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My Positionality Story
My Positionality Story
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Caribana was an important event within my cultural community. The festival is very important to my family, and others in my community as it is a way to celebrate Caribbean culture and traditions openly, proudly, and with little pushback from other communities. Growing up in Canada as a Black person, and being a part of the Canadian school system, it was normal for me to not have my culture spoken about. If by chance it was briefly mentioned, it was never spoken about with the same depth as with the dominant culture. Caribana is one of the main outlets those that share my background can use to celebrate our culture and feel a part of a shared identity.
What is caribana?
What is caribana?
Caribana, also called the Toronto Caribbean Carnival, is an annual celebration held in Toronto, Canada every summer. Caribana is North America’s largest carnival celebration, attended by nearly 2 million people. The festival celebrates Caribbean culture, and is a fusion of all of the different Caribbean cultures. Caribana celebrates Caribbean cuisine, music, dance, costumes, and traditions.
The festival brings together a range of songs, instrumental music, dances, and masquerade and oral traditions. Much of the music showcases soca, steelpan, and calypso. The highlight of Caribana is the Grande Parade, a display of costume, music, and colour. Parade participants are organized into masquerade bands, each accompanied with live steel and/or brass bands. Each masquerade band has its own theme, whether historical, political, or fantasy, and is led by a “king” or “queen”, who appear in the most lavish costumes. Other events include dancing, films, stage acts, nightclub events, kids’ and adults’ carnivals, ferry cruises, and fashion shows.
History
History
Caribana started in 1967, and was originally three days, but over the years has grown into a three-week celebration. The festival was created as a tribute to the Canadian Caribbean community, and was partly inspired by Trinidad’s annual pre-Lenten Carnival. The festival was initially driven by volunteers who did not receive funding from any levels of government. In its later years, the carnival received some funds to stage the festival, which were insufficient to stage the festival, leaving board members, volunteers, and the community to support the festival; quite a few mortgaged their homes to ensure that the festival would run. After an incident that killed parade standys in 1971, the Black Students Union at the University of Toronto boycotted the festival, arguing that the celebration was not representative of the struggle the Black community still faces every day. Since then, the festival has grown to be a large-scale yearly event in Toronto, celebrating various aspects of Caribbean culture and traditions.
Importance
Importance
Caribana is the largest festival of Caribbean culture in North America, and is also one of Toronto’s major tourist attractions. The festival represents the cultures of the ten main Caribbean islands, in addition to Bermuda and Guyana. Due to many of the participants and spectators of the festival being Caribbean immigrants to North America, the festival is seen as a valuable part of Canada’s multiculturalism. The parade showcases Caribbean identity and acts as a way for community members to come together and celebrate the culture. In the beginning processes of the festival’s creation, “the pressures of racial and cultural discrimination which continue to plague the efforts for the building of multicultural society respectful of diversity, demanded and demand the umbrella of Caribbean unity, a unity often forged more by racial than cultural identification,” (Trotman 189). Caribbean people of all backgrounds have been integral to the development and success of Caribana, and share a collective emotional investment in the festival.
Music
Music
Music is an important component of Caribana, and is comprised of mostly calypso and soca. Other genres include reggae from Jamaica, tassa drumming from the East Indian tradition in Trinidad, cadence from Haiti and Dominica, zuk from Saint Lucia, Latin salsa, and North American rap and R&B.
An example of some of the music can be found in the videos below. Please feel free to listen to the music while browsing the digital exhibit!
Who participates?
Who participates?
As the festival celebrates Caribbean culture, the majority of the participants come from Caribbean backgrounds. Participating groups include those from Barbados, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and many other Caribbean countries. It is a celebration of Caribbean culture, but everyone regardless of background is welcome to join in the festivities. Since the 1980s, groups from Central and South America, the Bahamas, and Africa have participated and have added a dimension of multiculturalism to the festival.
See below for a photo gallery showcasing the vibrant costumes, floats, and people, that can be seen during Caribana.
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