Episode
Highlights
A STORY TO BE TOLD
“That’s another driving motivation for me to not just walk away from this, because it’s a history and we’re part of a legacy in this business, and there’s a story to be told.”
—DOM FERNANDES

Dom Fernandes, left, and his brother John Fernandes at Fresh Meadows Farm in Carver, Mass | Photo: Alex Nunes
WHALE COUNTRY
Cape Verdeans are the first major group of Africans who don’t come to the U.S. enslaved. They arrive here because of the whaling industry.
BOGS
“Cranberry industry was really in an escalation in terms of the commercial production. And there was this huge need of laborers. And that’s where most of the Cape Verdeans came in and began to fill some of that void whether it was in regards to building cranberry bogs, harvesting cranberry bogs. That was really the reason why most of them came in and then settled down here in this region.”
—DOM

A young worker at Hollow Branch Bog near Wareham, Mass., in September 1911 | Photo: Courtesy of Library of Congress National Child Labor Committee Collection

A group of cranberry bog workers are pictured on Smart’s Bog in the vicinity of South Carver, Mass., in September 1911 | Photo: Courtesy of Library of Congress National Child Labor Committee Collection
OBSTACLES
“There were some obstacles based on skin color with regards to ability to get financing. The ability to buy in–you would generally buy in from, sometimes they were already a multi-generational family farm or multi-generational family land. And sometimes those opportunities were restricted if it was a person of color trying to buy property that was in a family for two or three generations.”
—DOM
“I felt like the vultures were kind of circling over my mother, and I could kind of keep things in play until we could figure out how best we were gonna transition the farm out of the family.””
—DOM

Dom Fernandes walks toward the sorting barn at Fresh Meadows Farm | Photo: Alex Nunes
MAKING A RUN FOR IT
“But I decided I was going to make a run at it for a while and then see where things went. And that was 35 years ago. So–still here. [Laughs]”
—DOM
“We’ve had our struggles. But the rewards of the lifestyle of growing cranberries is the lifestyle of being out here. The little, small, intrinsic value of being outside has just been incredible. I wouldn’t trade it. I wouldn’t trade the last 39 years for anything. It’s been a good run.”
—DOM

Dom Fernandes holds out a handful of fresh picked cranberries at Fresh Meadows Farm in Carver, Mass. | Photo: Alex Nunes