June was Caribbean American Heritage Month! Take a chance to check out all the amazing people, groups and organizations that Caribbean folks are using to bring forth change.
CULTURAL WORKERS
Cultural work implies that the art someone creates is not simply art for art’s sake. Instead they labor with a powerful intention of upholding a certain culture. Their art is accountable to this culture. As organizers and revolutionaries who are re-imagining and simultaneously building a new world, our art must be accountable to the causes we fight for. We have a moral obligation to use our talents in service of liberation.
“A PEOPLE’S ART IS THE GENESIS OF THEIR FREEDOM.”
Claudia Jones
Trinidadian journalist, artist, Marxist, and freedom fighter
Renluka Maharaj
Renluka Maharaj was born in Trinidad and Tobago and works with photography, installations, research and travel. Her work, which is often autobiographical, investigates themes of history, memory, religion and gender and how they inform identity. You can find her work on Instagram on her website.
Amara Davina Ramdhanny
Amara Ramdhanny (she/they) is an Afro-St. Lucian and Indo-Grenadian artist currently based in Brooklyn. Inspired by 90s cartoons, anime and the strong women of color in her life, Amara’s work is a vibrant juxtaposition of social commentary demanding our attention but with a playful approach. Amara designed a sneaker for Nike, through which they paid homage to their Caribbean culture. You can find her work on Instagram and on her website.
Bruk Out Media
Bruk Out was launched with the intention to cultivate space for the Caribbean community to see themselves in all their glory. They are a publisher for books written by Caribbean authors and released their first title in Fall 2020. Their acoustic sessions featuring Caribbean vocal artists run once a month, as well as a story series titled “Own Your Truth.” Their mission is to create a home for the Caribbean community to lean into art as a tool for healing, bonding, and justice. You can find them on Instagram.
ARCHIVISTS & HISTORIANS
Much of Caribbean histories are lost and missing due to Western imperialism and colonization. However, archiving is not just limited to academics, the past or physical artifacts. Caribbean folks have been archivists for centuries, passing down oral histories, traditions, practices, language, & religion from generation to generation. The stories, knowledges, memories and artifacts we hold today of ourselves, ancestors, experiences, cultures and identities are also important in building out the stories of multiple generations. By connecting to those before us, we can better tend to the present state of our community & generational wounds, as well as harness generational knowledge. By documenting our own stories now, we become part of the collective history for future generations to do the same with.
“A PEOPLE WITHOUT THE KNOWLEDGE OF THEIR PAST HISTORY, ORIGINS AND CULTURE IS LIKE A TREE WITHOUT ROOTS.”
Marcus Garvey
political activist, writer and founder of the United Negro Improvement Association.
Caribbean Portrait Collection
Caribbean Portrait Collection is a collaborative resource for those with genealogical roots in the Caribbean region. You can find more on their website and submit photos at caribbeanportraitcollection.wordpress.com.
The Cutlass
The Cutlass is a progressive podcast and platform dedicated to the Indo-Caribbean community and descendants of indentureship. You can support them on Patreon and GoFundMe.
Haitian Archives
Haitian Archives is “personal Haitian scrapbook” of archival photos from across the web curated by @_itsurieleee on Instagram.
National Archives of Trinidad and Tobago
The National Archives of Trinidad and Tobago are the custodians of Trinidad and Tobago’s memory. They acquire, preserve and make accessible thousands of records, of various formats, to the public. These include government records, immigration records, photographs, books, maps and more. Many of these records are exceptional in the way they reveal heritage and enable folks to have a better understanding of Trinidad and Tobago and our ancestors. You can find more at their website, http://natt.gov.tt/new.
Ro(u)ted By Our Stories: Silenced Indo-Caribbean Voices Speak
Ro(u)ted By Our Stories is a living intergenerational oral history archive dedicated to capturing, preserving and sharing the stories of the Indo-Caribbean diaspora’s silenced voices. This archive works to center the stories of women and gender expansive folks at various intersections of identity including but not limited to those who identify as LGBTQIA+, mixed-race, Muslim, and/or working class. You can access the archive and learn more about the project at their website, indocaribbeanstories.org
Baha Archives
Baha Archive’s vision is to be the nexus between historical exploration and discovery in The Bahamas and the celebration of that history. Their mission is to provide inspiring encounters with historical photography and videos that expands the ways Bahamians see themselves, their nation, and its possibilities. Visit their website for more info: www.baharchives.org.
