Telling Our Story, Because No One Else Will: Cape Verdean Transnational Identity Formation as Knowledge Production

“This article was published as Gibau, G.S. (2015). Telling Our Story, Because No One Else Will: Cape Verdean Transnational Identity Formation as Knowledge Production. Mande Studies, 16-17, 107-117. No part of it may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or distributed in any form, by any means, electronic, mechanical, photographic, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Indiana University Press. For education reuse, please contact the Copyright Clearance Center http://www.copyright.com/. For all other permissions, contact IUPress at http://iupress.indiana.edu/rights/.”Seemingly from birth, Cape Verdeans are charged by their elders to go forth and "tell their story." Yet the Cape Verdean story remains relatively unknown despite its relevance to world history and ongoing processes of globalization. Nevertheless, Cape Verdeans refuse to be rendered "statistically insignificant" in the American imagination. This article explores recent scholarship and personal standpoints produced by people exploring Cape Verdean transnational identity as a means of making their truths known, thus redirecting the recurrent scholarly gaze from its focus on knowledge production among anglophone diaspora communities to the equally-relevant lusophone experience