; Mervyn Dymally, the first African-American Lieutenant Governor of California and first Caribbean immigrant to serve in Congress, and Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American Congresswoman and first African-American woman candidate for President; Whereas the many influential Caribbean Americans in the history of the United States also include Kamala Harris, the first African-American Vice President; Colin Powell, the first African-American Secretary of State; Eric Holder, the first African-American Attorney General; Karine Jean-Pierre, the first African-American White House Press Secretary; Patrick Gaspard, labor union organizer and social justice advocate; Lieutenant General Vincent Stewart, the first Black director of the Defense Intelligence Agency; Sandra Lindsay, a nurse in Queens, New York and the first person in the United States to receive a COVID–19 vaccine; Robert Rashford, an internationally known aerospace engineer and coinventor of the single person spacecraft; Harry Belafonte, a legendary musician, actor, and activist; and Sir Sydney Poitier, the first Black actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor, film director, and diplomat; Whereas Caribbean Americans have played an active role in the civil rights movement and other social and political movements in the United States; Whereas Caribbean Americans have contributed to every aspect of our society, including greatly to the fine arts, education, business, literature, journalism, sports, fashion, politics, government, the military, music, science, medicine, engineering, technology, and other fields in the United States; Whereas Caribbean Americans share their culture through festivals, carnivals, music, dance, film, food, and literature, which enrich the cultural landscape of the United States; Whereas the countries of the Caribbean are important economic partners of the United States