Voices from the Hills. Ancil Neil
The above description by Servol is questionable for the following reasons:
1.Its boundaries extend outside the true Laventille community.
2.There are too many pocket areas.
3.The area cited by Servol includes the larger area referred to as the 'East Dry River area.' This area includes Laventille and surrounding areas.
The following is the true geographical area of the Laventille community, as verified by members of the community. Most of these members have lived in this area all their lives, and the others a great number of years.
GEOGRAPHICAL BOUNDARIES
| Northern | Laventille Road |
| Southern | Picton Road |
| Eastern | Lady Young Road |
| Western | Picadilly Street, along the East Dry River into St. Paul Street to Picton Road. |
The above boundaries serve as a guide enclosing the true Laventille community from its very origin. The area is the core of the larger area known as the East Dry River area. Within this central area, the community is divided into three main areas, each containing sub-areas similar to what the Servol report called pocket areas.
The following are the main areas and their sub divisions that comprise the Laventille community. This is the area in which this study was done.
1.Upper Laventille (Sub-areas)
1.Movant
2.Chinapoo
3.Mappland
4.St. Barbs
2.Central Laventille (Sub-areas)
1.Ovid Alley
2.Rose Hill
3.Laventille Road
4.Leau Place
3.Lower Laventille (Sub-areas)
1.Jackson Place
2.Sobrian Place
3.Belgrade Street
4.Harpe Place
5.Clifton Hill
6.John John
The term `Community' is loosely used throughout this study. It refers to an aggregate of persons who live within these boundaries and sub-areas, and whose experiences of the basic conditions of life are similar.
Characteristics of Study
This study is a very unique one. Unique in the sense that it is, to date, a lifetime study of my own. I have been studying the problems of this community for the greater part of my life. Since this community was my birthplace and home until I attained manhood, and migrated to the U.S.A. Throughout this phase of my life I was also subjected to the same poverty, degradation and ostracism.
Having shared and experienced all the conditions common to other members of this particular community, I am indeed a true member of the community I studied. Another distinct and unique privilege, is that I was an active member of the steelband during part of the period under study. As a result the research for this study was divided into two main parts. The research methods and design are as follows:
1.Participant Observation
2.Non Random Sample
PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION
Researcher as Participant Observer—As a member of the community I experienced the total impact of the social and economic changes of the community. My initial form of data collection was observing and participating in community affairs as I grew up. This was the period between 1945 and 1965.
I observed the community comprised of families who were poor. Most families earned salaries just sufficient enough to keep them together, managing with the bare necessities of life. There were slight variations of families being better off than others economically, so that this could be considered negligible.
Evidence to support these statements of poverty lies in the following facts. I remembered seeing some of my classmates coming to school daily without shoes. Attending school barefooted was a way of life for most children in the community. Mothers reported that they had to wash their childrens' clothes in the afternoon and iron them during the night so the children could attend school clean the next day. As a child I can also recall my own experience, the plight of having to be in this type of situation. My mother had to wash my brother's and sister's clothing twice a week to keep us clean in school. She would wash our clothes in the evenings, and iron them at night. This was done manually, because with no electricity, a washing machine, dryer or electric iron was not available.
Most people lived in over crowded homes due to the large size of their families. I know from personal knowledge and reported incidents, many children slept on the floor. Unemployment, illiteracy and lack of leadership had become an accepted cultural pattern of these people. These patterns indicated to me that the people who resided in this community seemed destined to be poor. Due to these social and economic shortcomings I concluded that poverty was indeed an inherent part of this community.
As a participant observer, I experienced violence in the community. I witnessed individual fights between members of the community and members of other communities. The most prevalent types of fighting, however, were gang fights. These gang outbursts were termed riots; steelband riots to be more precise.
Members of steelbands from different areas would engage in a series of fights with members of the steelband in the Laventille area over a period of time. Fighting took place in the streets, alleyways, backyards or any place members happen to be at a particular time. Weapons such as machetes, knives, bottles, rocks and even molotov cocktails were used. These gang wars or riots were very prevalent in the mid 1950's in Trinidad. However, the Laventille community members were deemed the ring leaders.
Violence was so predominant and lawlessness prevailed to such an extent that the community had become a haven for social disturbance. Thus creating a social stigma. With this combination of poverty and violence, the stigma grew and took root. Laventille, as a community, was viewed as the worst of all depressed areas in the entire country of Trinidad. Its members were ostracized from members of other communities. It was in this type of atmosphere that I grew up, not knowing the true causes or roots of these social ills.
A great deal of my involvement and association was centered around the steelband, and those connected with it. For the steelband was an integral part of this community. Collecting data on the steelband, as most of the data in this study, involved some direct personal participation. I was directly involved in the steelband as a player, for a short time. This lifestyle and social background enabled me to have a full concept of the steelband music, and its members
In the mid-1950's, I observed that the steelband in the Laventille area was generating community and national interest. The entire community, young and old, were captivated by the music and started developing a positive attitude towards the steelband members, and steelband as an indigenous art form. Unemployment, which once was impossible in certain professional areas for members of this community, was becoming more flexible. One outstanding example was the employment of a member of this community in the Trinidad Police Service. A few years later in 1961,