The Worcester Caribbean American Carnival and Parade
A crowd walked, danced and sang in the Caribbean American parade, heading to Institute Park in Worcester Aug. 27 for the Caribbean American Carnival.
Margaret Smith, Worcester Magazine
Institute Park opens at noon, and the parade will begin outside City Hall at 1:30 p.m., winding its way north on Main Street and turning left on Salisbury Street to reach the park.
The heart of the procession, as always, will be the masqueraders, dressed in feathered and beaded costumes that sometimes call back to traditional stories, and always draw spectators’ attention.
Masqueraders march in bands, which create costumes centered around a different theme each year, and Jennifer Gaskin said some of this year’s bands include the Camo Band, Misfit Carnival, and Socaholics, named after the soca music that will keep carnivalgoers dancing all afternoon.
“You’ll find a very wide range of colors. There’s lots of energy, lots of dancing,” said Caribbean American Carnival organizer Casey Denis. “I would describe it as rebellion, in the best way possible. Carnival is a celebration of freedom, so it’s something that can come off as controversial if you’re not aware, but to learn about it is to love it.”
Archipelago of traditions
Carnival is a longstanding tradition in much of the Caribbean that comes from several different roots, influenced both by enslaved Africans and by their European captors.
European plantation owners brought the Christian tradition of the pre-Lenten Carnival feast with them, holding extravagant masquerade balls. In turn, enslaved people often held their own masquerades, mocking the enslavers.
With emancipation came the evolution of Carnival into a celebration of heritage and cultures. Nowadays, Caribbean Americans across the U.S. gather for it yearly, as they do in Worcester.
Gaskin grew up participating in Boston’s Carnival with her family, which hails from Grenada, and husband Daniel had fond memories of Carnival in his native Trinidad, so it was only natural that the first Worcester Caribbean American Carnival, in 2013, stemmed from a conversation between the two.
“The whole idea of the carnival was my husband and I sitting in the house and bouncing ideas off of each other, figuring out what might work. Not having that voice in the room every day to bounce off of is definitely different,” she said.
Jamming at Worcester’s Caribbean American Carnival
Anthony Mishihu, of Baakwe Art Designs, and Noel Goding, 2, jam at the Caribbean American Carnival, held Aug. 27 at Institute Park in Worcester.
Margaret Smith, Worcester Magazine
An ’emotional’ tribute
Though his voice is no longer in the room, his presence will still be felt.
On Aug. 15, the City of Worcester unveiled a new sign at the intersection of Boynton and Salisbury streets, on the home stretch of the Carnival parade route.
The sign now reads “Daniel L. Gaskin Way.”
Denis, the Gaskins’ daughter-in-law, attended the dedication ceremony, and she described it as “a beautiful time, emotional, for sure.”
“Carnival was something he was passionate about and he loved, and it brought a lot of joy to him, so for him to be named on that street, very visible from the stage, is a beautiful thing. I’m so happy that we get to celebrate him and, in a way, still have him present,” Denis said.
Cherisa Hernandez, treasurer of the Caribbean American Carnival Association, said the moment she anticipates most during this year’s festivities will be the moment she sees the sign bearing his name.
“I just look forward to being on the road and in the parade route, going past Daniel’s street,” Hernandez said. “He’s a fellow Trinidadian who always advocated for different cultures within our group. When we pass by that street, we will pay homage to him and his contributions to not just the city of Worcester, but personally, our lives.”
Violence leads to heartbreak
The intersection of Boynton and Salisbury is close to the site on Boynton Street, where two men exchanged gunfire during last year’s Carnival on Aug. 27, 2023, injuring two bystanders ages 15 and 23, prompting police to disperse the gathering and shut down the festivities.
“For somebody to come in and do something like this to children, I’m just heartbroken,” Gaskin told the Telegram & Gazette that night.
The day before, a shooting had taken place near a parade at Boston’s Caribbean Carnival, injuring eight people.
Two men were arrested in connection with the Worcester shooting later in 2023.
Gaskin said almost a year later, she still worries about the effects of gun violence in Worcester, not only at Carnival but in day-to-day life.
“We have to take responsibility for what’s happening in our communities,” said Gaskin, in a conversation after the Aug. 18 shootings that marred the Dominican festival in Boston. Gaskin said. “We understand that America has a problem with guns. It has obsession with guns. That needs to be dealt with by sensible policies … We have a gun violence problem plaguing this city. We need support from our government agencies, from our social agencies, we need support from community activists. But we also have to show up and take responsibility for our communities as well.”
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A need to ‘build community’
The shootings in Boston were completely unrelated to the shootings at the 2023 Worcester Caribbean American Carnival, but Gaskin sees the incidents as part of an overall societal problem.
“There are families, young children, elders, disabled people, and to have an act of violence like that next to our community was really devastating,” Gaskin said. “It underscores a lot of the things my husband and I talked about a lot – building our community, getting involved with our community, understanding where the struggle is. Gun violence is not isolated to events. It’s happening every day in our community.”
Safety is key
Denis said in light of the shooting at last year’s carnival, as well as mass shootings at public gatherings throughout the U.S. in recent years, the Worcester Caribbean American Carnival Association will work with both the Worcester Police Department and a private security company to create a contingency plan and “try to make sure people feel safe and secure.”
“It’s tough when people elect to use an event like this to be violent, because there’s a large crowd. With any event these days, that is a risk that we have,” Denis said.
Worcester Police Department communications specialist Joseph Cersosimo said increased police presence at this year’s Carnival will include officers from the Gang Unit, Neighborhood Response Team, and Crime Gun Intelligence Unit, as well as Summer Impact Officers and cameras in the area of the park.
“We are hoping people attending this year come and have fun and leave the violence aside. This is a great event for the city and Caribbean community, and we want everyone to have fun without any worries of violence,” Cersosimo said.
According to Hernandez, it already takes a lot of collaboration between the Worcester Caribbean American Carnival Association and the City of Worcester in order to put together the carnival.
Police direct traffic away from the parade, and every festival in Worcester needs permits from the city for the event itself, for vendors, for amplified sound, and for a host of other aspects.
‘The smiles, the joy, the happiness’
In 2023, a number of festival organizers, including Gaskin, told the Telegram & Gazette that they often come into conflict with the city’s event permit system, saying departments within the city often don’t communicate with each other, which in turn hurts communication with festival organizations.
“We get a pretty hefty bill from the Worcester police, we pay the Parks Department for permitting, and it’s a pretty large undertaking,” Hernandez said.
What makes putting it all together worth the trouble? Gaskin says it’s “the smiles, the joy, the happiness.”
“The people of Worcester have embraced us, and it has really become part of the city’s culture, not just our culture,” Gaskin said. “I see probably more people who have no connection to the Caribbean out there than people who do have a connection to the Caribbean. That is really a testament to the event and embracing everybody, because it’s all about sharing joy together.”
The Worcester Caribbean American Carnival will take place from noon to 7 p.m. Aug. 25 at Institute Park. A Youth Learning and Activity Corner will be open at the park from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. The parade will start at City Hall at 1:30 p.m. and move north on Main Street, then west on Salisbury Street. Admission is free and all ages are welcome.
A report by Victor D. Infante contributed to this article.
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Publish date : 2024-08-19 22:14:00
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