Caribbean

Walk along Fulton Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant and the Caribbean presence is undeniable. Residents stop by the West Indian grocery store to pick up yuca and Jamaican cooking spices. Ali’s Roti Shop sells Trinidadian street food from a walk-up window, while the Jamaican bakery on the corner turns out fresh bulla cakes daily.

Despite the neighborhood’s large Caribbean influence, the government has no accurate count for how many residents of Caribbean descent are living here. One organization is trying to change this by urging the United States Census Bureau to add a Caribbean-American ethnicity option to Census forms. The next Census survey is scheduled for April 1st, 2010.

Misleading Numbers

“I was just sick and tired of being told that Caribbean nationals, they’re not really important because of the numbers,” said Felicia Persaud, founder of the advocacy group CaribID2010.

More than 570,000 New Yorkers were born in the Caribbean – 20 percent of the city’s foreign-born population, according to Census figures. But the number excludes U.S.-born citizens of Caribbean ethnicity.

“There are no accurate figures in terms of measuring their spending power, their voting power, their contribution,” she said. “In New York City especially, there is a huge undercount in Caribbean populated areas, which is also pulling down the federal funding level that the city could get.”

Persaud, who is Guyanese, argues that without an accurate count, the country’s Caribbean population is unable to meet its full economic and political potential. Census results are used to draw congressional districts and to determine how much funding communities receive.

Funds at Stake

In the 2000 fiscal year, 85 percent of federal grants to state and local governments were distributed on the basis of Census data, according to a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

While there are no Census counts for the number of Caribbean-Americans in New York, they represent one of the more prevalent immigrant groups. Four of the countries on New York’s list of top ten countries of birth for the state’s foreign-born population are Caribbean nations — the Dominican Republic, Guyana, Haiti and Jamaica, government statistics show.

“The Caribbean community is very prolific in Brooklyn, in New York as a whole,” said Austin Tuitt, who runs the Global Caribbean Representation, a community organization that aims to connect Caribbean-Americans with their roots. Originally from Trinidad, Tuitt has lived in Brooklyn since the late 1960s.

“Everyone needs to be counted,” he said. “People are here.”

Bill Bid

In April, a bill was introduced in Congress by Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-Brooklyn) asking that a Caribbean origins category be added to Census forms. Clarke, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, represents several Brooklyn neighborhoods.

Still, the bill is not likely to progress quickly enough for the change to be made in time for the 2010 Census.

“Category changes for race do not happen overnight,” said Tony Farthing, New York regional director for the U.S. Census Bureau. “This has to go through all levels of government, and Capitol Hill, and not just the Census Bureau.”

He noted that other changes to Census forms — like the addition of Hispanic as an ethnicity, first used in 1990 — were achieved after years of campaigning.

“Obviously we’re aware it’s not going to happen for 2010 unless it’s a miracle,” said Persaud, who started CaribID2010 last year. “For 2010, we really want to reiterate that Caribbean nationals must fill out the form and write in their country of origin on Question Eight. It’s about whether they want to exist in this country and be counted, or remain invisible.”

Check Off Drama

Question Eight asks the race of the person filling out the form, with an option underneath for “some other race.” Ali Shah, who’s owned Trinidad Ali’s Roti Shop on Fulton Street for the past 15 years, said he checked off “black” on the last Census survey.

On a recent Wednesday afternoon, he chatted with two friends inside nearby Charlie’s Calypso City, a record store that sells reggae and steel drum music.

“I’m a West Indian just like these gentlemen here,” he said, pointing to his friends, who are also Caribbean.  ”They would put black automatically. I do the same.”

The “black” option is described by the Census Bureau as for someone who is “black or African American, a person having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa.” Originally from Trinidad and Tobago, this description does little to accurately describe Shah and his friends.

“I don’t know where they put me,” he said.

One kind of storefront dominates Utica Avenue near the 77th precinct in Crown Heights. These “shops” don’t sell any products, but that does not stop scores of people, many of them Caribbean immigrants, from showing up on their doorstep every week.

On Sunday mornings, these doors vibrate with voices and music praising God.

Brooklyn is called the borough of churches and this is especially true in Crown Heights. A dozen houses of worship sit side-by-side around Utica Avenue, offering a diverse sampling of faiths from Pentecostal to Presbyterian. Some of the small, bodega-sized churches do not have a denomination. Many of the religious establishments also function as community centers.

‘A Tough Neighborhood’

“It’s a tough neighborhood. It’s been tough for quite some time,” said James Caldwell, president of the 77th Precinct Community Council. “One of the things pastors try to do is go out and reach people who are tough to bring them into their congregations.”

The religious leaders in this community perform many roles at once: They are spiritual guides to the area’s thousands of Christian souls — and they offer a sympathetic ear when needed. They are organizers who put together programs to help raise children and keep them off the street — and they serve as intermediaries between the Caribbean community and local authorities.

