Peter Gelzinis talks to Dominga Carvalho, whose three sons, most recently Leroy, were all murdered in Dorchester. Her sister, Isaura Mendes, has had two sons die.
"I left this place and moved back to Cape Verde when my first son, Luis, was killed years ago. I took Christopher and Leroy with me."
For a while the distance offered some peace, Dominga Carvalho said. But the lack of work in Cape Verde eventually brought Christopher, her middle son back to Dorchester. ...
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Comments
My sympathies with the poor woman
By anon
Sun, 10/06/2013 - 11:59am
On a side-note, maybe Cape Verdeans should look inward and ask themselves why their culture produces so much violence like what's happened to this woman's sons. I know some will immediately respond 'poverty', but that's not a satisfactory answer. And no, I don't come from a comfortable middle class suburban background.
Go back to the Herald comment
By anon
Sun, 10/06/2013 - 12:27pm
Go back to the Herald comment section, you Teabagger.
Looking down upon the Herald, eh
By Waquiot
Sun, 10/06/2013 - 4:03pm
Remember, without the writings of the former Wingo Square paper, this posting would not exist. Seriously, these Herald readers you disdain were the audience for this excellent, though sad, article. The keyboard jockeys of Morrissey Blvd. couldn't even find Uphams Corner even if you took them the first mile.
But yeah, the comments you responded to were out of line. Here we have the family pointing out the pointlessness of these tragedies. My guess is that one son said or did something over a decade ago to someone who is very, very vindictive, but again, just a theory.
That war
By WOW
Wed, 07/09/2014 - 2:06am
That war started when Bobby and Larry Mendes were murdered. So to be honest the ones who did that are responsible for this and that war. A vindictive person you say, the same vindictive person who is known to be a war lord rat aka Augusto Lopes and friends all protected as government witnesses.
Wow, you're amazing. Without
By anon
Sun, 10/06/2013 - 5:46pm
Wow, you're amazing. Without ever having met anon @11:59 you know what publications he or she reads and his or her political affiliations.
This isn't exactly a hard
By anon
Sun, 10/06/2013 - 11:49pm
This isn't exactly a hard thing. Consider how easy it is to recognize someone who reads the work of, say, Ayn Rand.
Time and place, anon
By Bob Leponge
Sun, 10/06/2013 - 1:31pm
Perhaps the memorial service would be a good time to start such a conversation?
Or not...
Immigrants and Gangs
By tblade
Sun, 10/06/2013 - 2:08pm
Urban America has had a long history of young male immigrants and children of immigrants turning to gangs dating back to the great migrations of the Italian, Irish, and Jewish gangs in the 19th and early 20th century.
Why were Italian and Irish cultures so historically violent?
You know what's interesting? Italian, Irish, and Cape Verdean immigrants are almost all Catholics? Maybe it is their shared Catholic heritage that makes them so violent?
Perhaps it is Catholics who should look inward and ask themselves why their culture has produced so much violence?
Maybe they were all following
By Bea W
Sun, 10/06/2013 - 2:26pm
Maybe they were all following the fine example of the first European immigrants to America, the colonists.
Add Haitians to the list
By Markk02474
Sun, 10/06/2013 - 3:54pm
More or less Catholic, certainly in the area of birth control. Don't forget The Spanish Inquisition, The Crusades, and witch trials!
So many different reasons why this is happening!
By Jess from Hyde Park
Sun, 10/06/2013 - 6:35pm
I don't know where to start so I'll begin with the simple lack of parenting in many of these lower income communities where either both parents have to work or there is only one parent around.....this should be the basis of the discussion.
Also Haiti is one of the most corrupt countries in the world (not sure about Cape Verde but I would be willing to bet it's up there also)....so we can't expect folks to immigrate from corrupt countries and act different when they get there...it's a cultural thing, it is acceptable for many things to be done in CV and Haiti but when those things are done here all hell breaks loose, leading to all sorts of conflicts....so maybe someone can start some sort of immigrant orientation program so when people get here they don't act like they are still in a third world country and stir up all kinds of trouble.
