The Study of Racialism

Between Race and Ethnicity: Cape Verdean American Immigrants, 1860-1965 (Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Centennial)
by Marilyn Halter

Finished reading this book some time ago. It profiles the lives of Cape Verdean immigrants, the largest voluntary African immigrant group in this country from the late 19th to the late 20th centuries.

The book also addresses how the immigrants- a people of diverse racial origins-negotiated the color line in the U.S.


http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0252063260/qid=1114483327/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/102-4781213-2913747?v=glance&s=books

We had a Cape Verdean storyteller as a featured speaker at the annual Florida Storytelling Camp a few years ago. At the time, I knew nothing about this ethnic group in the U.S., but I resolved to learn about them. Your message roused my curiosity again, so I ordered a copy of Between Race and Ethnicity. It just came in. As soon as I finish it, I shall share my thoughts here.

Thanks.

What was his name? There is a Cape Verdean storyteller who has dreadlocks. I can't remember his name. The last name might have been Andrade. I'm wondering if that might be the person you are referring to.

BTW, there are have been some famous Cape Verdean Americans: baseball playet Davey Lopes, Jazz musicians Horace Silver (born Horacio Silva) and Paul Gonsalves, and Latin Jazz percussionist John Santos (Puerto Rican mother Cape Verdean father).

There was a very good article in the L.A. Times some five years ago written by a Cape Verdean American journalist who visits Cape Verde. He related his own experiences dealing with a place not quite African but not quite Portuguese either. I'll see if I can find it.

His name was Len Cabral and he definitely had dreadlocks. He was very good.

That would be very nice, thank you. I would appreciate it.

Marilyn Halter, Between Race and Ethnicity: Cape Verdean American Immigrants, 1860-1965 (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1993), xix, 213 , [8] of plates, bibliographical references (p. 187-207), index.

According to Halter, the descendants of immigrants from the Cape Verde islands, “represent the only major community of Americans of African descent (albeit of mixed ancestry) to have voluntarily made the transatlantic voyage to the United States.” (p. 1) The book sheds light on the immigration history and traditions of this ethnic group. Its focus is on the group solidarity that supported members’ self-identity as being Cape Verdeans of Portuguese culture and Roman Catholic religion, and only incidentally as enjoying a wide range of Afro-European genetic admixture. Halter contrasts this self-image with the American perception that these immigrants were simply Black, even the blonde, fair-skinned ones. The book comprises five chapters plus an introduction.

The first chapter describes the author’s methodology of tracing immigration through passenger-ship manifests. The major challenge that she faced was that census and immigration records seldom record the Verdean presence. Although nearly 20,000 Verdeans came to New Bedford between 1890 and 1924 (when immigration became forbidden), they are invisible in the official records. Some contemporary government records put them down as “Portuguese” arrivals, since the Cape Verde archipelago was a Portuguese possession until 1975, and do not capture the immigrants’ wide-ranging “racial” appearance. This conflates their data with immigrants from Portugal. Other official documents of the time record them as, simply “black,” with no record of their ethnicity, thus lumping them in with Africans. The authorÂ’s solution was based on the discovery that hundreds of passenger manifests from the ships that brought the Verdeans have survived. Halter has thereby revealed the true size and demographics of this wave of immigration.

The second chapter narrates the history and background of the Verdean immigration. The islands were uninhabited until the Portuguese landed in the mid-1400s because they lack sufficient rainfall for crops. Portugal used the islands as a staging area for the slave trade and also tried (and failed) to establish a slave-labor plantation economy. As in other Iberian colonies, Verdean slaves were often manumitted as reward for good behavior and routinely freed by upon their master’s death. As in other Iberian colonies, there was little stigma attached to having slave ancestry and so the islands quickly developed a large and socially active population of former slave descendants. As in other Iberian colonies, there was no endogamous color line and so within a few generations the population developed the bell-shaped phenotype distribution typical of former Iberian colonies, where a few individuals look African, a similar fraction look European, and the great majority have an appearance somewhere in-between, their “race” being in the eye (or the ideology) of the beholder.

Portugal essentially abandoned the colony when the slave trade collapsed. The arid climate caused regular crop failures and, for generations, the islands were periodically swept by deadly famines. Then, in the 1880s, whaling ships out of New Bedford began stopping in the islands to replenish and they often hired locals as seamen. When the men returned home after their voyages, they told of New Bedford as a place where people could survive, even make a living. This sparked a 30-year stream of immigration that resulted in Massachusetts’ Verdean ethnic group.

Chapter three describes life and work in the rural cranberry industry, the migrant-laborer niche into which most Verdean immigrants fell. Chapter four tells of the relatively fewer Verdeans who moved into the cities and found work in textile mills.

Despite the book’s title (which implies an end in 1965), its final chapter tells how the Verdean community was finally split into mutually endogamous Black and White branches consequent to the 1965-75 militant Black Power movement. The White branch became accepted as of Portuguese ethnicity; the Blacks were absorbed into the African-American ethnic community.

