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From: News and Views | City Beat |
Sunday, December 09, 2001

Garifuna Seek a Voice Here

Census to be held Nationwide this Sunday

By JENNIFER WEIL
Daily News Writer

They came from Central America, descendants of African slaves and native Caribbean Indians, and settled in this country.  Some believe there may be close to a million of them living in the U.S., many in the Bronx. But just how many Garifuna there are in the United States is a mystery. And Maria Elena Maximo wants to solve it.

 

"I think it must be at least 300,000 or up to 800,000, but we just don't know where they're located," said Maximo, a Garifuna leader who lives in the Bronx.

 

Next Sunday, Maximo's nonprofit organization, Jamalali Uagucha, which means ancestral voices in Garifuna, plans to hold a census kickoff in the Bronx. The goal is to count Garifuna around the nation.

 

Maximo, 48, believes the census will be the first step in helping the Garifuna become a political force, and may lead to economic aid for many of her people struggling in this country.

 

"Right now, the Garifuna people are left out," she said. "We don't have our own identification in the United States. Because of the lack of political power, a lot of times we get left out of social services. We don't have a place to turn. We don't have the protection."

 

Caribbean Roots

The Garifuna are descendants of Carib Indians from the Caribbean island of St. Vincent and West Africans who were captured and placed on slave ships by the British, landing on St. Vincent in 1634. The West Africans eventually intermingled with the Arawaks. In 1797, the group was forcibly removed from the island by the British and relocated to Central America.

 

During the middle part of the 20th century, the Garifuna began migrating to the U.S., searching for better job opportunities, said Maximo.  The Garifuna, an unknown group to many people, have their own culture, traditions and language — a mixture of French, English, African and Carib Indian.

 

Maximo first got the idea to do a Garifuna census last year. Because she wanted to devote all her time to Jamalali Uagucha and the census, she resigned in February from her job teaching science.  So far, she has contacted Garifuna communities across the country — including ones in Louisiana, Florida and California — to get them involved in her project.

 

Once Maximo compiles the information, she plans to send it to the U.S. Census Bureau, which does not list Garifuna as an ethnic option.

 

"We hope that we will be counted," she said.

 

She hopes the data also will help her people receive government money, grants and scholarships.  Besides their lack of social services, Maximo said, some newly arrived Garifuna have a hard time here because they speak only Garifuna and some Spanish. 

 

Maximo, who works out of her Morris Heights home, said she would soon move Jamalali Uagucha to a temporary office on Southern Blvd. donated by City Councilman Joel Rivera (D-Tremont).  Right now, her desk, cluttered with papers and a computer, sits in the middle of a room surrounded by traditional Garifuna masks, wooden drums, shells and flags from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. There is also the black, yellow and white flag of the Garifuna.

 

 

 

Resource Center Planned

Once in her new office, Maximo plans to turn it into a resource center where newly arrived Garifuna can come for assistance. It will have computer workshops, job training and a day care center, she said.

 

"It's important to support them," said Rivera. "They are a valuable asset to our community. It's time that they be recognized by the city."

 

 

Reinerio Barbareno, who came to the U.S. in 1985, said he is happy future Garifuna will have resources he never had.

 

"Every Garifuna knows about the problems that we have — that's the Garifuna reality, day-by-day life for Garifuna in the United States," the 37-year-old contractor said.

 

"We are having so many new young Garifuna who are born here," he added. "We have to offer them something different than what we've had for a long time."

 

Maximo hopes her census will go off without a hitch. It has been canceled twice — once because of the weather and once because of the World Trade Center attacks.

 

The census kickoff will be held next Sunday, from 10 a.m. and 8 p.m., at 80 West Kingsbridge Road. For information, call (718) 716-6973.

 

 

Listed Garifuna World Trade Center, September 11, 2001 Victims

 

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