Top 10 Moments of 2015

10.   Mohan Jaikaran, founder of Calypso City, dies
Entrepreneur and philanthropist Mohan Jaikaran passed away in April at age 64.  Mr. Jaikaran moved to the United States from his native Trinidad in the 1970s as a teenager. After years of working in the garment industry, he began the iconic Queens nightclub “Calypso City,” now known as Maracas. The venue is credited with introducing soca, chutney, calypso and Bollywood artists and music to an American audience. Mr. Jaikaran also owned the Caribbean media empire, WIN Communications Network, and was Vice Chairperson of Caribbean Airlines. His passing created an outpouring of grief and messages of condolences, including a note from the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago.
 
Mr. Jaikaran is survived by his wife, four children and grandchildren who funded a Diwali Essay Competition for students in his honor.

Mr. Jaikaran, his wife Indra, and their grandchildren

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9.   Gay rights at the grassroots
A team of community organizers and advocates created The Caribbean Equality Project to increase education and tolerance for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) individuals in the Indo-Caribbean and pan-Caribbean community. The organization launched in August at Queens Museum with a powerful and deeply personal campaign on the internal and external struggles faced by the LGBTQ communities. The organization is poised to foster understanding and respect by focusing on sharing human experiences through storytelling, conducting workshops in public schools, and creating support groups.

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8.   Eid mubarak, indeed
Mayor Bill de Blasio declared that all New York City public schools will be closed in observance of Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid-al-Adha, a welcome relief to thousands of families across the city.  Using statistics, public awareness, and back-door-dealings, the coalition that successfully pushed the initiative through, over several years and multiple mayors, also created a movement made up of labor unions, interfaith leaders, and nonprofit organizations. While this was a positive step in the Indo-Caribbean community, many Hindus felt disregarded. Hindus renewed demands for Diwali, the festival of lights, to also be included as a public school holiday. 

Photo: Masjid Al Abidin/Facebook

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7.   #WeAreOne Rally
In response to the burning of dozens of jhandi flags at a home in Woodhaven, Queens, several organizations, led by Aminta Kilawan from Sadhana: Coalition of Progressive Hindues, banded together to call for increased tolerance.  The demand for tolerance saw the community coming together with elected officials from the Federal, State and City levels on a scale perhaps like never before.  The rally was also widely covered in local media although a suspect is yet to apprehend. The incident followed a series of other attacks on Sikhs and Muslims across the City.

Sadhana was featured on ICA's Top 10 list in 2014.

Photo: Sadhana/Facebook

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6.   Amar Ramasar, a ballet dancer, takes center stage
Amar Ramasar received wide critical acclaim and was even featured in the New York Times for his role in “Agon,” the 1957 George Balanchine ballet, performed by the celebrated New York City Ballet company at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center. Mr. Ramesar has been a principal dancer at the City Ballet since 2009, where he is one of the few people of color, and has danced in “Agon” since 2011.
 
Mr. Ramesar was born in the Bronx and studied at the School of American Ballet.  His father is Indo-Trinidadian and his mother is Puerto Rican.

Photo: Henry Leutwyler

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5.   Indians voted out of office in Guyana and Trinidad
For the first time in several decades, an Indo-Caribbean person is not the leader of a single government in the Caribbean. The ruling party in Guyana since 1992, PPP/C, lost the Presidency after having lost control of the Parliament in the previous election. In Trinidad, the UNC’s rising sun coalition led by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s lost to the opposition PNM. Both elections galvanized hundreds of thousands of supporters among the diaspora in New York City with fundraisers, debates, and high-level visits. While some say Indians were voted out of office, others say newer generations of multiracial coalitions have taken their place.  Perhaps it will allow the diaspora to focus on politics at home, right here in New York City.

Former President Donald Ramotar campaigning in Richmond Hill, Queens

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4. Raj Rampershad, first Indo-Caribbean community board chairperson
In March 2015, after a tumultuous year, Queens Community Board 9 unanimously elected Raj Rampershad as Chairperson, the first Indo-Caribbean person in New York City, and perhaps also the first South Asian, to be elected to such a position.  Mr. Rampershad has been a volunteer of Community Board 9 for ten years and has previously served on several committees, including the Executive Committee. Mr. Rampershad has a Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture from the Pratt Institute and works full time at an architectural firm while completing his architecture license.  Before it was sold earlier this year, Mr. Rampershad was the cashier at his family’s grocery store on Liberty Avenue, which they operated for 25 years.
 
