Speaker 1: So daddie is one of those words in cape Verdian
Speaker 1: creole that doesn't have a direct English translation. Roughly, it
Speaker 1: means missing someone or something, but it's deeper than that.
Speaker 1: It's a longing that feels more like a whole, like
Speaker 1: a part of your soul is gone. There are many
Speaker 1: songs written about this, the most famous, of course, being
Speaker 1: by Sesadia Avora, the queen of cape Verdian music. Anyone
Speaker 1: can have this feeling of sodad, but for those of
Speaker 1: us in the cape Verdian diaspora, it takes on a
Speaker 1: very specific meaning because no matter where you live now
Speaker 1: or where you were born, all cape Verdians have this
Speaker 1: nostalgic feeling. It's a yearning to be in capleverd or
Speaker 1: to be with the people who have left, or with
Speaker 1: who you've left behind. I'm cape Verdian and on my
Speaker 1: dad's side, he has a huge family, but for simplicity's sake,
Speaker 1: they're two branches, the Graces and the Dapinas. My great grandfather,
Speaker 1: Manuel Grace immigrated to America around the same time as
Speaker 1: Daddy Grace, which was the beginning of the twentieth century.
Speaker 1: I never met him. He died long before I was born,
Speaker 1: but I did know my dad's mother, Lydia Grace Depina,
Speaker 1: and his father, Jonathan Depina Senior, who I called Papa.
Speaker 1: I adored him. He and my Nana often took care
Speaker 1: of me when my parents were working, and I spent
Speaker 1: hours with them, happily tagging along behind Papa when he
Speaker 1: bent his chickens or helping Nana plant perfect rows of beans,
Speaker 1: cal and carrots. I still remember Papa saying to Kenya,
Speaker 1: the most important thing in this country is to have
Speaker 1: your own land and to pass it on to your children.
Speaker 1: I was a curious child, and one of my favorite
Speaker 1: things to do with him was to take long walks
Speaker 1: and ask him questions about his life back in Cablevere.
Speaker 1: He came to the US when he was six on
Speaker 1: a schooner named the Volante. I loved hearing about his
Speaker 1: childhood back in Cablevert the way the mountains of Fontana's
Speaker 1: always sat shrouded in clouds, or the beauty of the
Speaker 1: flowers and the people. Listening to these stories made me
Speaker 1: feel transported, my own imagination filling in the gaps of
Speaker 1: what his life had been like. To me, Cableverd was
Speaker 1: a place of wonder, a place I felt so connected to,
Speaker 1: a place I could not wait to experience myself. But
Speaker 1: within all of that, what I most remember was a
Speaker 1: feeling of my papa's mixed emotions, because within his stories
Speaker 1: about life on Bravo, I heard a tinge of sadness
Speaker 1: in his voice. And when I'd asked my Papa if
Speaker 1: he missed Cablvert and if he wanted to go back,
Speaker 1: he'd look at me and say, for what, I'm mercy
Speaker 1: to Pena and from iHeart podcasts enforce the media group,
Speaker 1: this is sweet, Daddy, Grace.
Speaker 2: You're glad, you're being happy.
Speaker 1: Bow, thank, You're glad.
Speaker 3: Ahead and they laugh against happy brown and crying, we're.
Speaker 4: O b ing.
Speaker 1: Daddy immigrated to the United States from Kabovid, just like
Speaker 1: my grandfather. It was a country that both then and now,
Speaker 1: not many Americans outside the diaspora know much about. But
Speaker 1: to get to know Bishop Grace, you have to know
Speaker 1: where he came from. The Kapoveti Islands are located about
Speaker 1: three hundred and fifty miles off the coast of Senegal
Speaker 1: in the Atlantic Ocean. In Portuguese, Kabovid means green cape,
Speaker 1: which is quite a bit of a misnomer, as the
Speaker 1: country is not particularly green. The islands are situated in
Speaker 1: the crossroads of two of the driest trade winds in
Speaker 1: the world, so there is very little rain, and several
Speaker 1: of the islands are basically deserts. Capplevedy is made up
Speaker 1: of ten islands, nine of which are inhabited, and while
Speaker 1: they are proudly connected as one country, each is a
Speaker 1: little different. Each speaks its own dialect of Creole, for example,
Speaker 1: and the cultures are a little different too. The people
Speaker 1: of Santiago, the largest island, are known for the music
Speaker 1: of batucu, a form of drumming and dancing that is
Speaker 1: primarily done by women. Sanvicentz is known for its carnival,
Speaker 1: but it is also deeply influenced by the British, who
Speaker 1: used the island as a coal refueling station in the
Speaker 1: early eighteen hundreds. Embravo, where my family is from, is
Speaker 1: the smallest island, known for its hospitality nationally revered poet
Speaker 1: Eugenio Tavars, as well as its waterfalls and flowers. We
Speaker 1: are most united, perhaps by the fact that at its
Speaker 1: very essence, to be Cape Verdean means to have roots
Speaker 1: from around the globe, because before Portuguese explorers landed there
Speaker 1: in the mid fifteenth century, the Caboverti Islands were actually uninhabited,
Speaker 1: and as was the case during this time period, the
Speaker 1: Portuguese government was interested in two things, producing sugar and
Speaker 1: enslaving Africans to do it. But the land was so
Speaker 1: dry the sugar crops failed, and the Portuguese realized that
Speaker 1: their new colony was actually much more useful as a
Speaker 1: port in their slave trade, which was quickly expanding. Many
Speaker 1: Africans brought to Kabulvid were sent on slave ships to
Speaker 1: the Americas, but many also stayed. Some were enslaved to
Speaker 1: work for Portuguese landholders, and others escaped into the mountains
Speaker 1: where they formed their own communities, which still exists today.
