Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera
Biografía de una ciudad: New Bedford
Tinta regada
1 de agosto de 2024
“Its setting [The Ordinary Seaman] was inspired by New Bedford, the great fishing port city of Massachusetts. What drew me to New Bedford at first was its Guatemalan immigrant community, there are thousands of Guatemalans there, most of them highland Maya with no or almost no previous connection to the ocean, to the fishing industry. But for three centuries New Bedford had been a hub for all kinds of immigrants. Now there are other Central Americans there too, Mexicans, Dominicans. The Portuguese are the most dominant immigrant group, and there are Norwegians, Italians, Irish, Vietnamese, French Canadians as well. It’s really a classic border town, only instead of on the Sonoran Desert, it borders on the North Atlantic.”
-Francisco Goldman, “I’ve Embraced Outside Status”New Bedford puede ser descrito como una zona geográfica, una comunidad–realmente varias conviviendo–, una colección de ideas heterogéneas que a veces se contradicen, una historia multifacética fundada en silencio imperial, pero más que nada es una serie de experiencias, voces, vidas y culturas. En cierto sentido, lo interesante de New Bedford es su sutil pero definitivo distanciamiento de la cultura imperial norteamericana, a pesar de su ubicación geográfica.
Theresa García y Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera conversan sobre New Bedford.
