Wendell Bell

Questions for CSA Past Presidents
Responses from Wendell Bell
CSA President 1979-1980

 

1.  How did you come to specialize in Caribbean Studies?

When I planned my first trip to Jamaica in 1956, I thought that I would be spending only one summer there.  My intention was to do research on the social areas of Kingston to compare with research that I had been doing on American cities.  In 1955, I had co-authored a monograph on Social Area Analysis that focused on mapping the social areas of cities differentiated by socioeconomic status, family life, and race and ethnicity.  Additionally, I had done fieldwork in different social areas of San Francisco and Chicago studying the residents’ differing beliefs, attitudes, and values and how they were shaped by the neighborhoods in which they lived.

When I arrived in Jamaica, however, I found myself in the whirl of Jamaica’s political transition from a British colony to an independent state.   It was a thrilling time.  Everyone from sugarcane workers to merchant elites and from market women to my new colleagues at the University College of the West Indies (as it was then called) seemed to be looking forward with anticipation and consumed by questions of what would—and should—happen to Jamaica (and to themselves) when the island became politically independent.  I confess to becoming totally caught up in their excitement, their hopes and in some cases their fears for the future.

Looking back, I realize that Eduardo C. Mondlane, a graduate student with whom I had been working at Northwestern University where I was then on the faculty, had prepared me to be receptive to Jamaica’s march toward political freedom. While at Northwestern U., Eduardo tirelessly struggled to foster support in the United States for the political liberation of his country, Mozambique, from Portuguese domination.  Although in our meetings together, we talked mostly about his progress toward the Ph.D. degree in Sociology, I was well aware of his political activities and was moved by his moral conviction and dedication to his cause.read more