On the plus side, Halter rightly directs attention to patterns of intermarriage as the bellwether of social acceptance. For most of their history, the Verdeans were strongly endogamous, even showing marriage preference for spouses from the same island of the archipelago. Out-marriage from the group, when it happened, was almost invariably with a spouse of Portuguese ethnicity—never with U.S. Blacks or Whites. “Marriage to an American Black at that time often meant social isolation from family and friends. ... ‘Sometimes Cape Verdean men married Azorean women. The women would be assimilated. After a while you’d forget they were from the Azores.’” [p. 84]

To me, Halter’s most insightful and revealing finding is the gendering of the Verdeans’ socially channeled nostalgia. The music, dance, poetry, and literature of Verdean culture focused on longing for the homeland, the beauty of the islands that they left behind. The sentiment was evidently authentic. When Verdean men retired, they often bought property in the islands, to live out their twilight years and eventually to be buried there. What is interesting is that Halter finds that female traditions, in letters, diaries, and personal interviews, as well as more formal literary modes, flatly contradicted the male longing. Most women, it seems, were glad to be rid of a place where so many children starved during the periodic famines.

A very minor quibble that I have is Halter’s questionable translation of a line from the morna (nostalgic folksong) “Nha Destino.” The original verse (in Verdean Crioulo) is:

Bai terra longe/
É distino di home/
É distino sem nome/
Qui no tem qui cumpri.

In classical Portugese, this would be:
Vai [Ir] longe da terra/
É destino do homen/
É destino sem nome /
Que nos temos que cumprir.

In English, this would be:
To go far from one’s land/
Is the destiny of a man/
It is the nameless fate/
That we must all obey.

Halter translates the stanza as “It is a Cape Verdean destiny to go far away from his land [italics Halter’s].” She says that, “by implication, what is being left is female.” While I agree that the verse is strongly gendered, to mistranslate “E distino di home” as “his land” rather than “the destiny of a man” weakens the very point she is trying to make.

I have a more serious reservation towards one of Halter’s conclusions. Her evidence shows that, for decades, White society tried to split the Verdeans into White and Black, presumably so that they could be assimilated into the corresponding U.S. endogamous groups. Despite government coercion, this effort failed and the group remained strong. Her evidence also shows that increasing Black violence demanding the assimilation of dark Verdeans into the African-American community accomplished in a few years what White society had failed to do over generations. From this evidence Halter concludes that it was White society that split the Verdeans.

My final complaint is that the book offers little causal analysis of the splitting of Verdean multiracial self-identity into Black and White. Why did this group withstand constant social pressure and repeated government enforcement of the U.S. endogamous color line for nearly a century before finally caving in? As mentioned, halter suggests that the 1965-75 Black Power phase of the civil rights movement was the final blow. But this simply raises several questions. Compare the Verdeans with similar groups: Why did Verdean multiracial ethnic solidarity not collapse into Black and White during the Jim Crow era, as happened to the Louisiana Creoles? Why did it not resist splitting until the 1980s, as with the Ramapo Mountain people. Why is it not coming unglued before our very eyes even as we speak, as with Caribbean Hispanics? For that matter, why did it not continue to survive to this day, as strong as ever, as with the North Carolina Lumbees or the Tennessee Melungeons? Of course, these were not questions that Halter set out to answer. What she set out to do was uncover the facts about a previously invisible multiracial ethnic group, a task that she accomplishes very well indeed. Comparative analysis of why some multiracial ethnicities survive intact while others split into Black and White, remains neglected.

All in all, this is an interesting and useful book about a little-known multiracial ethnicity. It belongs on the shelf next to:

• Karen I. Blu, The Lumbee Problem: The Making of an American Indian People (Cambridge UK: Cambridge University, 1980)
• David Steven Cohen, The Ramapo Mountain People (New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University, 1974)
• N. Brent Kennedy, The Melungeons, The Resurrection of a Proud People: An Untold Story of Ethnic Cleansing in America (Macon: Mercer University, 1997)
• Don C. Marler, Redbones of Louisiana (Hemphill TX: Dogwood, 2003)
• Wayne Winkler, Walking Toward the Sunset: The Melungeons of Appalachia (Macon GA: Mercer University, 2004)

Does anyone remember the 1983 pool table gang rape in Big Dan's, a New Bedford, MA bar? It was national news for many months. Both the victim and the rapists were described as "Portuguese" and the local Portuguese community rallied behind the rapists. I remember newspaper accounts of the time speaking of the community as both Portuguese and Cape Verdean. It sounded as if the Cade Verdeans and Portuguese were well integrated. No discrimination was mentioned. I remember seeing the accused rapists on television; they had BIG AFROS.




http://groups.msn.com/CentralParkattacks/reference.msnw?action=get_message&mview=0&ID_Message=219&LastModified=4675319990879383489


http://www.projo.com/specials/century/month10/mass7.htm

I recall the event. I do not recall noticing whether the Portuguese included Verdeans because, at the time, I was not aware of any such difference. In my mind, back then, anyone who spoke Portuguese was either Portuguese or Brazilian.

