South Florida’s City of Miramar brought down the curtains on its month-long Caribbean-American Heritage celebrations with the Taste of the Caribbean Islands festival—which featured, food, fun, arts, crafts, and live music entertainment. Hosted by at Vizcaya Park by Miramar’s Vice Mayor, Alexandra P. Davis, this was the Third Annual happening of this great event, which afforded patrons the chance to fully immerse themselves in all things Caribbean. In that spirit, chefs from all over the Caribbean were on hand to serve up their most delectable island dishes, while giving live cooking demos. What’s more, the event featured a tribute to Harry Belafonte—Jamaica’s iconic singer, actor, and activist—as well as a festive celebratory segment in respect to the 50th year of independence for the beautiful island of the Bahamas. The Taste of the Caribbean Islands festival was certainly a good vibe as evidenced by patrons to the event actively milling around while chatting and catching up with friends.
Ranked as Florida’s 14th largest city, Miramar boasts roughly 150,000 residents and is located in South Florida where many thousands of Jamaicans and folks of Jamaican heritage reside. Needless to say, Jamaican and cuisine of the Caribbean diaspora are ubiquitous in the region—with hundreds Jamaican restaurants, bakeries, and shops at one’s finger tips. What’s more, Jamaicans are arguably the largest immigrant group in Broward County—in which the City of Miramar is located along with some other South Florida cities with “nuff” Jamaicans, most notably, Lauderhill, North Lauderdale, Plantation and Pembroke Pines.
By Day – Food, Fun, Arts, and Crafts
By Night – Live Entertainment from Top Acts in Caribbean Music
The musical vibes at the 2023 Taste of the Caribbean Islands certainly came alive in the early evening and beyond courtesy of the Moko Jumbies, the Junkanoo Band, Gianpaul & Latin Soul Band, and Jamaica’s Singing Melody. Also on the bill of artists in the run-up to the event were Causion (Antigua & Barbuda); Nadia Batson (Trinidad & Tobago); and Florida based Code Red Band (Jamaica). The emcee duties for the live entertainment segment were expertly handled by Jody-Ann Gray.
Bahamas’s very own, Julien Believe, took to the stage set to deliver several of his bouncy hits, including ‘She Got That Junkanoo’. The audience surely knew that song very well and vibed along with Julien while singing the lyrics word-for-word.
Photos by Nick Ford
