Here, There, Yet Many—Portuguese-American Experience(S)

Here, There, Yet Many—Portuguese-American Experience(s)

Margarida Vale de Gato Universidade de Lisboa

Trailblazers of travel, expansion, commerce, and foreign settlement in the Modern Age, the Portuguese have a tradition of intercultural encounters. Matched with the multiculturality that is the essence of the Americas, Portuguese heritage might yield fruitful historical, sociological, or aesthetic-oriented perspectives on the phenomena of diversity and ambivalence posited by the relational complexity of individuals and communities today. The present volume results from an ongoing dialogue between scholars on both sides of the Atlantic, which dates back at least to 2008, when the International Conference on Storytelling, titled “Narrating the Portuguese Diaspora (1928–2008)” took place at the University of Lisbon. That Conference opened joint research avenues for the organizers, resulting in two collaboratively edited books that in many ways have inspired the efforts of the guest editors of this IJPDS issue: the homonymous Narrating the Portuguese Diaspora, in English (2011), and Portugal Pelo Mundo Disperso, in Portuguese (2013). It is appropriate to refer to the Introduction of Narrating the Portuguese Diaspora, which asserts that the concept of diaspora can be fruitfully applied, that is, it has heuristic value, in the interpretation and study of “the dispersal of a huge segment of the Portuguese nation throughout over six centuries.” As stated in the Introduction of this book, “the migration-based Portuguese diaspora, roughly starting in the seventeenth century and culminating with the 1974 Carnation Revolution” (ix), is the result of the emigration of 2 million Portuguese (out of a population of roughly 10 million) in the mid-twentieth century alone, and an estimated 4.5 million Portuguese and their descendants currently live outside Portugal. In the case of North America this Transatlantic movement has an arguable onset in the early 16th century, with Portuguese navigators exploring the coast in the service of the Spanish Crown, the most famous example being the first European to set foot in California, João Rodrigues Cabrilho (aka Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo), in 1542.1 Organized emigration has been charted by pioneers of American-Portuguese Studies, such as Leo Pap, August Mark Vaz, or Francis Rogers, systematized

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and/or enriched by a growing number of scholars committed to the field (Almeida, Monteiro, Scott, and DaCosta Holton and Klimt, to name a few). Portuguese workers coming to the US were first comprised mainly of Azoreans recruited for the whaleships since the 18th century (Almeida, “Comunidades” 343–44). Islanders from both Madeira and the Azores were increasingly enticed, in the 19th century, by farming on the West Coast, especially in the San Joaquin Valley, and the industrial boom on the East Coast, namely New England (Almeida, “Comunidades” 344). Dulce Maria Scott locates the first wave of Portuguese immigration at the turn of the 20th century and the second wave starting in the late 1950s and reaching its peak at the turn of the 1970s (41–43). As economics, politics, and general welfare stabilized in Portugal since the demise of the Estado Novo regime (1933–1974), Portuguese emigration greatly decreased until the first decade of the 21st century, so much so that it was once feared that Portuguese heritage in North America would be engulfed by acculturation.2 However, as shown in several of the essays in this volume, cultural heritage can extend far beyond the lifespan of first-generation immigrants, especially when the policies of the welcoming country shift the stress from assimilation to multiculturalism.3 This has been the case of the US since the mid-60s on the heels of the Civil Rights Movement and of racial integration policies actively sought by governments in power, such as those of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. In 1959, the then U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy was the first recipient of the Peter Francisco Award, “honoring people who promote the Portuguese culture” (as stated in the “Peter Francisco—Hercules of the Revolution” website). In spite of the arguable representativeness of this prize (most likely profit-driven, as it was instituted by the Luso-American Life Insurance Society), its first attribution is an instance of the multivocality of the umbrella term chosen for the essays here collected: “Portuguese-American Experience.” The phrase acknowledges immigration and Portuguese descendancy, but extends to other modes of transnational connectivity, including testimonies of exiles, travelers, and diplomats, as well as literary—or more amply, cultural—translation efforts, back and forth, between Portugal and North America. This volume’s assumptions of cultural heritage and intercultural cross- fertilization regard general areas of creativity (with a significant, but not exclusive, stress on literary artifacts), civic participation, language policy negotiation, social conviviality, and ideological confrontation. It labors on the conviction that Portuguese-American socioeconomic, political, and cultural achievements are actively stepping out of invisibility, gradually building a momentum of affirmation (Cid 2005). This has been spurred by the following circumstances: i) a general principle of immigration according to which the grandchildren will grow attached to what first and second generations had to forego (the ancestral culture) in order to integrate is applicable to the history of the Portuguese in North America (Scott and Pinho, n. pag.)—as such, especially up to the 1960s immigrant families were less able to resist the prejudice and discrimination that forced them either into closed ethnic communities or nonconspicuous acculturation, whereas current Margarida Vale de Gato / Here, There, Yet Many │ 183

