Nation's oldest Cape Verdean celebration returns to Fox Point. What you need to know
Music, dancing and the aroma of local delicacies will fill Providence’s India Point Park on Sunday as the 47th annual Cape Verdean Festival kicks off.
The celebration, organized by the Cape Verdean subcommittee of the Rhode Island Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission, runs from noon to 7 p.m. in the Fox Point neighborhood, which has Cape Verdean roots. It will bring more than 40 vendors to the area selling food and ethnic goods.
Festival goers will have a smorgasbord of options, including offerings from Pawtucket's Vicente's Supermarket, Uncle D's Blazin' BBQ, Just Us Foods & Cakes, a seafood outpost, and more. Vegans, don't fret. Meatless and dairy-free choices will be served by Cabo Vegan.
If you're looking to try a Cape Verdean specialty, keep an eye out for cachupa, a corn-based stew cooked with a varying list of ingredients including beans, fish and meat.
Rosangela Tavares, president of the Cape Verdean subcommittee, noted that Cape Verde is agriculturally oriented, so much of its food is corn-based. Dishes like cachupa are modified depending on the region and its people.
"Every island makes it completely different, and everyone, depending on their financial situation, they’ll make it very different," Tavares said.
Aside from food, visitors will find Cape Verdean merchandise, clothing and jewelry from shops including Alzrina, Cabo Verde Na Top, MaMa Africa and Kretchêu.
Music straight from the islands
The festival will bring nearly a dozen musical acts to the park including Ferro Gaita, a band founded in 1996 in Cape Verde’s capital city, Praia. Its music can be described as a twist on funaná, a type of accordion-based music with a rhythm similar to American zydeco.
Award-winning artist Rosa Mestre, who was born in Angola and launched her music career on the island of São Nicolau, will also perform, along with São Vicente-born Grace Evora and Boston-based singer Shantel Teixeira.
Other acts include MC Acondize, Tatiana Michel, Maribel Veiga, Djedje, Ingrid Monteiro, Mel Isse, and Skyla Anderson.
A festival of independence
Providence has billed the festival "the oldest celebration of the Cape Verdean community in the United States," honoring a fairly young independence from 515 years of Portuguese rule.
That independence was secured on July 5, 1975, after a long-fought war launched in 1960 and led by the African Party for Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde, otherwise known as PAIGC. The conflict played out in Guinea-Bissau, a country on the coast of West Africa. Like Cape Verde, it had been part of Portugal's empire.
Today, many Cape Verdeans are also of Portuguese descent. As Taveras describes it, some feel they are "in-between."
"A lot of people still consider themselves Portuguese, and a lot consider themselves Africans and there are the in-between people ... we are such a mixture of so many other cultures and we just call ourselves Cape Verdean and we wouldn’t be able to do that if it wasn’t because we are an independent country," she said.
To Taveras, that's what makes Cape Verde unique.
"To have a country that we’ll have our own identity -- because of that mixture of European and African, we create our own identity, we created a culture — and to be independent and show the culture it is very important to Cape Verdeans," she said. "We’re very proud people."
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: What to know about Providence's upcoming Cape Verdean Festival
