Brooklyn\u2019s West Indian American Day parade filled Eastern Parkway with Caribbean culture, music and pride Monday as revelers gathered for one of the borough\u2019s biggest street celebrations.<\/p>\n
The parade stepped off at Eastern Parkway and Rochester Avenue before making its way down the Parkway to Grand Army Plaza, with participants representing the flags and colors of countries across the Caribbean.<\/p>\n
\u201cCultures, the West Indies, all of us coming together, it just brings a huge group of family,\u201d said Justin Chatelain, who traveled from the Bronx with friends.<\/p>\n
For Nisa Spruill, who is from Harlem and attends the parade every year, the celebration is an opportunity to show pride in her roots in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just love repping my country, I love Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, I love telling people about it,\u201d Spruill said. \u201cA lot of people don\u2019t know about us because we are very small, but we are very mighty.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spruill said she was having a great time despite getting little sleep after attending J\u2019Ouvert, the early-morning street festival that takes place before the parade.<\/p>\n
Chatelain, who is Dominican and Haitian, said he was excited to connect with others from the diaspora.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like my culture [is] the best culture,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
A heavy police presence lined the parade route, as the NYPD worked to maintain security throughout the celebration.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe NYPD has made sure that it\u2019s very organized, very safe,\u201d said Maresha Dixon, who has Jamaican roots and traveled from Connecticut for the parade.<\/p>\n
The event also brought back New Yorkers who had not attended in years.<\/p>\n
Samantha Tully-Cuadrado said the last time she went to the parade, she was 14. This year, she brought her 9-year-old son.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last time I came I was 14, and so I wanted to really bring my son. We don\u2019t live far, so I was like, let\u2019s go to the Parkway early,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Tully-Cuadrado, who is Puerto Rican and has West Indian roots, said the celebration was an important way to share Caribbean culture with her son.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re Puerto Rican, and West Indian, Caribbean culture is something to really celebrate,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She said she especially enjoys seeing the elaborate costumes along the parade route.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll bodies are celebrated, women look beautiful, men look happy, it\u2019s vibes,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Edgard Cintron, who is from Puerto Rico, also returned to the parade after a three-year absence. He used to live in East Flatbush, making it easier to attend, but has since moved to Staten Island.<\/p>\n
Cintron said he came back for the energy and music.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery time I hear the soca, I start dancing,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you don\u2019t wanna move, your body is going, yeah, move, move.\u201d<\/p>\n
For longtime paradegoers, the celebration is about everything from food and music to the sense of community.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything, the food, the music, the people,\u201d said Janet Coleman, a regular paradegoer who wore the colors of Grenada. \u201cIt mean a lot to me because that\u2019s my culture.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Chatelain, the parade is also an expression of what makes New York City unique.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re not here every year, you\u2019re missing out. It\u2019s always something every time,\u201d he said. \u201cAs we say in New York, it\u2019s a movie.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brooklyn\u2019s West Indian American Day parade filled Eastern Parkway with Caribbean culture, music and pride Monday as revelers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[2296,25,98,100,99,231,9,24,12,6019,63,27,200],"class_list":["post-340537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-app-human-interest","tag-app-top-stories","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-human-interest","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-noorulain-khawaja","tag-nyc","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}