SUNDAY 4 NOVEMBER, 2018 – UWI TODAY
21
BOOK REVIEW
The former High Commissioner to Nigeria
,
Nyahuma Obika, has just published a short book,
The
Social & Economic Effects of the American Occupation
in Trinidad during the 2
nd
World War 1939-1945
.
Obika is a St Augustine graduate from the 1970s, and
is currently completing a M.Sc. in Global Studies at
the Institute of International Relations.
The main text (77 pages) consists of Obika’s final-
year undergraduate research paper, then as now a
requirement for graduation in the humanities. (There
is also a lengthy appendix about the decision of the
AfricanUnion in 2012 to declare the AfricanDiaspora
its “sixth region”.) The paper was written in 1976 and
has not been revised. The downside of this, of course,
is that there is no incorporation of material in the
many books, articles, papers and theses, relevant to
the topic, which have appeared over the last 40 years.
But since the original paper was based on primary
sources, the book includes valuable data. The author
relied on the
Trinidad Guardian
(as it thenwas called),
the colony’s “newspaper of record”, as his chief source
(so did Michael Anthony in his
Port-of-Spain in a
World at War 1939-1945
, which was first published
in 1978). Obika also utilized the lyrics of wartime
calypsos, especially in chapter 8. He didn’t use the
oral history method, even though in 1976 there were
many folks who lived through the war years (there are
far fewer today, of course), but that is understandable
given the limitations of doing an undergraduate paper.
The heart of the book is to be found in chapters
5 to 7, which deal with the socio-economic effects of
the “American Occupation” as seen in the pages of the
Guardian
. The presence of thousands of American
soldiers and civilian workers, and the building of the
huge air, army and naval bases, transformed many
aspects of Trinidadians’ lives, in both positive and
negative ways. In chapter 5, for instance, Obika writes
about the eviction of hundreds of people from the
villages of the north-west peninsula, the prohibition
These photos (not part of the book being reviewed on this page) were taken by an American soldier stationed in Trinidad between 1941-1942, and suggest some of the flavour of those times.
PHOTOS: Striderv/Flickr
A glimpse of Trinidad during
THEWAR YEARS
“Shortages of
imported food, and
of charcoal (used by
thousands as their
main domestic fuel),
caused steep rises in
the cost of living.”
The Social & Economic
Effects of the
American Occupation
in Trinidad during
the 2nd World War
1939-1945
Written by Nyahuma Obika
REVIEW BY
BRIDGET BRERETON
Bridget Brereton is Professor Emerita
of history at UWI, St Augustine, and author of
Race Relations in Colonial Trinidad and A History
of Modern Trinidad, among other books.
of fishing in the surrounding waters, and the loss of
public access to the beaches of the area. On the more
positive side, the Americans built the Lady Young road
and the Churchill-Roosevelt highway.
In chapter 6, Obika looks at the effects on the
labour market. What he describes as the “fantastic”
wages offered to workers on the bases—I’m not sure
they really were “fantastic”, though they were certainly
better than wages for field work on the sugar estates—
pulled many away from agricultural labour, causing
a near collapse of the sugar industry. Bus drivers left
their jobs too, creating severe transport problems.
Shortages of imported food, and of charcoal (used by
thousands as their main domestic fuel), caused steep
rises in the cost of living.
Chapter 7 links the American Occupation to
overcrowding in Port of Spain as locals, immigrants
from the nearby islands, and Americans competed for
limited housing. Shortages of affordable housing and
steep rises in rents were noted from as early as 1941,
both in the capital city (near the Chaguaramas naval
base) and Arima (near the army base at Waller Field).
The capital’s water supply also came under severe
pressure. None of these problems was new to Trinidad,
but wartime conditions certainly exacerbated them.
Chapter 8, on the cultural effects of the American
Occupation, is basedmainly on wartime calypsos, and
therefore follows the conventional narrative about
moral decline and wayward local women working
for the American dollar and abandoning their men.
Obika doesn’t interrogate the calypsonians’ masculine
viewpoint, and so the “Jean and Dinah” story goes
unchallenged. This is a weakness, in my view, but the
reproduction of the lyrics of many of the calypsos
of the period, otherwise hard to find, is certainly
valuable.
Obika’s book contributes usefully to the literature
on Trinidad during the war years.
