Interview with Mark V. Foster
IntervieweeInterview with
Mark V. Foster
(Jamaican, born 1972)
Date2000 November 5
Mediumdigitized audio cassette tape
DimensionsDuration (tape 1, side 1): 45 Minutes, 47 Seconds
Duration (tape 1, side 2): 43 Minutes, 25 Seconds
Duration (tape 2): 31 Minutes, 53 Seconds
Duration (total runtime): 2 Hours, 1 Minutes, 6 Seconds
ClassificationsInformation Artifacts
Credit LineGift of the CHS Exhibitions Department
Object number2013.26.2.1-.4
Description(.1-.2) Two audio cassette tapes of an interview with Mark V. Foster, who was interviewed by Fiona Vernal on November 5, 2000. (.3-.4) Black and white portrait photographs of Mark V. Foster.
Topics discussed include early memories of childhood in Jamaica, such as Rastafarians, church, and school; myths about America; first impressions of America; what makes him Jamaican; West Indian work ethic and Foster's passion for music; music and West Indian culture; motivations for going back to Jamaica; generational visions of the West Indian Social Club; grooming leaders for the West Indian Social Club and generational differences; working in tobacco over the summers with Jamaican contract workers; Cayasco, an organization for the younger generation of West Indians; relations between Jamaicans and other West Indians; routing the West Indian Parade to downtown Hartford; and "being Jamaican".
Tape 1: 2013.26.2.1a-d consists of two sides, the tape, and a J-card.
Tape 2: 2013.26.2.2a-c consists of one side, the tape, and a J-card.
2013.26.2.3-.4: photographs
Topics discussed include early memories of childhood in Jamaica, such as Rastafarians, church, and school; myths about America; first impressions of America; what makes him Jamaican; West Indian work ethic and Foster's passion for music; music and West Indian culture; motivations for going back to Jamaica; generational visions of the West Indian Social Club; grooming leaders for the West Indian Social Club and generational differences; working in tobacco over the summers with Jamaican contract workers; Cayasco, an organization for the younger generation of West Indians; relations between Jamaicans and other West Indians; routing the West Indian Parade to downtown Hartford; and "being Jamaican".
Tape 1: 2013.26.2.1a-d consists of two sides, the tape, and a J-card.
Tape 2: 2013.26.2.2a-c consists of one side, the tape, and a J-card.
2013.26.2.3-.4: photographs
Label TextListen to interview at http://hdl.handle.net/11134/40002:19641546
NotesSubject Note: In 1999, the West Indian Social Club of Hartford and the West Indian Foundation asked the Connecticut Historical Society to join them in documenting the lives of the 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 include audio and videotaped interviews of men and women, elders and young people, longtime residents and more recent arrivals to the Greater Hartford area, both from Jamaica and the other English-speaking, independent countries in the Caribbean.
The exhibition explored a common thread that seems to link 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 in the West Indies.
The exhibition, "Finding a Place, Maintaining Ties: Greater Hartford’s West Indians," was on view at the Connecticut Historical Society from July 2, 2002 – August 31, 2003.
Status
Not on view