“When they do their church services on Sunday and prayer during the week, they talk about the issues that go on in our community,” Caldwell said.

With 30 percent of its population of about 96,000 born abroad, Crown Heights has a large immigrant community.

On the Rebound

Most of the neighborhood’s foreign-born residents are  from the Caribbean, rounded out by Latin Americans and Africans, who all settled in the area in the 1980s and 1990s, when racial tensions and unemployment were high. In 1991 friction between Caribbean immigrants and the Lubavitcher Hasidic community boiled over into rioting.

“Years ago, this neighborhood was a very rundown neighborhood. It had a lot of young people on drugs,” said Bishop Irving Pollard, who was born in Guyana and runs the St. Paul Seventh Day Apostolic Spiritual Baptist Church on Utica Ave. “We feel it was best to bring the church into this community so we could help those that were unfortunate. To help them and to bring them into the right way.”

Pollard started his church in the basement of his home in Queens in 1988, preaching to a handful of people. Eventually, his congregation grew and he bought a storefront in Crown Heights to reach the Caribbean community. Now, every Wednesday night and Saturday morning, about 40 people flock to the storefront to praise God, listen to Pollard and support one another.

Clergy Working With Cops

A block away, the Pentecostal World For Christ Ministries run by Reverend Morgan Stephen hosts a weekly Saturday evening gathering for children and teenagers. Musical instruments and board games line the corners of the small white chamber. Morgan’s philosophy – “if they’re occupied, you have no crime” – is widely held among church leaders who are credited by the police with helping reduce crime in the district.

About a decade ago, the 77th Precinct started reaching out to church leaders to try and bring them into closer partnership with law enforcement officials and organized a community clergy council. At first, the council only had 31 attendees. Now, nearly 100 attend the meetings, which are held on the first Tuesday of every month.

The clergy bring up their congregants’ needs to the police, and then take information from police back to their communities. The alliance contributed to a dramatic 83 percent drop in crime in the precinct since 1990, police said.

Preaching and Teaching

Church leaders say the influence of the many small houses of worship here, clustered around the Utica Avenue police stationhouse, has created a zone of safety and peace around the area. But congregants say that it’s not all about location.

“I go here because I love Reverend Morgan’s teaching,” said Angela Johnson, a Jamaican who got married at the World For Christ Ministries. “We don’t call him a preacher. We call him a teacher.”

Brown, cardboard barrels, nearly four feet tall and two feet wide, can be found in basements and pantries throughout Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, where 80 percent of foreign-born residents are from the Caribbean.

Along with packaged food, clothing and household supplies, each barrel tells of the obligation and loyalty the neighborhood’s immigrants feel toward the families they left behind.

“Family bonding was linked in large measure to any form of remittances, but particularly the barrel,” said J. A. George Irish, a Caribbean scholar and professor at Medgar Evers College. (For a Q&A with J.A. George Irish, go here.)

But the recession has made it difficult for Brooklyn families to fill barrels, at a time when Caribbean nations also are feeling the effects of the weak economy.

“Instead of sending two barrels [a year], we have to send one, none,” said Jamaican-born Grace McKnight, a Brooklyn restaurant owner.

Sharing a ‘New Culture’

When large numbers of Caribbean immigrants began arriving in Brooklyn in the 1960s, many also began to send American products, packed in barrels, back to their relatives.

At first, the popular items, like logo T-shirts, were “a taste of this new culture,” said Donna Fleming, who coordinates the Brooklyn Public Library’s Caribbean Literary and Cultural Center.

As immigration boomed from the 1970s to the 1990s, and the Caribbean economy stagnated, barrels became critical to survival, and food – especially canned and packaged goods – comprised the bulk of the shipments.

“Some of these things cost three times the cost [in the Caribbean] that it sells [for] here,” said Kamal Aleen, who owns KBB Shipping on Nostrand Avenue. (For an Q&A with Kamal Aleen, go here.)

Cereal Killer

Cereal is one popular item that is prohibitively expensive in the Caribbean.  A 10.9-ounce box of Kellogg’s Corn Pops costs $7.70, or JMD$693 (Jamaican dollars), at Super Plus Foods, a supermarket chain in Jamaica.  A 17-ounce box of the same cereal costs $4.69 at a New York supermarket.

Families usually pack barrels gradually, picking up items during regular shopping trips.

“You catch the Macy’s sale, the Key Food sale,” Fleming said.  “Every week you commit to spend so much, and it becomes manageable.”

But it’s getting harder for relatives in the U.S. to spend as much on items when their loved ones in the Caribbean need the care packages more than ever.

The World Travel & Tourism Council expects Caribbean tourism to earn nearly $40 billion in 2009, or 14.5 percent of the Caribbean gross domestic product.  That is a projected drop of nearly eight percent from 2008.

