Parade Brings Out the Superhero in West Indians in New York City
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Most of the time, Merle McDonald, 50, is a nurses’ assistant in Albany; yesterday, at the 41st West Indian-American Day Carnival Parade, she was part superhero, part showgirl. Clad in a red-and-white sequined top, white mesh stockings, and an elaborate feathered headdress, she carried the flag of her native Trinidad and danced as she waited in line for a roti roll.
In any other borough, Ms. McDonald would catch more than a few stares. Marching along Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights, she fit right in. “It’s about all of the islands getting together and having fun. Everybody comes together and enjoys themselves,” Ms. McDonald said.
The parade yesterday, which ran to the Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn from Crown Heights, was a sea of neon spandex. Performers gyrated on 4-foot stilts and women in giant butterfly costumes with pterodactyl wingspans strutted by. The crowd lining the parade route — sometimes up to seven people deep — were clad in their home countries’ flags, many wearing face paint in the colors of Jamaica, Guyana, Haiti, and a dozen other West Indian nations.
The food was plentiful: Oxtail, macaroni and cheese, fried chicken, roasted corn, and jerk pork were sold at stands along the route. At the Nevis booth, parade watchers lined up for homemade specialties such as salt-fish cake; johnnycake, a flour-based fried patty, and goat water, a soupy combination of goat, scallion, carrots, celery, and potato.
The Nevis booth is a family-run affair. For the past 20 years, Barbs Frances, 45, and her extended family have driven a rental truck from the Bronx to sell their food starting at 5 a.m. Despite the heat coming off her skillet as she fried the salt-fish patties, Ms. Frances was smiling. The day is all about “seeing everyone who you’ve known for a long time,” she said.
An American citizen since 1997, Everton Christie, 42, a cook at a nursing home in Newark, comes out annually to sell West Indian souvenirs at his booth.
Zach Bynoe, 25, insists the parade is not about competition between the small countries. “It’s just West Indies pride … one big last hurrah before the summer’s over,” he said.
Elected officials including Governor Paterson and Mayor Bloomberg spoke before the parade at a celebratory breakfast at Lincoln Terrace Park in Crown Heights.
