The first ship­ment of 192 Chi­nese im­mi­grants ar­rived in Trinidad on a ship named For­ti­tude on Oc­to­ber 12, 1806.And al­though it has been 205 years since they first ar­rived, the Chi­nese im­mi­grants who work in Trinidad have con­tin­ued to dis­play for­ti­tude in the face of mod­ern-day ex­ploita­tion.Though the ex­per­i­ment of Chi­nese labour failed dur­ing slav­ery, the Chi­nese im­mi­grants forged their lega­cy and be­came suc­cess­ful butch­ers, shop­keep­ers, car­pen­ters and mar­ket gar­den­ers. They brought with them their cus­toms, tra­di­tions, games, re­li­gion and ar­ti­facts.Af­ter slav­ery was abol­ished, the sec­ond wave of im­mi­grants ar­rived from the south­ern Guang­dong province: an area com­pris­ing Macao, Hong Kong and Can­ton to work as in­den­tured labour­ers be­tween 1853 and 1866.

This was fol­lowed by the third wave of Chi­nese im­mi­gra­tion, which oc­curred be­tween the 1920s and 1940s. At that time, ear­li­er mi­grants brought in fam­i­ly and friends from Chi­na, who be­came suc­cess­ful mer­chants, ped­dlers, traders and shop­keep­ers.By the 1970s, when Chi­na start­ed open­ing up to the out­side world, mi­gra­tion re­sumed once more, re­sult­ing in the fourth wave of Chi­nese im­mi­gra­tion.Maria Lee, the founder of the Chi­nese Arts and Cul­ture So­ci­ety was among those who came in the fourth wave. Lee said when she first ar­rived, they set up a shop in San Fer­nan­do."I al­ways want the coun­try to get bet­ter and bet­ter... I bring back thing from Chi­na and all the lo­cal peo­ple buy it," she said.

She ex­plained that it took her al­most three decades to es­tab­lish Sin­cere's Food Man­u­fac­tur­ing Com­pa­ny, which man­u­fac­tures a range of Chi­nese sea­son­ing, peanut oil, rice cook­ing wine, deep fry bat­ter and Chow Mein Noo­dles.Since she came, Lee has taught more than 2,000 peo­ple to cook Chi­nese dish­es."I teach them for free...They have to buy the in­gre­di­ents and I teach them," Lee said.Al­though she is 66 years old, Lee said she planned to in­tro­duce new agri­cul­ture tech­niques in T&T."In Chi­na, we don't waste noth­ing...I want to buy ma­chine which will make fer­tilis­er," she said."We go to all the chick­en farm, pig farm in Erin and ma­nure from all toi­lets in coun­try­side and get the waste and process it in­to small pel­lets of nat­ur­al fer­til­iz­er."

The pe­tite busi­ness­woman al­so trains lo­cals to do the Chi­nese drag­on dance, the fan and rib­bon dance, as well as Kung Fu.While many lo­cals are fas­ci­nat­ed by these skills, Lee said peo­ple in Chi­na were drawn to T&T's cli­mate where any­thing could grow all year."In Chi­na, we have four sea­sons so we can­not plant, but I buy land in Ari­ma and Waller­field and I plant gin­ger," she said.Lee's daugh­ter He­len said peo­ple in T&T could ben­e­fit if they adopt­ed the pos­i­tive work ethics of the Chi­nese peo­ple.She not­ed that in Chi­na it was com­mon for peo­ple to be seen stand­ing on the road­side sell­ing their body parts to get mon­ey to help ail­ing fam­i­ly mem­bers."It is a hard life out there...Peo­ple in Trinidad just do not re­alise how lucky they are," He­len said.

An­oth­er fourth wave im­mi­grant who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty said the new batch of im­mi­grants who were com­ing to T&T shores, might not have the good work ethics of the ear­li­er mi­grants."There are good ones and there are bad ones," she said."There are some of us who want to build this coun­try which we now call home...And there are bad ones who come for quick mon­ey and to do bad bad things."Asked to elab­o­rate, she re­spond­ed: "I am a Bud­dhist, I can­not re­peat the bad things. That is their busi­ness."How­ev­er, spec­u­la­tion is rife that Chi­nese im­mi­grants are in­volved in il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ties such as pros­ti­tu­tion, gam­bling and traf­fick­ing.All trans­ac­tions are done in cash and are kept with­in a tight cir­cle of cus­tomers.

How to get cit­i­zen­ship

A Cit­i­zen of the British Com­mon­wealth or Re­pub­lic of Ire­land who holds res­i­dent sta­tus in Trinidad and To­ba­go for a min­i­mum of 5 years may ap­ply to the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to be reg­is­tered as a cit­i­zen of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

An ap­pli­ca­tion form is ob­tained from the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty at a fee of $0.29.

An ap­pli­ca­tion is sub­mit­ted to the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty on the pre­scribed Form 7, three orig­i­nal forms, and is sub­ject to the ap­proval of the min­is­ter.

A Cer­tifi­cate of Cit­i­zen­ship (Form 9) is grant­ed on ap­proval of the ap­pli­ca­tion.

An ap­pli­ca­tion is sub­mit­ted to the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty on the pre­scribed Form 7, three orig­i­nal forms, and is sub­ject to the ap­proval of the Min­is­ter.

Cit­i­zen­ship by Reg­is­tra­tion Fee

(1) Ap­pli­ca­tion fee- $100

(2) Cer­tifi­cate fee- $840