3 Home Life

Section label:

Come right in—have you eaten yet? Anyone entering a Cape Verdean Fox Point home would be greeted in this way, as everyone was welcome and there was always food on the table. But the home was more than a quick meal. Values and traditions were articulated through décor, food, language, and the fluidity with which every member of the community could move through their neighbors’ houses. After all, neighbors were often family, too.

While some families owned their own home, many rented apartment units in the same building as family and friends. Nobody needed a key, just a love for Creole music and a bowl of machupa.

Object labels:

Hey guys, I've uploaded mine for now. I'm probably going to work on them more tomorrow, especially b/c I'm not happy with them yet...but if you take a look at them, let me know what you think =)

Food and recipes:

Take a traditional Cape Verdean recipe home with you and truly experience the Fox Point culture! Most dishes included rice, called “jag,” along with chicken, pork, or some type of beans cooked in a pot. Often times, family and friends cooked in shifts, which allowed everyone to contribute and meant food was always on the table.

Kitchen culture—central, not just food, laundry, etc:

The kitchen was more than a place of cooking. It was the central core of any Cape Verdean Fox Point home, and the first room family and friends entered through the back door. Along with a place to eat and cook, the kitchen served as a place to socialize, hang laundry, listen to music, and even cut children’s hair. The typical kitchen included a simple table surrounded by mismatched wooden chairs and a wood or coal stove.

Floor plan:

Welcome to the typical Cape Verdean home. This apartment would have been one of around three similar residences, stacked on top of each other to form a tenement building.

Although houses were originally designed so a visitor would enter the front door and walk through decreasingly formal rooms to arrive at the kitchen, Cape Verdean immigrants reversed this order. Everyone from the community would walk through the side yard to arrive at the rear door, entering the home through the kitchen. And why shouldn’t they? After all, everyone was family, and anyone could walk in unannounced.

Nuclear Family:

Don’t be fooled by the fluidity of the community. The home was, first and foremost, a place for people to live. So who lived in these homes? Generally, the only people permanently living in the house were the nuclear family: a husband, wife, and anywhere between two and ten children. They were occasionally joined by a widowed grandmother, a single brother-in-law, or a hard up cousin. Between residents and visitors, space could get crowded, but don’t worry: bedrooms were respected private areas, where no one would barge in unexpectedly.

House as central to community:

If you were a newcomer, arriving from Cape Verde, New Bedford, or anywhere outside of Fox Point, you would end up at 88 Pike Street. That’s where the Alves family lived. If you were hungry, you would be fed; if you were tired, you could rest. They continued this tradition for so long that even the street they lived on was renamed Alves Way in their honor.

In fact, the Alves house reflects how central of a role the home played in the community. You could always count on a meal from a neighbor, and you could walk right in: the doors were never locked.

“We all went to each other’s houses. We slept over at each other’s houses. We ate over at each other’s houses and all that, you know. That's the way it was.” –Harold Fontes

Etiquette—food, politeness, etc:

“You were expected to show respect to others,” remarks Donald Senna, hinting at the good behavior expected of all Cape Verdean Fox Pointers. Any mischief would reflect on you and your parents, so it was important to act appropriately. For instance, the greatest disrespect was to refuse food when offered; it was considered an insult. Children were also expected to address adults politely, calling a woman “nya” and a man “nyo” before their last name, and relatives Aunt or Uncle.

Women and work:

While many women in Fox Point were homemakers, others worked outside of the home doing domestic work. Up the hill, Brown University employed many women in its Dining Services. One Fox Pointer reminiscing about his childhood noted that some children were unaware that their mothers held jobs outside of the home. Mothers would sometimes take jobs that started after their children left for school and which allowed them to be home once school let out.

Décor (later image?) pictures, cuckoo clock, wallpaper, mismatched chairs, religious objects:

The Cape Verdean Fox Point home was nothing if not a truly "lived in" space. The décor, though far from lavish, held a wealth of symbolic importance to the family's memories, values and beliefs. The wallpapered walls were decorated with those few but precious images of family back in "the old country", or a wedding portrait, or a child's first communion. Residents expressed their beliefs and sought protection from the images of Christian saints that would sometimes decorate bedroom walls, or from the cross hanging in the kitchen.

Language:

It was easy for a youngster in Cape Verdean Fox Point to believe that the Cape Verdean Creole was the language spoken by everyone, everywhere. After all, parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles all spoke Creole in the home. Even after a youngster discovered, perhaps after starting school, that Creole was unique to his home and to his community, having this special language was a source of pride, and a badge of distinction among his peers.

