The Politics of Cape Verdean American Identity1
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Gina E. Sanchez THE POLITICS OF CAPE VERDEAN AMERICAN IDENTITY1 The Negro immigrant to the United States is faced with Michael Omi and Howard Winant (1986:75) grave problems of social adjustment. Not only is he an have defined racialization as a process whereby alien by law and fact, but he suffers a complete change "previously racially undefined groups" are situated in status by emerging from a group setting where he within a prevailing racial order. Nowhere is the was the racial majority into one where he becomes part practice of racialization more apparent than in the of a racial minority (Reid 1939:35). experience of persons immigrating to the United States. Immigrants of African descent, in particular, are Some or even much of what has been designated in the directly confronted with this system of racial literature as ethnicity might better be considered as classification; they are often assigned a racialized status varieties of politicized self-identification (Bin as "Black" or "African American," on the basis of 1980:234). visible and/or suspected African ancestry, without regard to their particular cultural and political histories. For the Cape Verdean-American, social identity can In response, these so-called "Black immigrants" and never be assumed and is never a given. Rather, the their descendants may negotiate their identity within issue is continually being reformulated, sometimes at certain parameters of choice: they may resist racial critical personal cost (Halter 1993:173). ascription by asserting a "national" or "ethnic" identity (e.g., "Haitian"); they may adhere to a bi-national INTRODUCTION identity (e.g., "Jamerican"); or they may align In the United States, the idea of having a "choice" in themselves locally with the African American the construction of identity is made problematic by the community and globally with the international African social constraints under which racial and ethnic Diaspora by identifying as "Black" (see, Bryce-Laporte minority groups live.2 One such constraint is the 1972; Butcher 1994; Foner 1987; Reid 1939; Waters system of social classification that has historically 1994; Woldemikael 1989a, 1989b). polarized U.S. citizens and residents into aggregates of Cape Verdean Americans, as persons of "Black" or "White," and more recently "White" and African and Portuguese descent, represent one such "non-White," through the hegemonic discourse of group who have faced this dilemma of racial racial ascription. This discourse underlies the process classification in the United States. The Cape Verde of racialization whereby intragroup cultural differences Islands are a ten-island nation located approximately are homogenized under the rubric of race. This 283 to 448 miles off the coast of Senegal, West Africa phenomenon is most apparent in the contemporary (Lobban 1995:4).4 Cape Verdeans began immigrating ordering of Blacks, Latinos, Asian Americans and to the United States during the late eighteenth century. Native Americans into culturally homogenized groups Like other immigrants, Cape Verdeans and their through the U.S. Bureau of the Census. Although the descendants have had to constantly negotiate their U.S. system of racial classification has become less cultural, political and national identities in light of new static over time, the federal government continues to social forces impacting their lives in the United States. officially classify persons according to race and 3 One aspect of this negotiation entails the reconciliation ethnicity. of a Cape Verdean cultural identity with a socially-ascribed, racialized minority status as "Black." Halter has described this process as the GINA E. SANCHEZ is a Ph.D. candidate at the "juxtaposition] of one's adaptation to new cultural University of Texas at Austin who is currently norms within the suffocating strictures of racial conducting fieldwork on the negotiation of racial categorization in American society" (1993:174). Many and ethnic identity among Cape Verdeans living in Cape Verdean Americans have resisted the "Catch-22" the Roxbury and Dorchester neighborhoods of of identifying as either "White" or "Black" by asserting Boston, Massachusetts. Transforming Anthropology, Volume 6, Numbers 1 & 2 54 1997, Sanchez pp. 54-71 a national and cultural "Cape Verdean" identity, while 1460, although Arabs and Africans may have others have assumed a politicized identity as "African established residency on the islands prior to the American" or "Black." Still others have chosen to mid-fifteenth century.6 Developed into a major identify as "Portuguese" (also understood as "White") stopping point in the triangular slave trade, Cape Verde in their attempt to escape the stigmatization attached to became a colony of Portugal from the late 15th century "blackness" or to African ancestry. until 1975. Like other Iberian colonies, Cape Verde The following essay explores the impact of witnessed an era of African enslavement (1460-1878), self-identification and outside ascription on Cape the subsequent proliferation of a