In Apr 2009, shortly after taking office, Pres Barack Obama signaled that he was open to a new dialogue with Cuba. At remarks delivered at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, the President said that the US seeks a new beginning with Cuba. Earlier that year, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had welcomed an offer for talks from Cuban President Raul Castro, who took over duties from his ailing brother Fidel Castro in 2006 and subsequently was elected president by the Cuban National Assembly in 2008. Castro reportedly said that he was willing "discuss anything" with the US Government. Here, the US-Cuba policy is discussed. Adapted from the source document.
As program director at New York's WWRL radio station, Rennie Bishop got his start in the music business growing up in Trinidad and Tobago. This article profiles his life and career
The month of March sees thousands of West Indians in the U.S. and abroad in colorful celebration of their Phagwa holiday- the origin of which is almost mythical and its exact time of origination is not known
Discussed is the career of fashion designer Francis Heady, whose interest in clothing began when, as a child in Trinidad, he worked with his mother, a seamstress. Heady has created fashions for celebrities such as Busta Rhymes and Missy Elliot
Discussed are the life and career of rising star Heather Headley, who was born in Trinidad and Tobago but moved with her family to Indiana just before her fifteenth birthday
In spaces of violence, scholars and activists have typically addressed music as sites of resistance. In postcolonial Caribbean, the focus of most studies unsurprisingly has thus been placed on the work music has done for the oppressed—or conversely, on the ways the (neo)colonial regimes have used music to increase their control over the masses. Until recently, few publications have addressed the music that has been performed to fortify and gather people together in times of hardship. In this case, what is at stake is not so much a matter of 'us and them' or of resistance, but rather the ways in which the 'us' is mobilized to strengthen senses of belonging and networks of solidarity. Amidst the escalating everyday violence since the mid-1990s, party music in Trinidad continues to thrive. Instead of dismissing such music as merely a source of escapism or hedonism, I want to examine what makes it so compelling and what it does for people. This paper is based on in-depth study of soca music making and mumerous ethnographic interviews with Trinidadian soca artists and fans over the past 15 years.
Data for African slave populations in Trinidad, Guyana and other British Caribbean colonies in the early nineteenth century are analyzed and compared with Cuban and United States slave populations
Trinidad and Tobago has worked to preserve its historical record through the Eric Williams Memorial Collection at the University of the West Indies Library in St. Augustine, Trinidad
The Eric Williams Memorial Collection was opened at the University of the West Indies in St. Augustine in 1998. The collection commemorates Eric Eustace Williams, who led Trinidad and Tobago to independence in 1962
"It is not possible to separate his intellectual legacy from his political stewardship over the affairs of Trinidad and Tobago for some twenty-five years. The inventory of failure and achievement will undergo great variations according to the angle of vision and sectoral interests which are being reflected. For a quarter of a century he would have been at the center of the most controversial exchanges at both the national and the regional level: Federation, Chaguaramas, Independence, The University of the West Indies, CARICOM, Cuba, Grenada, and his own February Rebellion of 1970." (author)
Indo-Caribbean music culture includes a stratum of traditional genres derived from North India’s Bhojpuri region. This article discusses three such genres: alha-singing, an archaic form of birha, and an antiphonal style of singing the Tulsidas Ramcharitmanas. Despite the lack of supportive contact with the Bhojpuri region after 1917, these genres flourished until the 1960s, after which the decline of Bhojpuri as a spoken language in Trinidad and Guyana, together with the impact of modernity in general, undermined their vitality. A comparative perspective with North Indian counterparts reveals illuminating parallels and contrasts.
"As I examined the Pearse Archive, a paper-clipped set of ten transcribed songs, called "trumpet songs," came to my attention. I recalled hearing these songs earlier as rousing choruses in songs of the Trinidad Spiritual Baptists. I felt that some were North American Negro spirituals, but could not, at that point, explain their explain their use in that place and time.... My thesis is that the songs were introduced to Trinidad during the early nineteenth century by black North American soldiers who were liberated from slavery after their service in the British navy." (author)
Tambrin music on the Caribbean island of Tobago is traditionally performed to entertain people at weddings and other family celebrations. The genre is also connected with healing ceremonies and the belief in ancestral spirits. It can cause trance and possession. Nevertheless, today’s musicians hardly ever play in these traditional contexts. Opportunities to perform arise from political events, folklore festivals, and concerts for tourists. In consideration of theoretical views concerning cultural contacts, preservation, and staged respectively participatory performances, the article deals with different forms of musical interaction and different ways of playing depending on repertory, individual performers, and performance conditions, based on fieldwork conducted between 1995 and 2009, thus comprising the music of two generations of musicians.
A personal and political analysis of Eric Williams' contribution to nationalist ideas and to the way nationalism was perceived and was directly or indirectly beneficial to many of Mohammed's generation
Addresses the place of Carnival in the creation of a national cultural narrative in Trinidad and Tobago and examines the role that such a narrative plays in the formation of a coherent national cultural identity
Discussed is the 'brilliant' cricket career of Clyde Walcott of Trinidad and Tobago. Walcott, who got started in cricket in 1941 when he was not quite sixteen years old, has served as a cricket player, coach, and multi-level administrator
Explored is the history of Calypso music, which though originating in Trinidad, most likely has its roots among the many African cultural retentions that were transported with the ancestors to the west via the slave trade
The 'Olympian' level of corruption in Trinidad and Tobago politics is discussed, as well as the seemingly incongruousness of the electorate sending back such a 'naked kleptocracy' as the Basdeo Panday regime
This article profiles comedian Tommy Joseph of Trinidad and Tobago. He comments on subjects such as how he got his start in comedy and his focus on humor that is also appropriate for children
Profiles an Asian-Caribbean-American on American racial politics. Dr. M. Godfrey Mungal, born in Trinidad and now teaches at Stanford University, was an Indian laborer brought to the Caribbean by plantation owners after the abolition of slavery.
