Environmental Leadership 2022-2023:

The Politics of Cultural Rememberance In Bay Country: An Exploration of How Contested Cultures are Represented in the Coastal Communities of the Chesapeake Bay's Eastern Shore

The Other Bay Country: Exploring the Chesapeake Bay's Underrepresented Cultures

The Bay, with its legendary bounty, has been credited with supporting a unique cultural identity. Chesapeake Bay author, Tom Horton, described Bay Country as a place where the Bay shapes people as much, or more, then where people shape the Bay. Those who have studied the culture Chesapeake Bay's Eastern Shore typically focus on its much celebrated watermen villages. Island's out of time, the standard interpretation often romanticizes the unique dialects, food traditions, religious activities, and customs that are associated with life in watermen communities of Eastern Shore. Museums, coffee table books, cookbooks, art galleries, and documentaries have highlight a fading culture that is in jeopardy due to the declining health of the Bay. But much less has been written about the Bay's other cultures. People of color in Bay Country have long created their own cultural identities, a world apart from the dominant culture that is so often celebrated. It was the Eastern Shore's black culture that gave birth to Frederick Douglas and Harriet Tubman. It was the Bay's rivers and streams that comprised the Underground Railroad. The Bay's first Western settlement, San Miguel de Guandape, was a Spanish settlement that was formed decades before Jamestown. More recently, the demands of the Bay's agricultural industry and seafood industry has given rise to an influx of new Spanish speaking immigrants, the thousands of Hispanic migrants that are creating their own unique relationship to the Bay. And, of course, it was the area's native tribes (the Pocomoke, Choptank, Nanticoke, Matapeake and others ) who gave names to the Eastern Shore's rivers and established rich cultures from the bounty of the Bay for generations before the arrival of European settlers. Native tribes had already been in Bay Country for 1,200 years before the arrival of John Smith in 1608. This program will study how culture is formed and represented in Maryland's Eastern Shore. In doing so, it will explore the traditional and new cultures in Bay Country, as well as the institutions that continue to shape, preserve, and challenge cultural identity in this unique area.

The Cultures of Bay Country

Traditional watermen Culture of the Eastern Shore and Its Islands.
The birth of the modern Hispanic Immigrant Culture in Bay Country.
The historic African American Culture of the Eastern Shore.
The lost indigenous cultures of the Eastern Shore.

THe Bay's Cultural Sustainers

Cultural Influencers: Media personalities, authors, and activists.
Culture Sustaining Institutions: Museums, religious institutions, environmental education, environmental groups (CBF, 4h clubs, FFA).
Cultures at Work: Poultry, fishing, farming, home builders, boat building, tourism industry, science centers,
Cultures at Play: Events and recreational activities that are unique to the Shore.

THe Bay's Cultural Threats

Declining Environmental Conditions: Water pollution, erosion, sea level rise, declining fisheries...
The persistence of xenophobia and racism (legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, lynching, and anti-Hispanic sentiment).
Land development and suburban sprawl (the Bay Bridge and beyond).
The rise of big ag and corporate farming
The intrusion of modern communication: cable tv, the internet, cell phones, and social medial
Changing nature of work and retirement.

Fieldwork

(Yes EJ Conference Participation, No Smith Island)

Schedule

Friday-Monday (4 night Stay in Easton)

Sat. Jessica/LuaraAnne (Kent Narrows and St. Michaels)
Sun. Dani (Cambridge)
Mon. Micah (Crisfield)
Tues AJ (Oxford)

Tues -Wed nights (2 nights stay in Annapolis, EJ Conference in DC)

Th. (return to G-Burg)

Conference Presentation Responsibilities:

Intro/Who Cares (2 minutes) Why is this important AJ
Research Methods (2 minutes) Micah
Findings, Ches Heratige Visitor (2 minutes) Jessica
Richardson Maritime Museum (2 minutes) Danny
Marimtime Museum St. Michaels (2 minutes) Laura Ann
Tilman Island Waterman Museaum (2 minutes) Emily

