Interview with Alonzo Smith
IntervieweeInterview with
Alonzo Smith
(Guyanese, 1929 - 2017)
Date2000 November 11
Mediumdigitized audio cassette tape
DimensionsDuration (tape 1, side 1): 45 Minutes, 10 Seconds
Duration (tape 1, side 2): 45 Minutes, 35 Seconds
Duration (tape 2): 20 Minutes, 34 Seconds
Duration (total runtime): 1 Hour, 51 Minutes, 19 Seconds
ClassificationsInformation Artifacts
Credit LineGift of the CHS Exhibitions Department
Object number2013.26.4.1-.3
Description(.1-.2) Two audio cassette tapes of an interview with Alonzo Smith, who was interviewed by Fiona Vernal on November 11, 2000. (.3) Black and white portrait photograph of Alonzo Smith.
Topics discussed include Smith's father's occupation at Port Morant Sugar Estate; siblings; education; Smith's dreams as a cricket player and the opportunity to go to the United States on farm work; cricket; selection and recruitment for farm work; flying on an airplane and leaving Guyana; camp accommodations; food at the camps; meeting his future wife; his wedding; employment history as a janitor and bookkeeper; Fenn Manufacturing; his job promotion to management and demotion after the company is sold; relations between Black American men and West Indian men; dealing with cultural difference in the context of marriage; West Indians and the discipline of children with corporal punishment; the West Indian Social Club; dominoes, dances, picnics, Christmas parties, and anniversary balls at the Social Club; other West Indian organizations; the Guyanes Organization and the problem of Jamaican dominance; the colonial legacy of a class, caste system; the Women's Auxiliary and full membership in the West Indian Social Club; generational differences; intellectual and class divides at the Social Club; the Guyanese Cultural Organization; Smith's reflection on fifty years in the U.S. and creating West Indian political clout in Hartford; citizenship, immigration, and the shifting policy towards the Caribbean; politics; decline of West Indian reputation and work ethic; and teaching respect for authority.
Tape 1: 2013.26.4.1a-d consists of two sides, the tape, and a J-card.
Tape 2: 2013.26.4.2a-c consists of one side, the tape, and a J-card.
2013.26.4.3: photograph
Topics discussed include Smith's father's occupation at Port Morant Sugar Estate; siblings; education; Smith's dreams as a cricket player and the opportunity to go to the United States on farm work; cricket; selection and recruitment for farm work; flying on an airplane and leaving Guyana; camp accommodations; food at the camps; meeting his future wife; his wedding; employment history as a janitor and bookkeeper; Fenn Manufacturing; his job promotion to management and demotion after the company is sold; relations between Black American men and West Indian men; dealing with cultural difference in the context of marriage; West Indians and the discipline of children with corporal punishment; the West Indian Social Club; dominoes, dances, picnics, Christmas parties, and anniversary balls at the Social Club; other West Indian organizations; the Guyanes Organization and the problem of Jamaican dominance; the colonial legacy of a class, caste system; the Women's Auxiliary and full membership in the West Indian Social Club; generational differences; intellectual and class divides at the Social Club; the Guyanese Cultural Organization; Smith's reflection on fifty years in the U.S. and creating West Indian political clout in Hartford; citizenship, immigration, and the shifting policy towards the Caribbean; politics; decline of West Indian reputation and work ethic; and teaching respect for authority.
Tape 1: 2013.26.4.1a-d consists of two sides, the tape, and a J-card.
Tape 2: 2013.26.4.2a-c consists of one side, the tape, and a J-card.
2013.26.4.3: photograph
Label TextListen to interview at http://hdl.handle.net/11134/40002:19641547
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
