Finding A Place, Maintaing Ties: Greater Hartford’s West Indians; Introduction

Finding A Place, Maintaing Ties: Greater Hartford’s West IndiansA new exhibition at The Connecticut Historical SocietyOpen through May 2, 2003

A View of the exhibition >

The stories of immigrants who came from the islands of the Caribbean can be likened to the stories of other immigrant groups throughout Connecticut’s history. Each group struggled with change and hardship, with making a new home and finding work, and with preserving traditions. Yet, the melting pot called America would lose its zest if the stories of each group – not to mention the individual stories – were not recounted, remembered, and shared with others. The story of West Indians who moved to Connecticut, and in particular Greater Hartford, is no different.

The original building of the West Indian Social Club on Barbour Street in Hartford, 1962. West Indian Social Club archives >

In 1999, the West Indian Social Club of Hartford and the associated West Indian Foundation asked The Connecticut Historical Society to join them in documenting the lives of West Indian immigrants who first came to the Hartford area in the 1940s to work on local tobacco farms. What began as a project designed to record the experiences of these early pioneers – mostly men from Jamaica – subsequently grew to interviews with men and women, elders and young people, long time residents and more recent arrivals to the Greater Hartford area, both from Jamaica and the other English-speaking, independent countries in the Caribbean.

Dressing up as a cricket player in the exhibition >

After three years of work, thirty-seven oral histories, hundreds of hours of video taping and personal interviews, research in the West Indian Social Club’s collections, and countless meetings with contemporary history scholars and West Indian community advisors, The Connecticut Historical Society has unveiled its newest exhibition, Finding a Place, Maintaining Ties: Greater Hartford’s West Indians.

Although spanning several decades and eleven Caribbean nations (Antigua & Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & The Grenadines, and Trinidad & Tobago), the exhibition explores a common thread that links people’s individual stories: the challenge of putting down roots in a new place while maintaining ties with the people, history, and cultural heritage of their homelands.

Cigar Box Cover with inscription Hartford Special from S. Beninato farm in Bloomfield, CT, 1930s. CHS Collections. >

Visitors to the exhibition are introduced to the beginnings of Greater Hartford’s West Indian community. Although some West Indians had come to Connecticut in the early 1900s, many more came in the 1940s during World War II to work mainly on the shade tobacco farms along the Connecticut River Valley. During the 1960s and 70s, many British colonies in the West Indies won their independence from Great Britain. At the same time, restrictive immigration laws were lifted, allowing more people from the West Indies to migrate to the United States. As a result, more women came to Connecticut and found jobs primarily as housekeepers, teachers, and nurses.

Graduating nurses, 1950s. West Indian Social Club archives. >

Children came with, or soon after, their mothers. Young adults came to attend college, and more and more West Indian people were attracted to the growing community in Greater Hartford. Today, Greater Hartford is home to the third largest population of West Indians in the country; other Connecticut cities are also home to considerably large Caribbean immigrant populations.

Three videos, all prepared by professional filmmakers, present different aspects of Greater Hartford’s West Indian heritage. Diaspora provides a 500-year historical overview, from the enslavement of Africans in the sugar cane fields of the West Indies to the 1833 abolishment of slavery by the British and subsequent immigration of West Indians to America. Finding A Place, features individuals in their 20s and 30s candidly discussing their experiences of first coming to Greater Hartford. Some of the interviewees express surprise: “I thought life was going to be like the Huxtables [from the Cosby Show],” and “Education was free... we had so many wonderful opportunities.” Others discuss some of the difficulties: “I was told to go back on the banana boat.”

A music listening station features music from around the Caribbean >

Maintaining Ties, the third video and the longest at thirty-minutes, is a multitude of short vignettes on pieces of West Indian culture that live on today in Connecticut. Filmmakers traveled to a local supermarket and restaurant to explore West Indian food; interviewed DJs broadcasting Caribbean music in Connecticut, the director of the West Indian Cultural Dance Troupe, and a contemporary artist depicting West Indian themes in his work; and followed preparations for Carnival and West Indian Independence Week in Hartford.

Younger visitors to the exhibition can play with puzzles >

Children coming to the exhibition can learn about the geography, food, climate, and animals of the Caribbean islands through puzzles, maps, and distance games. They can also try on equipment worn by cricket players, learn to play dominoes, and make music with a synthesized steel pan.

The exhibition also features displays of vibrant carnival costumes worn in the 2001 Parade in Hartford, a selection of Caribbean music from different islands, artifacts from the tobacco industry, and photographs and documents from the archives of both The Connecticut Historical Society and the West Indian Social Club. Quotes and stories of those interviewed for the exhibition are dispersed throughout.This exhibition is part of CHS series on the People of Connecticut. Finding a Place, Maintaining Ties: Greater Hartford’s West Indians will be on view through August 31, 2003. Museum exhibition hours are Tuesday through Sunday, Noon to 5 PM. For group tour information, call CHS at (860) 236-5621.