By Frank Festa
The main street of a neighborhood
is the quickest way through it, but in
New York City’s Caribbean neighborhoods,
the main avenues are the lifeblood
of the community.
Avenues in any given enclave are
lined with diverse businesses and restaurants,
joyful energy spilling out
into the streets through music and
colorful displays, produce stands filled
with plantains, prickly pears and yuca
roots. Comprised of nearly 30 countries
and with half a dozen commonly
spoken languages, the multiplicity of
the Caribbean community is a vibrant
example of what makes the city distinct.
“New York is the Caribbean capital
of the world. It’s the largest and most
diverse Caribbean community outside
of the Caribbean itself,” said Shelley
Worrell, founder of Caribbeing, an
organization that highlights and celebrates
Caribbean culture in the city.
Immigrants from the Dominican
Republic and Guyana represent two
of the five largest foreign-born populations
in the city, with six of the
ten groups being Caribbean countries.
These figures belie the deep roots many
second and third generation Caribbean
Americans have here in New
York City, with entrenched communities
like Richmond Hill in Queens,
Crown Heights and 2East Flatbush
in Brooklyn. Worrell, the daughter of
Trinidadian immigrants, spearheaded
the designation of the Little Caribbean
neighborhood in East Flatbush that
was officially recognized by the city in
the Fall of 2017.
“There’s three Chinatowns in New
York, there’s two little Italy’s, some
immigrant groups that have come
after Caribbean people have designations.
So why can’t we? Especially
since, you know, I fear 50 years from
now, the neighborhood may not be
quite as Caribbean as it is today, or as it
was 10 or 20 years ago,” said Worrell.
Gentrification continues to spread
from Manhattan and western Brooklyn
to the rest of the five boroughs,
a process that ultimately changes
the neighborhoods it creeps into. For
many among immigrant and marginalized
communities, living around
those who share your culture can be
critically important.
“Being able to find your food, to
hear your music, to have your language
spoken, all of that, it really
sort of gives you that sense of home
and belonging, especially if you’re an
immigrant and you’re thousands of
miles away from home or what used to
be home,” said Worrell.
Caribbean Life, DECEMBER 3-9, 2021 23
Performers provide entertainment as part of the Presidential Inauguration Ceremony events to mark the birth of
a new republic in Barbados, Bridgetown, Barbados, Nov. 29, 2021. REUTERS/Toby Melville
Barbados ditches Britain’s Queen
Elizabeth to become a republic
By Guy Faulconbridge and Brian
Ellsworth
BRIDGETOWN (Reuters) – Barbados
ditched Britain’s Queen Elizabeth
as head of state, forging a new republic
on Tuesday with its first-ever president
and severing its last remaining colonial
bonds nearly 400 years after the first
English ships arrived at the Caribbean
island.
At the strike of midnight, the new
republic was born to cheers of hundreds
of people lining Chamberlain Bridge in
the capital, Bridgetown. A 21-gun salute
fired as the national anthem of Barbados
was played over a crowded Heroes
Square.
Prince Charles, heir to the British
throne, stood somberly as Queen Elizabeth‘
s royal standard was lowered and
the new Barbados declared, a step which
republicans hope will spur discussion of
similar proposals in other former British
colonies that have the Queen as
their sovereign.
“We the people must give Republic
Barbados its spirit and its substance,”
Sandra Mason, the island’s first president,
said. “We must shape its future.
We are each other’s and our nation’s
keepers. We the people are Barbados.”
Barbados casts the removal of Elizabeth
II, who is still queen of 15 other
realms including the United Kingdom,
Australia, Canada and Jamaica, as a way
to finally break with the demons of its
colonial history.
“The creation of this republic offers
a new beginning,” said Prince Charles.
“From the darkest days of our past and
the appalling atrocity of slavery which
forever stains our history, people of this
island forged their path with extraordinary
fortitude.”
In a message to the new president,
the 95-year-old queen sent her congratulations
to Barbadians who she said
have held a special place in her heart.
“I send you and all Barbadians my
warmest good wishes for your happiness,
peace and prosperity in the
future,” she said.
After a dazzling display of Barbadian
dance and music, complete with
speeches celebrating the end of colonialism,
Barbadian singer Rihanna was
declared a national hero by Prime Minister
Mia Mottley, the leader of Barbados‘
republican movement.
The birth of the republic, 55 years to
the day since Barbados declared independence,
unclasps almost all the colonial
bonds that have kept the tiny island
tied to England since an English ship
claimed it for King James I in 1625.
It may also be a harbinger of a broader
attempt by other former colonies to
cut ties to the British monarchy as it
braces for the end of Elizabeth‘s nearly
70-year reign and the future accession
of Charles.
“Full stop this colonial page,” Winston
Farrell, a Barbadian poet told the
ceremony. “Some have grown up stupid
under the Union Jack, lost in the castle
of their skin.”
“It is about us, rising out of the cane
fields, reclaiming our history,” he said.
“End all that she mean, put a Bajan
there instead.”
SLAVE HISTORY
Prince Charles’ speech highlighted
the continuing friendship of the
two nations though he acknowledged
the horrors of the trans-Atlantic slave
trade.
While Britain casts slavery as a sin of
the past, some Barbadians are calling
for compensation from Britain.
Activist David Denny celebrated the
creation of the republic but said he
opposes the visit by Prince Charles,
noting the royal family for centuries
benefited from the slave trade.
“Our movement would also like the
royal family to pay a reparation,” Denny
said in an interview in Bridgetown.
The English initially used white British
indentured servants to toil on the
plantations of tobacco, cotton, indigo
and sugar, but Barbados in just a few
decades would become England’s first
truly profitable slave society.
Barbados received 600,000 enslaved
Africans between 1627 and 1833, who
were put to work in the sugar plantations,
earning fortunes for the English
owners.
More than 10 million Africans were
shackled into the Atlantic slave trade by
European nations between the 15th and
19th centuries. Those who survived the
often brutal voyage, ended up toiling on
plantations.
“I’m overjoyed,” Ras Binghi, a Bridgetown
cobbler, told Reuters ahead of
the ceremony. Binghi said he would be
saluting the new republic with a drink
and a smoke.
Barbados will remain a republic
within the Commonwealth, a grouping
of 54 countries across Africa, Asia, the
Americas and Europe.
NY City a
Caribbean
melting pot