“Some Kind of Funny Porto Rican?”: A Cape Verdean American Story
© 2006
Producer/Writer/Director Claire Andrade-Watkins
83 minutes
The title, “Some Kind of Funny Porto Rican?”, is derived from an actual comment made many, many years ago. My beau’s brother was a student at Brown University in Providence, RI. Upon learning that his brother had met a Cape Verdean girl from Providence, the Brown student replied, “Cape Verdean? Oh, there are a lot of them around here; they’re some kind of funny “Porto Ricans.” (Note: spelling of “Porto” is the way it was pronounced, hence the spelling in the title). This is a classic example of the (mis)perceptions of Cape Verdean Americans. Rich anecdotal stories like this abound, adding texture and shape to the reflections, observations and experiences–joyous and painful–of growing up in this close, self-contained New England community.
The community of Fox Point was situated near the waterfront and the Port of Providence. Clustered in tenements, families, relatives and friends lived within shouting distance of one another. Once a bustling port for loose cargo-lumber, coal, scrap iron-most of the men from the Point “worked the boats” as proud members of the Longshoremen’s Union Local l329.
Three generations of Cape Verdeans were born and raised in this tight knit neighborhood that stretched along the waterfront. Uprooted by urban renewal in the l970s, the disbanded Cape Verdeans scattered to other parts of Rhode Island. Yet Fox Point remains “home” - at least in heart and spirit-for Cape Verdeans who lived “down the Point.” SOME KIND OF FUNNY “PORTO RICAN”?© chronicles this community’s history, music, ties to the old country, and the maritime/seafaring traditions, especially the longshoremen, who “worked the boats” in the Port of Providence. The narrative vehicle for SKFPR is my childhood memories of family, friends, textures and sounds of the l950s, l960s and early l970s in the Cape Verdean Fox Point section of Providence, Rhode Island.
SKFPR does not attempt to be the definitive word on the “Cape Verdean” experience. What the project endeavors to do is to tell a story that is rich in human experience and scholarly detail. The search for visual material for this project has been an ongoing hunt for over twenty years.
I have gone door to door, following leads of family and friends: sometimes crawling through basements and attics, and in one instance prying 8mm black and white footage of Brava, Cape Verde in the l950s from a reluctant cousin’s attic. Through a more cooperative uncle, I was given the use of his 8mm family archive spanning thirty years of family events and holidays. Other finds include priceless photographs, many going back to the late 1890s, journals, newspaper clippings and a pristine collection of beautiful 8mm color film of the Fox Point community in the late l950s and l960s and of the longshoremen “working the boats” in the Port of Providence. Most exciting is the 8mm footage of the famed ERNESTINA, a two-master Gloucester schooner, the last packet ship to regularly sail to New England, and a legend in Cape Verdean folklore entrusted to me to tell the ERNESTINA story by Manuel T. Neves, the publisher of THE CAPE VERDEAN.
Another highlight is the voices from the oral histories with the “old-timers” I have conducted over the years. Now that many are deceased, their voices are an even more valuable part of this story. Editing began in earnest June, 2001. I would raise some money, do a little more work, raise more money, do more work, etc. However, a disastrous hard drive crash in early 2003 seriously jeopardized the continuation of this project. Through tremendous work and initiative through direct fundraising letters, benefits and dinner dances both at the Cape Verdean Progressive Center in East Providence, and the Venus di Milo in Swansea, we rebuilt, painfully dollar by dollar. We created a” Friends of Some Kind of Funny Porto Rican?” grassroots fundraising committee that worked tirelessly to send out fundraising letters and organize the work-in-progress screenings at the Cable Car Theater in Providence, Rhode Island and the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Boston, MA. In 2005 the project was awarded a prestigious and highly competitive LEF grant (www.lef-foundation.org). Long time supporters of the project, including John B. Cruz, III of Cruz Construction Company, Inc. and others, stepped forward to again support the project and also bring new friends to the project. We’ve made it to the finish line with the good will and support of many, many people. The online editor, Ken NiBlock flew to Boston from Los Angeles on December 4, 2005 and worked around the clock for 21 days to finish the project, ably assisted by talented Emerson “techies”‘ and computer geeks, sound designers, and editors. We still have a LOT of deferred expenses for this project! Your support and contributions would be much appreciated! Every little bit helps. Visit our donation page for more information on tax-deductible contributions.