NYC Gazette

Ingrid Lewis-Martin, Chief Advisor to the Mayor: So, it's indeed an honor for me to be here and talk over your voices, as we celebrate Caribbean Heritage Month in Gracie Mansion. It's indeed an honor for me to do what I always do and that is to present to you someone who has been a friend of the Caribbean community for as long as I can remember and I've known him for quite a long time. Someone who has been there to work in partnership with you, with me, to ensure that ... Yes, I am Caribbean. My family's Bajan and Panamanian so you already know. You already know ... To ensure that our issues are addressed and our voices are heard.

So without any further ado, it's indeed an honor for me to once again talk over your voices as I present to you, our 110th mayor, Eric Adams. So come on, put your hands together. You all got to show the man some love.

Mayor Eric Adams: Oh, man. This is clearly the largest celebration, heritage celebration we had under this tent, I believe, as I look outside. And it is just really great to have you here to be a part of this amazing experience.

When you look at your contributions to this entire city and country, so much has been accomplished from my years with this community and being the Brooklyn Borough President, and your contribution, particularly during the most difficult times our city has experienced during Covid. In our hospitals our first responders was clearly part of the Caribbean diaspora, how you stood up for this country when it was needed. And I see you in the Caribbean community all in my administration. Two of my deputy mayors are from the Caribbean. They are two of the powerhouses in our administration. But you see in all parts of our government, you played a vital role of allowing me to become the man. I just want to personally say thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

And I want to thank the consul general who has joined us and I don't know where George Holtz is. Right here. George is always there for all of our communities. Thank you so much, George, and EmblemHealth. And Hazra called me up. She stated that we did big events in Brooklyn Borough Hall. It's time to bring it to Gracie Mansion and so she's bringing it to Gracie Mansion in a real way. We need to party so loud that they got to call the police on us for having so much fun.

So we have the consul general and community leaders, elected leaders, and distinguished guests. I know my good friend, Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar, just won a major victory with Diwali. And we are proud of all that we have accomplished in this administration. We used the theme, Get Stuff Done. We want every New Yorker to know they matter in general, but specifically those who are part of our Caribbean industry.

On June 29, 2023, [inaudible], you got a fan out there, a glass of wine, do anything. Listen, we want to honor some of the folks and I just want to go over some of the honorees we want to honor on June 29, 2023. We going to be bringing them up. Patricia Chin in 1979 along with her husband, Vincent Randy Chin, co-founded VP Records, an independent label for reggae and dance hall music in Jamaica, Queens. They continue to grow. Let's just give it up for them. Let's give them a round, a hand of applause.

We also want to honor Michael Manswell, Something Positive incorporation, one of Brooklyn's Black dance kings. Michael is an artistic director, teacher, artist, choreographer and singer. We're going to bring him up also give him an honoree.

And we want to make sure we continue the success that we have throughout the years. This journey has been amazing with this community and let's continue to move forward. We have so much more to do and so much more we want to accomplish. Together we will accomplish those things and together we're going to find some of the major solutions that are facing us. So I want to just again thank you so much. Let's bring up our honorees and let's have a good time tonight.

Give it up for our first honoree, Patricia Chin. 

And the next honoree is Michael Manswell. Give it up for him for all of his work. Looking like a million bucks.

Excellent. Give it up for both of them.

Original source can be found here.