Between Race and Ethnicity: Cape Verdean American Immigrants, 1860-1965

Cape Verdean Americans are the only major group of Americans to have
made the voyage from Africa to the United States voluntarily. Their homeland,
a drought-stricken archipelago off the west coast of Africa, had long
been colonized by the Portuguese. Arriving in New England first as crew
members of whaling vessels, these Afro-Portuguese immigrants later came
as permanent settlers in their own packet ships. They were employed in
the cranberry industry, on the docks, and as domestic workers.
Marilyn Halter combines oral history with analyses of ships' records
to create a detailed picture of the history and adaptation patterns of
the Cape Verdean Americans, who identified themselves in terms of ethnicity
but whose mixed African-European ancestry led their new society to view
them as a racial group. Halter emphasizes racial and ethnic identity formation
among Cape Verdeans, who adjusted to their new life by setting themselves
apart from the African American community while attempting to shrug off
white society's exclusionary tactics. Ethnographic analysis of rural life
on the bogs of Cape Cod is contrasted with the New Bedford, Massachusetts,
urban community to show how the immigrants established their own social
and religious groups and maintained their Crioulo customs.