"On 4 December 1960 the Trinidad Guardian announced that Sir Gerald Wight had joined the Democratic Labour Party. The announcement was presented in such a way as to suggest that this was a feather in the cap of the Democratic Labour Party [DLP], and therefore the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago should follow the lead of Sir Gerald Wight. Consequently, in my address here in the University on 22 December, in which I reported to the people the outcome of the Chaguaramas discussions in Tobago, I poured scorn on the Guardian reminding them that our population of today was far too alert and sophisticated to fall for any such claptrap. I told the Guardian emphatically: Massa Day Done." (author)
Hodge candidly talks about her childhood, studies, life, etc. She also states that she writes about her cultural situation in the colonial era, but not as feminists take it. She also works for social advancement of women
Offers a preliminary analysis of conclusions of the colonial conference of British representatives of the Lesser Antilles and Guyana centering childhood and health. The inclusion in the program of questions as the job of the children, the centers of game, and medical examination, reflects the important link established between education and its impact on health and progress in the region. Supports that the health policies in English-speaking Caribbean were influenced as well by the concerns of British Empire as local communities." (author)
Explores ethno-political identity in the English-speaking Caribbean & its Diasporas. Although being black was non-problematic in the early days of decolonization when most of the population was black, immigrants to European & North American cities where whites were the majority often suffered discrimination, a decline in social status, & a life filled with resentment. Following independence, ex-dentured East Indians, Chinese, Syrians, & light-skinned creoles in the Caribbean began to reassess their "blackness" & lighter skinned people were granted privileges not available to darker-skinned citizens. Meanwhile, black leaders who accepted the logic of capitalism ignored class critiques of capitalist structures of exploitation.
At the beginning of the twentieth century there was a brief period of imperialist rhetoric among the Canadian business elite, the bankers of Toronto and Montreal in particular, who argued the benefits of an annexationist policy for the British West Indies to complement their deepening financial links to the Caribbean region.
Reads Carnival-related performances in relationship to the colonial and national histories of the circulation of Indian and black women's bodies in Trinidad and Tobago, asking what is at stake in these occupations of genre, form, and performative presence in the latest global scenes of late capitalism (where image and sound, as cultural productions, are always in circulation beyond the scope of the nation, and their own "original" referents).
Elaborates one Black queer subject's sense of self and gestures toward the potential theoretical intervention this subjectivity poses. It approaches a wider geo-conceptual metaphor for the transdisciplinarity required in order to speculate Black and queer at once.
The main objective of this paper is to present and analyze a fairly comprehensive and reliable set of data on personal income distribution in Trinidad and to compare those findings with those for Jamaica.
Focuses on the role of women and women's bodies in Trinidad Carnival. Information on the book 'Afro-Creole: Power, Opposition and Play in the Caribbean; Views on the Janus-faced effect of women's bodily performance; Collusion of global capitalism in the marketing and commodification of Caribbean popular culture.
During the early 1970s the U.S. songwriter, musician, and producer Van Dyke Parks completed work on a series of albums exploring the musical contours of the circum-Caribbean region and, through them, broader patterns and issues in 20th-century relations between the U.S. and the Caribbean.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
Following a brief introduction to the origins and aesthetics of calypso, soca (the child of calypso), and go-go music, the author suggests that, despite differences in location and sound, both genres share a common goal: offering underrepresented populations the power to negotiate and express their African heritage through music. Both soca and go-go also share three African musical traits: polymetric ensemble drumming, call-and-response techniques, and the use of allusive repetition that can span the works of various artists over a number of years.
Argues that the current proposal to reform the local government sector in Trinidad and Tobago stems from an eclectic application of various strands of thought that are in no way in keeping with the realities of the social and political environment of the country.
Argues that the Trinidad carnival and the overseas Caribbean carnivals (e.g. Notting Hill, London; Caribana, Toronto; Labour Day, New York) are products of and responses to the processes of globalization as well as transcultural and transnational formations. Carnival is theorized as a hybrid site for the ritual negotiation of cultural identity and practice by the Caribbean diaspora.
Assesses if the economies of Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Guyana can form part of a Caribbean monetary union. Correlations between the demand and supply indicate that monetary union may lead to greater stabilization problems for these economies.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Journal Title Details:
3.5 Linear Feet
Notes:
Collection documents the life and academic career of Inez Adams, most notably including fieldwork on the United States civil rights movement and school desegregation. Series 1: Biographical Material, 1922-1962 includes "Ephemera and itineraries pertaining to travel in the Caribbean"; Series 3: Faculty Appointments, 1949-1965 includes "Folder 3: Fisk University: Bibliographies in Caribbean studies, 1956"; Series 4: Field Notes, 1950-1965 includes notes dealing with he Caribbean island of Trinidad;
The heterosexual family has become naturalized as an aspect of the state's struggle for legitimacy during decolonization. Influencing views of Black masculinity, this has led to the criminalization of homosexuality
Discusses the popular notions of sexuality that lay behind the women's bodily displays during Trinidad Carnival, the iconic Carnival experience in the region, and contrasts these to some Christian notions of the body and sexuality, which see the body ('the flesh') and sexuality, as problematic even sinful.
This article uses 1993 data from the Trinidad and Tobago Continuous Sample Survey of the Population to investigate patterns of remuneration across its public and private sectors. Findings highlight the possibility that the government is using its ability to pay its workers differentially in order to offset private sector ethnic and gender discrimination. Hence, the current move towards privatization of nationalized industries in Trinidad and Tobago is likely to have the impact of increasing ethnic and gender earnings inequity.
