Pantaleon Tono Tono
Casting A Wider Net: A Community Oral History Project
Casting a Wider Net is a community oral history project developed to collect and share the stories of Cape Verdean, Vietnamese, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Guatemalan, and Salvadoran members of the commercial fishing industry. The project provided ethnographic training for 9 individuals from those communities who led the documentation effort, conducting 14 interviews in English, Spanish, Kriolu, and Vietnamese.
Casting a Wider Net is funded in part by a Wicked Cool Places grant from New Bedford Creative, a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and an Expanding Massachusetts Stories grant from Mass Humanities, which receives support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and is an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Faustino Morente
Pantaleón Tono Tono, an experienced welder, originally from Guatemala, as part of the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center (NBFHC) oral history project "Casting a Wider Net.” Pantaleón was born in Aguilix in the village of Chujuyub, municipality of Santa Cruz del Quiché, Quiché department, Guatemala. Pantaleón recounts his difficult life path, from a childhood marked by poverty and limited education. He describes working on coffee and sugar cane plantations to pay off debts, facing extortion and violence in Guatemala City, and undertaking a dangerous migration to the United States. Pantaleón expresses his gratitude for the opportunities he found in New Bedford, where he learned to weld and found stability. He shares his dreams for the future, such as continuing to study and creating his own company. Pantaleón also talks about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on his work and his use of traditional medicine to overcome the disease. Throughout the interview, Pantaleón emphasizes the importance of hard work, perseverance, and continuous learning.
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