The US is home to more than 1,600,000 Caricom nationals, according to the 2000 census. A 2001 census puts Canada's West Indian population at around 300,000. This presence has spawned at least 38 carnival celebrations - according to listings on caribbeanchoice.com and jouvay.com. The festivals are fashioned from the template first established in Trinidad and Tobago generations ago. The oldest carnival parades - in Brooklyn and Toronto - popped up in the mid-60s, but the majority have appeared in the last decade, a reflection of the growing numbers and social strength of the Caribbean population in North America.

"It's probably the fastest growing festival in the world," says Lorna Beck, a Jamaica-born dietician and Caribbean culture enthusiast who's the main organiser of the Charleston "Carifest". Beck has lived in Charleston for more than two decades and seen the West Indian population grow "by leaps and bounds" (her words). As a new immigrant group striving to maintain and project an identity, Carnival and the art forms that support it, are ways West Indians distinguish themselves.

"There are two other places in the world that have outstanding exhibitions of costumes and parading in the street," says Beck. "And that's down in Rio and in New Orleans. Outside of that, Trinidad was the only place it was so firmly entrenched, and it has spread throughout the entire Caribbean - just about all the Caribbean islands have Carnival. And so everywhere you find West Indians they have some kind of carnival celebration."

The first West Indian carnival parade was in 1947 in Harlem, where most West Indian immigrants had settled. It was organised by Trinidadians Jesse Wardle and Rufus Gorin. As the bulk of West Indian immigrants moved to Brooklyn, so did the carnival. The Labour Day carnival on the Eastern Parkway thrived under the guidance of Carlos Lezama and the flood of immigrants unleashed by the loosening of US immigration laws in 1965. The first Labor Day carnival was in 1967. About 335 miles north, West Indians in Toronto held their first carnival parade - Caribana - a month earlier.

Today, Brooklyn's carnival draws two million spectators and masqueraders. Toronto's - in early August - attracts about 1.2 million. There are well known, packed affairs in Miami (early October, an average of 100,000 participants), Boston (late August, draws half a million people), and Montreal (early July, had about 50,000 spectators last year). But many are lesser known and still trying to grow an audience: Among them is the parade in Schenactady, New York, in mid-August; Cambridge, Massachusetts, the day after Boston's; Tallahassee, Florida, mid-August; and Hamilton, Ontario, mid-August.

Their dates, staggered throughout the summer, give the dedicated Carnival enthusiast the opportunity travel from one to the other.

Montserrat-born Andrew Skerritt, a columnist with Florida's St Petersburg Times, calls these enthusiasts carnies. He's only an occasional carny himself, he says. He's repeatedly been to Brooklyn's, Boston's, Miami's and St Petersburg's His favourite is Atlanta's, held in late May.

"It's about being around people. It's about seeing old friends. It's like a reunion," Skerritt says of the carny lifestyle. Most carnies, Skerritt says, are older people with empty nests. "Their kids are grown and they got more free time. They can get up and go."

Long-time residents of the US like Skerritt experience carnivals that are different in many ways from the ideal form as represented by Trinidad and Tobago's. These festivals have shaped to conform to an environment where Caribbean people are a minority among many minorities. The bands aren't as big; the costumes aren't as intricate; the route and time constraints are tighter; there aren't big-name soca artists stoking the crown from trucks.

But what you have with the North American parades is the fascinating spectacle of all the Caribbean nationalities coming together and - in some cases - blending with new cultures to create something new and wonderful in its own right. Caribana has South American and Caribbean elements intertwined. In the Jacksonville carnival there are Colombian, Indian, Chinese and Romanian bands, musicians and food vendors.

"We're not just marketing to Caribbeans," says Jacksonville carnival organiser Theo Jack, a Trinidadian. "We're marketing to the population of Jacksonville. A lot of them have heard about Carnival but they haven't been able to travel. We bring the Caribbean to them."

And there is a large market for Caribbean culture. One of the reasons Lorna Beck felt inspired to plan a carnival parade in Charleston was the success of the reggae festival there.

But getting a carnival up and running isn't easy. Some cities are more accommodating than others. The state and city in Toronto and Brooklyn for instance provide a subvention. But Winston Barclay, the head of Baltimore's Carnival Development Committee, complains of having to find money to pay for security, park rental, electricity, clean up, permits, prizes, and performers. Finding sponsors is a universal problem.

"Carnival was never a profit-making affair,"says Barclay.

For the first-time carnival organiser it's even more difficult.

In November Beck and her team launched Carifest at a restaurant-bar complete with models in glittering costumes. The space was only half filled and no costumes were sold. Recently Beck had some good news. A major Charleston radio station has agreed to sponsor and promote Carifest.

"It's hard; it's frustrating," says Beck of putting together Carifest. "You try and you try, and you feel like you get a lot of doors closed, and the day that you feel like you're going to give up, somebody call you and say I want to order two costumes."

Occasional carny

Skerritt has seen the scenario in other carnivals.

"Many start small," he says, "but they grow, and they grow really fast from year to year."

The success of some inspires the establishment of others, leading to the phenomenon of many carnivals in a relatively small space. Florida has seven carnivals: The cities of Miami and Fort Lauderdale, in neighbouring counties, have one each on the same day. St Petersburg and Tampa, with even fewer miles between them, also have one each. St Petersburg's in early June; Tampa's in late April. Baltimore, Maryland, has two carnivals, in July and September.

Despite the competition for sponsorship dollars and attention from prospective participants, some think there's room for multiple carnivals in the same state, even city, comparing it to the way there are parades in different regions of Trinidad and Tobago on the same day.

"We are a diverse group. There are about 20 Caribbean islands. And even though we are all from the Caribbean, we still have our individualities," says Elaine Simon of the Caribbean-American Association of Baltimore, defending the existence of two West Indian carnival parades in the city. Simon is an Antiguan who broke from Barclay's Trinidadian-dominated association because, she says, it didn't do enough to include the other islands.

But there are signs of over kill.

Trinidadian costume designer Big Mike Antoine, who designs for bands in Barbados, Brooklyn and London, says he's stopped providing his services in Florida. He was having trouble keeping up with all of the carnivals. Because costumes don't sell as well and for as much money outside Trinidad and Tobago, his time is better spent at home, he says.

"I say is no sense that I fighting to come up here when it could be one carnival and everybody put their head to-

gether to make a better carnival," says Antoine. "Why are we having these little pockets on the same day?"

Carnivals are appearing on wobbly legs for a few years before collapsing. The Uniondale, Long Island, carnival - held the week after Brooklyn's - was touch and go since it started in 1999. Now its website is down and the contact number disconnected. Ditto for the Hartford, Connecticut, carnival.

The International Carnival Association, which was set up in 1999 to bring some organisation to carnivals outside the Caribbean, has been moribund. Unrestrained, it seems the carnivals are going to keep coming.

Lourenso Ramautar, a carny photographer who's self-published a book of images from North American carnivals, Mask: The West Indian American Carnival, offers an explanation for the spread.

"Carnival is like food to us," he says. "It's what we're used to eating. We're not going to change from eating pelau.

Webmaster Notes: