FLATBUSH — Post-Memorial Day means a lot of things in the city — the end of school, the official start of summer, Pride Month or the first trip to the beach in 2016.
But for a lot of New Yorkers, particularly in Brooklyn, June is also Caribbean American Heritage Month, a full four weeks of celebrating all the ways the islands are represented here.
The 5-year-old Flatbush-based group Caribbeing has a full slate of events for the month, including a film festival spread over four days in two boroughs and two arts-and-culture focused parties or “limes” set to take place outside the group’s headquarters (which also serves as a mini-museum, art gallery and office) built in a shipping container outside the Flatbush Caton Market.
“The goal of the series is to really commemorate the Caribbean impact and legacy in New York City and also to fill a gap,” said Caribbeing’s founder, Flatbush resident Shelley Vidia Worrell. “For a long time there was a huge void in terms of Caribbean content and programming, apart from Labor Day.”
On June 17, the group is partnering with the Museum Hue and Caribbean Girls Who Blog to host one of two limes, which are events where attendees are required to bring some “cultural capital,” Worrell said — a performance, a new audience member, an idea, etc. — and share it with the party. The idea comes from the Caribbean tradition of a “sou-sou,” or the organized pooling of money among neighbors, divvied up among contributors on a rotating basis.
“You get together a group of people and say, ‘Hey we’re going to have a savings club,’ if you will. But this more of a culture club,” she said of the limes.
A week later, Caribbeing’s Heritage Film Series kicks off at the Brooklyn Museum, bringing films by Caribbean artists about their culture to various locations around the city. Worrell said the series (also located at the Brooklyn Historical Society and the Studio Museum in Harlem) will have three premieres of new films, but will also include older work, as well.
“A few of the films we’ve screened in the past, but we feel they’re really important in terms of the conversation about Caribbean heritage, identity and families,” she said.
Those include the documentary “Shirley Chisholm: Unbought and Unbossed,” about the famous Brooklyn Congresswoman who was the daughter of Caribbean parents, and “Making History,” a taped conversation between Caribbean intellectuals Edouard Glissant and Linton Kwesi Johnson, which Worrell said is one of her favorite films.
“It’s a conversation about … how you have this schizophrenia sometimes when you’re a Caribbean-American. When you go home, people are like ‘You’re a Yankee girl, you’re not from here’ and when you’re here, you’re not quite American, either,” she said.
For more information about Caribbeing’s June programming and for a full lineup of events, visit the group’s website or Facebook page.