racially and culturally Verdean American identity formation, which can be mixed population, an extended period of colonial interpreted as Diasporic and transnational in nature. neglect, and finally the struggle for independence. Specifically, I am interested in the ways in which Cape During the early sixteenth century, Cape Verdean Americans, especially those of second and Verde served as a colonial experiment for the third generation, construct themselves as members of plantation-based economy that the Portuguese would both the Cape Verdean and African American replicate in Brazil and in other colonies. With the communities of the United States. This construction of advent of cotton and sugar cultivation on the islands of 5 what I and others have called "Cape Verdeanness" is Santiago and Fogo in particular, the Portuguese soon manifested in a range of experiences and practices that after enslaved Wolofs, Fulas, Mandinkas, and embody the historical memory, politics and everyday, Beafadas primarily (Lobban 1995:69; Meintel lived experiences of this racial/ethnic group. 1984:23), with additional indentured laborers coming I evoke the concept of the African Diaspora as from west-central Europe, Asia and Brazil (Pap a tool through which to examine the politics of 1981:113). After 1600, most of the enslaved brought racial/ethnic self-identification with respect to Cape from mainland Africa to Cape Verde continued onto Verdean Americans. Some of the more fruitful results Brazil and the Caribbean after being "acclimatized" or of engaging in such a project would be to answer the baptized into the Christian faith and taught the following questions: Can Cape Verdean Americans respective colonial language. Such slaves were also who strongly acknowledge their African ancestry, or exported to Colombia, Mexico, the Canary Islands, and who have lived a "Black" experience in the United Seville (Davidson 1989:26). States be considered part of the African Diaspora in the Along with the Portuguese and the Africans, Americas? Why do some Cape Verdean Americans Cape Verde's settler population was also composed of identify more with the African American community Castillian and Genoese explorers who were later joined than with any other? What are the consequences of by French and English traders, occasional pirates, and self-identifying as "Black" in the United States? political exiles or degredados who were banished to Answers to these questions go far in determining the the islands as a form of imprisonment. Meintel's politics of Cape Verdean American identity as a (1984) anthropological study of race and culture in multiple construction of race and ethnicity. Moreover, Cape Verde reveals that as a result of extensive they highlight the ethnic diversity that exists within the miscegenation facilitated by exile and slavery, a African American community, as composed of native tripartite classification of people — into categories of and foreign-born Black people. Branco (White), Mestigo (Mulatto), or Preto (Black)7 I have problematized my position as author by — was promoted by the late sixteenth century, with each examining a racial/ethnic group to which I belong. As sector distinguished on the basis of phenotype and by a "native" anthropologist, "forced to confront the degrees of assimilation to a "national," Portuguese politics and ethics of [my] representations" (Abu- culture (see also, Lobban 1995:54). In addition, both Lughod 1986:142), I acknowledge that to consider prior to and after abolition, the division of people of Cape Verdean Americans as members of the African African descent into "free" and "not free" gave way to Diaspora is a political exercise, indicative of those the emergence of skin color gradations as a primary who, like myself, have lived a "Black" experience in means of categorization. The census of 1856, for the United States. example, cites the use of 17 such labels (Davidson 1989:11). The Mulatto sector of the population HISTORICAL ROOTS AND ROUTES constituted the majority; this is still the case, as they The Republic of Cape Verde, composed of ten islands account for approximately 73% of the archipelago's and five islets, was uninhabited upon "discovery" in population. Transforming Anthropology, Volume 6, Numbers 1 & 2 1997, Sanchez pp. 54-71 55 During the early seventeenth century, Santiago The racial composition of Cape Verde as a declined in importance as a trading center, succumbing result of its colonial experience differs from island to to high slave prices and competition brought about by island. Brava, for example, attracted more White the Guinean Coast slave trade. This, in turn, led to the settlers from the Azores and Madeira and relied less decrease in slave importation to this island (Meintel upon slave labor. Fogo and Santiago, on the other 1984:84). Moreover, slavery proved to be less hand, contain populations reflecting an historically lucrative in Cape Verde than in its colonial counterpart, strong African presence, as is also the case in Maio, Brazil, given the arid climate and exhausted soil after whose population established early links to Africa years of exploitation.