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.