Additionally there are so many storefront churches in Dorchester they need their followers to have lot's of kids to keep them full. When they have lot's of kids they can't afford to support them and some take responsible lives but many don't.....so religion is very much to blame.
The section 8 and food stamp / EBT programs penalize participants for working by decreasing their benefits instead of requiring them to work or volunteer and reward them for having more children by increasing their benefits.
Lastly this will change with time if nothing else as the areas continue to gentrify. The lower income residents will get priced out and middle and upper income residents will move in. The poverty will move somewhere else and it will disrupt those neighborhoods.
The only possible way to combat all these issues are to change things from inside the lower income communities and make education a priority....if everyone that spent their nights going to church tried to work on educating themselves as consistently the schools would turn around.
Citations please
By eeka
Sun, 10/06/2013 - 7:11pm
Ciitations?
By Reality Check
Mon, 10/07/2013 - 10:59am
Why bother - anything supporting the views of the above poster will be dismissed as "Faux news." Instead, take a walk through your gentrified enclave or more affluent parts of Roxbury Crossing, then head on over to H-Block or Bowdoin/Geneva and let us know if you notice anything different (hint - it's not the color, it's the behavior.) Also, it sounds like we're not getting full details from the Herald sob story - what are the chances of losing five relatives to gun violence assuming the said relatives were not involved in something (drugs, gangs) that painted a big fat target on their backs? This isn't the WWII Eastern Front, the city has been getting less than 70 murders per year lately.
Yeah you've definitely
By anon
Mon, 10/07/2013 - 8:42pm
Yeah you've definitely convinced me with your statement of "why bother." Really, why bother with anything? Why bother to wash the dishes or remake the bed? What's the point when I could dance instead?
Whats the difference in
By question
Tue, 10/08/2013 - 12:50am
Whats the difference in behavoir from roxbuty residents, to Bowdoin/Geneva residents? Im just curious...
Sensible response
By anon
Mon, 10/07/2013 - 10:25am
Naturally, the hardcore true believers and ideological shills will treat your post with disdain. Always better to blame an outside element for personal problems; keeps the foot soldiers radicalized.
Maybe you should ask
By Brian Riccio
Sun, 10/06/2013 - 2:19pm
your parents if they're proud of their moronic offspring?
You've praised several of my posts
By anon
Sun, 10/06/2013 - 3:06pm
in the past. Now I'm a moron for asking why there's such a big problem with extreme levels of violence in the Boston Cape Verdean (sp?) community?
Do the people who responded negatively to my post not think I wasn't aware of the kind of responses I'd get? Of course I was and am. Very predictable responses. Same people praise my other posts when they're to the left of center, but get their panties in a bunch when a polite but un-PC post like this, when I dare to say the obvious, but which we aren't supposed to say because it'll make overly sensitive people feel bad. In my experience many of the people who're angry at my previous post are the same people who would have zero problem mocking or trolling other's misfortune if those others belonged to a non-protected class or group.
Wut?
By tblade
Sun, 10/06/2013 - 5:00pm
You've praised several of my posts
Shockingly, it's extremely rare that people agree with each other 100% of the time.
And you know what? I like dvdoff, but he has disagreed with me in the past and has made no secret of it. I can name other long-time posters that I like that either I have disagreed with or have expressed their disagreement with me. It's kind of like in real life where I have a diverse group of friends who disagree with many of my positions. Funny how that works.
The other thing is that you are one of many ANONs, so how are any posters here supposed to know that they agreed with you in the past and now all of a sudden they don't?
So what if one user agrees with you on many occasions dislikes what you say now? To paraphrase Walt Whitman, Uhub is large; commenters contain multitudes.
You don't get it.
