Dear Editor,
It was very gratifying to see and read that Ms Tennicia De Freitas won the 2010 Guyana Cultural Association Youth Award. It was good of the association to recognise the talent and future prospects for this young entertainer. It is clear to the officials of this organisation, as it is to most Guyanese, that Ms De Freitas has a great future as a singer. This was first confirmed when she won the Junior Calypso Monarch Crown, 2010 with her song, ‘I Don’t Want To Be Born.’ I am not alone in thinking that Tennicia is one of the brightest stars in our cultural firmament. The enthusiastic response to her YouTube video and the interest displayed by the diaspora indicate that this judgement is shared.
However, I was disappointed to learn that the US Embassy in Georgetown refused to grant her a visa for her to travel to New York and accept her award. I wonder on what grounds this unjust decision could have been made. This decision is really astonishing because Ms De Freitas is a very well brought up, well educated and civic minded young lady, who would readily obey the immigration and other laws of the United States and would do nothing to jeopardise her chances to promote her talent in the US. I do hope that the American Embassy would see it fit to grant Ms De Freitas a visa in the future, so that her God-given talent can be really tested and allowed to flower. The officials at the embassy must know that she is more deserving than many others.
Yours faithfully,
(Name and address provided)
