- Title Information
- Title
- Interview with Donald Senna
- Name:
Personal
- Name Part
- Senna, Donald
- Role
- Role Term:
Text
- interviewee
- Name:
Personal
- Name Part
- Fuentes, Gabrielle
- Role
- Role Term:
Text
- interviewer
- Type of Resource
- mixed material
- Origin Information
- Date Created
(encoding="w3cdtf", keyDate="yes")
- 2008-06-23
- Subject
- Name
- Name Part
- Senna, Donald
- Abstract
- "Brown University Fox Point Oral History Project Donald Senna Biography Interviewed July 23, 2008 by Gabrielle Fuentes Donald Senna was born on October 10, 1940 in Providence, RI. His father, Saturnino Senna, emigrated from Cape Verde as did his mother, Amelia Alves Senna's, parents. He grew up in the Fox Point neighborhood on Pike Street, which was renamed Alves Way after his family who lived there for many years. Though Mr. Senna currently lives in East Providence, Rhode Island, he considers himself a âFox Pointer.â During the interview, Mr. Senna shared his memories of growing up in Fox Point in the 1940âs and 1950âs. One of the most important parts of his childhood was his grandparents house on 88 Pike Street. He remembers the huge parties his grandmother threw there, the neighborhood sleepovers, as well as the in-house wakes that gave him nightmares. Mr. Senna said the house was a "citadel" of the Cape Verdean community in Fox Point. He explains that people from all over the neighborhood would come by to eat and share stories. Being close to the docks, the house was also a meeting place for new immigrants, where news from Cape Verde could be brought to Providence. Throughout the interview, Mr. Senna reiterates the importance and the strength of the community he grew up in. He describes a place founded on a strict sense of respectâtowards elders, religion and hospitality. He describes an almost idyllic neighborhood with just the right mix of fun and danger: from hanging out at the Boyâs Club and running into Joe Lewis in a pink Cadillac to almost drowning in Narragansett Bay. When Mr. Senna graduated from Hope High School, he enlisted in the U.S. Army. He explains his decision bluntly: "there was no other alternative." At the time, he says, there were only two routes for a black man from Fox Point to takeâthe army or the docks. As a young person he faced racial discrimination, but despite the limitations placed on him, he attended Byant College for undergraduate and went on to receive an M.B.A. there as well. After the being discharged from the army, he joined the National Guard. He later moved to New York to work for IBM. Mr. Sennaâs grandparentâs house on Alves Way was recently sold to Holy Rosary Church and later demolished. In this interview, Mr. Senna discusses the reasons for selling the house and the effect it had on his family. Mr. Senna saw the home as one of the last hold-outs in a neighborhood destroyed by supposed attempts at urban renewal. Though most of the people he grew up with have moved out of the area, he still remains connected to Fox Point, primarily through his activities with the Boyâs and Girlâs Club."
- Related Item:
Host
(displayLabel="Collection:")
- Title Information
- Title
- The Fox Point Project
- Identifier:
COLID
- 48
- Identifier:
URI
- http://dl.lib.brown.edu/foxpoint
- Genre (aat)
(authorityURI="http://vocab.getty.edy/aat/", valueURI="http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300202595")
- oral histories (literary works)