Interview with Leslie G. Perry
IntervieweeInterview with
Leslie G. Perry
(Jamaican, born 1945)
Date2001 February 12
Mediumdigitized audio cassette tape
DimensionsDuration (side 1): 46 Minutes, 36 Seconds
Duration (side 2): 46 Minutes, 31 Seconds
Duration (total runtime): 1 Hours, 33 Minutes, 8 Seconds
Duration (side 2): 46 Minutes, 31 Seconds
Duration (total runtime): 1 Hours, 33 Minutes, 8 Seconds
ClassificationsInformation Artifacts
Credit LineGift of the CHS Exhibitions Department
DescriptionAudio cassette tape of an interview with Leslie G. Perry, who was interviewed by Fiona Vernal on February 12, 2001.
Topics discussed include Perry's childhood in Jamaica and family history; his mother's work at a grocery shop in Kingston, Jamaica and his father working on a farm contract in the United States; migrating to the U.S. in 1962; avoiding recruitment for the Vietnam War; living in Nebraska; teaching in the Hartford Public School system; changes in the school system and in the city of Hartford due to growth of an underclass and an exodus from the city; comparisons between Hartford and Jamaica; impact of immigration on the family; resettling in Jamaica; the West Indian Social Club; Perry's presidency of the Social Club in the late 1970s; differences between the West Indian Social Club and the West Indian Foundation; the Women's Auxiliary and full membership for women in the Social Club; and Carnival and Independance Day celebrations.
2013.26.23a-d consists of two sides, the tape, and a J-card.
Topics discussed include Perry's childhood in Jamaica and family history; his mother's work at a grocery shop in Kingston, Jamaica and his father working on a farm contract in the United States; migrating to the U.S. in 1962; avoiding recruitment for the Vietnam War; living in Nebraska; teaching in the Hartford Public School system; changes in the school system and in the city of Hartford due to growth of an underclass and an exodus from the city; comparisons between Hartford and Jamaica; impact of immigration on the family; resettling in Jamaica; the West Indian Social Club; Perry's presidency of the Social Club in the late 1970s; differences between the West Indian Social Club and the West Indian Foundation; the Women's Auxiliary and full membership for women in the Social Club; and Carnival and Independance Day celebrations.
2013.26.23a-d consists of two sides, the tape, and a J-card.
Object number2013.26.23a-d
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.
On View
Not on view
