The Caribbean Student Association (CSA) recently hosted events to celebrate Caribbean culture with the goal to expose the Colgate campus to the sights, sounds and traditions of the Caribbean. 

 On Monday, March 18, the CSA held a mini carnival complete with games of dominoes, ring tosses, a limbo competition, spades, karaoke and festive music in the O’Connor Campus Center (Coop).

 Later in the week, on Thursday, March 21, the CSA showed “Kaleb,” a movie written and directed by Kervan Bartholomew. The film was popular at the Haitian Film Festival, where it won several awards. The director, being of Haitian descent, sought to make a movie that exposed the troubling aspects of the world in which we live and, most importantly, the importance of family. Colgate warmly welcomed Bartholomew, for the screening on Thursday, who discussed the movie with students and faculty.

Caribbean Week continued on to Saturday, March 23, when volunteers from CSA brought the spirit of the week into the village where they hosted a carnival party for children in collaboration with the bookstore. The students and bookstore staff shared stories about carnival season, taught traditional Caribbean games and made carnival masks with the children. Later that evening, the CSA hosted an “Island Vibes” Party at the Unity House (49 Broad Street). The party was a means to bring students of all backgrounds together to celebrate the week and the end of midterms with music provided by DJ Fiasco.

Caribbean week conlcuded with two more events. On Thursday, March 28, the CSA co-hosted a Brownbag, “Homosexuality in the Caribbean,” with the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Queer Initiative and The Center for Women’s Studies. A panel of students, some speaking from first-hand experience, discussed and analyzed homosexual communities in the Caribbean, as well as the steps being taken to overcome this issue of discrimination.

The CSA will conclude its festivities on Friday, March 29  with a word performance by Jos?e Canta (Daniel Jose Cust??dio), a graduate from Hamilton College, will perform poetry and give insight into the Caribbean life through rhetoric in Donovan’s Pub. The readings will also include student performances. The event is hosted by Poetically Minded in Collaboration with CSA, Latin American Student Organization, Africana, Latin American, Asian American and Native American Cultural Center, Africana and Latin American Studies and the Writing and Rhetoric Department.

“The Caribbean is such a beautiful place that’s full of multiple rich cultures. CSA’s Caribbean Week strives to bring awareness to everything that the Caribbean has to offer. From film screenings about Haitian Culture to a Mini-Carnival, CSA’s members want to include Colgate students in a culture they may not be very familiar with,” co-Prime Minister of CSA junior Ashley Bryan said.

Contact Sara Hinton at

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