“You are the future,” President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa told a three-year-old girl, dressed in traditional Portuguese clothes, who came to meet him on the podium where he spoke in the Portuguese salon of Artesia. The city, on the outskirts of Los Angeles, has not received a president of the Portuguese Republic since 1989. This weekend it did so with the splendor of a decked-out Portuguese-American community bursting with pride.
“We have never lost the honor and responsibility of being representatives of this beautiful flag,” said Portuguese descendant Jimmy Enes, member of the Artesia DES salon, in the welcome speech in perfect Portuguese. “When they ask what we are, we always answer”i am portuguese” and not “Portuguese-Americanor “Luso-American,” he said. “That’s why, step by step, we’re trying to protect our heritage on the outskirts of Los Angeles, one of the largest cities in the world.”
Artesia was one of the stops during President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa’s visit to California, the most extensive journey by a head of state since Mário Soares greeted communities on the West Coast 33 years ago.
The hall received the president during the Festa dos Santos Populares, which it organizes every September and which this time also commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Banda Filarmónica de Artesia. Dozens of musicians and dancers marched through the atrium, singing in Portuguese, while the community alternated clapping and tasting sardines. Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa exchanged words and photographed with the Portuguese-Americans. “It’s extraordinary, a president always with the people,” Steve Miranda, chairman of the board of Artesia DES, told DN. “I think this has touched everyone’s heart.”
Zeto Carvalho, adviser to the Azores diaspora and head of SATA Air Açores, emphasized the same. “This event is important and of enormous importance because the emigrants feel cherished when the president comes here and shows what he has shown here, that affection,” he told DN.
The president promised the visit in 2018 and is making it happen this week, at a time when ties between California and Portugal are stronger than ever.
“The Portuguese presence in California combines on the one hand exemplary integration and on the other hand a spirit of unification and a clearly visible link with Portugal,” said Portugal’s Consul General in San Francisco, Pedro Pinto. “Today Portugal is here.”
Located about twenty miles from downtown Los Angeles, Artesia has a Portuguese community of a few thousand people, mostly from the Azores. Family names such as Rodrigues or Silva can often be seen on the shutters of the villas around the hall, and the nearby church of the Sagrada Família still has a weekly mass in Portuguese, celebrated by Father Luís Proença.
“With nearly 100 years of existence, the Divino Espírito Santo de Artesia association continues to be an example of community, in the state with the largest Portuguese presence in the US,” said Jimmy Enes. California is in fact the state where there are more people of Portuguese descent, 347 thousand. This delegation – in which the president is accompanied by deputies Eurico Brilhante Dias (PS), João Moura (PSD), Rui Paulo Sousa (Enough) and Pedro Filipe Soares (BE) – visits several of these communities, from San Diego and Artesia to Sao Jose, San Francisco, Gustine and Turlock.
The geographical spread in a gigantic state and the considerable distance from Portugal, with a single direct 10-hour TAP flight between San Francisco and Lisbon, makes it difficult to maintain connections. Therefore, the president emphasized the work of Portuguese salons in California, including Artesia.
“I feel happy because you are a wonderful example. So far from Portugal you are Portugal,” the president said in a speech that was almost entirely in English. “We want you to be Portuguese living in the United States, Americans, never forget that you are Portuguese,” he continued. “I am so proud of you and this association. What you have done here year after year.”
The head of state emphasized the number of young people in the philharmonic band and in the audience, as attracting new generations of Portuguese descendants is one of the challenges that communities face most. And he spoke about the importance of teaching the language, “the fifth most widely spoken in the world”, something that is a constant demand from community leaders.
“We need to improve the knowledge of the Portuguese language,” he stressed, pointing to the work being carried out with the new Superintendent of the United School District of Los Angeles, Portuguese Alberto Carvalho, who attended the event.
The Secretary of State for the Portuguese Communities Paulo Cafôfo, who urged the associations to apply for new support for associativism, also mentioned this aspect. “The Portuguese government is very committed to promoting the Portuguese language,” he assured.
For Paula Rocha Dias, a Portuguese interpreter who emigrated to Oceanside for 14 years, this is an important point. “I would like to see a reinforcement of Portuguese so that children growing up here do not lose the language, as happened to my daughter,” he told DN. “Today she said for the first time that she is Portuguese-American,” she said, showing her emotion that she had been able to sing the Portuguese national anthem with her compatriots. “I liked that the president reminded us that we are all part of Portuguese pride and despite being far away, we still have Portugal in our hearts.”
With an estimated attendance of 500 to 700 people, the party at Artesia was “a huge success,” according to Steve Miranda. It is necessary: ”We have to create this enthusiasm for the young people to continue with our culture.”
The president understood the task, he handed out hugs and listened to the many stories of the emigrants. “Where there is a Portuguese, there is Portugal,” he said. “Wherever we go, we take our soul, our tradition with us.”
Source: DN
