It’s that time of the year. As many as two million revellers and spectators, most of them from every island-nation and territory in the Caribbean, will hit the streets of Brooklyn on Monday.
Costume bands, many organized along national lines are to participate in the 44th annual West Indian-American Day Carnival Association (WIADCA) festival, which has become the largest ethnic festival in the United States. It began on Thursday and culminates with the parade of costume bands down Eastern Parkway on Labour Day.
It’s an extravaganza which hasn’t gone unnoticed by the White House. Two years ago, President Barack Obama told West Indian immigrants in a written message to mark the carnival that their “forebears wove their unique and vibrant culture into the tapestry of America and enriched our diversity”.
But while the nation’s chief executive may have many more things on his mind such as a faltering economy and the clean-up after Hurricane Irene to think about than the annual carnival, it is likely to be bigger this year than ever before.
But to the participants drawn from across America, Canada, the Caribbean and even Britain, many of whom simply stroll along the streets, jump up on the sidelines to sweet Caribbean music and otherwise enjoy the sights and the sounds of carnival, the appeal of the festival allows them to put aside their financial and other worries for a day or two, forgetting about the social class differences in order to play mas’ with gusto and enjoy the different beats of West Indian music.
The sea of colour, the limitless bounds of excitement of being free and independent from life’s turbulent daily grind and the sheer pleasure generated by the gyrating bodies are enough to make anyone dance in the streets. Actually, that’s what carnival in Brooklyn, like Crop Over in Barbados, is about and what is happening this year.
It’s a celebration whose history can be traced to the 17th and 18th centuries when the brutal and abhorrent trade in human beings by Europeans was an awful and usually deadly fact of life for millions of people from Africa and the Caribbean.
Yolanda Lezama-Clarke, WIADCA’s president, alluded to the festival’s genesis when she said “in a humble way, our carnival, which allows for an avenue for creativity and expression, began as a result of the longings and desires of a few early immigrants” in the United States.
“The carnival has always encouraged artistic expression and ethnic diversity through the bridging of different cultures, which creates deeper understanding among people,” she asserted.
“It is the historical evolution of a people and their contributions to America and the world.”
It’s a show that isn’t taken lightly. The mas’ camps and steel band yards that dot the Brooklyn landscape
at this time speak to the extensive preparations and the seriousness that characterize the run-up to the celebration. They also attest to the mindset of the bandleaders, whose main objective is to make the carnival a sight to behold and to do that with professionalism and deep pride.