Short answers, pulled from the story.
As of 2016, about 13 million people in the United States, roughly 4 percent of the total U.S. population, have Caribbean ancestry. The largest single Caribbean American ancestry group is Puerto Rican, with 5,588,664 people counted in the 2016 census.
Juan Rodriguez, from Santo Domingo, became the first non-indigenous person to settle in what was then called New Amsterdam in 1613. His arrival predates the founding of the United States by more than 160 years.
National Caribbean American Heritage Month was first officially observed in June 2006. The House of Representatives unanimously adopted H. Con. Res. 71 on the 27th of June, 2005, sponsored by Congresswoman Barbara Lee. President George W. Bush issued the formal presidential proclamation on the 5th of June, 2006.
Florida and New York have the largest concentrations of West Indian immigrants. As of 2016, Florida had 549,722 foreign-born West Indian residents and New York had 490,826. Miami, New York City, Boston, and Orlando have the highest percentages of non-Hispanic West Indian Americans among major cities.
About half of the population of the New Orleans area is estimated to have at least distant partial Haitian ancestry, stemming from a migration wave tied to the Haitian Revolution between the late 1700s and 1850. Haitian arrivals influenced Louisiana Voodoo and the Louisiana Creole language, and the Haitian Revolution itself contributed to France's decision to sell the Louisiana territory to the United States.
Caribbean people introduced a wide range of musical forms to the United States, including bachata, calypso, compas, dancehall, merengue, reggae, reggaeton, salsa, ska, soca, and zouk, among others. Caribbean Americans also played a formative role in the development of Hip Hop music and culture in New York City.