Interviews
1) Micah, Nancy Smoker (Chair of Chrisfield Heretigage Foundation)

2) Dani, Nause-Waiwash Band of Native Americans (long House)

3) AJ, Vince Leggett (Blacks of the Chesapeake, Annapolis)

4) Jessica, women waterman/kent narrows/other)

5) LuaraAnne, Hispanic Immigrant Community

Research Team

In this section, each member of the research team (listed below) will begin to identify their primary areas of interest. Here, you will describe the specific culture(s), cultural builders, and cultural threats that you are most interested in studying. The only guidance at this point is to focus on cultures that are present on the Eastern Shore or Bay Islands (also know as the Delmarva Peninsula--Delaware, MD, and VA Peninsula). For example, you might say I am interested in the culture of the Eastern Shore's environmental advocacy community. If so, you may want to explore groups like the River Keepers and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. In particular, you may want to research how these advocacy groups attempt to build a culture of sustainability through environmental education and public outreach. Or you might be interested in the growing Hispanic immigrant community and the "new" culture that is blossoming from this community. Specifically, you could look at the immigrant community's relationship to the Bay and Bay industries. You could look at the role of Hispanic Churches and community groups, as well as Hispanic representation in existing culture institutions (i.e., representation in advocacy groups, depictions in museums, representation in government...). You could also start listing key groups, leaders, and sites that we would want to talk to or visit to explore your topic.

Jessica

Area of Interest: My interests are in how the deterioration of our Bay more broadly the environment and how it affects human life and cultures. I want to focus on how we are negatively impacting our environment, but make it appeal to people that are less dark green so they feel more compelled to care.

Culture of Interest: Immigrant Culture, Scientific Community
Cultural Sustainers of Interest: Agricultural Industry, food industry
Cultural Threats of Interest: tourism (packaging of a culture), polluting of the bay

Key Sites, Institutions, and People: Kent Island and Kent Narrows, Seafood Industry, Shanty towns, , agricultural workers, immigrant workers

Dani

Area of Interest: My aim is to evaluate the connections between the aquatic species that live in the Chesapeake Bay and the communities that rely on those species. More specifically, I want to focus on how Native cultures used to manage the Bay vs. how the Bay is managed today, and how the health of the Bay has declined since then.

Culture of Interest: Indigenous Culture, Aquatic Culture
Cultural Sustainers of Interest: Food Industry, Biodiversity
Cultural Threats of Interest: Overfishing/harvesting, pollution, Bay management

Key Sites, Institutions, and People:

Area of Interest: I am most interested in exploring how the environmental decline in the Chesapeake Bay affects the local farming community and community of migrant workers, as well as observing how the immigrant community in the Bay has assimilated/created a culture of their own within the Bay.

Culture of Interest: Immigrant Community, Farmers, African-American community
Cultural Sustainers of Interest: Food/agricultural industry
Cultural Threats of Interest: COVID, overfishing/overharvesting

Key Sites, Institutions, and People:

LauraAnne

Area of Interest:

Culture of Interest: Migrant workers, Hispanic Community, communities of color
Cultural Sustainers of Interest
Cultural Threats of Interest: Environmental injustice

Key Sites, Institutions, and People: agriculture, crabbing, and fishing industry; journalists; rights activists

Micah

Area of Interest: The impact of the declining health of the bay on cultures native to there and the rise of other cultures as a result of it. The impact that cultural practices have on the Bay, and how that in turn affects the culture.

Culture of Interest - Watermen Communities, Fishing Culture
Cultural Sustainers of Interest - Agriculture Industry, Endemic Bay Species, Crabbing industry
Cultural Threats of Interest - Overfishing, Fertilizer runoff, pollution

Key Sites, Institutions, and People: Watermen from various islands/harbors, fishing industry