In 1964 Colin Clarke conducted research in Trinidad, funded by the Research Institute for the Study of Man, New York, to examine social relations between the Creole and East Indian populations of San Fernando, a town of 40,000 inhabitants. The purpose of the research was to assess the degree of ancestral cultural retention among the Indians and to estimate the extent of creolization among the specific Christian, Hindu and Muslim sections of the population. For comparison with these urban groups a rural community of Indians in neighbouring Débé, on the Oropouche Lagoon, was selected for study.

The research used census data, questionnaires and participant-observation records and the results were published in 1986 as East Indians in a West Indian Town: San Fernando, Trinidad, 1930-70, (Allen and Unwin).