Leadership food for thought: A Challenge to our Leaders

Agnelo A. Montrond

I have been enjoying teaching Cape Verdean Language Arts at Massasoit Community College since the summer of the year 2000. Hundreds of students have shown interest in learning Cape Verdean Creole. For different reasons, area residents and others from all walks of life including dentists, medical doctors, lawyers, elementary and high school teachers and administrators, businesspeople and others who interact with Cape Verdeans either socially or professionally, have enrolled in this 3-credit course.

All those people want to learn the foundation of the Cape Verdean Language, history, and culture to get acquainted with their fundamentals to effectively and successfully deal with Cape Verdeans. Some of the course participants have stated that, after they have completed the course, they felt they were better prepared to effectively relate to Cape Verdeans residing in the Greater Brockton Area.

Brockton is really the 11th island of the archipelago of Cape Verde, as was wisely stated by the Cape Verdean prime-minister, José Maria Neves, in a recent visit to the United States. Interested “Champions” now have the opportunity to initiate the development of learning the language spoken by one of Brockton fastest growing minority groups. The “Cape Verdean-Champions” are hardworking people who are growing not only demographically, but also economically and intellectually. The number of businesses owned and operated by “Cape Verdean-Champions” has skyrocketed lately. “Cape Verdean-Champions” are helping to boost the economy in Brockton. Do you know how many “Cape Verdean – Champions” businesses are out there only on Main Street in Brockton? I am sure that if you find out, you will be surprisingly impressed. When it comes to homeownership “Cape Verdean-Champions” are a role model in the area: as soon as they buy a house they start making improvement to it in an effort to make it look nice both in the interior and in the exterior. That alone, is a tremendous contribution they have been doing to help beautify the city of Brockton.

Also, many intellectuals, scholars, educators, and highly qualified professionals have contributed to make this nation what it is today. As it was well said, Cape Verde richness is not gold, nor it is diamond, but it is its human resources. In an effort to avoid omissions, I will not mention names of those who have outperformed, surpassed, or excelled in several areas of knowledge, know how, or expertise in this country. We have sufficient reasons to be proud to be Cape Verdeans anywhere we may be, even though some of the US media have often inappropriately portrayed a negative image of what we are not about.

It should not go without saying that many Cape Verdeans have enlisted in the US army. Some have participated in several wars defending the country. Many have served and are still serving in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Several have lost their lives in the line of duty to defend our national interests.

For all these reasons we should congratulate our protagonists and meanwhile recognize that it is possible for Capeverdeans to do more and better both at national and local levels. At a local level, especially in Brockton, there is an urgent need to create a tactical and strategic coalition involving well respected and credited representatives of all sectors of the community capable of defending the Cape Verdeans’ interest and influencing the local decision makers with regards to social, economical, educational and political matters. This is a challenge that I would like to direct to our leaders.

Agnelo A. Montrond