Speaker 1: So Cape Verdean Creole culture developed. As these populations African
Speaker 1: European Middle Eastern intermingled to become something very much its own. Economically, however,
Speaker 1: Kablevid was turning into a tough acquisition for the Portuguese.
Speaker 1: After around a century of colonization, the land could no
Speaker 1: longer grow much like the indigo they had used to
Speaker 1: trade for enslaved Africans, and by the late eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: the slave trade itself had ended, so the colonizers abandoned
Speaker 1: the islands and left the people of Kabove to fend
Speaker 1: for themselves. Many people suffered horribly. They were literally dying
Speaker 1: of starvation and dehydration. The islands experienced chronic droughts, where
Speaker 1: sometimes fifty percent of the population would die. Many Cape
Speaker 1: Verdians were forced to leave, trying to make whatever money
Speaker 1: they could to send back home to feed their families.
Speaker 1: Many never returned. The main way out was on railing ships.
Speaker 1: The eighteen hundreds were at height of the whaling industry,
Speaker 1: and Cape Verdians played a big part as crews on
Speaker 1: the American owned boats. They were known for their courage, work, ethic,
Speaker 1: and maritime skills. Remember Moby Dick. It was published in
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty one and one of the harpooners on board
Speaker 1: Dago is thought to be Cape Verdian. But eventually the
Speaker 1: work dried up.
Speaker 5: When whaling went into decline in the United States, was
Speaker 5: harder to get young Yankees to serve as crew on
Speaker 5: whaling vessels.
Speaker 1: That's my stepmom. Marilyn Halter again, scholar of Cape Verdian
Speaker 1: American history and professor emerita at Boston University.
Speaker 5: So when they would stop in the Cape Verde Islands.
Speaker 5: By the late nineteenth century, they were eager to find
Speaker 5: people to man these ships.
Speaker 1: Cape Verdian men bought old whaling boats, prepared and started
Speaker 1: what was called the packet trade. Now Cape Verdian owned
Speaker 1: and operated ships would crisscross the Atlantic, bringing supplies from
Speaker 1: the United States back to Cobblevid and bringing immigrants to
Speaker 1: New Bedford, Massachusetts and Providence, Rhode Island. Because of this,
Speaker 1: the first voluntary African immigrants to America were Cape Verdeans.
Speaker 1: This ended up giving them an advantage when they arrived,
Speaker 1: they still had community.
Speaker 5: Really, unlike any immigrant group, white or black, they were
Speaker 5: the only population to actually have control over their means
Speaker 5: of passage to this country. And when you contrast that
Speaker 5: with the other African immigrants who came here involuntarily, the
Speaker 5: slave population, who had absolutely no control over anything in
Speaker 5: their lives. There was a lot of cultural and community support.
Speaker 1: Part of that support meant access to work, though often
Speaker 1: the kind of jobs available were the ones no one
Speaker 1: else wanted.
Speaker 5: There was such a racial and ethnic hierarchy that the
Speaker 5: only jobs for them was at the lowest rung of
Speaker 5: the ladder, so the Irish got the best jobs, and
Speaker 5: then the Portuguese and the French Canadians, and then you know,
Speaker 5: Cape Verdians were at the bottom of the ladder. There
Speaker 5: was work at the stack textile mills, on the Cranberry brogs,
Speaker 5: and in maritime related occupations such as longshoremen and cooks
Speaker 5: and other kinds of dock workers.
Speaker 1: Details are scarce about Daddy Grace's immigration story to the US.
Speaker 1: We know he had come over from the island of
Speaker 1: Brava and landed in New Bedford in nineteen oh four
Speaker 1: on a ship called the Louisa. His parents and at
Speaker 1: least seven siblings were already there waiting for him. The
Speaker 1: New Bedford Evening Standard wrote about the Louisa's arrival. It
Speaker 1: mentioned one passenger who looked quote every inch a dude
Speaker 1: with his trousers carefully pressed in an immaculate shirt front.
Speaker 1: I'd like to hope that was our Marcellino. I get
Speaker 1: the feeling he always stood out. He first made his
Speaker 1: living in America, like basically all Cape Verdian immigrants did,
Speaker 1: working various jobs. He picked Cranberry's in the bogs, a
Speaker 1: job he apparently hated so much he threw down his
Speaker 1: wheelbarrow and quit. He also sold patent medicines, ran a
Speaker 1: grocery store, and worked as a cook in a local
Speaker 1: restaurant and later on on the railways. My own great grandfather,
Speaker 1: Manuel Grace, the one and I never met, arrived in
Speaker 1: the United States around the same time as Daddy Grace,
Speaker 1: and in some ways their stories were similar, including the
Speaker 1: fact that they were both from Brava and both named Grace.
Speaker 6: The way it was explained to me by Uncle Abel
Speaker 6: was that he found out that his father was being promiscuous.
