Nigel Teles­ford

The in­au­gur­al Get­CAPSS Caribbean Her­itage Awards de­liv­ered a time­ly re­minder last week­end that the Caribbean’s great­est ex­port is not sim­ply its mu­sic, cui­sine or Car­ni­val tra­di­tions, but the iden­ti­ty its peo­ple car­ry with them wher­ev­er they go.

That mes­sage res­onat­ed through­out last Sat­ur­day night’s cer­e­mo­ny at The Katz Restau­rant and Lounge in North Mi­a­mi, where ed­u­ca­tors, elect­ed of­fi­cials, cul­tur­al lead­ers and com­mu­ni­ty ad­vo­cates gath­ered to cel­e­brate achieve­ment while en­cour­ag­ing mem­bers of the Caribbean di­as­po­ra to em­brace rather than di­min­ish the cul­tures that de­fine them.

The pro­gramme, which al­so recog­nised out­stand­ing Caribbean con­trib­u­tors in South Flori­da, fea­tured ad­dress­es by Mi­a­mi Dade Col­lege ed­u­ca­tor and Get­CAPSS founder Prof Clarance Dias Ed­meade, Flori­da State Sen­a­tor Dwight Bullard, Trinidad and To­ba­go-born ac­tor and co­me­di­an Arthur Joseph, and sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers, be­fore cul­mi­nat­ing in a colour­ful pre­view of Mi­a­mi Car­ni­val cos­tumes from Rev­el Na­tion, Ma­jor Play­ers Kids and Sav­age Mas. Prof Ed­meade ex­plained to The Guardian that:

“Get­CAPSS stands for Get Con­nect­ed and Pro­mote Stu­dent Suc­cess and is a Mi­a­mi-Dade-based non-prof­it com­mit­ted to boost­ing col­lege re­ten­tion by of­fer­ing ed­u­ca­tion­al and cul­tur­al sup­port.

“We do this in the form of work­shops, mo­ti­va­tion­al pro­grammes, fi­nan­cial re­sources and start-up-fo­cused busi­ness con­sult­ing,” he added, “and this is all geared to­ward Mi­a­mi Dade sopho­more and sec­ond-year col­lege stu­dents. In ad­di­tion, we al­so raise funds to de­liv­er es­sen­tial ed­u­ca­tion­al re­sources to com­mu­ni­ties in need.”

Dis­pens­ing with for­mal in­tro­duc­tions, Prof Ed­meade opened the evening with an im­pas­sioned ad­dress ex­plor­ing the in­ter­twined his­to­ries of the Caribbean and Africa, urg­ing Caribbean peo­ple to pre­serve their cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty while pur­su­ing ed­u­ca­tion­al and pro­fes­sion­al ex­cel­lence. Born in St Croix, in the US Vir­gin Is­lands, Ed­meade re­lo­cat­ed to South Flori­da in 1988 and be­gan his aca­d­e­m­ic jour­ney at Mi­a­mi Dade Col­lege, study­ing Busi­ness Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Man­age­ment.

Com­mit­ted to life­long learn­ing, Ed­meade con­tin­ued his ed­u­ca­tion by earn­ing a Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence in Busi­ness Ad­min­is­tra­tion from Flori­da Memo­r­i­al Uni­ver­si­ty, where he was in­duct­ed in­to the pres­ti­gious Delta Mu Delta In­ter­na­tion­al Ho­n­our So­ci­ety in Busi­ness. He lat­er earned a Mas­ter of Busi­ness Ad­min­is­tra­tion (MBA) from Flori­da In­ter­na­tion­al Uni­ver­si­ty, grad­u­at­ing with ho­n­ours. At the event last week­end, Ed­meade chal­lenged at­ten­dees to recog­nise that the re­gion’s his­to­ry, re­silience and di­ver­si­ty re­main among its great­est as­sets, par­tic­u­lar­ly for younger gen­er­a­tions grow­ing up out­side the Caribbean.