GRASSROOTS ORGANIZING
Many organizers and collectives are currently laboring for the rights and freedoms of Caribbean folks across the United States. But, before we arrived here, many of our ancestors had a history of strategizing and rebelling against Western imperialism, capitalism, and patriarchy as well as engaging in community-centered mutual aid. In order to transform the world we are living in, we need mass movements with people organizing and mobilizing around shared principals to fight for a better world. Without these grassroots organizations, it would be impossible to leverage our collective power, dismantle systems of oppression, care for each other, and build anew.
“DON’T BUDGE. WE CAN’T LET THE RICH MAN THIEF WE CHILDREN-THEM FUTURE.”
Kowsilla
Guyanese labor and women’s rights activist
Caribbean Equality Project
Caribbean Equality Project is a community-based organization that empowers, advocates for, and represents Black and Brown, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, gender non-conforming, and queer Caribbean immigrants in New York City. Through public education, community organizing, civic engagement, storytelling, and cultural and social programming, the organization’s work focuses on advocacy for LGBTQ+ and immigrant rights, gender equity, racial justice, immigration and mental health services, and ending hate violence in the Caribbean diaspora. To donate in support of their work, visit caribbeanequalityproject.org/donate.
Haiti Cultural Exchange
Haiti Cultural Exchange was established to develop, present and promote the cultural expressions of the Haitian people. They raise awareness of social issues and foster cultural understanding through programs in the arts, education and public affairs. To support the organization and their efforts, you can donate via Facebook Fundraisers here.
In Honor of Our Roots
In Honor of Our Roots is a grassroots collective of trans creatives from across the earth dedicated to the exploration, archiving and investigation of queer and trans ancestry, lineages, and coming to be/roots. Through workshops, exhibitions, and experimental performance that revolve around self-reflection themes, they activate a queer imagination which explores the potential for, not a universal ancestry, but a collective ancestry where we are able to come together and encourage the spiritual autonomy of our communities. If you want to support, you can donate via CashApp: $InHonorofOurRoots
Guanábana
Guanábana is a collective dedicated to centering the voices of Black folx with Antillean Ancestry. They lead mutual aid efforts, created a free community library located at Cafe Erzulie in Brooklyn, host a Black Diaspora Book Club, and much more. To support them and the free community library, you can donate via Paypal or their Patreon.
Jahajee Sisters
Jahajee Sisters is a Indo-Caribbean-led movement-building organization committed to creating a safe and equitable society. They foster solidarity and empowerment through dialogue, arts, leadership development and grassroots organizing. You can learn more at their website http://jahajeesisters.org/ and donate at tiny.cc/JahajeeCOVIDRelief.
NY Boricua Resistance
NY Boricua Resistance is the second chapter of the National Boricua Resistance Alliance, a formation of grassroots peoples’ organizations made up of Boricuas and allies in the diaspora dedicated to educating, organizing and mobilizing for a free and anti-capitalist, Puerto Rico. They advocate for the independence of Puerto Rico and also for our communities here in the diaspora. To learn more, you can visit their website at https://nyboricuaresistanc.wixsite.com/nyboricuaresistance and donate Comida Pal Pueblo here.
HEALERS
Due to capitalism and Western imperialism, many of the traditional healing practices of the Caribbean have been capitalized on or erased. However, there are individuals who are re-indeginizing methods and practices of spirituality, healing, and transformation that re-ground us in our purpose and all of the ancestral wisdom that is available to us.We are highlighting healers with Caribbean roots whose work brings us in closer communion with our pasts, futures, and potential. Please follow them, work with them, and celebrate their wisdom.
“OUR HEALING WILL NOT COME FROM OUR OPPRESSORS. OUR HEALING WILL COME FROM US. OUR COMMUNITY IS THE MOST POWERFUL MEDICINE”
via Melissa Lopez
@counseling4allseasons
Ruth Jeannoel
Ruth is a healer of Haitian descent who founded Fanm Saj, an organization focused on providing a holistic approach to solving some of our society’s biggest challenges. She is also the co-founder of Caribbean Healing Collective, a living collection of healing stories, medicine, and Caribbean legacy. Fanm Saj also created the Sacred Ori Affirmation Card Deck dedicated to Black mamas, parents, caretakers, and all those catching communities. Available now on their website!