Speaker 1: That's my cousin Jonathan. Again from what Jonathan has been told.
Speaker 1: Our great grandfather, who everyone called Nola Locke, left Kabovid
Speaker 1: when he was just seventeen years old.
Speaker 6: He had told his mother before he had left and
Speaker 6: gone to school, and I guess during the day she
Speaker 6: confronted him when he was coming home that his father
Speaker 6: was pitching rocks at him, telling him, don't come back
Speaker 6: here no more. One of the times that he was hit,
Speaker 6: he was hitting the head and then he went down
Speaker 6: where there was a whaler stocking up, and that was
Speaker 6: his first time that he had left home.
Speaker 1: My aunt Judy Jonathan's mother picks up the story from there.
Speaker 1: He had no money.
Speaker 4: He came on a whaling ship working and his destination
Speaker 4: was the United States. However, he jumped ship in Bermuda
Speaker 4: and worked on a sugar plantation there to earn money
Speaker 4: to continue to travel. Sailed around South America and went
Speaker 4: to Hawaii, and then he went to San Francisco. He
Speaker 4: was there during the nineteen oh six Great Earthquake.
Speaker 1: After the earthquake, my great grandfather got a job on
Speaker 1: the railroads and made his way east across the country.
Speaker 1: His final destination a small seaside town outside New Bedford
Speaker 1: called Mattapoisa, where he had family nearby. Life there suited him.
Speaker 1: He got a job doing manual labor and soon saved
Speaker 1: enough money to buy a small pig farm and a house.
Speaker 1: He was around forty old for a bachelor those days,
Speaker 1: and was ready to settle down.
Speaker 3: Then.
Speaker 4: He was not a young man, and I believed that
Speaker 4: he had an arranged marriage with a Cape Fridian woman
Speaker 4: from Brava.
Speaker 1: With just a horse and buggy, he started a small
Speaker 1: business collecting trash in the neighborhood, and he eventually won
Speaker 1: a contract with the town But when I asked my
Speaker 1: aunt to describe Nola Lock for me, she mostly talked
Speaker 1: about his spirituality, and he was very, very.
Speaker 4: Much into his religion. In our dining room, we had
Speaker 4: a large farmhouse kitchen and we always ate there. I
Speaker 4: don't ever recall eating in the dining room, but what
Speaker 4: I do remember is that was where my grandfather had
Speaker 4: his Bible, and that he sat there and read the Bible.
Speaker 2: So food wasn't.
Speaker 4: Served there, but the Word of God was served there.
Speaker 1: My aunt Judy stories got me thinking about how similar
Speaker 1: Nola Lock and Daddy Grace's lives must have been in America,
Speaker 1: At least at first. They worked the same blue collar
Speaker 1: jobs that all Cape Verdians did. They went to the
Speaker 1: same shops. They both married Cape Verdian women and started families.
Speaker 1: But where we related. I started asking other family members
Speaker 1: what they knew or who I should talk to. One
Speaker 1: person told me that years before Daddy Grace founded the
Speaker 1: United House of Prayer, he would sometimes preach at the
Speaker 1: church that Nola Loc attended, the Portuguese Pentecostal church on
Speaker 1: Cape Cod pastored by Joseph de Grace, Daddy Grace's elder brother,
Speaker 1: and that in the early days. They enjoyed discussing the
Speaker 1: Bible together when Daddy Grace would visit Nola Lock's house.
Speaker 1: Nola Lock's house the one he bought with the trash
Speaker 1: collection earnings. It yielded another clue. I was on ancestry
Speaker 1: dot Com looking through some old census records from the
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties and thirties. The house that Nola Lock owned
Speaker 1: it was right next to a house owned by Caesar Grace,
Speaker 1: Daddy Grace's older brother. I had heard their families were close,
Speaker 1: that Caesar's daughter and Nola Locke's daughter my Nana called
Speaker 1: each other Prima's cousins. This in itself didn't prove anything.
Speaker 1: It's customary for Kate Burdian's to call each other family,
Speaker 1: even if the relationship isn't blood. I still call my parents'
Speaker 1: friends TiO and Tia. But it did help explain what
Speaker 1: happened later. When Daddy Grace asked Nola Lock's daughter my
Speaker 1: Nana to go out on the road with him as
Speaker 1: part of his church that man.
Speaker 7: Showed up on the farm thinking he could talk to
Speaker 7: your grandmother. My father would have no part of it,
Speaker 7: and then he would go into speaking creole where he
Speaker 7: would say, showing him the axe and saying, you know
Speaker 7: this is the axe, I'll sharpen it on your head.
Speaker 1: Daddy Grace would have been in his mid forties, and
Speaker 1: here he was asking Nola Lock's teenage daughter to leave
Speaker 1: home and join his church and travel with him unaccompanied,
Speaker 1: without even asking permission from her father. Daddy Grace had
Speaker 1: to have known that this was not appropriate behavior and
Speaker 1: something Nola Lock would not have liked. No wonder Nola
Speaker 1: Lock was so enraged he threatened Daddy Grace with an axe.
Speaker 1: I've spent a lot of time thinking about this. Why
Speaker 1: Nola Lock in Daddy Grace's lives diverged? Why are families diverged?
