Interview with Simone Russell
IntervieweeInterview with
Simone Russell
Jamaican, born 1972
Date2001 February 8
Mediumdigitized audio cassette tape
DimensionsDuration (side 1): 46 Minutes, 18 Seconds
Duration (side 2): 13 Minutes, 9 Seconds
Duration (total runtime): 59 Minutes, 27 Seconds
Duration (side 2): 13 Minutes, 9 Seconds
Duration (total runtime): 59 Minutes, 27 Seconds
ClassificationsInformation Artifacts
Credit LineGift of the CHS Exhibitions Department
Description(a-d) Audio cassette tape of an interview with Simone Russell, who was interviewed by Fiona Vernal on February 8, 2001. (e) Black and white portrait photograph of Simone Russell.
Topics discussed include Russell's overview of her family migration from Jamaica to the United States; Jamaican Patois - language, class, and propriety in Jamaica; embracing Patois as a part of Jamaican identity in the U.S.; comparisons between Jamaican and American life; education; her siblings; perceptions of high school; attending college at Wesleyan University; contemplating going back to Jamaica; yearning for West Indian connections; her job description at Aetna ; involvement in CAYASCO; generational issues and differences; and the value of America.
2013.26.22a-d consists of two sides, the tape, and a J-card.
2013.26.22e: photograph
Topics discussed include Russell's overview of her family migration from Jamaica to the United States; Jamaican Patois - language, class, and propriety in Jamaica; embracing Patois as a part of Jamaican identity in the U.S.; comparisons between Jamaican and American life; education; her siblings; perceptions of high school; attending college at Wesleyan University; contemplating going back to Jamaica; yearning for West Indian connections; her job description at Aetna ; involvement in CAYASCO; generational issues and differences; and the value of America.
2013.26.22a-d consists of two sides, the tape, and a J-card.
2013.26.22e: photograph
Object number2013.26.22a-e
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.
Subject Terms
On View
Not on view
