By Eric Hughes
I am the proud offspring of Anguillian immigrants who migrated to Perth Amboy, New Jersey, and I am sharing our story for posterity. This article highlights and transcends with fondest memories several amazing leadership accomplishments and success stories of their offspring.
It is the story of the offspring of the first wave of immigrant families from Anguilla (formerly part of the British West Indian colony of Saint Kitts, Nevis and Anguilla) who settled in Perth Amboy, NJ, between 1918 and 1924. According to family stories at the dinner table, it is also quite possible that some Anguillians may have migrated to Perth Amboy during an earlier time period.
Anguilla of 2020 is an internally self-governed British Overseas Territory, a 35-square-mile island located near Saint Martin within the north-easternmost part of the Caribbean. It was formerly part of the British colony of Saint Kitts, Nevis and Anguilla until December 19, 1980, when it was formally disassociated from Saint Kitts and Nevis to become a separate British Overseas Territory.
Much poverty existed back in the day because there were no commercial projects and tourism during the 1920s. Employment opportunities were extremely limited. During that era, it was impossible for young Anguillians to believe that they could have any future at all on Anguilla, the small and beautiful island they affectionately referred to as “The Rock.”
Although some Anguillians managed by engaging in agricultural work, the intensive heat and limited rainfall made it difficult to harvest enough crops to earn a living year-round as explained in 1995 by John Waddington Hodge during a presentation at Albena-Lake Hodge Comprehensive School. Others collected salt, but their success depended on the weather. For instance, a rainy year meant little or no salt to reap. Besides, working in the two major salt ponds on Anguilla was intensive labour and risked creating severe health conditions.
As an alternative, some Anguillians became boat builders and boat owners. They used their schooners and sloops in inter-island trade and commerce. According to John Waddington Hodge, “Apart from etching out some kind of a livelihood, boat building pioneered the advent of traditional seafaring and boat racing as the national sport that exists on Anguilla to this very day.”
Throughout years of hard work, which did little to improve the quality of their lives, adult Anguillians decided that migration was the only option for a better life. Not only in Anguilla, but throughout the Caribbean, region migration became almost a “rite of passage” for socio-economic reasons. “Therefore, in search of a better life, many Anguillians migrated to nearby St. Martin, Saint Kitts, Dominican Republic, Cuba, and in large numbers to the US,” John Waddington Hodge continued. At a much later date, they migrated to Aruba, Curaçao, the UK, Canada and the US Virgin Islands.
Many early 20th century Anguillians who migrated to the US settled in the small coastal industrial City of Perth Amboy in central New Jersey. It is believed they chose Perth Amboy because the city already had an established and closely knit Anguillian immigrant community. Also, the Anguillian immigrants, who settled in Perth Amboy, had formed two organizations: The Anguillian Improvement Association and The Sons and Daughters of Anguilla. The mission of the organizations was promoting advocacy and activism within their community, and helping newcomers adapt and maintain a strong cultural social-economic link by sending remittances back to the motherland, Anguilla.
Anguillian immigrants also settled in Perth Amboy because the prospect for employment was attractive. Jobs were plentiful since Perth Amboy was a city with many factories. The factory work required strong backs and long hours in dirty and noisy workplaces. Nevertheless, for the Anguillian immigrants, it provided work that enabled them to feed their families, pay their rent and have a roof over their heads. As a result, many Anguillian immigrants became homeowners, and a few dabbed into entrepreneurship mainly as owners of “mom and pop” stores within their community.
The families within the Anguillian immigrant community in Perth Amboy worked extremely hard to ensure their children that factory work would not be in their future. Most factory positions were dead-end jobs carrying health hazards, without any favourable terms and conditions of employment. However, the Anguillian immigrants toiled in those labour intensive workplaces, saved their money, and assisted their children financially when the time came to enter college and trade schools. Accordingly, Anguillian immigrant parents instilled traditional Anguillian values in their children and enforced strict parental guidelines. They taught their offspring how important it was to achieve academic excellence in order to seek and master professional careers.
The closeness of Anguillian families in Perth Amboy provided help for each other’s children such as childcare chores, especially during their children’s adolescent years. The parents reaped benefits from their devotedness. For example, some children became class presidents and others excelled in various subjects getting excellent grades. This writer benefited from several selfless childcare deeds by the other Anguillian parents, and knew each parent of the offspring being highlighted in this article. The offspring were all close friends and although there were age differences, they knew each other well enough to gain each other’s trust.
Based on the archives at Rutgers University Library, the population of Perth Amboy during the 1950s was 41,330 of which 1,162 were Black. Immigrants hailed mainly from Hungary, Poland, Italy, Russia, Czechoslovakia, Israel, Anguilla and other Caribbean islands. African-American migrants from the South also settled in Perth Amboy. Such a diverse population made Perth Amboy a true “melting pot” of multicultural residents, who for the most part got along fairly well.
The almost peaceful environment was not the same in other parts of the US, especially in the South, Midwest and parts of the Northeast where racial tensions flared regularly. After all, it was the pre-civil rights era and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and other equal opportunity civil rights statutes were not yet enacted into law.
Nevertheless, racism existed in Perth Amboy too, perhaps not as acute. In spite of their disadvantage, four young men of Anguillian parentage (Austin Gumbs, 1949 and 1950; David Rey, 1951; Franklin Gumbs, 1954; and Cedric Richardson, 1955) were elected Class President by a majority of the white student population at Perth Amboy High School.
Based on the school’s white majority, it was unrealistic during the 50s for four black-Anguillian offspring to even think they had the remote possibility of leading their classes. Given all the factors, race relations across the US, white student dominance, minimal assistance from white teachers and advisors, and white parents networking for their children to compete for the most sought-after leadership positions in the class, the Anguillian progenies triumphed.
The election within six years of four Anguillian offspring to the prestigious position of class president in the mostly white City of Perth Amboy made it a miraculous achievement. I believe that each achievement made by offspring motivated others to strive for even greater achievements.
High school students are very competitive and opinionated when they begin to compete for the top positions of class leadership. Anyone competing for an elected office in his or her class has to be mentally sharp, intelligent, outgoing, compromising, popular among his/her peers and have good problem-solving skills. Candidates for class president have to possess all of these qualities and exceed academically and socially to be elected by their peers.
The four class presidents of Anguillian heritage possessed those traits. In addition to these outstanding pioneers of class presidents, who are being profiled in this article, Winston Hughes is also being recognized for other outstanding reasons.
(Note: Several Anguillian offspring achieved great success in high school and later in their professional careers. Their individual names are listed in this article also as inductees in the Perth Amboy, NJ High School Hall of Fame. However, this article is focused on the early leadership skills of five outstanding individuals who accomplished so much during one of the most racist periods in American history, the 1940s and 1950s).
Next time, I will proudly present the outstanding and historical stories, careers and talent of these pioneering young men, spearheaded by their dedicated Anguillian immigrant parents.
