Cuh Iz A Bacchanalist: The West Indian Day Parade

In the world of Brooklyn, more specifically, the entire stretch of Eastern Parkway, last week Monday was filled with glitter, feathers and the base of speaker boxes playing Soca, Calypso, Reggae and Kompa music. Men, women and children danced and rotated their bodies to the music in their costumes waving flags of their homeland as people on the sidelines also joined in the celebration. It was officially back!!! The annual West Indian Day Parade. Usually I’d join in but this year, I threw on my Bajan (Barbados) flag around my head and celebrated in the gym, because I was up far too late from the night before and I had missed two days in a row. 

The West Indian Day parade is a culmination of all the caribbean people and those descended to celebrate their heritage. Originally starting in 1930’s Harlem, the parade boomed into what has been recorded to be 3 million people each year representing their culture. Caribbean Islands represented by Mass Camps who set up parade floats, book DJ’s and West Indian musicians to perform on the floats each year. Along with this, these camps also make these extravagant costumes that costs NYC rent money at times to make. These Mass Camps represents islands like  Jamaica, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago, Antigua, The Virgin Islands and many others, including the largest and most prideful of them all, Haiti.

The parade is the representation of each Island’s annual Carnival. I am a first generation American to Barbadian (natives however, call themselves Bajan) parents so for us, it is Crop Over in the states. Crop Over is a Barbadian holiday celebrating the end of the harvest season. Just like every other island, this holiday has its roots deep within slavery as European slave traders imported Africans into the Caribbean islands to toil plantations of sugarcane. However, as the celebration evolved, it became the largest holiday in Barbados as people celebrated the end of harvest season and freedom.

The Labor Day parade is a celebration of culture, music and cuisine from the islands. Each float doing their best to move a crowd of 3 million plus people who march through the street, dancing and having a good time. I missed it this last time, but next year, I’ll pop out with my large Bajan flag as a cape and take “a jump, den wave and whine down di parkway” and celebrate the collected culture of West Indians everywhere and my own.

 

– W.I.B.