Joan Rupram
Joan is an Indo-Caribbean + South Asain femme descendant of Indian Indentured Laborers of Guyana.
Joan has an eclectic background in social justice, community organizing, political science, experiential learning and spiritual evolution that is channeled into mentoring leaders to embody healing as liberation. They are a healer, mentor, educator and activist focused on embodiment in the realms of healing, activism and leadership development from an ancestral reclamation lens as a form of protest to state and structural injustice. They agitate at the intersection of the personal is political is spiritual bridging the gap between the spiritual and the practical. Learn more about their offerings through Instagram and their LinkTree.
Goddess Guidance Tarot
Talia Moreta, also known as Misifuá, is a Dominican tarot reader, psychic, spiritualist, and healer who founded Goddess Guidance Tarot. She offers readings to those who need clarity on their lives, and helps them align with their higher selves.
Emilia Ortiz
Emilia Ortiz is a bruja, healer, and mental health advocate. She utilizes various modes of healing, including past life regression, inner child work, and Reiki. She uses authenticity, love, and wisdom to help others shine brighter.
Gabriella Francis
Gabriella Francis is an Indo-Caribbean decolonial scholar, writer, artist, organizer and tarot reader. They are also an organizer with Jahajee Sisters. Their multi-disciplinary work centers intersectionality, healing, ancestry and fostering radical imaginations grounded and rooted in liberation and abolition. They are dedicated to studying, creating and sharing histories of Caribbean folks through art to access and honor our complex and diverse histories.
Tatianna Morales
Tatianna Morales is an Afro-Puerto Rican intuitive tarot therapist, ritual practitioner and medium from Brooklyn who uses her gifts to guide others to develop inner peace, self-awareness, heightened intuition and an expanded consciousness on life. She is super passionate about teaching & sharing effective spiritual wellness tools and all things tarot and intuition. She provides daily Tarot Meditations, monthly Tarotscopes, guided Meditations, tutorials, Divination workshops and Spiritual retreats.
Dr. Dayanara Marte
Dr. Dayanara Marte is a human rights activist who has been actively involved in the sexual assault, domestic violence, mental and reproductive health and immigrant movement for over 15 years. Dayanara works globally with a wide array of community based institutions, cultural and social justice organizations, executive directors, service providers and first responders providing holistic trainings focused on preventative and post trauma healing to achieve extraordinary breakthrough results in personal and organizational trauma, resiliency and sustainability. For more information, visit her website: https://dayanaramarte.com/.
QUEER CARIBBEAN ICONS
Even if we did not know them, we have always had queer Caribbean ancestors. For many queer Caribbean folks today, it still may be difficult to have conversations with family and community about gender identity and sexuality. However, there are some people who are shining light on our queer Caribbean community, and working to highlight and draw connections between our beautiful existence and our Caribbean culture through their many, which can at times feel disconnected.
“IF I DIDN’T DEFINE MYSELF FOR MYSELF, I WOULD BE CRUNCHED INTO OTHER PEOPLE’S FANTASIES FOR ME AND EATEN ALIVE.”
Audre Lorde
a Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, and poet with roots in Barbados and Grenada
Rajiv Mohabir
Rajiv Mohabir is an award-winning Indo-Caribbean poet, author, translator and professor whose work center queerness and harks back to his Indo-Caribbean roots. His memoir, Antiman, received the New Immigrant Writing Award. He currently teaches at Emerson College in Boston, MA. You can find all of his work on his website, https://www.rajivmohabir.com.
Imxn Adbul
Imxn Abdul is a Lebanese-Puerto Rican activist, organizer, storyteller, and creative based in New York City. She merges art and storytelling with her activism for issues like education, racial and period justice, including designing sneakers with Nike to bring attention to her passions & roots.
Priyanka
Priyanka, the drag superstar alter-ego of Mark Suknanan, is an Indo-Guyanese Canadian drag performer. She was crowned Canada’s First Ever Drag Superstar when she won the first season of Canada’s Drag Race in 2020. She pays homage to her heritage through drag and the use of Indian fabrics to create some of her looks.
