Media release
Washington, Sep 1: The DC Mangalorean Association, was founded by Letitia Joyce D’Souza of Hyattsville, Maryland, USA in the year 1989. She was born in Bendur, Mangaluru on May 3, 1921, (D’Souza Families of Bondel, part of the family later moved to Bendur). After having her stints at St Agnes College, Mangaluru as the Professor & Principal and then pursuing Master’s degree in Social work from Catholic University of America at Washington DC, she went back to India to serve as the Director of YWCA, for New Delhi and Bombay. Then she decided to return to USA in 1981 and continued doing social work at many centers in DC area.
Being one of the early immigrants from Mangaluru in the DC area, Joyce founded the group with the help of friends and family in April 1989. At that time, it was just a group of Mangalurean friends and was not called as an association and began with a picnic of few families held at Dr Pamela Enjetti’s house, who was a common friend of Joyce from Mangaluru, and became the first president of the association later. When the group was formed, it was not really an association for several years. The families would meet once or twice a year in one person’s house and invited by phone. Each one brought a dish to share. Her other nephews lived around the area, Walter D’Souza, Ivor D’Souza and Marcius D’Souza, and Marcius D’Souza also became members of the association. Joyce also founded the Indian American Catholic Association (IACA) of Washington DC in 1993 and was a very active president of the organization. Everyone gives credit to Joyce for the concept and guidance in establishing the Mangalorean Association successfully. Many people may not know that at the time Joyce was working as the director for YWCA at New Delhi, India, India Gandhi, PM of India at that time, attended the flower show organized by YWCA as the chief guest and sent Joyce a personal thank you note for the hospitality. Interestingly, her nephew Anil D’Souza, who is the current committee member of both the Mangalorean Association and IACA has still preserved the handwritten thank you note of Gandhi to Joyce as a fond memory that he shared with V James Dante while discussing about Joyce.
By 1990-1991, there was a desire to formalize the association as DC Mangalorean Association and Dr Pamela Enjetti became the first president of the Association. Looking back into the history of the association since its inception by Joyce, there have been nine (10)people who led the association before 2019, that includes the founder and 9 presidents. They are,in order of succession are as below. -
Letitia Joyce D’Souza, (Founder) - 1989
Pamela Enjetti, (First President) - from 1990 to 1991
Edwin Baptist – from 1992to 1993
Esmie Coutinho – from 1994 to 1995
Giovanni Mascarenhas – from 1996 to 1998
Jacintha Mascarenhas – from 1999 to 2002
Marcius D’Souza – from 2003 to 2003
Glenda Bastian (longest serving President) – from 2004 to 2014
Juliet Vaz Barboza – from 2015 to 2016and
Carol D’Souza Rodrigues – from 2017 to 2018
V James Dante, (Current President) – Started 2019
Each one of them have contributed to the association in their own unique ways to grow the association throughout the years and kept it running. When the association was formed, the major events organized during the year were Easter Sunday function, Summer picnic and the Christmas Gala event to keep up the traditions and the rich cultural history. The credit also should go to Edwin Baptist for setting up the rules and regulations of the association. Jacintha Mascarenhas contributed in new initiatives, such as starting the Newsletter and publishing income/expenditure statements as well as starting the process of emailing members about events. The Monthi Fest event, very special to Mangalurean Catholics, was organized for the first time when Glenda Bastian was the president and the tradition has continued since then. The new event called Spring get-together/Talent Show was started by Juliet Vaz Barboza when she was the president and the members are trying to continue this show as it provides a platform for members and their children to showcase their talents and be recognized in the community. In 2018, during the presidency of Carol D’Souza, children were invited to participate in a contest to hand-draw a picture logo for Mangalorean Association.
The Mangalorean Association was officially registered as a corporation in July 2010 at Maryland, USA during the time Glenda Bastian was the president and the initial directors of the association at the time of registration were, Glenda Bastian, Agnelo Gonsalves and Clifford Noronha. The task of collecting member contacts initially was started by Clifford Noronha and that has helped to maintain a good member directory database over the years. Even though when the association started, the president’s term was restricted to 2 years, somewhere after presidency of Giovanni Mascarenhas, people stayed for longer as presidents, the reason could be that not too many came forward to volunteer for the position. Later once again in 2015, a decision was made by the committee to limit the president’s term to 2 years. In earlier years, elections were hardly held and people were requested to volunteer for the committee positions. In the year 2018, the nomination and election process for office bearer positions was formally adopted for the first time.
The Mangalorean Association has now completed 30 years as a very successful organization and community, very well known in USA and the world. The association has kept growing and more members have joined the community from DC, Maryland and Virginia areas. The association keeps trying the best to not only grow the organization in terms of membership but also by means of bringing people together through various cultural, social and other charitable activities that we organize throughout the year.
V James Dante took over as 10th president of the Mangalorean Association in 2019. The association has a very strong and able committee of office bearers and executive committee members who are energetic, dynamic and full of new ideas, a band of 4 office bearers and 5 executive committee members.
The committee is venturing into implementing new and modern ideas to make every event interesting and help bring people together, both young and the old, and try to bridge the gap between the generations. It is also focusing on offering several newer programmes throughout the year that appeal to everyone and attract them to attend in larger numbers, not merely focused on cultural/religious events but also on social and charity related work to reach out to the needy in order to fulfill the vision of the founder.
As the new committee, it started putting the act together and created official banners for Mangalorean Catholic Association with a digitized logo, for both the outdoor and indoor events. The association started using the official banner and logos on website and the Facebook pages as well as in email communications.
The association is also encouraging other Catholic communities in the region such as the Goan Catholic Association as well as IACA, who share similar culture, beliefs and values to participate in our functions.
The association has already completed the first successful ‘Telematch Picnic’ in June 2019 that was attended by over 135 people. The next big event planned is the ‘Monthi Fest (Feast of Nativity) Musical Extravaganza’ on Saturday, September 14 that is going to be a unique event. Apart from having the traditional mass, flower showers to mother Mary and traditional homemade native dishes for dinner, the association is also hosting the Musical Nite featuring Mangalorean Konkani musicians from India and Middle East. The event will be led by the latest music sensation in Konkani music from Mangaluru, the well-known young energetic talents, Kevin Misquith and featuring Vanessa Saldanha along with guest artists Norbert and Nancy Pereira, the popular singers from the Middle East.
Daijiworld has come forward to become Media Partner to get Mangalorean Catholic Association more global attention from this year.
From left to right – Renita Fernandes (Treasurer), Wilma Tauro (Secretary), Merlyn Mathias (committee member), V James Dante (President), Savio Fernandes (Vice President), Pravin D’Souza (committee member), Clint Almeida (committee member) and Reynel Castelino (committee member) (Anil D’Souza, committee member was absent)
V James Dante has also been appointed as the first official correspondent of Daijiworld from USA to cover the event news as well as socially relevant issues, reviews and interviews exclusively for daijiworld.com web portal, especially for DC, Maryland and Virginia region to begin with. The association has thanked Gerry D’Mello, Daijiworld senior correspondent from Toronto, Canada, and Daijiworld founder Walter Nandalike for this gesture.
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