“Storia de Nhas Pais” – A Story of Our Parents (and Maxime Schut’s internship)
Maxime Schut tells everything about her internship, which culminated in a podcast on Cabo Verdean Oral History, now available on Spotify.
“Storia de Nhas Pais” – standing for the ‘Story of my Parents’ in Cabo Verdean creole – is the title of an oral history project in which I collaborated as part of my third-year discretionary space internship at International Studies. Originally founded in 2014 by Marjan Beijering and Davidson Rodrigues and supported by an enthusiastic group of local volunteers, the project aimed at unearthing the memory of Cabo Verdean migration to Rotterdam. Ever since the arrival of the first seafarers in the late 50s, this community has been leaving a considerable impact on the city’s cultural scene, and especially music. Despite being a relatively small migrant group in the Dutch context (with app. 20 000 first and second-generation Dutch-Cabo Verdeans), they turned Rotterdam into their “tenth island”. The interviews collected in 2014 feature inspiring stories of first-generations Cabo-Verdeans told to Rotterdam-born Dutch-Cabo Verdean volunteers, but unfortunately at that time they were not properly archived nor made publicly available. However, in 2019 the ‘Storia’ founders crossed path with the researchers from the “Night Spaces: culture, migration and integration in Europe” (NITE) research project, among which our International Studies lecturers Kamila Krakowska Rodrigues and Sara Brandellero. I joined the research team to process the existing material as my internship project, however, the actual work went much further than filling in metadata forms, transcribing, and collecting consent forms – all indispensable, yet tiresome tasks in oral history research.
Under the supervision of Kamila Krakowska Rodrigues, I started working with Marjan and Davidson and did seven interviews with the original second-generation volunteers from the ‘Storia’ project to research why it was so important for them to preserve the stories of the first-generation migrants. Edna, Wendy, Melany, Roos, Nelson, Leovegildo, and Davidson himself dedicated their time and demonstrated genuine interest and enthusiasm in sharing with me their personal insights into the history of Cabo Verdean migration, their need to get to know their own roots and to honour the women and men who founded this community and turned Rotterdam into their home. Their main message was that preserving memory is crucial, but it is only the first step. The memories need to be actively shared to become meaningful. I enjoyed listening to their stories a lot, which allowed me to grow both academically and as a person. I am deeply grateful for their engagement and openness.
The interviews collected in 2014 and the ones I collected last year are now publicly available at the Rotterdam City Archive for future social projects and research. And to learn more about the project and the journey of the Cabo Verdean community in Rotterdam, listen to the podcast (in Dutch) I recorded with Davidson Rodrigues to help sharing their memories.