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Caribbean Matters: A legacy of struggle, survival, and stunning contributions [1]
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Date: 2025-05-31
Caribbean Matters is a weekly series from Daily Kos. Hope you’ll join us here every Saturday. If you are unfamiliar with the region, check out Caribbean Matters: Getting to know the countries of the Caribbean.
June 1 marks the beginning of Caribbean American Heritage Month. It was unanimously adopted by the House and sponsored by former Rep. Barbara Lee in June 2005. The proclamation passed the Senate and was issued by President George W. Bush in June 2006.
Here’s some background on getting recognition established from the Institute of Caribbean Studies:
The Institute of Caribbean Studies’ (ICS) effort to establish National Caribbean American Heritage Month (NCAHM) began in 1999 with an outreach to President Bill Clinton asking for the recognition of August as National Caribbean American Heritage Month. This resulted in the first White House Caribbean American Community Briefing being held at the Clinton White House in 1999. [...] In June 2000, ICS took on the mantle of leadership in Washington DC, changed the name to National Caribbean American Heritage Month, and organized events in June under that banner. Efforts to engage the White House were fruitless. In 2001, ICS was joined by the TransAfrica Forum and the Caribbean Staff Association of the World Bank to organize events during June, promoting recognition of June as National Caribbean American Heritage Month, and the momentum slowly began to build. In 2004, the efforts gathered steam, when an Official Campaign for June as National Caribbean American Heritage Month was launched upon the tabling of a Bill in the US Congress by Congresswoman Barbara Lee, with language provided by ICS Founder and President, Dr. Claire Nelson. ICS worked with the Office of Congresswoman Barbara Lee to galvanize support for the Bill from organizations across the country and also organized events on Capitol Hill in recognition of June 2004. The Bill was reintroduced and passed the House in June 2005, and the Senate in February 2006. A Proclamation making the Resolution official was signed by President George Bush on June 5, 2006.
Given that we live in an ugly time of open racism and governmental attacks against Caribbean people who live in the United States, it is imperative that we push back and educate ourselves on the contributions of Caribbean peoples and Caribbean Americans on both the history and culture that it adds to our nation.
Caribbean people’s contributions to U.S. history dates back to before the American Revolution. Lest we forget, there is a good reason New Orleans, Louisiana, is often referred to as “the Northernmost City of the Caribbean” since Louisiana didn’t become part of the U.S. until the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Discussion of that history has recently made news due to the discovery of Pope Leo XIV’s Haitian Creole ancestry. Rarely discussed are the contributions of Haitians fighting in the American Revolution itself, which I wrote about.
Another early event was the founding of the city of Chicago by Haitian Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable with the help of Native Americans. Here’s a short biography of his life:
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Chicago’s Field Museum hosted this informative panel discussion,“The Story of Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable,” which explores DuSable’s journey from Haiti to the Great Plains and his relationships with Native American communities, which helped him become Chicago’s first non-native settler:
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It wasn’t until I started doing genealogy, that I realized that hundreds of thousands of Caribbean people arrived in the U.S. via Ellis Island. I was mistakenly under the impression that it was only the entry point for Europeans:
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In case you are curious, you can do a passenger search here.
Google Arts & Culture has a webpage celebrating Caribbean spirit, noting that “the U.S. is home to over four million Caribbean people, who have thrived in every segment of our society. … People like Marcus Garvey, Harry Belafonte, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Malcolm X, Cicely Tyson, Kwame Ture and Shirley Chisholm are among some of the most influential figures of U.S. history. They were either immigrants from, or children of immigrants from the Caribbean region. Yet, all too often this important aspect of their heritage is merely a footnote.”
Also highlighted are Puerto Ricans such as Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor, “Father of Black History” Arturo Schomburg and actor, singer, and songwriter Lin Manuel Miranda.
Jamaican heritage author and vlogger Lindsay Archer has compiled a useful list of 60 influential Caribbean Americans, which she cut down from 80:
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Many people of Caribbean ancestry are counted as part of a demographic category frequently labeled “Hispanic” or “Latino,” and they or their ancestors came from Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic. The term “West Indian” tends to be used for Black people whose heritage is from the English-speaking Caribbean. This misses out on those who are Haitian, or from other parts of the Francophone Caribbean, and misses people from the Dutch colonies.
It becomes difficult to get accurate up-to-date census figures which cover both those of Caribbean heritage and those who are counted as migrants. These Migration Policy Institute figures are from 2019:
Approximately 4.5 million Caribbean immigrants resided in the United States in 2019, representing 10 percent of the nation’s 44.9 million total foreign-born population. Close to 90 percent of immigrants in the United States from the 13 Caribbean countries and 17 dependent territories come from one of four countries: Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Haiti. 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. Around the same time, political instability in Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic fueled emigration from the region. Following the 1959 Cuban Revolution, an estimated 1.4 million people fled to the United States. Whereas the first major migration of immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and other Caribbean nations was comprised mostly of the members of the elite and skilled professionals, the subsequent flows consisted chiefly of their family members and working-class individuals. In the past few decades, natural disasters and deteriorating political and economic conditions have caused significant devastation and displacement, driving more migrants, from Cuba and Haiti in particular, to seek routes to the United States by land, sea, and air. While the Caribbean immigrant population tripled in size between 1980 and 2010, its growth rate had declined by 2019.
This NYC Public Schools website Caribbean Heritage Month webpage has some additional numbers:
When slavery in the U.S. was abolished after the end of the Civil War in 1865, migration from the Caribbean grew significantly. Most Caribbean immigrants at the time were fleeing from poverty, and destructive hurricanes, droughts, and floods in their homelands. While in 1850, there were 4,000 U.S. residents of Caribbean descent, the population grew to more than 20,000 in 1900, and almost 100,000 in 1930. As of 2016 … New York City boast[ed] the highest Caribbean population (Open external link) in the country among all U.S. cities. These communities trace their roots back to Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, and include a mix of cultures, religions, and languages. In fact, several languages spoken in Caribbean nations—such as Spanish, French, and Haitian Creole are among the top spoken languages in New York City.
Given the fact that we are currently engaged in discussions and legal battles on Trump’s insane and patently unconstitutional birthright citizenship executive order, there are many immigrant Caribbean Americans who fear that it will not be defeated in the courts. This includes discussions about the possible revocation of the citizenship of Puerto Ricans and Virgin Islanders.
So while we come together this month to celebrate, let us not forget that there are those among us who repudiate all things Caribbean that have enriched us as a nation.
Join me in the comments section below for more, including our weekly Caribbean News Roundup, and please share about any and all Caribbean communities you live in or near to, and any upcoming events.
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