Last year, five hurricanes at Category 3 and above caused millions of dollars in damage in the Caribbean, according to the National Hurricane Center.

“The recession is definitely the case,” said Chris Kennedy, president of the Customs Brokers and Freight Forwarders Association of Jamaica.  “It is significant.  A number of persons who used to send their relatives barrels, we have seen a decline in that.”

‘Mommy’s Hungry’

McKnight, owner of the Four Seasons Restaurant on Nostrand Avenue, is feeling pressure from her loved ones in Jamaica, who depend on her shipments of rice, flour, oil, canned food and clothes.  But business at the restaurant has been slow, limiting her ability to help her family.

“It makes us feel bad,” McKnight said, “especially when they call and we can’t send.”

“They say, ‘Mommy’s hungry,’” added her sister, Laverne Hudson.

Not being able to ship as often, or at all, takes a psychological toll on both senders and recipients.

“It raises that feeling of inadequacy,” Fleming said.  “You also want to make your relatives set their minds at ease, that your emigrating has not been in vain.”

Shipping Slowdown

Fewer barrels sent has meant less business for Brooklyn’s local shipping companies, mostly independently owned.

Many families send barrels around Christmastime, said Dwight Wisdom, who owns Trans Jam Express Shipping on Rogers Avenue.  His busy season, from September to December, is months away and business is slow.

Kennedy estimated that the volume of barrels coming into Jamaica has declined by 0ne-third over the past few months.  The last Christmas season was markedly slower than the previous year.

“Based on the increase in cost of customs and inability for a lot of people to send the barrel,” he said, “it has affected a number of people here who rely on their relatives.”

The expense to clear a single barrel from Jamaican Customs ranges from $70 to $100, he said, or about JMD$6,000 to JMD$9,000.  A family in Jamaica earned an average $7,400, or JMD$555,000, in 2008, according to the CIA’s World Factbook.

For those who are still sending, it makes sense to ship barrels through local companies.  They are much cheaper than major shippers.  Some of Wisdom’s clients drive their full barrels from Philadelphia and New Jersey just to ship with him.

Wisdom charges $65 to ship a barrel weighing up to 200 pounds to Kingston, Jamaica.  Sometimes he adds a $20 pick-up fee, but $85 is still much cheaper than shipping the same barrel by UPS.

UPS will not ship packages that weigh more than 150 pounds, according to its Web site.  To ship a package weighing the maximum 150 pounds to Kingston costs nearly $1,100.

Hope for Survival

Despite the financial threat to the barrel shipping industry, Caribbean people in Brooklyn and the islands were confident that it would survive because of strong cultural and emotional ties.

“People plan this thing with precision,” Fleming said.  “Money’s short, but you have that commitment, too.”

For immigrants, sports can maintain a link to an identity and a culture left behind in another country.  In southern Brooklyn, two distinctively non-American sports maintain avid followings.

Emigres from the former Soviet Union now living in Brighton Beach, Sheepshead Bay and Coney Island, flock to the Coney Island Avenue basement pingpong hall run by a former table tennis pro from Tajikistan. Meanwhile, South Asian and Caribbean immigrants from Brooklyn and beyond practice their batting at the city’s only indoor cricket cage.

BOUNCING AROUND THE WORLD WITH PINGPONG

For Nison Arinov, table tennis has been a lifeline.  Growing up on the rough side of Dushanbe, in Tajikistan, Arinov found table tennis as an avenue to escape the streets and earn money for his family.

Table tennis took him around the Soviet Union, giving him a chance to vie for medals and do some black-market business on the side.  His transition from salaried Soviet athlete to New York City immigrant was a tough one, but Arinov has found his calling on Coney Island Avenue.  After a decade driving a yellow cab, he now runs a bustling, subterranean pingpong hall called, The Brooklyn Table Tennis Club.

“For two years, I struggled,” said Arinov, who opened the Midwood club in 2003.  “I had no salary. It was then that I got divorced from my wife.  But you got to do what you got to do.  I was driving the yellow cab for 10 years, I got my investment, and I made my decision.

“Table tennis, that’s me, that’s my life.”

(Arinov talks about his immigration experience in the video below. For more about his life, go here.)

CRICKET PROVES A STICKY WICKET IN BROOKLYN

Welcome to New York’s only indoor cricket batting cage.

Men from countries as far apart as Guyana and Pakistan shuffle into a brightly lit, converted furniture factory on a dead end street to sweat away the hours of a Friday night.

Nevermind crossing oceans. Ashmul Ali, 55, of the Bronx, rode the subway for 90 minutes to Canarsie, a trip he makes at least once a week. “It’s kind of an enjoyable ride coming out here, especially when you’re coming to play cricket,” he said with a smile, adding that he spends the trip reading up on the complex rules of the game.

