For just over ten years, the Center has striven to cultivate a dynamic rapport with the community it serves by ensuring that its research activities are not executed in a cold isolationist manner. Rather, there has been a deliberate policy of community involvement for social and cultural development.
We accepted the challenge to build on goodwill during this first decade. The outcomes of that goodwill are evidenced in the range, volume and quality of our publications, professional expertise and community outreach: scholarly texts; school texts; collaboration with district, city and the state education authorities on behalf of Caribbean students; a Summer Institute for Teachers; a Parent Empowerment Program; a Beacon Community Project, a Congressional Black Caucus Caribbean Forum; a radio Program, Caribbean Links and Connections; and work with community-based organizations.
The acceptance of that challenge further motivated us to create supporting pillars that will buttress the development of the institution for the next decade and carry it forward into the 21st Century. We have incorporated the Caribbean Diaspora Press, Inc., to take charge of publications. That relationship has produced a variety of publications in the following categories: Education and Culture, Social and Economic Studies, Demographics, Creative Writing and Literary Criticism.
The time has come for a scholarly journal to embrace the diverse body of scholarship and research being produced on the Caribbean immigrant experience in the Americas.
Wadabagei, therefore, intends to occupy new intellectual space, engaging the various "think tanks" of Caribbeanists who are wrestling with policy and development issues across disciplines and throughout the Diaspora.