Cape Verdean American

Cape Verdean American

Ryan Gomes • Wayne Fontes Horace Silver • Tony Gonzalez
Total population
90,828 (2009 American Community Survey)<
Regions with significant populations
Massachusetts, Rhode Island.
Languages
English, Portuguese, Cape Verdean Creole (Mixture of Portuguese and West African)
Religion
Christianity

A Cape Verdean American is a American person whose ancestors were Cape Verdean. Also known by that name to people from Cape Verde who have American citizenship.

Immigration waves

Cape Verdean immigration to the United States began in the early 19th century. The first Cape Verdean immigrants arrived aboard New England whaling ships, which would often pick up crewmen off the coast of Cape Verde. Yankee captains valued Cape Verdeans as crews, because they “worked hard to save what they could while on board vessel they could be hired for much less money than American seamen. Furthermore, they made a disciplined crew.”

The Cape Verdeans were universally regarded as "hardworking, honest seamen."(17) When all others abandoned the old sailing ships, the Cape Verdeans bought the decrepit vessels out of their earnings as seamen and kept patching them up with loving care. Eventually, they came to own almost all that remained of the New Bedford fleet, either by purchase or by default. In some cases, they received the ships as outright gifts and "sailed them all over the earth with their own crews and made a modest profit by whaling in the old and tried manner."

This Cape Verdean immigration “trickle” grew to a “flood” in the 20th century as Cape Verde suffered drought, starvation, and economic decline. Once on whaling ships and in America, Cape Verdean men were able to send money and news of other family and friends already in “the land of opportunity.” They also sent bidons (gasoline barrels) full of food, clothes, and other items from New Bedford, Massachusetts, and Providence, Rhode Island. The latter are the oldest and largest Cape Verdean communities in the United States. These communities and new Cape Verdean communities are marked by close kinship ties and interdependence among families, a traditional Cape Verdean practice that has been passed down through the generations.

Many Cape Verdeans worked in the cranberry bogs for the cranberry industry in Southeastern Massachusetts.

Cape Verdean migration to the United States in the 19th century and early 20th century was composed of the islands' poorer classes. In 1922, the U.S. government restricted the immigration of peoples of color, greatly reducing Cape Verdean immigration. The new regulations also prevented Cape Verdean Americans from visiting the islands for fear being denied reentry to the United States. The two communities thus were relatively isolated from each other for approximately 40 years. With doors to America closed, Cape Verdeans began to immigrate in larger numbers to Europe, South America, and West Africa along routes charted by commercial shipping and the Portuguese colonial empire. During the same period some Cape Verdean Americans migrated from the long-established East Coast communities to the steel towns of Ohio and Pennsylvania; and to California.

In 1966, due to the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, the U.S. government relaxed its regulations, and a new wave of Cape Verdean immigration began. The new arrivals in Boston, Brockton, Taunton and Scituate, Massachusetts, Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Waterbury, Connecticut, Brooklyn, and Yonkers, New York, and other communities on the East Coast met a Cape Verdean-American ethnic group whose members looked like them, but differed culturally. Separated for so long, the groups knew little of each other's recent history or treasured memories.

Areas

Cape Verdean immigration continues to this day. Dorchester, Massachusetts, Brockton, Massachusetts, Taunton, Massachusetts, New Bedford, Massachusetts and Pawtucket, Rhode Island are the fastest growing new immigrant communities in the United States.

There are an estimated 500,000 Cape Verdean immigrants and their descendents living in the United States, according to a June 2007 New York Times article. Cape Verdean Americans reside mostly in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Some Cape Verdeans also settled in the Midwestern states, and the states of Florida and California.^{[citation needed]}

Famous people

Some notable Cape Verdean-Americans include:

• Demetrius Andrade
• Vladine Biosse
• Michael Beach
• Stephen Cooper
• Wayne Fontes
• Ryan Gomes
• Dana Barros
• Tony Gonzalez
• Paul Gonsalves
• Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes
• Vinny deMacedo
• Dave Leitao
• Davey Lopes
• Dana Mohler-Faria
• Paul Pena
• Horace Silver
• David Soares
• Charles D. Smith
• Cynthia Barboza
• Glenn Pires
• Amber Rose (model)
• Tavares Brothers
• Charles Manuel Grace
• George Leighton
• Peter Gomes
• Andrea J. Cabral
• Gordon D. Fox
• "Pebbles" (born Susan Semedo)

State Totals

Numbers and Percentage

• Massachusetts 52,753 (0.7%)
• Rhode Island 17,685 (1.5%)
• Connecticut 4,270 (0.1%)
• Florida 3,554 (0.1%)

Further reading

• Bishop, Marlon; Halter, Marilyn, "Diaspora Encounters: Kriolu in New England, the Cape Verdean-American Story", Afropop Worldwide, Hip Deep edition. Marlon Bishop’s interview with scholar Marilyn Halter. 2009.

External links

• Tchuba, the American Committee for Cape Verde, 1978. "Cape Verdeans in America: Our Story." Schooner Ernestina, Official Vessel of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Retrieved May 5, 2005
• SPIA Media Productions, Inc. "Cape Verde History and Culture." Retrieved May 5, 2005
• National Park Service. "African American Sailors in the Union Navy from Cape Verde." Retrieved December 4, 2005.
• FORCV.com: Cape Verdean Immigrant community News and information webpage
• The Cape Verdean-American Home Page
• Cape Verdean Culture
• History of the Schooner Ernestina
• Cape Verde and Cape Verdeans in the U.S.
• Portuguese Family Histories - Cabo Verde/Cape Verde
• Cape Verde Embassy in the United States
• Cape Verdean Veterans