That sen­ti­ment was echoed by Sen­a­tor Bullard, who en­cour­aged Caribbean com­mu­ni­ties through­out South Flori­da to con­tin­ue build­ing in­flu­ence through ed­u­ca­tion, civic en­gage­ment and pub­lic ser­vice while re­main­ing proud am­bas­sadors of their is­land her­itage.

How­ev­er, the evening’s most per­son­al and emo­tion­al pre­sen­ta­tion came from Trinidad and To­ba­go-born ac­tor, co­me­di­an and long-time Mi­a­mi Broward One Car­ni­val chief Judge Arthur Joseph—whose re­mark­able life sto­ry demon­strat­ed how em­brac­ing his Caribbean iden­ti­ty be­came the defin­ing fac­tor be­hind his suc­cess in Amer­i­ca.

Joseph re­called grad­u­at­ing near the top of his sec­ondary school class in T&T be­fore fi­nan­cial cir­cum­stances pre­vent­ed him from ac­cept­ing a schol­ar­ship to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mi­a­mi. He lat­er re­turned to the Unit­ed States af­ter re­build­ing his life fol­low­ing de­por­ta­tion, ex­celling in sales be­fore an ap­pear­ance on the tele­vi­sion game show Deal or No Deal trans­formed his ca­reer.

His break­through, he ex­plained, came not from con­ceal­ing his Caribbean ac­cent but from em­brac­ing it.

“The very thing that many of us are told to hide—our Caribbean iden­ti­ty,” he re­marked, “is of­ten our great­est strength. Nev­er be afraid to rep­re­sent where you come from. Our cul­ture is our su­per­pow­er.”

Joseph re­vealed that vir­tu­al­ly every ma­jor act­ing op­por­tu­ni­ty he se­cured—from tele­vi­sion dra­mas to Hol­ly­wood pro­duc­tions—came be­cause pro­duc­ers want­ed au­then­tic­i­ty rather than im­i­ta­tion.

“Suc­cess isn’t about leav­ing your cul­ture be­hind to fit in. It’s about car­ry­ing it proud­ly with you wher­ev­er you go to stand out.”

The awards al­so ho­n­oured vet­er­an Car­ni­val or­gan­is­er and Mi­a­mi Broward One Car­ni­val chair Joan Hink­son-Justin, as well as ed­u­ca­tor and Caribbean Cul­tur­al Ra­dio Plat­form man­ag­er Cleve Os­borne, en­tre­pre­neur and cul­tur­al ad­vo­cate Asa P Sealy, and Mi­a­mi Dade Col­lege po­lit­i­cal sci­ence stu­dent Isa­iah Bell, who be­came Get­CAPSS’ in­au­gur­al schol­ar­ship re­cip­i­ent, re­ceiv­ing an iPad and com­mem­o­ra­tive plaque in recog­ni­tion of his aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ment.

The evening con­clud­ed with “The Pre­view”, an en­er­getic pre­sen­ta­tion of Mi­a­mi Car­ni­val cos­tumes, pro­vid­ing guests with an ear­ly glimpse of the cre­ativ­i­ty and crafts­man­ship ex­pect­ed lat­er this year dur­ing Mi­a­mi Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions.

While the gath­er­ing was de­signed to recog­nise in­di­vid­ual achieve­ment, its last­ing mes­sage ex­tend­ed well be­yond awards. Through­out the evening, speak­er af­ter speak­er re­in­forced the idea that Caribbean iden­ti­ty is not some­thing to leave be­hind in pur­suit of suc­cess, but some­thing to em­brace as a source of con­fi­dence, au­then­tic­i­ty and op­por­tu­ni­ty.

Fit­ting­ly, as Caribbean Amer­i­can Her­itage Month came to a close, the in­au­gur­al Get­CAPSS Caribbean Her­itage Awards served as both a cel­e­bra­tion of ex­cel­lence and a call for Caribbean peo­ple every­where to re­main un­apolo­get­i­cal­ly proud of who they are and where they come from.