Speaker 1: My great grandfather he was a conservative man. After having
Speaker 1: spent years disconnected from his own family, traveling around the globe,
Speaker 1: working and searching for a home, he was happy to
Speaker 1: stay in Massachusetts, working his farm, running his businesses, raising
Speaker 1: his children, and living a stable, if modest life. In contrast,
Speaker 1: Daddy Grace was always looking outward, far from New Bedford.
Speaker 1: He didn't seem interested in settling into the role of
Speaker 1: a family man. He had a burning desire to spread
Speaker 1: the gospel far and wide. In nineteen twelve, after just
Speaker 1: a few years of marriage, he left his wife and
Speaker 1: two young children, hit the road and traveled the country
Speaker 1: and the world, refining his evangelical message. The decisions he
Speaker 1: made his life must have seemed truly wild to my
Speaker 1: great grandfather. Daddy Grace had his own style, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't traditional. It was flamboyant. His hair was long, he
Speaker 1: wore colorful clothes, and he wasn't afraid to show off
Speaker 1: his success. I'm sure that got people talking and that
Speaker 1: he quickly realized that he was outgrowing New Bedford. I
Speaker 1: can relate. Growing up in New Bedford. I always felt different. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I hung out on the beach and participate in all
Speaker 1: the traditional Cape Verdian activities, but I would also skip
Speaker 1: school and take the bus to New York City for
Speaker 1: the day to shop and discover the latest music and fashions.
Speaker 1: By this time I got to high school, I knew
Speaker 1: that if I wanted to do anything creative, I need
Speaker 1: to leave. I needed to explore outside of the fish
Speaker 1: bowl of the Cape Verdian American community. Like Daddy Grace,
Speaker 1: I needed to find my place in the world among
Speaker 1: the many pieces of Daddy Grace. Material I've collected is
Speaker 1: a copy of his nineteen fourteen Declaration of intention to
Speaker 1: become an American citizen. I've studied it trying to understand
Speaker 1: more about this man from the few details listed, like,
Speaker 1: for example, how at the time he was employed as
Speaker 1: a cook, that he renounced any allegiance to the Republic
Speaker 1: of Portugal, that he was thirty one, five foot eight
Speaker 1: and one hundred and sixty six pounds, that his skin
Speaker 1: color was black, but that he had a light complexion.
Speaker 1: Knowing how complicated identity can be for Cape Verdians in America,
Speaker 1: this last part was especially interesting to me. How Daddy
Speaker 1: Grace viewed himself was a big source of controversy around
Speaker 1: him at the time, something both black and white Americans
Speaker 1: had trouble wrapping their heads around. In nineteen fifty two,
Speaker 1: Daddy Grace was featured in a piece in Ebony magazine.
Speaker 1: He told the writer, I am not a Negro. I
Speaker 1: am white by race. But he also tells the same reporter,
Speaker 1: I am a colorless bishop. Sometimes I'm black, sometimes I'm white.
Speaker 1: I preach to all races. I wonder what Ebony readers,
Speaker 1: who were predominantly black would have made of this statement.
Speaker 1: Did Daddy Grace think that by claiming to be white
Speaker 1: that would take him further? Was he a race denier
Speaker 1: or did he just understand the power of a life
Speaker 1: little controversy. I can understand why people might have thought
Speaker 1: that when they heard that quote. There were Cape Verdians who,
Speaker 1: thanks to colonialism, were brainwashed to believe that they were Portuguese.
Speaker 1: And of course many of us do have Portuguese blood.
Speaker 1: But I don't think that's what Daddy Grace meant. Daddy
Speaker 1: Grace did not consider himself a black American. He considered
Speaker 1: himself Cape Verdian because Kabalvid was still a colony of Portugal.
Speaker 1: Daddy Grace came to America on a Portuguese passport, but
Speaker 1: he didn't look like how Americans thought a Portuguese man looked.
Speaker 1: He didn't look white, he didn't look European. He had
Speaker 1: curly hair, light brown skin, and he was always dressed
Speaker 1: to the nines with a three piece suit, a ten
Speaker 1: gallon hat and his jewels. He also spoke with an accent,
Speaker 1: which further confused how others perceived him. And because of that,
Speaker 1: I think he was misunderstood by temporary Americans whose own
Speaker 1: views of race didn't allow much room for nuance. Throughout
Speaker 1: his time in America, Daddy Grace's racial categorization changed based
Speaker 1: on whoever was filling out the paperwork. Immigration listed him
Speaker 1: as black African from Portugal on his nineteen oh four arrival.
Speaker 1: On the nineteen ten census, he was listed as Mulatto,
Speaker 1: but his nineteen eighteen draft card says Negro, and his
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty two marriage license lists him as Caucasian. No wonder,
Speaker 1: Daddy Grace said he was colorless. He saw right through
Speaker 1: the absurdity of the system and perhaps saw the opportunity
Speaker 1: to define himself on his own terms. This seemingly arbitrary
Speaker 1: racial categorization imposed by other people was actually quite common,
Speaker 1: and so wrestling with identity race was something that he
Speaker 1: and all Cape Verdian immigrants were very familiar with. These
Speaker 1: immigrants were escaping a system of white supremacy and colonialism
Speaker 1: only to arrive in America and see how Black Americans
Speaker 1: were being violently oppressed through racist Jim Crow laws in
Speaker 1: the horrific terror of lynching, and the people doing the
Speaker 1: lynching didn't care about where you were born or how
Speaker 1: you identified In August of nineteen twenty one, it was
Speaker 1: reported that a mob threatened to lynch three quote Cape
Speaker 1: verd Island negroes on Cape cod who had been charged
Speaker 1: with a criminal assault on a white woman. This was
Speaker 1: the world they needed to figure out how to position
Speaker 1: themselves in to survive and to thrive.
