Interview with Trevel Ritchens
IntervieweeInterview with
Trevel Ritchens
Nevisian, 1962 - 2015
Date2001 May 23
Mediumdigitized audio cassette tape
DimensionsDuration (side 1): 45 Minutes, 36 Seconds
Duration (side 2): 8 Minutes, 57 Seconds
Duration (total runtime): 54 Minutes, 33 Seconds
Duration (side 2): 8 Minutes, 57 Seconds
Duration (total runtime): 54 Minutes, 33 Seconds
ClassificationsInformation Artifacts
Credit LineGift of the CHS Exhibitions Department
Description(a-d) Audio cassette tape of an interview with Trevel Ritchens, who was interviewed by Fiona Vernal on May 23, 2001. (e) Black and white portrait photograph of Trevel Ritchens.
Topics discussed include Ritchens' generational links to the West Indies; migrating from Nevis to the United States in the winter of 1977; his links to Ireland and Irish heritage; cutting wood for fire, domestic, and childrearing duties; his father's occupations; community and religion; reasons for migrating; what would have happened if Ritchens had not migrated; typical day-to-day life as a boy in the West Indies; shunning farming work; social activities, such as cricket; the perception of race relations in England versus the United States; migrating to Connecticut; his family purchasing a home in Windsor; travel back to Nevis; Ritchens' fear of flying; adjusting to the cold climate; what he missed about his childhood in Nevis; going to school in America; getting picked on in school because of stereotypes and accents; his initial unfamiliarity with American racism; race relations in Nevis and in America; his sister explains to him racism and what being a "minority" means; making friends; finding that Black American aren't always natural allies; finishing his education at the University of Hartford; buying a house; working with his father at a manufacturing company; West Indian heritage; West Indian clubs; and teaching his son to be independent.
2013.26.34a-d consists of two sides, the tape, and a J-card.
2013.26.34e: photograph
Topics discussed include Ritchens' generational links to the West Indies; migrating from Nevis to the United States in the winter of 1977; his links to Ireland and Irish heritage; cutting wood for fire, domestic, and childrearing duties; his father's occupations; community and religion; reasons for migrating; what would have happened if Ritchens had not migrated; typical day-to-day life as a boy in the West Indies; shunning farming work; social activities, such as cricket; the perception of race relations in England versus the United States; migrating to Connecticut; his family purchasing a home in Windsor; travel back to Nevis; Ritchens' fear of flying; adjusting to the cold climate; what he missed about his childhood in Nevis; going to school in America; getting picked on in school because of stereotypes and accents; his initial unfamiliarity with American racism; race relations in Nevis and in America; his sister explains to him racism and what being a "minority" means; making friends; finding that Black American aren't always natural allies; finishing his education at the University of Hartford; buying a house; working with his father at a manufacturing company; West Indian heritage; West Indian clubs; and teaching his son to be independent.
2013.26.34a-d consists of two sides, the tape, and a J-card.
2013.26.34e: photograph
Object number2013.26.34a-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