Portuguese descendants who are mostly assimilated Americans can also afford to identify as ethnic or hybrid on account of the concurrent factor explained next; ii) a gradually benign environment in the US for manifestations of cultural diversity encourages working-class immigrants to celebrate popular culture and ethnic traditions in a big way, and such celebrations are greatly supported also by the Azorean government and, to some extent, the Portuguese national government (e. g., the New England Great Feast of the Holy Ghost, in which Portuguese high- profile politicians participate every year); iii) the dissemination of Portuguese literate culture, and the development of Luso-American art forms and studies have been spurred by bilingual intellectuals as well as literate immigrants with expectations of higher education (often sought already in the US), who have contributed to the prestige of Luso-Americanness—in the numbers of immigration their weight is negligible, but at a time when the intelligentsia can benefit from modern forms of communication and travel, their impact is arguably higher than that of some predecessors (e.g., Jorge de Sena, José Rodrigues Miguéis, Laurinda C. Andrade, and Francis Rogers, among others). Scholars nowadays actively bridge English and Portuguese studies, and they converge more often with peers from the other side of the Atlantic (as in this volume), contributing also to the next factor; iv) the ongoing and changing dynamics of diaspora in its transnational scope, the globalization of knowledge and the reality of exchange students, scholarships, and visiting professorships, among others;4 v) the concurrent support of several institutions or organizations to Portuguese- American communities—from the above-mentioned structured efforts of the Governments of the Azores and Portugal (with the agency “Observatório de Emigração” being worthy of a special mention) to informal groups, and influential individuals. A growing number of civic associations, sites devoted to the enforcement of community ties or heritage archives, numerous new publications (highlighting the anthology Luso-American Literature by Moser and Tosta in 2011, and The Gávea-Brown Book of Portuguese-American Poetry by Clemente and Monteiro in 2013), cultural lobbying from such entities as, in the US, the publisher Dzanc Books and its Disquiet-International Literary Program held in Lisbon since 2011, or the Luso-American Foundation (FLAD) in Portugal, have all contributed to a modest but steady boom. In relation to scholarly attention, while for decades the foremost organized effort to consolidate the field was the courageous work of the Portuguese Studies Program at Brown University, the Portuguese-American condition is now an asset in many other Departments and Research Centers in North America: the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth with its Research Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture, the opening of the Ferreira-Mendes Portuguese- American Archives, the creation of Tagus Press; Anderson University’s (Indiana) hosting of this very journal, IJPDS, also endorsed by Brock University in Canada. In Portugal, academic institutions have extended the scope of Luso-American research in the heritage culture. The joint venture in July 2013 of the first conference in continental Portugal exclusively dedicated to the Portuguese- 184 │ InterDISCIPLINARY Journal of Portuguese Diaspora Studies Vol. 4.2 (2015)

American experience spread throughout the campus of the two public academic institutions devoted to the Humanities in Lisbon, the “Classic” and the “New” universities of Lisbon. The incentive to research on the area by the American Studies Group of ULICES (University of Lisbon Centre for English Studies) expanded nationally to other institutions, particularly via the partnership with CETAPS (Centre for English, Translation and Anglo-Portuguese Studies), and was boosted internationally by the affiliation with a “sister” conference held later in the same month of July, at Butler University, Indianapolis, “Exploring the Portuguese Diaspora in InterDISCIPLINARY and Comparative Perspectives,” which also counted a significant number of papers devoted to Portuguese- American matters. This volume is representative of the event held in Lisbon, “Neither Here Nor There, Yet Both: International Conference on the Luso-American Experience,” as well as of the ongoing inter-institutional collaboration outlined above. It is not a conference proceedings collection, but rather a peer-reviewed volume. Moreover, it features thought-over arguments, creative writing, and criticism by some of the most assiduous contributors to this field, both emerging researchers and writers, and scholars of related areas who have decided to venture into Portuguese and North-American relations. This collection concerns the legacy of European Portuguese5—the essays compiled here follow an encompassing understanding of dispersal and harvesting of culture(s) within other culture(s). This is reflected in the choice of the expression, “Luso-American experience,” opening up avenues of research to bi-directional and transnational exchanges. The volume is divided into five clusters of scholarship, and culminates with a creative writing section. The first part has a sociological bent, and addresses the issue of political agency and citizenship by Portuguese Americans. Dulce Maria Scott studies the political incorporation of Portuguese Americans in North-East Coast communities, discussing, among others, the impact of factors related to the structure of electoral systems as well as variable ethnic population dynamics. A collaborative essay by a team of sociologists led by Manuel Abrantes focuses on voting practices on the East Coast, addressing the lack of participation of US- based Portuguese in ballots for elections in Portugal. Part II of the volume comprises Luso-American literature, surely the most visible artistic expression from individuals of Portuguese origin or descent. Onésimo de Almeida, who combines the facets of Portuguese-American writer and scholar, offers us an overview of conspicuous literary works and figures, and of the forty years of its study, arguing for the relevancy of analyzing both the body of work written in English and that penned in Portuguese as part of “American ethnic literature.” In her essay, Fernanda Feneja revisits the appraisal of Luso- Americanness in the work of mainstream US modernist, John dos Passos, whose Portuguese influence and ancestry is little discussed, even if the later part of his career was devoted to travel writing on Brazil and to his Portugal Story, a curious work of creative non-fiction. Besides John dos Passos, whose Portuguese roots remain unknown to many, the first case of a Luso-American writer to break into Margarida Vale de Gato / Here, There, Yet Many │ 185