Speaker 5: They were arriving at the height of racial misgenation and
Speaker 5: de facto segregation in this country.
Speaker 1: That's Marilyn and again, nobody had.
Speaker 5: Any interest in recognizing them as Cape Verdians as a
Speaker 5: separate identity. All they saw was black or white, and
Speaker 5: so they were treated with the same level of discrimination, prejudice,
Speaker 5: and hostility as African Americans or other people of color
Speaker 5: in this country.
Speaker 1: Other Americans didn't understand Cape Verdians in our rich multi
Speaker 1: ethnic identities. What island you were from, what type of
Speaker 1: creole you spoke, what's your family name? That was what
Speaker 1: was discussed, not just your skin color.
Speaker 5: It was so uncomfortable, even oppressive for Cape Verdeans to
Speaker 5: arrive here and just being categorized by other people in
Speaker 5: ways that weren't even recognizable to themselves, let alone to
Speaker 5: the rest of society. And it's a kind of a
Speaker 5: rature of who you are.
Speaker 1: This still feels true to me, a third generation Cape
Speaker 1: Ritian American. Where do you actually fit in?
Speaker 5: Daddy Grace, in his interview in Ebony magazine, said, I
Speaker 5: am a colorless man. I am a colorless bishop. And
Speaker 5: to me, that's like just so Cape Ridian. He's enhancing
Speaker 5: his black side and his white side, and he's bringing
Speaker 5: it all together. I think that Cape Verdeans were actually
Speaker 5: pioneers of how to navigate the waters of American pluralism.
Speaker 5: They've challenged these notions of race, color, ethnicity, and identity
Speaker 5: well before anyone else, any other population in this country
Speaker 5: that I know of.
Speaker 8: So basically, the intentionality behind why folks would choose to
Speaker 8: call themselves cape Verdian but then not claiming black as
Speaker 8: a race or saying that they are Portuguese. Why is that?
Speaker 8: Is it because of the desire to have proximity to
Speaker 8: whiteness or wanting to hold on to white supremacist ideals.
Speaker 8: So I always talk about intentionality as it relates to
Speaker 8: identity of our people.
Speaker 1: Doctor terzel Minev's is a professor of political science at
Speaker 1: Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, North Carolina, and because
Speaker 1: she's also a Cape Verdian immigrant herself. She can give
Speaker 1: context to the struggle Cape Verdian's face around identity in America.
Speaker 8: I think that it's an intergenerational conversation controversy or our
Speaker 8: ancestors who arrived here in the late eighteen hundreds or
Speaker 8: early nineteen hundreds and beyond, where segregation racism was just,
Speaker 8: you know, the dominant conversation. Of course, you're going to
Speaker 8: try to separate yourself from the Black American community because
Speaker 8: of this notion. You see how Black Americans are being
Speaker 8: treated and you're trying to distance yourself from that. But
Speaker 8: then you know you're not white, and the other white
Speaker 8: groups don't see you as being white. Not quite Black
Speaker 8: American by choice and by force, but you're not Portuguese
Speaker 8: or white. So then you stick to what you know
Speaker 8: and you begin to rely on each other. And so
Speaker 8: that's not to say it's wrong or right, it's just
Speaker 8: what happened.
Speaker 1: Times have changed since Daddy Grace and other elders came
Speaker 1: to the United States, and Tarsa experienced the transformation of
Speaker 1: her own identity within the racial construct of America. She
Speaker 1: says much of this was thanks to the professors and
Speaker 1: peers she was surrounded by at Clark Atlanta University.
Speaker 8: I'm very specific about saying that I'm a Black African woman.
Speaker 8: That's how I see myself, and that is all due
Speaker 8: to the socialization and the education that I received. Most
Speaker 8: of the professors were black, but there were a very
Speaker 8: diverse group of black people from the United States and
Speaker 8: also from many of different places in the diaspora and
Speaker 8: the continent of Africa as well. All through those years,
Speaker 8: I was able to be grounded in what I wanted
Speaker 8: my identity to look like.
