Brown University

Interview with Manuel Pedroso

Description

Abstract:
On Friday, March 8th, 2008, Adria Katz, a sophomore undergraduate at Brown University, interviewed Manuel Pedroso, proprietor of Friends Market on Brook Street in the Fox Point neighborhood of Rhode Island. Senhor Pedroso is an emigrant from Portugal. He came to Rhode Island in 1942, escaping a tumultuous Europe, at 22 years old. Initially he was directed by the American government to work in defense work since his language deficiency denied him work in the army. He worked briefly in another small market in South Providence, before buying the renowned Friends Market, which holds the record as the oldest lasting Portuguese market in Providence from its prior owner, Duarte. Sr. Pedroso speaks herein to his experiences building a family in a still forming Fox Point, and his relationship with the Portuguese Club, the Holy Rosary Church and other institutions. He also explains the change in the community through the past fifty years, and how he has received it, for the most part, as simply a part of the process that brings about development and improvement. Sr. Pedroso touches on issues of change with respect to technology, as well as racial composition of the neighborhood, and of the changing physical space. He also philosophizes on what makes a neighborhood so important to an individual, and on the way that a community develops.

Citation

"Interview with Manuel Pedroso" (2008). Fox Point Project. Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library. https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:414211/

Relations

Collection:

  • Fox Point Project

    Since 2008, students from the Brown Center for Public Humanities have worked with Professor Anne Valk on collaborative projects to preserve and present the cultural heritage and social history of the Fox Point neighborhood. An archival collection of oral history …
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