I took my daughter to the Caribbean Carnival in Miami yesterday.

I knew from the beginning that this would be different for her. In her mind carnival is a place where you go on rides, eat cotton candy and play games.

But this was a Caribbean Carnival, a parade with thousands of masqueraders, steel pan music and Caribbean food.

There were no roller coasters, no candy apples, no cheese fries.

It was a totally new experience for my six-year-old. At times she watched the masqueraders in their huge sequined costumes with pure amazement. She wanted to know about the stilt walkers and how they kept their balance so long. She tried to catch the rhythm of the soca music.

As the sun was going down we shared some jerk chicken and festival, a traditional Jamaican dish.

And I thought about when I was her age and my dad would take me to the West Indian Day parade in Brooklyn. There are pictures of him and I in a sea of strangers. It didn’t matter that we didn’t know many of the people we posed with in pictures. They shared his immigrant experience, and he wanted me to feel like I was a part of that too.

I’m thankful that he exposed me to that side of his culture. As parents, if we don’t expose our kids to their culture who will?

When my daughter and I left the parade yesterday we were hot and tired. I thought maybe I overloaded her with a little too much in one day.

Then I heard her talking to her little cousin last night about all that she saw, and I realized when it comes to culture, there’s no such thing as over-exposure.