Speaker 1: I was born here in the United States, and I've
Speaker 1: always identified as a black woman, but I also see
Speaker 1: myself very much as a Cape Verdian woman. By the
Speaker 1: time we got to my generation, Cape Verdian Americans had
Speaker 1: experienced a century of oppression in the United States and
Speaker 1: had been fighting alongside black and African diaspora Americans for
Speaker 1: a dis dis mantling of structural racism. And I grew
Speaker 1: up in the hip hop generation, where principles like pan
Speaker 1: Africanism and knowledge of self led me to discover my
Speaker 1: ancestral roots, unravel the heinous system of the Afro Atlantic
Speaker 1: slave trade, and explore the deep connection of those entangled
Speaker 1: in it. But identity is complicated. As soon as you
Speaker 1: define what it means to you, society and people in
Speaker 1: general impose their perception of you onto you. So there's
Speaker 1: this kind of internal and external negotiation of determining exactly
Speaker 1: who you are. It's a never ending cycle that starts
Speaker 1: with the question what are you. I took my first
Speaker 1: trip to Cubovid in two thousand and five, and since
Speaker 1: then I've been back many times, spending time there seeing
Speaker 1: the things my papa talked about in Parson, understanding a
Speaker 1: bit deeper how hard it must have been for my
Speaker 1: ancestors to leave their home and try to have a
Speaker 1: better life. All of that has helped me to figure
Speaker 1: out who I am in a way I never could
Speaker 1: in the United States. Cabovid feels like home to me,
Speaker 1: but I was born and raised in America. So when
Speaker 1: I'm in Caubovid, my style, my accent, and many of
Speaker 1: the ways in which I operate make me stand out.
Speaker 1: So that question what are you? I can't escape it.
Speaker 1: In Kapovedi, either Cape Verdeans in Cabalvid see me as
Speaker 1: their American cousin. They see me as someone who is
Speaker 1: not native to the islands. They call me things like Portuguez,
Speaker 1: or laugh at me when I spoke Creole because it
Speaker 1: gets mixed up with Portuguese, which I also speak. Or
Speaker 1: they would even call me white girl. But I'm Kenya
Speaker 1: because I am light skinned. But here's the thing. Cape
Speaker 1: Verdian's born in Kabulvid may not have these same issues
Speaker 1: in the Islands, but just like Daddy Grace, as soon
Speaker 1: as they leave, their own identities are also questioned.
Speaker 9: So I am cape Verdian. I was raised here in Praya,
Speaker 9: cabu Verdi. My family everyone is cave Verdian.
Speaker 1: That's Simone Spencer. She's an artist and educator. I talked
Speaker 1: with her in Praya when I was there last. Talking
Speaker 1: with Simon helped me unpack some of the feelings that
Speaker 1: I had about identity, race and perception.
Speaker 9: When you are hearing Kabu Verdi, you identify yourself as
Speaker 9: cape Verdian, not as black or white. You only feel
Speaker 9: the need to identify as either black or white once
Speaker 9: you move out. I went to study in China and
Speaker 9: that's when the identity thing came to me. Cave Verdin
Speaker 9: is such a small country in the whole world that
Speaker 9: when you go abroad, people don't even know about the country.
Speaker 1: So just being Cape Verdian was not enough.
Speaker 9: I had very, very very short hair, and because my
Speaker 9: eyes are a bit slented, people would think I'm a
Speaker 9: Chinese from the south and my name is Simone Spencer.
Speaker 9: It's like an Irish surname, and I'm like, definitely not Irish.
Speaker 1: I have very curly hair and my skin is not
Speaker 1: white at all. Why you have an Irish surname. It's colonialism,
Speaker 1: by the way. It's colonialism.
Speaker 9: So then it's where the real searching for an identity came.
Speaker 1: I can relate to this. Living in the Cape Verdian
Speaker 1: bubble of New Bedford, no one ever thought that I
Speaker 1: was anything but Cape Verdian. I mean, I went to
Speaker 1: school with a gang of cousins. We all know each
Speaker 1: other's families, and we all went to the same Cape
Speaker 1: Verdian clubs. But after I left home, I got a
Speaker 1: lot of confused expressions about my last name to Pina
Speaker 1: and the way I looked. In New York City, everyone
Speaker 1: spoke to me in Spanish and assumed I was Puerto
Speaker 1: Rican or Dominican. I got that question again, what are you.
Speaker 1: Anyone who's ever been asked us before knows how aggravating
Speaker 1: it can be, especially because in my case, a lot
Speaker 1: of people have never even heard of Kabovad. But there's
Speaker 1: also something powerful and not being easily defined. Simoni feels
Speaker 1: this too.
Speaker 9: It's something you can't describe. It's complicated. It's like being
Speaker 9: the perfect spy. Yeah, because you are so ambiguous. It's
Speaker 9: being everything and nothing, because you'll come from everywhere, but
Speaker 9: it's nothing because on the world stage, almost nobody ever
Speaker 9: heard of you.
Speaker 1: During one of my most recent trips to Kaboved I
Speaker 1: tried to track down my ancestral records and Daddy Grace
Speaker 1: is too. Maybe this would help me understand more about
Speaker 1: where we both came from and either confirm or deny
Speaker 1: that there is a blood relation. I visited the National
Speaker 1: Archives in the capital city Praya, certain they could help,
Speaker 1: but once I actually got inside, I ran into one
Speaker 1: bureaucratic roadblock after another trying to access any records. They
Speaker 1: took my email address, but I'm still waiting for information.
Speaker 1: I was also hoping to finally make it to Brava,
Speaker 1: the island where my ancestors and Daddy Grace are from
Speaker 1: I wanted to see the place where my family called home,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to visit the Catholic Church, which is
Speaker 1: known for keeping reliable baptism records. I thought that would
Speaker 1: definitely help me to confirm my family's history. But getting
Speaker 1: to Brava is difficult, really difficult. It's the smallest of
Speaker 1: the populated islands, with only around five thousand people. There
Speaker 1: is no airport. You have to take a boat, and
Speaker 1: the boats, for one reason or another, are often canceled.
