Interview with Dermoth Brown
IntervieweeInterview with
Dermoth Brown
(Jamaican)
Date2000 November 30
Mediumdigitized audio cassette tape
DimensionsDuration (tape 1, side 1): 45 Minutes, 37 Seconds
Duration (tape 1, side 2): 46 Minutes, 42 Seconds
Duration (tape 2, side 1): 47 Minutes, 15 Seconds
Duration (tape 2, side 2): 18 Minutes, 57 Seconds
Duration (total runtime): 2 Hours, 38 Minutes, 31 Seconds
ClassificationsInformation Artifacts
Credit LineGift of the CHS Exhibitions Department
Object number2013.26.13.1-.3
Description(.1-.2) Two audio cassette tapes of an interview with Dermoth Brown, who was interviewed by Fiona Vernal on November 30, 2000. (.3) Black and white portrait photograph of Dermoth Brown.
Topics discussed include Brown's childhood in Jamaica; his parent's occupations; his father migrating to the United States as a farm worker in the 1940s; his early education; visiting Hartford for his brother's graduation; attending the University of Connecticut; being in the minority at UConn; making plans to work in diplomatic service in Jamaica; his marriage; class and color prejudice in Jamaica; living in Manchester; real estate; marriage, culture, and migration; deportation; the West Indian Social Club; the clique of ex-farm workers at the West Indian Social Club; addressing Jamaican dominance at the Social Club; reasons why West Indian unity should not be assumed; comparisons between African Americans and West Indians; the West Indian independence celebrations and Carnival; Brown's views on the Jamaican character; what is great about America; instilling West Indian-American children with West Indian values; and understanding the West Indian political complacency.
Tape 1: 2013.26.13.1a-d consists of two sides, the tape, and a J-card.
Tape 2: 2013.26.13.2a-d consists of two sides, the tape, and a J-card.
2013.26.13.3: photograph
Topics discussed include Brown's childhood in Jamaica; his parent's occupations; his father migrating to the United States as a farm worker in the 1940s; his early education; visiting Hartford for his brother's graduation; attending the University of Connecticut; being in the minority at UConn; making plans to work in diplomatic service in Jamaica; his marriage; class and color prejudice in Jamaica; living in Manchester; real estate; marriage, culture, and migration; deportation; the West Indian Social Club; the clique of ex-farm workers at the West Indian Social Club; addressing Jamaican dominance at the Social Club; reasons why West Indian unity should not be assumed; comparisons between African Americans and West Indians; the West Indian independence celebrations and Carnival; Brown's views on the Jamaican character; what is great about America; instilling West Indian-American children with West Indian values; and understanding the West Indian political complacency.
Tape 1: 2013.26.13.1a-d consists of two sides, the tape, and a J-card.
Tape 2: 2013.26.13.2a-d consists of two sides, the tape, and a J-card.
2013.26.13.3: photograph
Label TextListen to interview at http://hdl.handle.net/11134/40002:19641555
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
