January 14, 2026 — New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center (FHC) has been awarded an Expand Massachusetts Stories — Story Forward Grant from Mass Humanities to share the Casting A Wider Net (CAWN) exhibit with the greater New Bedford community in a new initiative called Sharing the Catch.
The funding will allow FHC to travel the CAWN exhibit to three sites across New Bedford in 2026, create tie-in programming and curriculum materials, and develop a CAWN digital exhibit on FHC’s website.
The exhibit will travel to the Greater New Bedford Community Health Center, the Community Economic Development Center, and Global Learning Charter Public School. This will allow students and community members who were not able to view the exhibit at FHC a new opportunity to learn about and connect to the stories of immigration, labor, and family that are integral to New Bedford’s fishing industry in the spaces they frequent most often, breaking down barriers to access and bringing the archive to life.
The Casting A Wider Net Community Oral History Project was developed to collect and share stories of Cape Verdean, Vietnamese, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Guatemalan, and Salvadoran members of New Bedford’s commercial fishing industry. The project was designed to honor the integral role they play in our food system, build bridges of understanding between newer and older immigrant groups, expand capacity for people to tell their own stories in their own language, and ensure fisheries science and policy are informed by those voices.
CAWN provided ethnographic training for nine community members who led the documentation effort. They conducted, transcribed, and translated fourteen interviews in four languages: English, Spanish, Vietnamese, and Kriolu.