Nadia Bourne
Nadia is a gender-resistant, multi-disciplinary creative and entrepreneur whose “gripping vocals seize the guitar’s momentum” with “a blend that strings you along before you throttle.” A survivor of many traumas who navigates the liminal space of multiple oppressed identities, Nadia began training as an embodied coach in 2018 to emancipate their mind and redeem their wholeness with the Warriors for Embodied Liberation (WEL) teacher training program in Embodied and Transformative Leadership. For 11 years, Nadia has served the Indo-Caribbean community and shared their gifts (e.g., producing, communications, facilitation, curriculum development, compassion fatigue, etc.) in various cultural, creative & movement spaces to empower others. You can find them on Instagram: @nadiabournemusic
Masheka Jo
Makesha Jo is a Trinidadian self-taught photographer based in NYC who captured portraits of over twenty notable LGBTQ activists, artists and academics of Caribbean heritage and/or descent. You can learn more on Masheka’s company, Akehsam Photography on their website: https://www.akehsam.com.
Santana Sankofa
Santana Sankofa is a genderqueer AfroCaribbean artist, educator, and community organizer born and raised in LA, based in NYC. Their art and activism centers on disrupting faith-based, political, and academic institutions; creating programs to activate youth; and empowering queer + ethically non-monogamous folks through the sounds and spaces they cultivate. You can check them out on their website santanasankofa.com.
Pratima Kushmani S. Doobay
Pratima Kushmani Shridevi Doobay (she/they) is a Brooklyn-born sacred artist, Priestess, officiant, organizer and social justice activist. She is the founder for the Caravan Temple and organizing platform: ShriDevi Arts. Pratima is also the resident Priestess for Sadhana Coalition of Progressive Hindus, and an active volunteer, Liaison and community leader with other Grassroots organizations like: Caribbean Equality Project, Jahajee Sisters, South Queens Women’s March, Humanity in Action, Women In Faith, among many others. They are a firm believer in community building, and helping to strengthen awareness on what it means to be empowered and take up space.
Darren Glenn
Darren Glenn is a Trinidadian-born librarian , writer, environmental and community organizer, and literacy advocate based in NYC. He is the Programs Director for Caribbean Equality Project and the Co-Founder of the Glenn Family Foundation, which works towards the Caribbean of the future by addressing critical social, economic and environmental issues. You can learn more about his work at his website and more about the Glenn Family Foundation here.
ANCESTOR TRIBUTE
Media Sutra’s work has been built upon a legacy of love and labor by many people, including ancestors
who are no longer physically with us today. Paying homage to those who shaped us is important because it not only grounds our practice in a much larger story, but it is a reminder to all of us that none of our actions exist
in a vacuum. Long after we leave this world, we will all leave a lasting impact on those we’ve loved, mentored, and fought alongside. These two people who changed the course of life for all of us by igniting a fire within Media Sutra’s founders that will burn forever.
Gora Singh
Gora Singh was an LGBTQ Kathak dancer, teacher, choreographer and activist in the Indo-Caribbean community. Son of Guyanese writer Rajkumari Singh, Gora found his own creative voice through the art of dance. After studying Kathak in India, he helped popularize it as a serious dance form in the Caribbean. While never officially coming out, he battled homophobia and was outspoken in fighting against all forms of discrimination from sexism to racism and colorism. He also founded the Rajkumari Cultural Center in 1996 as a place to nurture, grow and preserve Indo-Caribbean arts and culture.
His niece Sharda writes, “He truly embodied the divine feminine and divine masculine not just in his sexuality, but also in the way he was able to summon these needed energies at the appropriate times. Despite being close to him and…witnessing the debilitating of his beautiful body during his battle with AIDS, each time he got up on stage, he was someone and something else of another world who didn’t just belong to me, but to everyone.” His legacy lives on today through the unshakeable impact of his art, activism, and dedication to the Indo-Caribbean community and his family’s work to preserve that history.
Carmen Vega-Rivera
Carmen Vega-Rivera was an artist, educator and advocate from New York City who made waves in the nonprofit world and justice movements. She fought most notably for equitably accessible housing, education, community empowerment, fair representation, and diversity and inclusion in all areas of community life. Grounded and driven by community, she dedicated much of her life towards transforming systems and structures so that communities have the necessary resources to thrive. Her family says, “She never wavered in her belief that we were worth the fight.”
Notably, she was Executive Director of the East Harlem Tutorial Program, a nationally recognized model non-for-profit that provides education, social services and employment programs to thousands of youth and families in East Harlem. In addition to her advocacy work, she was a beloved mother, grandmother, and mentor. Her legacy, wisdom, creativity and passion live on through the impacts she made and those she held close as they continue to fight for her vision of an equitable world and collective wellbeing.