Bio

Juanita D. graduated from Loyola University in Maryland with a B.A. in Communications. She is a full-time financial professional. Juanita started modeling at the age of 17 and gained much knowledge of the fashion and beauty industries. Using her experience, in 2016 she founded her a mobile beauty team. Her journalism experience includes serving as editor at Brown Girl Magazine. In her spare time she loves travel blogging and shares tips and inspiration.

Hello and welcome to Caribbean Collective Magazine!

My name is Juanita D. and I was born in Guyana, South America and emigrated with my family to Brooklyn, NY when I was two years old.

Growing up in the United States there was little representation of West Indian women in positions of power, influence and within the beauty and fashion industries. I grew up looking at magazines like Vogue and Teen Vogue.

My vision for this magazine came in 2015 when I started looking for West Indian women’s magazines to subscribe to. I wanted to be able to tap into our community, culture, fashion and beauty. Sadly, no magazines existed to represent us exclusively outside of the Caribbean. I thought to myself “why isn’t there a magazine for us?”

West Indian women living outside of the West Indies find ourselves living with a unique hyphenated identity. Our culture is a fusion of West Indian and American, Canadian or European cultures.

The few platforms and blogs that I did find were dedicated to specific groups within the community. While I saw the benefit of having a niche audience, there was still no platform to represent all ethnicities and the diversity of women within our shared culture. I saw this as an unmet need.

I decided to create a solution. This marks the birth of Caribbean Collective Magazine.

I want West Indian women to look at our magazine as the platform that represents us. CC Mag celebrates our culture, trends, lifestyle and amplifies our voices through the power of storytelling. It is with great excitement and that I welcome you to Caribbean Collective Magazine!