What I recall most vividly was a TV scene of an angry crowd, mainly middle-aged females, in front a courthouse. The TV woman on camera was saying into a microphone that the crowd was supporting the victim and shouting curses at the perpetrators. In fact, what the demonstrators behind the newscaster were screaming over and over in Portuguese was "She deserved what she got!" I recall saying to MaryLee that the TV crew had no clue about what was going on, but I predicted that as soon as someone told them, they would drop the story. Persecution of a victim by a community of TV viewers is not newsworthy.

Another reason that Halter gives in her gender chapter for why women were less nostalgic than men is that they had no rights in Verdean (or Portuguese) society. Their parents or husbands had ultimate power over them. In the 'States they could at least hope for some personal dignity and human rights.

http://www.s-t.com/daily/05-01/05-20-01/d01sr096.htm


Cultural identity in focus

By John Doherty, Standard-Times staff writer
BROCKTON -- If your mother is light-skinned and looks Portuguese, and your father is darker, and African-looking, but they are both from the same island nation, how do you identify yourself in America?
That's been a burning question for this area's Cape Verdeans ever since they began arriving in this country.
Yesterday, at Common Threads II, a conference at West Junior High School designed to strengthen the area's growing Cape Verdean population, speakers and residents revisited the question of what it means to be Cape Verdean in America.
In a slide presentation and anecdotes from speakers, more than 100 area residents celebrated the successes and history of Cape Verdean-Americans.
But despite those successes, residents say the entire community wrestles with a cultural identity dilemma that stems from the islands' diversity.
In America, where race is largely defined as a matter of black and white, immigrants -- and especially children of immigrants -- face tough choices.
One panel yesterday explored the dynamic nature of Cape Verdean identity.
Led by retired Eastern Nazarene College professor and Brava island native Arthur Lomba, speakers young and old talked about the difficulty of defining and redefining what it is to be one of the 400,000 Cape Verdeans living in the United States.
"It is one of the most controversial and divisive topics in the world, because it involves race and color, and because we live in one of the most racist societies on Earth," said Benjamin Silva, director of bilingual education in Brockton. That city has joined New Bedford and Pawtucket, R.I., as a top destination for Cape Verdeans moving to America.
Fellow panelist Joao Rosa said the older generations of Cape Verdean-Americans have little difficulty defining their identity simply in terms of their island homeland. It is the younger Cape Verdeans who vacillate between identifying with African-American culture and dominant white European mainstream.
As immigrants, most young Cape Verdeans feel outside mainstream American culture. But as they also lose touch with their native language in difficult bilingual education systems, many drift to other identities.
"Young Cape Verdeans are joining a lot with African-American culture because they need some transitional resistance to the mainstream," said Mr. Rosa, who teaches at Brockton High School.
Maria Martins, a social worker, said that despite her dark skin -- "I would never say I'm not black" -- she said she feels uncomfortable sharing in African-American identity.
"I haven't experienced what they've experienced," she said.
Many speakers yesterday talked about the ease and comfort that the first American communities adopted by Cape Verdean immigrants gave them.
New Bedford emerged as a clear epicenter of the Cape Verdean community in America.
One speaker remarked that he had never experienced real racial discrimination until he grew up and left New Bedford.
But some believe the so-called cultural identity crisis is something imposed outside the Cape Verdean community.
Mr. Lomba said one tragedy of the Cape Verdean experience has been the large disconnect, even within families, as lighter-skinned Cape Verdeans threw their lot in with mainstream culture and "disappeared" into Anglo-America.
In turn, darker Cape Verdeans found it easier to become absorbed in African-American culture, leaving the Cape Verdean heritage almost altogether.
"You end up living a nonauthentic reality," Mr. Lomba said.
Other discussions at yesterday's conference included the health concerns of Cape Verdeans and financial investment strategies.
Among those in attendance were U.S. ambassador to Cape Verde H.H. Michael Metelits, U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., New Bedford Mayor Frederick M. Kalisz Jr., Brockton Mayor John Yunits and the consulate general of Cape Verde, Arlindo Gomes.

I remember the big, really big afros on at least two of the accused. Some of them were deported I believe. The men you mention could have been Portuguese.

As far as how the two communities interact, whatever integration exists between the two could be due to skin color. The lighter Cape Verdeans being more accepted by the Portuguese.

An aquaintance of mine who was a substitute teacher for a time in that area (Boston, New Bedford, Rhode Island), told me that the Portuguese and Cape Verdean children in the early grades often befriended one another. He wasn't sure if they remained friends as they got older, though.

He did mention that he came across a few Cape Verdeans who were married to Puerto Ricans in the area. He surmised that in their own way they were both Latino and had more in common with each other culturally than either had with local blacks or whites.

Below is a link to the Cape Verdean Heritage on Natucket Exhibition. To the left are some good links to articles and pictures dealing with the Cape Verdean experience in Nantucket, Rhode Island.

http://www.nha.org/library/whitneygallery/jag/index.html