the mainstream was Alfred Lewis, with a novel, Home Is an Island, published by Random House in 1951, and discussed from the point of view of American idealization by Isabel Alves. Charles Reis Felix, in turn, started writing in 1949, after he had served for the United States in the Second World War, but his book was only accepted for publication in 2001. The two texts in this volume, by Isabel Oliveira Martins and Rui Zink, both about the same novel (Da Gama, Cary Grant, and the Election of 1934), testify to the powerful storytelling of this emblematic figure of perseverance who, willfully or unwittingly, has devoted a great part of his work to a crucial mode of ethnic writing, the coming-of-age narrative, which in the end inscribes the author in the American literary paradigm. The third part of this volume is also devoted to literature, but targets genres akin to travel writing, epistolography and translation/rewriting, susceptible of contributing to the field of imagology, i.e., the construction of images of the Self and the Other in literature and culture. Maria Zulmira Castanheira discusses in detail the imagologist theoretical framework in the context of US travelers to Portugal, namely Alexander Lawton Mackall’s Portugal for Two (1931). She thus adds the testimonial experience of the Portuguese mainland to the study of literary representations of the Portuguese in US literature, whose analysis has been the object of a full-length study by Reinaldo Silva. Complementarily, Edgardo Medeiros Silva shows how José Francisco Correia da Serra—better known as Abbé Correia da Serra, Portugal’s Minister Plenipotentiary to the United States between 1816 and 1820—was a privileged witness to the great moments and representative men of the young republic, benefiting from a rare friendship with Thomas Jefferson. One less discussed subject is the Canadians’ perception of the Portuguese, especially viewed from the angle chosen by Sara Henriques: literary influence and the rewriting of Alberto de Caeiro, the pastoral heteronym of the great modernist Fernando Pessoa, by the contemporary Canadian poet Eirin Mouré in a practice of textual displacement claimed as trans(e)lation. Calling attention to the duplicity of language involved in the intercultural experience, the section comes to a close on the note of translation, with Sara dos Santos Vieira’s commentary on her versions of poetry by Frank X Gaspar, the writer who in the Disquiet program of 2011 spurred the creation of the informal movement, “Presence/Presença: North-American Writers of the Portuguese and Lusophone Diasporas” (presencepresenca.wordpress.com). Sara dos Santos Vieira’s account of the blending of personal stories and empathy in the poet-translator relationship may indeed be put in parallel with Eirin Mouré’s motivations, and the discussion of “homeland” inherent in the transposition that overrides studies such as those presented here. A fourth section concerns, broadly speaking, the autobiographical mode, which is in many ways germane to North-American culture and to the immigrant narrative. Francisco Cota Fagundes, a self-storyteller in his own right (Hard Knocks: An Azorean-American Odyssey, 2000), devotes scholarly insight to the work of a prominent 20th-century writer in the Portuguese language who lived in the US for the greater part of his life, José Rodrigues Miguéis, and argues for the 186 │ InterDISCIPLINARY Journal of Portuguese Diaspora Studies Vol. 4.2 (2015)

