Dying to Better Themselves - Paperbackby Olive Senior (Author) The popular West Indian migration narrative often starts with the "Windrush Generation"in 1950s' England, but in Dying to Better Themselves Olive Senior examines an earlier narrative: that of the neglected post emancipation generation of the 1850s who were lured to Panama by the promise of lucrative work and who initiated a pattern of circular migration that would transform the islands economically, socially and politically