Exhibition on Cape Verdean Fox Point
[THE OLD OVERVIEW OF THIS SECTION IS IN AN ATTACHMENT BELOW]
FOR SOME REASON, THIS EDITOR WON'T LOAD IMAGES, SO CHECK OUT THE ATTACHED SCRIPT TO SEE THE FULL SCRIPT WITH IMAGES.
Cape Verdean Fox Point Exhibition Script – Intro Group
Elena Gonzales and Esteban Ucrós
17 April 2009
Prologue
Whether aboard the whale-hunting crews of the 18th and 19th Centuries or the Cape Verdean–American packet trade ships of the 20th, Cape Verdeans once migrated regularly back and forth along the corridor of the Atlantic Ocean. But drought, poverty, and overpopulation in their homeland made many Cape Verdeans decide to settle abroad more permanently. Between 1860 and 1920, about 1,500 arrived in the US each year from Cape Verde, becoming the first African community to come to America of its own free choice.
During this time period, Cape Verdeans were migrating rather than immigrating, building a neighborhood across the Atlantic. Relaxed immigration laws allowed Cape Verdeans to sail back and forth, carrying news of loved ones to their new home or transporting gifts and supplies back to Cape Verde. Some Cape Verdeans even moved seasonally between America and Cape Verde.
The generation of these migrants moving between Cape Verde and Providence from 1920-1940 built a unique community in Fox Point, on the East Side of Providence, a neighborhood that included Irish, Italian, and Portuguese people from the Azores among others.
[PLACEHOLDING MAP – ACTUAL MAP TO BE PART OF THE PANEL’S DESIGN]
Photo by Claire Andrade-Watkins, Looking at the village of Fontainhas, Island of St. Antao, Cape Verde, 2008, Courtesy of the photographer
[QUOTE FOR VINYL ON THE WALL IN THE CORRIDOR]
Olim na meiro di mar.
Tâ sigui nha distino
Pâ caminho d'América
E cê triste n'dixa nha terra
Sima e triste n'dixa nha mae.
Sodadi mora na nha pêto
Dixam bai pâ câ morrê
–Nha distino, morna
***
I'm already in the middle of the sea.
O follow my destiny
Sailing towards America
It's sad to forsake my country,
But it is sadder to leave my mother.
Let us go fast, otherwhise the longing
kills me, crushing my breast.
Two verses from “My Destiny,” morna (traditional Cape Verdean literary form consisting of poetry put to music and conveyed through gestures and dance). Translated in Stephen L. Cabral and Sam Beck, Nha Distino: Cape Verdean Folk Arts (Providence: Roger Williams Park Museum) Publication no. 5. Cited in Between Race and Ethnicity by Marilyn Halter.
[ERIN, WE DON’T KNOW WHAT ROLE, IF ANY THE CITATIONS WILL PLAY IN THE ACTUAL EXHIBITION, BUT WE’RE JUST INCLUDING THEM TO MAKE SURE THAT PEOPLE GET CREDIT IF IT IS BEING GIVEN SOMEWHERE]
[IMAGE OVER CASE IN THE CORRIDOR]
Possibly members of the Alves Family from Pike St. aboard a packet ship docked in Providence, Anonymous, ND (Ca. 1948-1953)
[WINDOW TREATMENT IN THE CORRIDOR, EXAMPLE]
Intro Label:
Remember the Old Times… Cape Verdean Community in Fox Point, 1920-1940
Lembra nha temp! Remember the Old Times! – in Krioulo, the language most Cape Verdeans in Fox Point spoke [Erin, can you weave the Krioulo phrase into the graphic design, rather than making this a title line as it appears here?]
You’ve just arrived from Cape Verde, probably from the island of Brava or Santiago, like most Fox Pointers. After disembarking from a packet ship along with mail and cargo at the Port of Providence, you find yourself in the neighborhood of Fox Point. The Point is home to a large community of other Cape Verdeans, and their doors are open to you. In fact, they’ve been waiting for you. The delicious smells of cachupa, that slow-simmering stew, waft down from a third floor kitchen. The strains of a guitar or a cavaquinho, the tiny Portuguese guitar, sound a traditional morna. Despite having traveled hundreds of miles across the ocean, you are home.
This exhibition recreates the spaces where the Cape Verdean community developed, flourished, and maintained itself in Fox Point: the port, the street, the clubs, and the home. These spaces live in the memories of Cape Verdean Fox Pointers all over Providence and spring to life again when members of this community reconnect. We hope to reconnect the communities of Brown and Fox Point in positive ways: exhibitions, public programming, filmmaking, archiving, and just neighborly respect and cooperation. We welcome you to celebrate and remember Cape Verdean Fox Point, whether you’re part of that community already or just getting to know it.
[THESE IMAGES ARE NOT NECESSARILY FOR COMPLETE REPRODUCTION, BUT JUST FOR USE WITH DESIGINING THE INTRO]
Issue of The Providence Journal from September 24, 1939 announcing the departure of packet ships to Brava, Cape Verde
Sanborn Maps 1926, Courtesy of Lou Costa
Plate 18 from Plat Book of Providence, R.I. Philadelphia: G.M. Hopkins, 1937. Color facsimile. Geography and Map Division, G1239.P9H62 1937 (15)
[STOOP WITH CLAPBOARD AND POST – ACTUAL IMAGE FOR THE STOOP CUTOUT TO COME]
[POSSIBLE INCLUSION OF A POSTER ADVERTISING A SHIP LEAVING TO CAPE VERDE]
Epilogue:
The Cape Verdean community in this exhibition no longer exists, at least not in Fox Point. To many outsiders, Fox Point was a slum, urban blight. As early as 1942, the displacement of Cape Verdean Fox Pointers was already on the horizon. Providence –supported by Brown University—became a national model for dealing with “urban blight,” through “urban renewal,” Though preservationists fought destruction of historic homes, low-income residents were priced out. I-195 bisected the area in 1957, also cutting it off from the water. Beginning in the 1960s, Cape Verdean families steadily moved away from the Point.
Now, I-195 is moving again. By 2012, Fox Point and Downtown Providence will be reconnected and 35 acres of urban space that were once alive with activity will open up again on the southwestern side of the Point. As we enter this new era, we are honored to welcome the Cape Verdeans of Providence back to College Hill to remember and learn with the community of Brown. We thank the Cape Verdean Fox Pointers for sharing their memories, archives, artifacts, and trust with us.
[VISUAL CUES FOR HIGHWAY]
Destruction of Mamai’s house by Claire Andrade-Watkins, 2007, Courtesy of the photographer
Spring 2008 Iway traffic pattern Changes, RIDOT, May 2008
Illustrates I-195 moving out of Fox Point
[BILL WARNER’S SKETCH OF THE PLAN FOR I-195 TO COME maybe. It’s looking like Claire actually may not want to ask Warner about it and so we may not get it.]