BUILDING HISTORY ONE STORY  AT A TIME

Dr. Claire Andrade-Watkins (Emerson College) directs the Fox Point Cape Verdean Project. This project, which is housed at the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America, spotlights the local Cape Verdean community. The story of the Cape Verdeans of Fox Point embraces fundamental questions regarding the connections between community, language, culture, and art. The project identifies the challenges inherent in preserving the memory, history and culture of the displaced in the voices of the people who experienced displacement. The story has wider significance in the context of today’s society, where climactic shifts and natural disasters, wars, global industrial expansion and economic turmoil have resulted in whole communities being displaced all over the globe. The worldwide Cape Verdean population is one of the oldest Diasporas with international, historical significance.