The first sign of Cabo Verde’s World Cup moment arrived June 2 at Boston’s Logan Airport, where roughly 100 supporters gathered in international arrivals with flags, scarves and songs as the national team landed to begin its debut World Cup campaign, according to the report. Fans from one of the largest Cabo Verdean diasporas in the United States — about 70,000 in Massachusetts and 21,000 in Rhode Island — had traveled long distances to greet the players.
An airport official then ordered the squad to board a bus from inside the terminal, preventing the players from emerging. Initial disappointment quickly gave way to singing among the crowd, who drew on a recent anthem by Soraia Ramos celebrating how Cabo Verdeans live across the globe, the account says. Supporters expressed pride that the nation’s name would gain international notice; one fan noted people would “pull up their phones and see, ‘Cabo Verde,’ and they’d be amazed,” the report adds.
Cabo Verde is among Africa’s island nations, situated about 350 miles off the continent’s west coast. It comprises 10 islands, nine of them inhabited. The country is the third-smallest World Cup qualifier by population and the second smallest by land area, the story notes. Portugal colonized the islands from 1462 until independence in 1975, a span of 513 years, during which the archipelago served as a geographic hub in the transatlantic slave trade.
Emigration has long shaped Cabo Verde’s history. Between 1.5 million and 2 million people of Cabo Verdean origin live abroad, compared with roughly 500,000 on the islands, according to the report. Major destinations include the Netherlands, Portugal, Senegal and the United States. Chronic droughts and famines have driven much of that movement; the late Codé di Dona’s song “Fomi 47” mourns the famine of 1947, the account says.
The New England connection dates back to the 19th century, when Cabo Verdeans went to work in the whaling industry. As the New Bedford Whaling Museum records, New Bedford became “the wealthiest city per capita in the United States” in that era, a development that helped establish long-standing Cape Verdean communities in the region, the story adds.
