With a relatively less hot and humid June day (for South Florida) this past Saturday, Serena and I grabbed our cameras and ventured over to City Park in Sunrise, Florida to enjoy the city’s Caribbean American Heritage Festival – a free community event that featured live music and several ethnic food vendors.
City of Sunrise Caribbean American Heritage Festival
Since 2006, June has been designated as Caribbean American Heritage Month. The month-long observance promotes the rich culture and heritage of the Caribbean American people and their contribution to the United States, particularly in government, sports, entertainment, and the arts.
The heritage month was first officially observed in 2006, after being unanimously adopted by the House of Representatives on June 27, 2005, sponsored by Democratic California Congresswoman Barbara Lee. The Senate adopted the resolution on February 14, 2006, which was introduced by Senator Chuck Schumer of New York.
On June 5, 2006, George W. Bush issued a presidential proclamation declaring that June be annually recognized as National Caribbean American Heritage Month. Approximately 4% of the U.S. population — about 13 million people — have Caribbean ancestry. This includes both first-generation immigrants and those tracing their heritage back through earlier generations.
The Caribbean is the most common region of birth for the 4.5 million Black immigrants in the United States(*), accounting for 46 percent of the total. Jamaica (16 percent) and Haiti (15 percent) are the two largest origin countries for Black immigrants.
Voluntary, large-scale migration from the Caribbean to the United States began in the first half of the 20th century, following the end of the Spanish-American War, when a defeated Spain renounced its claims to Cuba and, among other acts, ceded Puerto Rico to the United States.
In the early 1900s, U.S. firms employed Caribbean workers to help build the Panama Canal, and many of these migrants later settled in New York. A high demand for labor among U.S. fruit harvesting industries drew additional labor migrants, particularly to Florida. After World War II, U.S. companies heavily recruited thousands of English-speaking “W2” contract workers from the Bahamas, Jamaica, and Barbados to fill critical jobs in health care and agriculture.
Globally, approximately 9.1 million migrants from the Caribbean reside outside their countries of birth, according to mid-2020 estimates by the United Nations Population Division. Of these, about 860,000 (9 percent) lived elsewhere within the region. Outside the region, the United States was by far the top destination for Caribbean immigrants, followed by Canada (415,000), Spain (351,000), and Chile (297,000).
A fun time was had by all – including Serena and I. Special thanks to Nicolas Ortiz, Assistant Director of Leisure Services for the City of Sunrise, for letting Serena and I roam around close to the stage to get a better caliber of photographs. As for the photographs, they were taken with my new/old Pentax K-1 using the HD Pentax-D FA 24-70mm f/2.8, SMC Pentax-FA* 85mm F1.4 (a portrait prime lens introduced in 1992) and SMC Pentax-F 135mm F2.8 (a short telephoto prime introduced in 1987) lenses. Enjoy the gallery…
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