Brown, an English poet and university instructor who specializes in Caribbean and African studies, wrote this poem as a commentary on the Caribbean islands but particularly on Puerto Rico.
From above, with the islands spread out below him, Puerto Rico seems to have won the "pot." He calls it the wealthy "Dallas of the West Indies" because it is owned by the United States.
Yet as the plane lands in the San Juan airport, the speaker's view begins to shift. When the pilot says that only people for whom Puerto Rico is the final destination can disembark, the speaker begins to think that Puerto Rico's bounty is meant only for the rich. He believes that the pilot's words about not leaving the plane are meant to keep out Black interlopers who might sneak onto the island (one might question, however, how many "desperate blacks" are on a plane):
Subtle Uncle...
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Sam, afraid too many desperate blacks
might re-enslave this Island of the free,
might jump the barbed
electric fence around ‘America’s
back yard’ and claim that vaunted sanctuary... ‘Give me your poor...’
As the plane rises above San Juan, and the speaker can see shanties juxtaposed with condos and Cadillacs, his view that Puerto Rico is a jackpot for the rich alone is confirmed. He ends by stating that Puerto Rico is "sharp and jagged and dangerous" and meant for someone else.
The speaker brings his knowledge of the history and politics of the Caribbean to bear on what he sees with his own eyes. He knows that Puerto Rico is owned by a wealthy country and that this gives it a seeming edge over the other countries nearby. But his interpretation of what he sees offers him a different, darker perspective of who benefits from this island.
The ultimate meaning of "West Indies USA" is in the last three lines,
however the entire poem contains the meanings that lead up to the final one. In
other words, in "West Indies, USA," the journey is as important as the
destination. This concept is mirrored in and parallel to the journey the poetic
speaker takes within the text of the poem.
The poetic speaker is flying in a commercial airplane "Cruising at thirty
thousand feet above the endless green" of the West Indies and Caribbean. The
speaker enumerates the highlights he sees as they fly over on their way to
their destination of San Juan, Puerto Rico. As the plane sweeps overhead to
position for a landing at San Juan, the first two stanzas describe the marks of
Westernization on the Caribbean islands of Puerto Rico and the West Indies and
US Virgin Islands and British Virgin Islands: Puerto Rico, with San Juan, is
north of the West Indies; Port-au-Prince is in Haiti, north of Puerto Rico;
Picaro Airport serves Trinidad and Tobago in the British Virgin Islands to the
east of the US Virgin Islands; St. John is the smallest of the islands in the
US Virgin Islands to the south of Puerto Rico.
The next two stanzas criticize--and in so doing, denounce--the marks of "US
regulation" and "barbed / electric fences around America's / back yard" with
"US patrol cars" where "that vaunted sanctuary" echoes the motto of Liberty:
"'Give me your poor...'." The last full stanza compares the two halves of San
Juan's dual reality--and by extension, the Caribbean’s and West Indies’ dual
realities--with its "shanties" versus "condominiums" and its "polished
Cadillacs" versus "Rastas [Rastafarians] with pushcarts."
In this stanza also, Brown calls San Juan a place like "fool's gold," an
allusion to the Gold Rush days when miners found fool's gold, or a mineral
similar to gold that was not gold. He then introduces a metaphor that compares
San Juan to a television that has "fallen / off the back of a lorry [large
truck]," with "twisted wires" on the road. He ends by saying that despite the
polished trappings of Americanism, the West Indies are "sharp ... and
dangerous," but most of all, they "belonged to someone else." Brown ends with
this dramatic metaphoric appeal to what one can only call true liberty, which
is symbolized by Lady Liberty's torch and which would replace the hollow echo
of "'Give me your poor...'."