Nubian Heritage of Jamaica Avenue is a place to shop for books and beauty. Tribune photo by Ira Cohen

By Raynelle Cerica Bull

How Many Are There/ Who Are They?
Where are 20,148 Africans and 113,980 Caribbeans in the Queens area. According to the 2000 United States Census, the Africans inhabiting Queens are the Ethiopians, Eritreans, Middle Africans, Egyptians, South Africans, Ghanaians, Nigerians, Sierra Leonians and Liberians with Northern Africans being the biggest African group in the area, and the Caribbeans are broken up into Bajuns, Haitians, Jamaicans and Trinidadians and Tobagians, with Jamaicans being the biggest group.

When Did They Get Here?
Although the arrival of Africans in the United States dates back to the late 1970s to the early 80s, and majority of the Africans in the borough arrived in the 1990s, after civil wars broke out in their countries, their lives were threatened granting them political asylum or they just wanted to make a better life for their families.

According to published reports, many Africans who migrate to America “cling to their ‘myth of return’ – the term academics use for the messianic hope of reunification with the world they knew.”

Caribbeans first started moving to the United States in the 1960s and the numbers rose in the 1990s, according to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Majority of the Caribbeans arriving in the United States headed for Queens, Brooklyn and Upstate New York.

Marcia Moxam Comrie, a Jamaican immigrant to this country and wife of City Council Majority Whip Leroy Comrie, embodies the story of Caribbean immigrants coming to Queens. In some ways she also embodies, through her family, the story of Caribbeans and the subtleties of their relationship with American-born blacks.

Comrie came to the United States to study broadcasting after graduating high school. When she got here, she immediately experienced a dynamic documented by countless Caribbean immigrants: She came from a country where she wasn’t a minority and where racial differences are not a major issue to a place that is the most racially diverse place in the world and knows it.

“I wasn’t ‘black’ until I came to New York,” Comrie said. “When I got on the plane in Montego Bay, I was human — a person. When I came here, I got off the plane, and I was ‘black.’ I was a race.”

Comrie, like so many blacks coming to New York for the first time, lived in Brooklyn for a while before moving to Queens. She tried a few neighborhoods, mostly in Southeast Queens, before settling down in St. Albans.

“I liked Queens because it’s the City, but at the same time it appealed to my country-girl sensitivities,” said Comrie, who described her upbringing in Jamaica as “sophisticated rural.”

Comrie married Councilman Leroy, a first-generation American whose parents were born in Jamaica and who, she said, grew up with a very strong Jamaican upbringing. Their two young children, both born here, are raised not as much as “African Americans” as they are Caribbean Americans. Comrie’s daughter Liana, for example, used to tell people “I’m Jamaican” when asked where she’s from. These days, she says “I’m Jamerican,” a term used by Americans born of Jamaican parents.

But while Liana Comrie moved closer to embracing the American side of her background, her mother reminded the Tribune that there are still a lot of “bones of contention” between Caribbeans and American-born blacks.

“If you’re from the Caribbean and have a disagreement with an African American,” Comrie said, “they say ‘Go back where you came from on a boat.’

“But on the other hand, there’s a lot of misunderstanding on the part of Caribbean people, too. Many don’t understand African Americans and do not make an attempt to.”
She added that “If you’re a man from the Caribbean and you marry a woman of American birth, you’ve done something bad, because you didn’t marry someone from home. Your sisters and your mother won’t talk to you.”

Strained relations between native blacks and Caribbeans were — and to some extent still are — multiplied by the factor of Caribbeans of South Asian descent. Thousands of Indians went to the Caribbean as laborers after slavery was abolished there in 1834. Almost 150,000 Indians migrated to Trinidad between 1845 and 1917; over 35,000 went to Jamaica during that same time; many thousands still went to Guyana. While today the West Indies are characterized by their unique mix of African and Indian culture, those two groups and native blacks have always had some amount of culture clash when they met in Queens.

Councilman Leroy Comrie with Tribune contribuitng editor Marcia Moxam Comrie, son Benjamin, and daughter Liana. Marcia came to Queens from the nation of Jamaica.

Where Do They Live?
Most Africans and Caribbeans in the borough live in Southeast Queens, which is known as the predominately Black area of Queens.

Africans and Caribbeans are spread out across Jamaica, South Jamaica, East Elmhurst, St. Albans, South Ozone Park, Laurelton, Queens Village, Hollis, Cambria Heights, Springfield Gardens and Rosedale.

Some families live in a house with their extended family (grandmother, grandfather, aunts and uncles), while others share apartments with people from the same cultures.

Where Do They Worship?
The Bethlehem Missionary Church in Queens Village is a common place of worship for the borough’s African and Caribbean churchgoers. On a Sunday morning, every pew in the large church is filled with women in traditional African attire or Americanized suits completed with fancy hats.
The Sacred Heart Church in Cambria Heights is frequented by a vast amount of Haitians in the borough. The church holds services in English and Haitian-Creole.

Many Africans and Caribbeans in the borough also attend The Greater Allen Cathedral of New York, and some travel to the Brooklyn Tabernacle on Flatbush Avenue.

Where Do They Shop?

Although finding African and Caribbean clothing, artifacts, books and food may not be as easy to find as it was back home, Queens has a few stores that carry a wide range of African and Caribbean goods.

One of the first Afro-centric shops in Queens was the House of a Million Earrings in Jamaica (718) 977-0081, where you can purchase jewelry, books and gifts. There is also Anita’s Gift Emporium, located in the Jamaica Market, (718) 291-6733. Anita’s has a bridal registry, Afro-centric brooms and other unique gifts. There is also the Haitian store, Le Jardin in Cambria Heights (718) 712-9377. Le Jardin specializes in fine Haitian art and custom framing.

The Original People’s Culture Shop in St. Albans (718) 464-6656 specializes in Afro-centric jewelry, cards and clothing.
The Nubian Heritage off of Jamaica Avenue is also a common place to shop for beauty needs and books.

Where Do They Eat?
African and Caribbean food is easy to come by in Southeast Queens, but there are certain restaurants that are frequented more than others. The Door Restaurant in Jamaica has a wide menu of Caribbean food and is well known to people in the community.

 The Port More Restaurant in Jamaica has a Jamaican and Chinese cuisine menu. Port More also has a Reggae DJ and a large Caribbean Juice Bar.

Antun’s in Queens Village is also a very well known restaurant in the area. Many African American, African and Caribbean organizations and elected officials through events at this venue.

What Do They Do For A Living?
Although most of the Africans and Caribbeans arriving in Queens are college-educated, there is often difficulty finding jobs in their fields. According to a 2001 article in the Caribbean Voice, many Caribbeans work in the health care industry as nurses and health aides, and the power service industry.

The Africans in Queens also dominate healthcare professions. Many African females own hair braiding salons, where they are known to have over 50 customers a day.
Queens’ Africans and Caribbeans are also employed as elected officials, cab drivers, construction workers, doctors, professors, lawyers and teachers.

What’s In Their Future?
According to Thomas Crater, board member, Greater Jamaica Development Corporation, the future of the Africans and Caribbeans in Queens is looking positive because most of the Africans and Caribbeans in the community migrate to the area with a college education or specialty skills.

Jean Phelps, president, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, agreed with Crater’s outlook, and predicts that great things are coming and will come from the Africans and Caribbeans in Queens.