Mr. Rampershad was born in Manhattan in 1976. His parents were born in Guyana and moved to New York City in the 1960s. Mr. Rampershad lives in Richmond Hill and intends to complete his first children’s book in the near future.

Mr. Rampershad previously served on the host committee for ICA's gala.

Photo: Luis Gronda for Queens Tribune

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3.   Rajiv Mohabir has a way with words
Rajiv Mohabir completed his first full-length collection of poems entitled, The Taxidermist’s Cut, which earned him the Intro Prize in Poetry by Four Way Books, a respected publishing house, as well the 2015 AWP Intro Journal Award.  In 2015, Mr. Mohabir was also awarded a PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant for his translation of Lalbihari Sharma’s Holi Songs of Demerara, originally published in 1916. Mr. Sharma was an indentured laborer, as well as a singer and a musician, on the sugarcane fields in Guyana. He was the first Indo-Caribbean writer to write and publish in his native dialect, a mix of Bhojpuri and Awadhi.
 
Mr. Mohabir has a Bachelor’s degree in Religious Studies from the University of Florida, a Master’s degree in Fine Arts from CUNY Queens College, and is currently pursuing a Doctorate at the University of Hawaii. He was also a teacher at John Adams High School in Queens. He is fluent in Hindi, Bhojpuri and a dying language known as “Guyanese Hindi.” Mr. Mohabir was born in London and moved to the United States at two years old with his parents, older brother, and younger sister. His family is from Crabwood Creek and Georgetown in Guyana.
 
The Taxidermist's Cut will be available in 2016.  Mr. Mohabir previously taught Hindi classes for ICA. 

Mr. Mohabir at the Indo-Caribbean Special Collection at the Lefferts Branch of Queens Library

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2.   The year spring didn’t come
 
After 27 years, the Annual Phagwah Parade, the largest Indo-Caribbean and South Asian event in the country, was suddenly cancelled by the organizers. It is estimated that 80,000 people attended the parade in 2013, the parade’s 25th anniversary. Days before this year’s parade, without any notice to the community, leaked legal documents began to circulate on social media displaying the divisions that had emerged among the organizers. A group of elderly men, one side led by Dharmacharya Rishi Misir of the Hindu Parades and Festivals Committee, and the other by Dharmacharya Pandit Ramlall of the Arya Spiritual Center, wrestled for control of the organizing committee of the parade. After proudly working together to build one of the most impressive community events in New York City, the parade was initially postponed and then, finally, cancelled. Although the dispute appears to be settled in court, the upcoming 2016 parade remains uncertain. The split between the organizers has also caused the disruption of several other events, including the Annual Mahatma Ghandi Peace March and Ramayan in the Park.

This dispute follows the legal troubles at several major mandirs including Bhuvaneshwar, co-founded by iconic Pandit Shri Praksh Gossai; Shri Lakshmi Narayan Mandir, which started in the 1970s and is perhaps the earliest mandir in Little Guyana; and USA Pandit Parishad, which was forced to close its doors after over 40 years.
 
ICA has been a proud participant in every Phagwah Parade since 2010.

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1.   Introducing Senator Persaud
 
In November 2015, Canarsie, Brooklyn elected Roxanne J. Persaud, the highest ranking and only South Asian/Indo-Caribbean in public office in New York State, to represent the 19th Senate District.  Senator Persaud was previously an Assembly Member for the 59th Assembly District. She has spent many years working in higher education administration, including as Registrar at St. Francis College. In addition, she served as President of her local Police Precinct Council; she was a member of Community Board 18; and she served as a Commissioner at the important 2012 Redistricting Commission, which was tasked with drawing the City’s political boundaries. Her priorities in the Senate include fostering safer communities, lobbying for affordable housing, funding for schools and libraries, and increasing senior services. 
 
Senator Persaud was born and raised in the Cummingsburg section of Georgetown, Guyana. She has six siblings and is of mixed Indo- and Afro-Guyanese descent.

She was previously #3 on our Top Ten list for 2014.

Photo: Roxanne Jacqueline Persaud/Facebook

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Please let us know if we forgot something. Share your feedback, add to the list and/or repost.

The list is only meant to spark discussion and reflection. In the interest of full disclosure, we explained our participation in different events while we intentionally excluded ICA's core initiatives to offer an objective perspective.