Learning from Cape Verdean Experience
by John W. Franklin and Peter Seitel, Smithsonian Institution
The Cape Verdean Connection Program provides an opportunity
to experience a culture that blends West African and Portuguese
elements in unique and moving ways. It also provides a clear
perspective on two important aspects of how culture is understood
and made part of public discourse at the end of the 20th century.
One is the idea of transnationalism - in a sense, the way that
culture and community can be seen to be independent of
territorial boundaries. The other is the opening of national
institutions like the Smithsonian to new cultural needs.
Cape Verdean culture is produced on both sides of the
Atlantic, in communities in the Cape Verde Islands and in New
England, California, the Netherlands, France, Senegal, Argentina,
and elsewhere. Transnationalism in Cape Verdean society is
determined, to be sure, in part by historical and environmental
imperatives of dramatic proportions. But this condition is not
completely unique. There are many other culture bearing groups
whose members find it necessary for survival to export their
labor and themselves to another country, building new lives there
but also sending support and maintaining ties to their old
country through a variety of social and cultural organizations.
This transnational aspect of cultural production is quite evident
among Caribbean peoples residing in the United States, among
Indians and Pakistanis worldwide, among Chinese groups, and among
Eastern European nationalities.
Related cultures are often understood with a genetic model
in which related groups are compared as offspring of an ancestral
culture, their separate development explaining cultural
differences. But cultural relationships between such communities
may sometimes be understood more concretely as having an
institutional basis. Cape Verdeans maintain ties through Cape
Verdean-owned ships and shipping companies; family remittances
and other economic exchange, such as banking and investments in
the home country; print and electronic media that disseminate
news of the communities; political parties, which were active in
the anticolonial struggle and continue in postindependence
politics; and international musical touring circuits and Cape
Verdean-owned recording companies that are firmly grounded in
Cape Verdean traditional musical genres. These are among this
community's tools for cultural survival in a transcontinental
context.
It is also significant that Cape Verdean American committees raised a substantial portion of the funds necessary for the Cape
Verdean Connection program. In sponsoring the program, the Cape
Verdean Americans are not only "discovering" the Smithsonian
-that is, planting a Cape Verdean cultural flag and gaining
international attention for their magnificent cultural
achievements. They are also following Cape Verdean independence
leader Amilcar Cabral, known as the "Founder of Cape Verdean
Nationality," by using institutional means to establish a unified
yet richly diverse culture as the bedrock upon which to build a
Cape Verdean identity - one that can help its bearers work
together to meet the challenges presented by Cape Verdean history and its environment. The Festival, and the Smithsonian of which
it is part, have become an open forum for this kind of cultural
exploration and discussion.
References and Suggested Readings
Abshire, David, and Michael Samuels, eds. 1969. Portuguese
Africa: A Handbook. New York: Praeger.
Almeida, Raymond A. 1978. Cape Verdeans In America: Our Story.
Boston: TCHUBA-American Committee for Cape Verde.
Araujo, Norman. 1966. A Study of Cape Verdean Literature.
Chestnut Hill, Mass.: Boston College.
Bailyn, Bernard. 1955. The New England Merchants in the 17th
Century. Cambridge: Harvard University.
Brooks, George. 1993. Landlords and Strangers. Boulder: Westview.
Cabral, Amilcar. 1973. Return to the Source. New York: Africa
Information Service.
______. 1979. Unity and Struggle. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Carreira, Antonio. 1982. The People of the Cape Verde Islands:
Exploitation and Emigration, trans. and ed. Christopher Fyfe. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books.
______. 1983. Formao e Extino de uma Sociedade Escravotata,
1460-1878. Praia, Cape Verde: Instituto Caboverdeano de Livro.
DaCruz, Eutropoio Lima. 1981. Cape Verde and Its Music. The
Courier 68:77-80.
Davidson, Basil. 1989. The Fortunate Isles: A Study in African Transformation. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press.
Duncan, T. Bentley. 1971. The Atlantic Islands: Madeira, the
Azores and the Cape Verdes in the Seventeenth-Century Commerce
and Navigation. Chicago: University of Chicago.
Ellen, Maria M., ed. 1988. Across the Atlantic: An Anthology of
Cape Verdean Literature. North Dartmouth, Mass.: Center for the
Portuguese Speaking World, University of Massachusetts.
Foy, Colm. 1988. Cape Verde: Politics, Economics and Society.
London: Pinter Publishers.
Halter, Marilyn. 1993. Between Race and Ethnicity: Cape Verdean
American Immigrants, 1860-1965. Chicago: University of Illinois.
Hamilton, Russell G. 1975. Voices from an Empire: A History of
Afro-Portuguese Literature. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota.
