Like most students at the University, Leah Wong, accounting senior and founder of the Caribbean Students Association, was looking for a place to fit in.
Wong said Louisiana does not have as many Caribbean-born people as Georgia or Florida, so these students must stick together.
“The very few Caribbean people that were here, we just decided that we needed to start a platform so that new students and incoming freshman could have a support system to transition from life in the Caribbean to how it is here in Louisiana,” Wong said. “Just to have people to depend on, a social support group.”
The club held its first meeting March 19 and hosted members from many Caribbean islands, including Jamaica, Trinidad and Haiti.
Wong said there are many projects in the works from the budding organization. The first will take place at the International Fusion Festival on April 18.
“We have a dance troupe for that, and that’s probably the most fun part about it now,” Wong said. “Because, naturally, being from the Caribbean, you love to dance, and so we practice three times a week, and we’re putting a lot of effort into it.”
CSA also hopes to collaborate with fashion-minded students on campus to create elaborate Caribbean-inspired Carnival costumes.
Wong, who was a fashion major at Savannah College of Art and Design before coming to the University, said she loves fashion but needed a more “practical degree.”
“I know if I go back to the Caribbean, there’s not much you can do with an art degree,” Wong said. “There’s so much more opportunity here in the US. So just to be safe, I did accounting.”
Wong said she also hopes Caribbean students can network and find new job opportunities through the newly founded organization.
The most ambitious of the team’s plans will begin to take shape next semester — the club’s own version of J’ouvert, a Caribbean street party during Carnival, is underway.
Wong said she thinks Louisiana residents will appreciate the colorful and wild party.
But Wong, who is from the Bahamas, is not the first person to start a club for Caribbean students. Wong said she first approached a student in the library with her proposal for the Caribbean club because of his Jamaican accent.
As it turned out, he tried to start a similar organization in 2003 and supported her idea.
“So he went and reached out to some of the Caribbean students he knew, and we kind of all came together,” Wong said.
CSA is open to all students with an interest in Caribbean culture. The club draws many of its members from the International Student Association.
“The Caribbean also has a really large Indian population, surprisingly,” Wong said. “So, we have a lot of people who want to come out and support.”
The club meets every Thursday at 5:30, and like all new clubs on campus, Wong said they are going through the motions of founding a club.
Eventually, CSA hopes to raise enough money to attend the annual conference in Miami.