Speaker 1: This happens a lot. The same thing happened to me
Speaker 1: the last three times I tried to make the journey.
Speaker 1: So I'm trying to figure out options. Standing at the
Speaker 1: travel agency and a room full of people all clamoring
Speaker 1: and trying to get to Brava, and my friend says
Speaker 1: to me, what are you doing. You're an American girl,
Speaker 1: You have an American passport.
Speaker 7: Use it.
Speaker 1: You can use that passport to get you first in line,
Speaker 1: and not just shook me. Because here I am with
Speaker 1: people who've been waiting to get home for days, some
Speaker 1: for weeks. This one is sick, this one's waiting to
Speaker 1: bring money home, this one's bringing food. These are people
Speaker 1: with real struggles, real issues, and I'm dealing with first
Speaker 1: world problems. The average Cape Verdian salary is around one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty dollars a month, making it economically impossible
Speaker 1: for people to survive without remittances from relatives that are overseas,
Speaker 1: and one hundred plus years after my ancestors fled, it's
Speaker 1: still easier for a Cape Verdian to travel abroad than
Speaker 1: to find reliable and safe into island transit to Brava.
Speaker 1: Not until that moment did I ever think of myself
Speaker 1: as privileged. I grew up poor on welfare, eating government
Speaker 1: cheese and powdered milk. My mother worked nights a latchkey kid,
Speaker 1: but my mother didn't have to get on a flight
Speaker 1: or a boat to come home or immigrate to find
Speaker 1: work in Praia. Not only did I feel the sting
Speaker 1: of privilege, but I also felt survivor's guilt. Because my
Speaker 1: ancestors sacrificed so much, I had opportunities and access to
Speaker 1: resources that most people in Kabovid can only dream of.
Speaker 1: I never did get to Brava. I felt like a failure,
Speaker 1: like I let my ancestors down, but also my team
Speaker 1: back in New York. I had traveled across the Atlantic
Speaker 1: and had failed to find any new information on not
Speaker 1: only my family but Daddy Grace. I was no closer
Speaker 1: to proving or disproving my relation to him. After I
Speaker 1: got back to the States, I couldn't stop thinking about
Speaker 1: my trip and everything that I had brought up. I
Speaker 1: was searching for answers, but came back with more questions.
Speaker 1: I still didn't have the origin story, my origin story,
Speaker 1: or Daddy Grace's. I sat down with my friend Darryl Stewart,
Speaker 1: who's also a producer on this show, to help me
Speaker 1: unpack some of the deep feelings that came up from
Speaker 1: me about race, identity and how people's roots and stories
Speaker 1: get lost over the generations.
Speaker 10: So I'm Black American, identify as Black American, and unfortunately
Speaker 10: for me, we can only trace our ancestry back. But
Speaker 10: so far we know that our ancestors were from the
Speaker 10: Geechee Island area, that they were slaves brought in off
Speaker 10: of the coast of Carolinas.
Speaker 1: But that's pretty much.
Speaker 10: Oh, we know. Can you talk a little bit about
Speaker 10: connecting to your ancestry?
Speaker 7: How was that shit?
Speaker 1: How you see the world today living in a place
Speaker 1: like New Bedford, where most of the black people are
Speaker 1: Cape Verdian. I didn't think about it as much when
Speaker 1: I lived there, because you know, I was among everybody's
Speaker 1: pretty much the same. It wasn't until I moved out
Speaker 1: of the area that I started to have more questions
Speaker 1: about my identity, or at the very least, have questions
Speaker 1: about how other people perceived me, because when I was
Speaker 1: growing up, there were never any questions. Nobody ever was like, oh,
Speaker 1: are you mixed? So yes, being Cape Verdian I quickly
Speaker 1: realized was a big part of my identity, right, and
Speaker 1: that is something that's different from being Black American and
Speaker 1: you're having what you can trace of your ancestral roots here.
Speaker 1: But upon a further investigation of what it means to
Speaker 1: be Cape Verdian, you know, you quickly realize that I
Speaker 1: can only go back so far to trace my family lineage. Like, yes,
Speaker 1: we from a place that is in Africa and has
Speaker 1: its own cultural identity, its own language. But Cape Verdians
Speaker 1: wouldn't even exist if it wasn't from the slave trade,
Speaker 1: so we cannot trace our ancestral roots either.
Speaker 10: Do you think that's where Daddy Grace struggled with his identity.
Speaker 10: What do you think about that.
Speaker 1: I do think that Daddy Grace was an outcast within
Speaker 1: the Cape Verdian community.
Speaker 2: Why.
Speaker 1: I think he was rejected because I think Kate Verdians
Speaker 1: felt he was too audacious, not humble, just ostentatious with
Speaker 1: the display of his money. I think also some of
Speaker 1: his ways in which he operated people were, you know,
Speaker 1: really questioned, like the fact that he was surrounded by
Speaker 1: a lot of attendants. He didn't give conservative cape Verdian man.
