an island-accented voice, following us down the middle of the market, trying to sell us fruit from what I assume was his family’s stall. He was successful. I sold fish with my dad back on the mainland in a similar way so I wanted to talk to him some more, but we needed to leave. Some of what you described seems almost endemic after 43 years, but worse because of two catagory 5 hurricanes, Covid/ supply chain issues, and inflation. My grandfather is rolling over in his grave about the lady’s tax refund taking 5 years! However I have a sneaking suspicion that he would say it wasn’t mainland America’s fault, he would likely fault the same frustrations of corruption he lamented 43 years ago. It’s quite possible her refund was held up on the island! 🤦♀️🤷♀️ I also found it interesting that the taxi driver was earning money on BVI but was going to take the $ back to the Dominican Republic where it seems that things were cheaper. But it seems he couldn’t find a good enough paying job in the Dominican Republic? Idk, it’s all very interesting and I’m going to keep an open mind, but your article brought back more than I had remembered. Thanks!
It sounds like Hudson County in New Jersey in the late '60s and '70s. There were few employment opportunities, and most fellow students left for greener fields.
Great piece, Monica. Travel is truly the best education and the best American diplomats I know spend a large amount of their time in between foreign assignments back home in rarely visited corners of the country. They do this because to be s good diplomat you must know your own country better than your foreign counterparts. If you don’t, you are blind and you make our country more vulnerable because of it. Of course local politicians also need to do the reverse. They need to travel to learn from places that work better and to adopt those ideas to bring a better life to the people they represent. Without commercial competition businesses get lazy and bad because they can get away with it. The same is true of political systems that lack competition. Our two parties are indeed broken. I have voted for Democrats my entire life and I even worked in Ohio to get President Obama elected. I voted Republican for the first time this year because I realized that the Democratic Party has stopped listening to me altogether and I felt there was only one way to send them a message to wake the hell up. I’m not sure that they have done that yet. All I know for certain is that it’s on us to make sure both parties are always wide awake and sharing important observations like you did here is helpful to that process. We must take more ownership of our self-governance, perhaps especially at the local level — because that’s where we can affect change the fastest and start the momentum.
We need our political parties to be healthy and highly competitive with each other in who can hear the the signals that matter the best. They will become that way again when we demand it. Thank God for Braver Angels!
Monica, I’m reading this piece in December based on a Substack recommendation. Excellent journalism! I can relate to your experience because I live in rural Mexico, 10km outside of a tourist town. The relative poverty of the majority of Mexicans is breathtaking. (Our power is erratic as well.)
Now the USA has chosen MAGA and the bellicose verbiage regarding deportation is frightening. I can understand securing the border, but rampant expulsion can lead to “Your papers, please”. All Mestiz@s and dark skinned, Haitian-looking Blacks will be suspect. Ouch.
I wish I had hope. Other than individual acts of kindness, the only solution is local control—folks don’t poop where they eat. But since the 1850s, political BIG has been seen as better, with people being managed as units of production.
Thanks again.
Thank you Monica for writing about this. And thank you for pointing out that just voting for people who share our skin color or ethic background isn’t the answer. The native or minority leaders who supposedly represent and protect their communities from the white man are the very people who exploit these vulnerable communities for their own gain. And yet the people continue to keep those leaders in power without question. What a shame. How do you help a community that continues to vote for the people and policies that continue to harm that very community?
hmmm no taxation without representation" rings a bell
I had no idea that this was happening in the VI. Thanks for a report that brought your experiences there to life.
This is such an amazing article and a brilliant example of truth telling. I’m saddened and infuriated at what you’ve described, and also reminded why the original colonies went to war with England. I’m not sure whether they would be better or worse as states or as separate countries, but until they stop voting for people to do the same things I’m not sure there’s hope for any of them. This is gut-wrenching.
In 1976, I learned a new term- “Relative Deprivation.” Mr. Robert Meyer, Director of the Office to Combat Terrorism, newly created at the State Department, described the term in 3 examples: 1. A person living in D.C. & owning a color TV, complains because he does not have a remote controller. 2. A man living in Detroit complains that he has a B/W TV & a dial channel selector. 3. A father in an African wooden hut, with a fully thatched roof, warming yams under a hot fire, is content that his family is being fed, they are safe from animals outside their hut & will be well fed that night.
Monica, your writing did just as well in explaining “Relative Deprivation,” though in different settings. You dug deeper, and learned more. Thank you for illustrating how bad things can be - in a “relative” sort of way.
So well written. Eye opening, shocking, and so disappointing to learn how our government has abandoned them. Thank you
Many thanks, Dana!
This is extraordinarily well written. Thank you.
Thank you for this article Monica. I previously knew basically nothing about this.
Thank you for taking the time to read, Blair 🙏
"a profound despair gripping the farthest edges of the American empire. A deep-seated resentment festering among a forgotten and unheard people. A paradise once found, but now lost to misery and hopelessness."
"In a hopelessly disempowering landscape, virtue signaling becomes the weapon of choice."
"Like all other U.S. Virgin Islands, the residents of St. Thomas are U.S. citizens — with a twist: they pay taxes, but they’re not entitled to representation. They vote for their local legislature, but not the U.S. president; and they elect a single non-voting delegate to Congress."
Gasp.That sounds gloomy for the seaquatoria project, the fifty first state of the U.S. !
But since we will deliver on our promise to help the freeworld wins over the rogue actors and the rogue "cuntries" who endorse those, I believe we will make one man on vote a reality in the U.S. and fuel the necessary momentum to reform the U.S. constitution as well! It may be a moonshot, but at least we have a roadmap. And you can be part of it, Monica!
I'll try to join you on the phone once if you agree.
It is quite gloomy, Francois. In the U.S. we have different problems: we can vote and be “represented,” but our electoral system lacks transparency. The right to vote is hollow when ballot harvesting runs rampant and third party candidates are forced off ballots through lawfare. But like you, I always maintain hope that we can turn things around!
There is a lot of subjects we can cooperate together on. No man is a prophet in his country. We can use this, in this particular moment of history to push reforms in the U.S. that would otherwise have taken decades or centuries. We can help you bridge the divides, and also solve a few more issues, or at least define a consistent roadmap. One of our eminent team member is a doctor, and a feminist writer from India. You will certainly appreciate her. I'd really love to introduce you to our small team. Thanks Monica!
A timely reminder of the corruption of a uniparty system. See also, perhaps, Chicago (I think you basically said as much). A shame anyone, has to live this way, but especially Americans. Would proper federal representation actually help, or would it just send more money to be mismanaged?
Proper voting representation would be a good start. That would incentivize the federal government to recognize their existence. But what’s also desperately needed is help highlighting what’s happening. The media completely ignores this crisis. If the gross corruption of local government were put front and center for all to see, things would begin to change fast.
I guess one problem of having their own representative is and sense of proportionality ... in general congressmen (Congress person?) represent something like 750k people. Hard to give 100k people the same vote; ironically, easier to give them none.
Logically, we would let each congressman have a vote in proportion to the population of their district, but, that ain't gonna happen.
Very sad. But you see, Monica, the Seaquatoria project will bring jobs, growth and perspective for all those people. The last will be the first, you see.