The Caribbean exodus /

Few regions have been more deeply and continuously affected by migration than the Caribbean: by Europeans who colonized, African slaves who transformed, and 20th-century workers who have been underemployed or politically disadvantaged. The latter, the focus of this 16-essay collection, are directly affected by the region's proximity to North America, a perceived lack of opportunity at home, and, especially in the insular Caribbean, a deeply felt sense of rising expectations. Dawn Marshall finds that 40 percent of the residents of St. Kitts prefer living abroad. Since 1950, 5 to 18 percent of the population of nearly all Caribbean states have emigrated, with considerable return migration or recycling also occurring, notes Aaron Segal. Segal and other authors conclude the exodus to the US is fed by wage differentials as high as 15 to 1. Robert Bach writes that political factors involved in much of the non-Anglophone Caribbean Basin create a mix that becomes ``virtually impossible to disentangle.'' Following a section on migration to metropolitan Europe, the book concludes with a historical and legal examination of the impact of migration on the US. Only four essays in this collection are original, 12 being revisions of essays that have appeared elsewhere, 9 from a 1982 issue of Caribbean Review, which Levine edits. The closest competitor to this volume is Return Migration and Remittances: Developing a Caribbean Perspective, ed. by W. Skinner, K. de Albuquerque, and R. Bryce-Laporte (1982). Levine's well-integrated study is recommended for most specialized and many undergraduate collections.-W.M. Will, University of Tulsa