Speaker 1: He gave flamboyant, unapologetic I'm gonna be me and you
Speaker 1: were going to recognize that I am a very wealthy
Speaker 1: man and I'm not gonna hide at I think that
Speaker 1: he had to have struggled with that. I think that
Speaker 1: even if outwardly he might never have said, like, oh,
Speaker 1: I feel rejected by the Cape Verdian community. And it
Speaker 1: wasn't just the Cape Verdian community. He was rejected by
Speaker 1: the black community too, and he was obviously rejected by
Speaker 1: the white community. So I think he had to have
Speaker 1: had an unshakeable belief in himself. He really felt that
Speaker 1: I'm here to spread God's word. This is my mission.
Speaker 1: He even says in some of his teachings that he
Speaker 1: was just being persecuted the same way Jesus was.
Speaker 2: And you know what, shout out to my mother.
Speaker 1: She used to say that too.
Speaker 10: She used to say, I don't know why you kids
Speaker 10: are so concerned about what other people think because they
Speaker 10: talked about Jesus.
Speaker 1: So guess what people are going to talk about you too.
Speaker 10: Move into your purpose.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what Daddy Gray said.
Speaker 10: There is another side to this right where people are like,
Speaker 10: I'm successful, I made it, my bills are paid, my
Speaker 10: life is wonderful. You know, fuck everybody who who doesn't
Speaker 10: like me or who didn't support me, etc. This is
Speaker 10: my time to shine. But I think it gets complicated
Speaker 10: for us, right, people of color. So much of our
Speaker 10: identity is steeped in family and community, right, and we do,
Speaker 10: many of us in some ways, we don't feel fulfilled
Speaker 10: until we have the co sign right of family, of community,
Speaker 10: of et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So this is
Speaker 10: my final question for you.
Speaker 1: What does your Cape Verdean heritage mean to you? That's
Speaker 1: a serious question, Darryl, so serious a question that I
Speaker 1: couldn't give Darryl a concise answer. But I kept coming
Speaker 1: back to those days spent with my grandparents, learning about
Speaker 1: the ways of the old country, tending to the garden
Speaker 1: and the animals, Sitting around the table with my extended
Speaker 1: family as they laughed, playing cards for pennies and telling stories.
Speaker 1: I thought about the feeling of Sodi and how Cape
Speaker 1: Verdeans in the diaspora are always longing for home, and
Speaker 1: how those in Kabulvid are always yearning to be reunited
Speaker 1: with their loved ones spread across the globe. I also
Speaker 1: kept coming back to what Simoni had said about being
Speaker 1: a spy. Cape Verdians have a unique way of blending it. Oftentimes,
Speaker 1: unless someone comes out and says it, you won't even
Speaker 1: know that their roots are in cabol Vid. People like
Speaker 1: actors Michael Beach and Anika Nanni Rose, or Congressmen Haki Jeffries,
Speaker 1: or jazz musicians Horace Silver and Paul Gonzalves, the disco
Speaker 1: group the Tavars and rapper coy lay over the generations.
Speaker 1: Our identity merges with Black Americans, although we never forget
Speaker 1: our Cape Verdian heritage. And then, of course, I thought
Speaker 1: about Daddy Grace. Daddy Grace was a citizen of the world.
Speaker 1: He didn't see himself in the same racial construct that
Speaker 1: we see ourselves here in America. Plus, as a man
Speaker 1: of God, he knew race didn't mean a thing when
Speaker 1: it comes to being saved. Right before his death, Daddy
Speaker 1: Grace recorded a live sermon. There's this section I especially
Speaker 1: like where he gives us clues about how he saw himself.
Speaker 2: And I'm on my way, however, and I'm there now,
Speaker 2: I'm every aware, no where I am now, I'm everywhere
Speaker 2: right now. Don't you say, God, He's everywhere. I'm everywhere.
Speaker 2: All you gotta do think of me, love me.
Speaker 7: Ready is to go with me.
Speaker 3: Where I am.
Speaker 7: You there.
Speaker 1: And the people, well, they were ready to go with him.
Speaker 1: That's next time. Sweet Daddy Grace is a production of
Speaker 1: iHeart Podcasts Enforce, a media group. This show is hosted
Speaker 1: by by me Marcy de Pina. It's written and produced
Speaker 1: by Marissa Brown and Me. Our story editors are Darryl Stewart,
Speaker 1: Duncan Riedel, and Zarren Burnett. Editing, sound design and theme
Speaker 1: music by Jonathan Washington. Original music by Enrique Silva of
Speaker 1: Acasia Mayor. Show cover art by Viviana Salgado of Studio
Speaker 1: Creative Group, fact checking by Austin Thompson. Our executive producers
Speaker 1: are Marcy Depina and Jason English. Special Thanks to Will Pearson,
Speaker 1: Nikki Ettore, Ali Perry, Tamika Campbell, and Lulu Phillip of iHeartMedia,
Speaker 1: and all of my family members who talked to me
Speaker 1: for this show, my ancestors, the United House of Prayer
Speaker 1: for All People, and the countless number of people who
Speaker 1: shared their memories of Sweet Daddy Grace with me. Thanks
Speaker 1: also to doctor Marie Dollum and doctor Danielle brun Sigler,
Speaker 1: whose academic work on Sweet Daddy Grace has been incredibly helpful.
Speaker 1: And finally, I want to thank Bishop Grace himself for
Speaker 1: choosing me to tell his story. For more information on
Speaker 1: Bishop Charles M. Grace, check out the website Sweet Daddy
Speaker 1: Grace and follow me at Marcy Depina on all social
Speaker 1: platforms