The Port-of-Spain City Corporation will not celebrate Indian Arrival Day but Arrival Day next month. The public holiday is May 30. Asked about the corporation's plans to commemorate the day, mayor Louis Lee Sing said: "Port-of-Spain will be celebrating Arrival Day." He said those plans would be announced at a later date. Lee Sing was speaking to the media at a press conference yesterday at City Hall, Knox Street, Port-of-Spain. He said he believed the time had come to celebrate Arrival Day and assured there would not be less attention to the East Indian elements of the celebrations. He said: "I hope there will be as much participation by the Indian community but I hope that there will be even increased participation by the other communities in the country to celebrate Arrival Day. Lee Sing said it was unfortunate to have only one section of the community celebrating an arrival day.
He said it was time for citizens to speak out on the issue. He added: "We all arrived here. Some came of their own free will. "There are components of our population who came in bondage... in shackles. When they came here they were stripped of all their culture and all their religion. They were stripped of their wives and families. "Don't they deserve the right to celebrate arrival, even if they came against their will?" Indian immigration to Trinidad spanned the period 1845-1917. Arrival Day was first celebrated in 1994 but was renamed Indian Arrival Day the following year.