Good quote we might want to include--either with a photo (rear door photo?) or just on its own:

None of us were really rich, but we were happy, you know? --Harold Fontes

Images:

Floorplan:

Rear Door (from flickr, do not have scan):

Nuclear Family:

Etiquette (from flickr, do not have scan):

Women Working:

NO IMAGE--CAN'T USE THE ONE WE FOUND FROM 1939

First Communion:

Weddings (may use artifact that Claire has instead of this picture):

Presentation of Information:

Create a semi-home space, not trying to recreate a room

• Door/door frame to emphasize entrance into and exit from a separate space (home as own articulated space)

• Table with mismatched chairs, with doilies, bowl of plastic fruit, and pot with recipies inside

• Pictures in simple frames--photos of military/men in uniform, weddings, First Communions. On a shelf???

• Photo album?

• Hanging laundry, washboard

• Cuckoo clock, cross and rosary on wall

• Oral history quotes on wall?

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Notes:

Begin with floor plan, bring view into the house-as-space—also consider makeup of home ownership/renting

1) Composition of family—mother, father, children, who is working, who cares for children, extended family, locations

2) Space as community—people running in and out, come in to grandparent’s house to enter Fox point, sleeping over, eating over

3) Food—what foods (recipe), who cooks (women, in what sense, when), etiquette of eating (finish it all, if you are at a house during dinner time you eat there no question) AND language—creoule spoken in the home, nuclear and makes the home its own articulated space, once you enter the home you speak creole and English is left outside [perhaps part of main section label]

Floor Plan:

-- is New Bedford example accurate/sufficient, can we get one from Fox Point?

-- How many apartment units in one house?

-- How many people per unit?

-- Décor: highly Catholic community overall (crosses, rosaries, saint images)

-- Footprints on image to show movement of people (like Family Circus comic strip)

Family:

-- Family as place of nuclear family, with some extended family sometimes

-- What roles played?

-- Who works, full or part time?

-- Does mother who works still do all cooking and cleaning, who else does chores?

-- Do children work, at what age?

Home as community space:

-- children, family coming in and out

-- first house to visit when arrive in town

-- relatives who live nearby

-- eating and sleeping over

-- whatever happened outside will probably get home before you do [talk to Street section to make sure no overlap]

-- were certain people’s homes the venue of community gatherings before existence of large-scale organizations [check time-period relevancy]

Food and Language:

-- recipes

-- food and dining etiquette/community norms

-- who cooks and when (always)

-- nuclear idea—certain foods and language only in the house

-- [talk to San Antonio people about food, community food, parties]

-- language spoken in house versus outside nuclear bubble

-- home as articulated space

Relevant/Useful/Interesting History and Background

• 1916 (but still relevant) first big wave, starting to settle. Most of the houses are 3 stories, made of wood, not “modern” houses (most have bathrooms inside but had to share)—since most of Cape Verdeans would rent, landlords would split up apartments so 3-apartment house would become 6-apartments, really cramped.

  • As they stayed longer, they moved out into better apartments/houses, eventually owned/rented own house [to what extent is this just Cape Verdean?]—keep moving until they have enough to settle and then stay there. Check with Claire

• People living in attics, basements

• Tightly knit group—socially AND physically

• Necessity of immigration situation made it so Cape Verdeans had to endure certain living situations that probably affected the characteristics of their community

• 1920-30 ~2,000 Cape Verdean immigrants and ~30,000 Portuguese immigrants to USA. 6.6% of Portuguese immigrants were Cape Verdean [keep in mind limitations]

• 1915 (location?): 20% of women married with 1/+ child worked, 20% of women without a spouse but with 1/+ child worked, 60% women married without children worked—but take into account year, textile mills gone by end of 20s

Notes from Meeting 3/30:

General Notes:

• • Food, kitchen, recipes, extended family, ambiance,

  • Oral histories, grandma’s house, TV, cooking

  • Doors were always open, no locked doors, after coming off ship from Cape Verde you felt welcome.

  • Home as a part/extension of the community

Questions for Claire:

• • Who was in the home, besides kids? Moms, grandmoms, relatives? When? Did activity concentrate at a certain time of day?

  • Décor: was there anything specific to Cape Verdeans? Did the fact that houses were rented have anything to do with decor? Were there objects (photographs, etc.) pointing back to Cape Verde? Was this dependent on first generation, second generation?

  • What did people eat? Drink?

  • What parts of the house (living room, kitchen, bedroom, etc.) were important? Were there fireplaces? Was there furniture in the kitchen?

  • Men had rigorous work, went to bars: what was home for them? What was home like when dad got home?

  • Do people have recipes which were passed down? Can they write them down for us?

