About 120 people mark the 60th anniversary of the Rhode Island Cape Verdean Association yesterday at the Providence Marriott. The association also awarded five scholarships.

The Providence Journal / Kris Craig

PROVIDENCE — Dorothy Monteiro McCollough’s father was just 16 when he stowed away on a ship bound for America.

A native of Cape Verde, he jumped overboard twice to avoid immigration agents before he managed to complete the journey. Nobody under the age of 21, she said, was allowed to immigrate back then.

Now, McCollough has two children of her own, both college educated and career minded. And yesterday, she chaired the 60th anniversary celebration of the Rhode Island Cape Verdean Association at The Providence Marriott. The event drew 120 people — including first-, second- and third-generation immigrants — from around New England.

Roughly 500,000 people of Cape Verdean ancestry live in the United States, mainly in New England, according to the U.S. State Department Web site. The 2000 Census reported that four out of every five Cape Verdean descendants in the United States live in Rhode Island or Massachusetts.

Among the speakers at the luncheon was the president of the Republic of Cape Verde, Pedro Verona Rodrigues Pires, who had traveled from New York City, where he had addressed the 63rd General Assembly of the United Nations. He was joined by First Lady Adelica Pires.

The white-haired Cape Verdean president spoke yesterday about the importance of connecting the older and younger generations, “like passing the flag from one generation to another,” he said, speaking through a translator.

He urged his audience to “become part of the American society” by becoming active in politics and by voting. (A voter registration table had been set up in the hallway.) He called education “one of the noblest professions” and said his country this year opened a new public university.

“Cape Verde is where it is today,” he said, “because of contributions of immigrants” in America.

He noted that the journey by boat to this country typically took 30 to 40 days.

Located about 300 miles off the coast of West Africa, Cape Verde is slightly larger in area than Rhode Island. A dry land and a poor country, it is home to about 415,000 people.

The official language is Portuguese, but most Cape Verdeans also speak a Creole dialect, Crioulo, which is based on archaic Portuguese but influenced by African and European languages.

For five centuries, Cape Verde fell under Portuguese colonial rule and was used as a penal colony, as well as by slave traders. The country won independence on July 5, 1975, a date celebrated annually by Cape Verdeans, particularly in New England.

The Cape Verdean president yesterday presented the local association with a brass medallion engraved with words which, translated, mean “memory feeds the future.”

The Rhode Island Cape Verdean Association also awarded annual scholarships of $500 each to the following college students: Jacira Colvin, Tayia Ash, Adia Barboza, Tina Santos and Alex Baptista.

larditi@projo.com