The English language wasn’t the only thing Britain imparted to its colonies during the 19th century. The imperial legacy extends to cricket, which is now played in more than 100 countries. The first reported U.S. cricket game was in New York in 1751.

Winter Training

Some 370,000 New Yorkers were born in either Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Guyana, or Trinidad and Tobago — all former English conquests — according to U.S. Census data from 2000. Today, some estimates put the number of Pakistanis alone at 200,000 in the city. New York also has the highest population of West Indians outside of the Caribbean.

As the weather starts to get warm, you can find many of the Crown’s former subjects gathering to play the gentleman’s game at Marine Park and Floyd Bennett Field in King’s County, or Brooklyn, for you revolutionary types.

During the winter, though, it’s a different story.

Cricket is played during the spring and summer months. But like their American, baseball-loving counterparts, cricketers like to keep their skills sharp and their bodies in shape during the off-season. That’s why Ali and hundreds of others like him from around the city come to New York Indoor Cricket, a six-month-old venture launched by Shafique Mohammed, a Pakistani immigrant who moved to the U.S. ten years ago.

A League of its Own

Mohammed, 34, lives in Marine Park, and is a member of the Brooklyn Cricket League, which has been around since 1936.

He already owned one business, a construction company, when he opened his the batting cage in December so New York’s cricket enthusiasts wouldn’t have to schlep to Morristown, N.J. — then the closest indoor facility — during the winter.

Mohammed built it, and they came.

“In the winter,” he said, “we opened up at seven a.m. and closed at two a.m, it was so full.”

His clientele is as diverse as Brooklyn itself.

“Grenada, Jamaica, Trinidad, Bangladesh, U.K., New Zealand, Zimbabwe. I have customers who come all the way from Stamford, Connecticut, and Poughkeepsie, New York,” he noted.

Game Conditions

There is an automatic pitching machine like you would find at an indoor baseball cage, but most of the cricketers come with their teammates and practice with live bowlers — or pitchers — and batsmen. “This game in particular,” Mohammed said, “is not a one-person game.”

The diverse group of men who play cricket in Brooklyn usually have at least two things in common: English and their love for the sport.

Zaheer Hussain’s team, of which he is captain, is called Pak 11, a nod to his home country and the number of players on his team. Political tensions back home notwithstanding, the team has two Indian members.

Hussain and his cousin, Ali Shahban, both originally of Kashmir, now living in Bensonhurst, have played since they were children.

“In the Dominican Republic, even the small kids play baseball,” Shahban, 21, said. “That’s how it is for us with cricket.”

Hoping for Wider Exposure

Pointing to his teammates, ranging in age from teenagers like himself to middle-aged men, he said, “They’re from all over the West Indies: Trinidad, Jamaica…”

Cricket enthusiasts hope to see the game get bigger in America.

“It’s not that big like baseball and football, but you can see that it’s growing in New York,” Marlon Persaud, a 17-year-old Guyanese immigrant who drives a half hour every Friday from South Ozone Park, Queens, to practice with his team, the Cosmos.

Wynford Blackmun, 52, has been in America for 20 years. He lives in East Flatbush and is one of a few Guyanese on a mostly Barbadian team. Blackmun would like to see the game become popular in America, but thinks that United States of America Cricket Association (USACA) “doesn’t have it together,” citing a fractured leaguing system that one might charitably compare to the ABA vs. NBA feud in the 1970s.

“The sponsorship is here in America,” he added hopefully, “so if took off in America, it would be great for the game.”

Cricket is getting more exposure, at least in city high schools. When the Department of Education made cricket a varsity sport last year, 14 schools formed teams. This year there are 22, including Coach Scott Jackson’s team from Brooklyn International High School, which began its season in April.

“We have a full team,” Jackson, a history teacher, said. “We have seven Bengali boys, three Pakistani boys, and a boy from Tibet that grew up in a refugee camp in India” where he learned to play cricket.

‘They Love it’

Jackson, 32, got the cricket bug while an undergraduate studying abroad at the London School of Economics.

Mohammed’s younger brother, Afiq, who will run the facility during the summer while his brother tends to the construction business, is an alumni of Jackson’s high school.

“When Afiq found out that my kids were down here, he was blown away,” Jackson said. “When he was at my school, he tried very hard to start a cricket club.”

It’s a challenge, Jackson said, for his players to balance work, school and cricket. He estimated that 75 percent of his student-athletes work jobs to help their families. One teenager works as a driver for a car service at night.

“My boys are all recent immigrants, they all arrived three or four years ago,” he said. “Their parents all moved here for a better life. They sacrificed middle class lives in Pakistan and Bangladesh, and they’re working construction and driving cabs here so that their kids can get a good education.”

As Jackson spoke, the his team was prepping for a game the next morning at Baisley Pond in Queens.

“They’re gonna travel two hours to get to the match tomorrow, but they love it,” he said.