  • Is there anything else that was handed down? Heirlooms, furniture, memorabilia, etc

  • Multifamily houses: were there multiple generations in each house? Or were they scattered? What role did multifamily houses play?

  • How intertwined were family and community?

  • Objects: Documentary video/images in time period? What other objects from time period?

Potential Objects:

• • Photos

  • homey frames

  • recipe book or box

  • picture frame with audio (oral history/songs)

  • Table?

Calendar:

Wednesday, April 15:

In Class: Assignment 5D (object and image labels) due

Thursday, April 16:

To Professor: Assignment 4 (ethics bowl question) also due [optional]

Friday, April 17:

Afternoon: Meeting with Erin

• Things to take/have:

o Complete text and images for all sections

• To discuss:

o Review brochure and exhibit intro design

o Review intro panel design for all sections

o Review set and installation materials list

Monday, April 20:

In Class: Final content due

• All text submitted for editing and “unifying”

In General: Begin Set Building (until May 8)

Friday, April 24:

For Erin: Final Content due

Monday, April 27:

For Erin:

• Final exhibit graphics submitted for sign-off

• Exhibit graphics go to print by 4/29/09

Saturday, May 9:

Exhibition Opens

Resources:

Home:

· Some of the 1930 Census online, at http://tinyurl.com/cy2p95 - it might be interesting to pick a building and talk about who lives there. (EVERYONE?)

· Kingston Heath’s Patina of Place is about New Bedford, but many of the images could be used to describe Fox Point: I’ll put the book in the JNBC library for you to look at. (Also ROCK RESRV HD7304.N35 H4 2001) (NANAHO)

Oral Histories:

· Annie Valk’s class has posted last year’s oral histories online at http://dl.lib.brown.edu/foxpoint/. There’s a long list: the Cape Verdean interviewees are Sylvia Ann Soares, John Costa, Malcolm Reis, Harold Fontes and Donald Senna. (Their biography appears along with the transcript or audio.) (K SARAH)

Log in as guest to MyCourses. At the very bottom of the list of courses you’ll find AMCV 1903G – click on it. You’ll see a series of folders – lots of good information here! Last year’s transcripts are online – this year’s coming soon. (NO ONE YET)

For pictures:

· There is an enormous archive of images (some 7000) gathered by Lou Costa and available through the Fox Point Oral History Project flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/foxpoint/. Note that not all of these are from the right period, and some are more about the Portuguese of Fox Point than the Cape Verdeans. (K SARAH and EMILY)

· There are also some good images at the Rhode Island Historical Society– not all cataloged online yet. (Some are reproduced in the back of Manny Almeida’s Ringside Lounge.) (SOMEONE? Sorry, forgot to throw this one out when we were deciding. We can decide tomorrow)

Research Materials:

· There’s not a lot of historical writing on Fox Point. The best, I think, is Manny Almeida's Ringside Lounge : the Cape Verdeans' struggle for their neighborhood, by Sam Beck. (http://www.scribd.com/doc/13721731/Sam-Beck-Manny-Almeidas-Ringside-Lounge?secret_password=ptrbtd8uxzv2ur1dstw) (EMILY)

· There are two Brown theses to look at: “Fox Point: the disintegration of a neighborhood,” by Laurel Gorman (HAY ARCHIVES 1-SIZE 1-N HO 1998 G67) (NANAHO)

· “Community building : The Azorean, Cape Verdean, and Continental Portuguese in Fox Point, Rhode Island 1900-1940” by Alyssa A.Qualls (ANNEX HAY 1 SIZE 1-N HO 1993 Q78 (apparently on hold shelf? But it’s at the Hay so it might not matter)) (NANAHO)

· For Cape Verdeans outside of Fox Point, see Marilyn Halter, Between Race and Ethnicity: Cape Verdean American Immigrants, 1860-1965.It focuses mostly on New Bedford and Cape Cod. A longer bibliography is here: http://www.ric.edu/adamslibrary/resources/bibliographies/capeverde.html (ASHLEY--part of this book is on google books, so you can maybe look at the table of contents there?)

Archives and Museums:

· UMass-Dartmouth has Cape Verdean archives (focused mostly on New Bedford) at their library, http://www.lib.umassd.edu/archives/OralHP.html#CVAOHP.

· Rhode Island College, where Marlene Lopes (

401-456-9653 - mlopes@ric.edu, and a specialist in RI Cape Verdeans) is the director: http://www.ric.edu/adamslibrary/about/specialcollections/index.html. (ASHLEY)

· The Cape Verdean Museum in East Providence also has material (http://www.cvmuseum.org/). There’s material at the Rhode Island Historical Society, too.