By Bob Leponge
Sun, 10/06/2013 - 5:42pm
People's objection to your post has nothing to do about group membership, identity politics, or political correctness, and everything to do with your choice of venue. "What's wrong in the Cape Verdean community?" is a perfectly reasonable line of inquiry; it is your callous insensitivity in trying to open the conversation here and now that disturbs us.
Well...
By anon
Sun, 10/06/2013 - 5:46pm
Well...
You actually didn't ask "why there's such a big problem with extreme levels of violence in the Boston Cape Verdean community".
You said Cape Verdeans maybe should "ask themselves why their culture produces so much violence like [this incident]"
The first would've been somewhat analytical. The second is mostly just judgmental.
cape verdeans in boston
By Barbosa
Sun, 10/06/2013 - 9:39pm
Your implies many generalizations and our culture is not the cause of this violence. If anything, the violence is a result of those who have gone away from our culture.
These are Cape Verdeans that
By anon
Mon, 10/07/2013 - 8:00pm
These are Cape Verdeans that adopted an American lifestyle of violence. I'm from there and there isn't senseless violence on the islands. It's peaceful there and people sleep with their doors open. Don't generalize
I feel terribly sad for her.
By Bea W
Sun, 10/06/2013 - 2:20pm
I feel terribly sad for her. I also think there is much more to this story than meets the eye when a family loses not one but 6 children to street violence. Were they associating with people in a bad crowd who were targets and just in the wrong place at the wrong time? Were they targets because of Mendes' activism? Did someone have it in for them for some other reason? Do they just have luck on par with the Kennedys? It's hard to put that in a way that doesn't sound victim blaming, but that's not my intent. Whatever people think they know about Dorchester and Roxbury, losing 6 family members to street violence is not normal. It begs the question why, and why this family.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/10/03/roxbur...
my few cents
By goldie
Mon, 10/07/2013 - 12:17pm
Everyone who is in the know that the cv vs cv war has been happening for years. Certain sides of her family killing each other. You're either cvc or cvo.
CVC? CVO?
By Michael Kerpan
Mon, 10/07/2013 - 3:22pm
Could you please explain these initials? (Well, the CV is guessable -- but not the following "c" and "o").
Cvo is CV outlaws... not sure
By anon
Tue, 10/08/2013 - 12:55am
Cvo is CV outlaws... not sure of the other...
How do u know about this? Im
By None
Thu, 05/07/2015 - 10:30pm
a few more cents
By goldie
Tue, 10/08/2013 - 3:23am
CVC= Cape Verdean Click.
CVO= Cape Verdean Outlaws.
Both of these gangs hsve family members on each side. So you u have cousin killing cousin, uncle killing uncle etc. It's been going on for years now. It's been contained to the uphams corner area of the city, but theirs been incidents that happened in the Brockton as well.
I know individuals on each side and the hatred they have for one another is sickening. Its like you guys are really coming up with different scenarios to kill your cousin or uncle...
This is tragic
By Markk02474
Sun, 10/06/2013 - 4:07pm
National public attention was brought to such a loss when 3 sons died fighting in WWII.
I think
By Denise
Sun, 10/06/2013 - 10:48pm
Comments should just end. So tired of the tangents, name-calling/insults, etc. let's all have enough confidence to form our own opinion and discuss things in person. Sorry it's been a long, online day.
It's been a long online day?
By anon
Mon, 10/07/2013 - 8:13am
It's been a long online day? So turn your computer off and return to real life.
My condolences
By Grovehaller
Mon, 10/07/2013 - 10:55am
to the family and friends of Leroy Carvalho. The bigger issue/question is this senseless violence can often take place between relatives,either close or distant. Having grown up with and in close proximity to the Cape Verdean comminuty across southern NE I can attest to knowing that a lot of these young men may have actually shared a tub or bed when they were younger yet grow apart in the most extreme of ways. This is an issue that this community may have to address exclusively by themselves, seeing as how they are often very aware of who did what to who, for whatever reason and so on.
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