AmeriSwedeBajans make WO their permanent home

When I met the Atwell family in their West Orange house it was very familiar. My family has known Remi and Christel for many years, but this was the first time we sat down to really talk “ back­ground.”

The Atwell family, like many of the families featured in ‘We are the world,’ is a mixed one in many respects. Remi is originally from Barbados, Christel, his wife of 16 years, is from Sweden, and their two children, Adia, 13, and Johan, 8, were born in the United States. I guess that makes the children AmeriSwedeBajans!

The family’s story starts in Bar­bados many years ago. Remi was born in England to Bajan parents. As an infant he was taken to Barba­dos to live and be raised by his maternal grandparents. His mother remained in England and soon moved to the United States. But, Remi and his brother stayed in Bar­bados, and much later Remi moved here to go to school.

While he was growing up, Remi’s mother would visit every Christmas and sometimes once more each year. As the brothers got older they would travel to the Unit­ed States for summer breaks to stay with their mom.

To a person like me, who grew up with mom and dad right there, it is hard to understand how it would be growing up with a mother so far away.

“It is hard to understand, but it was normal to me,” Remi says, “I remember getting really emotional, though, when it was time for her or us to leave.”

For 35 years, Remi’s mom worked two jobs in order to support her sons. It was a catch-22, because even if the boys wanted to live with her, it was impossible since she worked constantly to create a better life for them.

A big difference between Bar­bados and other Caribbean islands is Barbados’ great education sys­tem; residents don’t have to leave in order to have a good life. Since Remi’s older brother was already in the United States Remi chose that path as well.

“I had always been interested in traveling and other places. I always wanted to live somewhere else. Since I was young, I had pen pals from different countries and I col­lected stamps from all over the world,” he said.

So, when it was time for univer­sity Remi opted to attend one in the United States. Since he had been coming here to be with his mom for years, he already had friends, spoke the language and was famil­iar with the culture, so the transi­tion was not a hard one.

When Remi went back to Barbados on Christmas break in 1991 he met Christel, a young Swedish woman there on vacation. They began to visit each other, traveling back and forth between the United States and Sweden.

In 1994 Christel moved here and the two got married; a few months later Remi was accepted to medical school at Howard Univer­sity in Washington D.C. The young couple had just become comfort­able in Queens and then had to move to D.C.

During their years in D.C., their first child, Adia, was born, then Johan, a few years later. The family moved back to the New York City area after Remi’s residency in Boston.

Remi was a newly- graduated M.D. and his family was looking to buy their first house and finally settle down. Since they had friends in West Orange, they began looking at houses here, and in 2005 found their home and became West Orange residents.


Why did you choose West Orange to make your home?
“We had friends here and we would get so much more for our money here than in Westchester, where we lived before this. We also like the proximity to New York City, the school system and of course the diversity in West Orange.”


For the Bajan-Swedish-American family, it was important to live somewhere were there are people to whom they can relate. Christel speaks Swedish with the children and they attend the Swedish School in Montclair. Christel is a personal trainer and works at Platinum Fitness, with private clients in and around West Orange.

When we talk more about Remi’s upbringing, I ask if it is something he would have changed if he could.

“I would have liked to be with my mom, but I understand the sac­rifices she had to do for us. I loved growing up in Barbados. But it is hard to understand. I have been away from my kids for up to 10 days when I had to work far away and it was hard. I, as a dad, would only leave my kids somewhere else if that was the only option.”

We all have our stories of how and why we got here. A parent’s ultimate sacrifice must be this: leaving a child in another country in order to provide a good quality of life for him. So many people have to do this and it must be so hard on the whole family. But, when the end result is a united family and a good life, it seems that it is all worthwhile.
Remi has to leave the interview to go to work at St. Claire’s Hospi­tal in Denville in the emergency room.

I go straight home and hug my boys and appreci­ate how fortunate I am to be with my children every day.


Family favorites
What do you like most about West Orange?
It is close to the city, people are friendly and we have lots of kids on our block.
What is your favorite place in West Orange?
The many parks, sports fields and the public tennis courts.
Favorite restaurant?
We love the outdoor patio at the Highlawn Pavillion.
What do you miss from home?
I miss the environment. I felt 100 percent at home in Barbados . I never feel 100 percent at home here.

*About Bajan:
Bajan is an English-based creole language spoken in Barbados. It is a fusion of the language of Eng­land, which once governed the island, and that of those under Eng­lish rule, the Africans who spoke diverse languages. Bajan was creat­ed by enslaved Africans as way to communicate amongst themselves.

A key characteristic of Bajan is that it uses grammatical “ short cuts.” Auxiliary verbs are often dropped from some expressions. Instead of saying “I am going,” Bajans may instead say “I gone.” Instead of using the word “very” to emphasize an idea, Bajans may repeat a word. For example, to indi­cate that a car went very fast, a Bajan would say, “the car went fast, fast, fast.”