By Tony Best
With perhaps the largest concentrations
of people from the Caribbean living outside
of the islands and coastal states, Brooklyn is
experiencing a major effort to get West
Indians counted during the 2010 Census.
And the “extra push,” says Dr. Roy
Hastick, President of the Caribbean
American Chamber of Commerce and
Industry, CACCI, is being undertaken by his
organization in order to ensure that New
York state and the City in general and
Brooklyn in particular get their “fair share”
of U.S. federal financial assistance which in
turn can mean employment for people in the
borough.
“It is imperative that every household
fill out the census form and include everyone
living in the household,” Hastick told more
than 20 community leaders, religious ministers,
representatives of elected officials, business
owners and others interested in Census.
“Our community stands to gain so much. For
every household that’s counted in the
District, the community receives resources
from the government. This means better
schools and hospitals, safer streets, cleaner
neighborhoods, more economic investment
and more stable and economically thriving
neighborhoods.”
CACCI has joined the U.S. Census
Bureau in the massive drive across Brooklyn,
especially in Central, North and East
Brooklyn, long considered “hard-to-register”
communities, populated by immigrants from
almost every Caribbean country, including
Grenada, St. Vincent, Jamaica, Trinidad an
Tobago, Guyana, Barbados, Haiti, the
Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.
The Chamber launched its “outreach
and mobilization initiative last weekend at
the Flatbush Caton Market, a small business
trading center where more than 40 entrepreneurs
sell every from furniture, clothes,
music and food to toiletries and a range of
other items from stalls that dot the single
story facility.
“High response rates to determine how
many elected representatives will come from
our community and the degree of political
and economic power we will have” Dr.
Hastick added.
Dr. Waldaba Stewart, a CACCI Vice
President and director of the chamber’s census
project, who also addressed the gathering
spoke of the importance of “being counted”
because of its potential impact on elected
representation at the federal, state and local
government levels.
“Almost every elected official in our
communities owe their seats to the Census
and to the work which may of us undertook,
dating back to the 1970s to ensure that the
Caribbean immigrant community was represented
in Albany and at City Hall,” was the
way Stewart put it. “We use the census data
to press the case for adequate representation
for our communities.
That was why the chamber was pushing
to “encourage our partners who are well
established within the community to spread
the word that filling out and returning the
census form is a big win for our families and
out communities,” added Stewart, a former
New York State Senator. “It’s about maintaining
electoral power, getting sufficient
resources for our community and better
future for our children.
It is estimated that Brooklyn lost almost
$200 million in federal assistance because of
a low response to the 2000 census.
Using the Flatbush market as the headquarters
for the mobilization and outreach
campaign, CACCI is targeting churches,
housing projects, schools, community institutions,
neighborhood bodies, homeless shelters
and other centers where people meet.
“We are reaching out to people in
Districts 14 and 17 in Flatbush and East
Flatbush, areas that have large immigrant
populations from the Caribbean, central and
South America, not so mention Africa, Asia
and the Middle East.
Stewart also pointed out that the Census
Bureau would also be hiring workers for the
push to get people counted.
“There is no need to worry about immigration
status because the information provided
is confidential and can’t be shared with
immigration authorities,” said Dr. Hastick.