Hayden, Robert C. 1993. African-Americans & Cape
Verdean-Americans in New Bedford: A History of Community and
Achievement. Boston: Select Publications.
Hohman, Elmo P. 1928. The American Whalemen. New York: Longmans,
Green & Co.
Lobban, Richard. 1995. Cape Verde: Crioulo Colony to Independent
Nation. Boulder: Westview.
Lobban, Richard, and Marilyn Halter. 1988. Historical Dictionary
of the Republic of Cape Verde. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow.
Lobban, Richard, and Trudi Coli. 1990. Cape Verdeans in Rhode
Island. Providence: Rhode Island Historical Preservation and
Heritage Commission.
Lomba, Arthur. 1980. The Role of Cape Verdean Culture in
Education. In Issues in Portuguese Bilingual Education, ed.
Donaldo P. Macedo. Cambridge: National Assessment and
Dissemination Center for Bilingual/Bicultural Education.
Lopes, Baltasar. 1947. Chiquinho. So Vicente, Cape Verde:
Claridade.
Macedo, Donaldo. 1980. A Lingua Caboverdiana na Educao
Bilingue. In Issues in Portuguese Bilingual Education, ed.
Donaldo P. Macedo. Cambridge: National Assessment and
Dissemination Center for Bilingual/Bicultural Education.
Meintel, Deidre. 1984. Race, Culture and Portuguese Colonialism
in Cabo Verde. Syracuse: Syracuse University.
Moser, Gerald. 1969. Essays in Portuguese-African Literature.
University Park, Penn.: The Pennsylvania State University.
Nunes, Maria Luisa. 1976. A Different Vision of a New England
Childhood: The Cape Verdean Experience on Cape Cod. In Women in Portuguese Society: Proceedings of the Second Annual Symposium the Portuguese Experience in the United States. Fall River,
Mass.: National Assessment and Dissemination Center.
______ 1982. A Portuguese Colonial in America: Belmira Nunes Lopes, the Autobiography of a Cape Verdean-American. Pittsburgh:
LatClews. 1923.
Folk-Lore from the Cape Verde
Islands. 2 vols. Cambridge: The American Folk-Lore Society.
Pereira, Daniel A. 1986. Estudes da Histria de Cabo Verde.
Praia, Cape Verde: Instituto Caboverdiano do Livro.
Pires, Joo, and John Hutchinson. 1983. Disionariu Preliminariu
Kriolu (Preliminary Creole Dictionary) Cape Verdean/English. 1st
ed. Boston.
Rogers, Francis. 1980. Cape Verdeans. Harvard Encyclopedia of
American Ethnic Groups, ed. Stephan Thernstrom. Cambridge:
Harvard University.
Romano, Lus. 1970. Cabo Verde Renascen¿' de uma Civilza¿' no
Atlntico Mdio. Lisbon: Edio da Revista "Ocidente."
Sanderdon, Evan T. 1956. Follow the Whale. Boston: Little, Brown
& Co.
Seroantropologia das Ilhas de Cabo Verde. 1960. Lisbon: Institute
for Overseas Research.
Silva, Baltazar Lopes da. 1957. O Dialecto Crioulo de Cabo Verde.
Lisbon: Ancia Geral do Ultramar.
______. 1960. Antologia da Fic Cabo-Verdiana Contemporanea.
Praia, Cape Verde: Imprensa Nacional.
Other Information Sources
Special Collections, Adams Library, Rhode Island College,
Providence, Rhode Island.
African Studies Collection, Mugar Library, Boston University,
Boston, Massachusetts.
Cape Verdean Immigration Collection, Genealogy Room, New Bedford
Free Public Library, New Bedford, Massachusetts.
World Wide Web, Cape Verdean Home Page - URL: HTTP://WWW.UMASSD.EDU/SPECIAL PROGRAMS/CAPEVERDEAN.HMTL(in development by Richard Leary et al., University of
Massachusetts, North Dartmouth, Massachusetts).
Suggested Listening
Cape Verde: Anthology 1959-1992. Buda, France.Cape Verde Islands: the Roots. Playa Sound, France.
Pina, Frank de. Ansiedade. Own label.
Evora, Cesaria. Cesaria. Lusafrica/Melodie, France.
______. Mar Azul. Lusafrica/Melodie, France.
______. Miss Perfumado. Lusafrica/Melodie, France.
Funana Dance. Melodie, France.
Lobo, Mirri. Paranoia. MB Records.
Mendes Brothers. Palonkon. MB Records.
Music from Cape Verde. Caprice Records, Sweden.
Musiques du Monde: Cap Vert. Buda, France.
Serra, Chico. Piano Bar of Mindelo. Buda, France.
Tavares, Norberto. Jornada di un Badiu. Lusafrica/Melodie,
France.
Travadinha. Le Violon de Cap Vert. Buda, France.