Although the episode has received little scholarly attention, history professor Harvey Neptune contends that studying the occupation is imperative to understanding modern-day Trinidad, which he discusses in his new book Caliban and the Yankee: Trinidad and the United States Occupation.

Neptune, who specializes in Latin American and Caribbean history, said that the presence of U.S. troops resulted in Trinidadians’ fundamentally altering their social, cultural and political history.

He noted that they used the American presence to reject the norms of their British colonizers, who had held the island since 1797. (In fact, the “Caliban” in the book title comes from the common use of Shakespeare’s character as a symbol for decolonizing people.)

Neptune began his research by reading newspapers from Trinidad from the time of the occupation, and then delved into additional archives from Trinidad, the United States and Great Britain.

“There was a sense of struggling against one empire while another comes into the country,” said Neptune. “There was so much engagement with the Americans, however, that the story doesn’t fit into the anti-imperialist dimension of nationalist narratives. This wasn’t a case of total resistance to the occupation.”

According to Neptune, younger Trinidadians, women and the underprivileged found the most “utility in the American presence,” which contributed to an unsettling of the established Anglocentric status quo. Trinidadians, in essence, turned the questionable presence of an external power into something beneficial.

“This episode really illustrates the creativity of the people,” Neptune said. “For instance, when some appropriated American dress styles, they challenged not just British dress, but British notions of masculinity.”

Neptune also noted that the interaction between Trinidadians and U.S. troops challenged British and American racial boundaries, on and off the island. “You can see this in terms of women of color who began publicly dating white men, which was a transgression of Britain’s racial norms,” he said, adding that white U.S. troops abandoned their racism when openly dating women of color in Trinidad.

While Neptune’s book deals with a U.S. installation in one country, he said that the story can be placed in the larger context of understanding what America means to people around the world.

“The overall theme that remains important — especially in a time like today when we’re thinking so much about American empire — is that the way we learn most about America is by going outside and examining how people view and use America in their own country. The story of America looks differently in different places,” he said.

“As critical theorists, one of our main goals should be to tell these local stories with global implications.”

For Neptune, the story of the U.S. base installation in Trinidad was more than just a scholarly curiosity: The connection was personal.

Neptune, who was born in Trinidad, said he remembers that when his grandfather would mention World War II, he “would always say the line about ‘If it wasn’t for the Americans, we’d all be speaking German.’

In addition, by the time I came to the United States in the late 1980s, reflecting on what American meant became a preoccupation of mine. My generation grew up in Trinidad watching Sesame Street and wearing Nikes, and I thought about that a lot.”

Neptune has already begun research for his second book, which will be a history of the petroleum industry in Trinidad and Venezuela.