classification of the narrative Um Homem Sorri à Morte—Com Meia Cara (1959) as a patography, hinting at the possible parallelisms existing in the severance from a former life between immigrants and the seriously ill. Tackling autobiography from “the woman’s angle,” Teresa F. A. Alves offers a comparative study which aims to draw analogies between the autobiographies of the Portuguese Americans, Laurinda C. Andrade and Josephine B. Korth, leading one to wonder about the influence of gender in the “passage” to America. The last section is particularly tinged with a creative and interdisciplinary outlook on scholarly contributions to the field of Portuguese-American Studies, as it results from a specific homage paid to José Rodrigues Miguéis in the “Neither Here nor There” Conference, emphasizing his condition as a cultural interpreter, with pictoric and photographic material documenting his New York experience. A small selection of this material becomes here a register of the homage, while two essays, one by Ana Franco, also the exhibition’s organizer, and another by Isabelle Simões Marques, examine the author’s imagination of in-betweenness and exile, adding to traits discussed by Fagundes in the previous section. One review—Leonor Simas-Almeida on the novel Kicking the Sky (2013) by the Portuguese-Canadian author Anthony de Sa—and a creative writing section close this issue of the journal, not only abiding by the norm of IJPDS but truly reflecting the spirit of the 2013 conference in Lisbon, where several authors gave public readings, discussed their work, or participated in a workshop of literary translation. The presence of writers collaborating in this volume, and of many other Portuguese-American emerging writers was made possible by collaboration with the 2013 edition of the Disquiet-International Literary Program. Most authors featured in our creative writing pages—Richard Simas, Millicent Borges Accardi, Lara Gularte, Paula Neves, and Brian Sousa—have participated in this or previous editions of the program, whose potential for bringing Portuguese-American literature to the fore was already mentioned. Manny Igrejas, better known for his playwriting, is here represented also in the poetry section. This volume is bound to motivate cross-readings among its parts, as among scholars and authors, roles shared by many of our single contributors. Another common condition bringing together nearly all the scholars present in this volume is that they are committed participants in the condition, often painstaking but at times rewarding, of experiencing the state(s) of “neither here nor there, yet both.” The diversity of attitudes and positions each occupies testifies to the relevance of the heterogeneity as well as to the dynamics between hybridity and acculturation outlined above. Finally, we wish to express our deep gratitude to all the authors, and give special thanks for the active support of this journal’s editors, Irene Maria F. Blayer and Dulce Maria Scott, who trusted and coached us through a process of revisions to which all were responsive, benefiting, as we believe, from this academic venture and the strengthening of communality binding Portuguese-American relations. Dulce Scott was exceedingly helpful with suggestions and comments on the draft of this introduction, which truly results as well from the collaborative generosity of Margarida Vale de Gato / Here, There, Yet Many │ 187 the other members in the team of guest editors of this volume: Teresa F. A. Alves, Rui Azevedo, Teresa Cid, and Isabel Oliveira Martins.

Notes

1 Almeida traces the presence of Portuguese explorers on the North-American Coast to before the 1500s (“Comunidades Portuguesas” 343). 2 Hence the disparaging title of a presentation by Nancy Baden in 1979, “Portuguese-American Literature: Does It Exist,” which ironically has become seminal in the field. Despite the prevalent doubt about the grounds for study, not only due to the paucity of existing literary works to date but also to the possible extinction of material even before the onset of orchestrated research, it became then clear, especially due to Onésimo de Almeida’s intervention in the debate, that the literature under scrutiny would not be composed of emigrant writing, but would both come from and address hyphenated experiences (like those of immigrant descendants), quite likely in the English language. This debate is often reported in Portuguese-American scholarship—for a recent account see Ladeira (“Invisible” 8), and also how Almeida’s argument extends through a series of essays on the Portuguese-American experience in his O Peso do Hífen. 3 This is a more complex issue than can be developed in these few lines, not least because the sociological explanation of immigrants’ adaptation by the classical assimilation theory has also been thoroughly challenged—on this account, see the above-mentioned study, as well as follow-up papers, by Scott. 4 This point is rightly stressed in the editors’ introduction to Portugal pelo Mundo Disperso (Cid et al. 11). 5 The reasons for this are not ideological or in the least theoretically driven, but rather motivated by the off-balance of responses to our call, and by purposes of relative coherence and cogency. In fact, the editors greet the comprehensive editorial view of Moser and Tosta in Luso-American Literature (2011), acknowledging the heritage of Brazilian and African communities, as it enforces a larger visibility and diversity to the “Portuguese-speaking” (even if for many diasporic subjects Portuguese is no longer a language of oral communication).

Works Cited Almeida, Onésimo T. “Comunidades Portuguesas dos EUA: Identidade, Assimilação e Aculturação.” Portugal Intercultural: Razão e Projecto. Vol. IV. Eds. Artur Teodoro de Matos and Mário Lages. Lisbon, PT: Alto Comissariado para a Imigração e Diálogo Intercultural, 2009. 339–422. Print. ---. O Peso do Hífen: Ensaios sobre a Experiência Luso-Americana. Lisboa, PT: Imprensa de Ciências Sociais, 2010. Print. Baden, Nancy. “Portuguese-American Literature, Does It Exist?” Melus, The Journal of the Society of Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States 6.2 (1979). 15–31. Print. Cid, Teresa. “A Escrita Luso-Americana: Da Auto-Rasura à Visibilidade.” Literatura e Migração. Ed. Teresa Seruya. Lisbon, PT: Colibri, 2005. 61- 80. Print. Cid, Teresa, Teresa Alves, Irene Maria F. Blayer, and Francisco C. Fagundes. Portugal pelo Mundo Disperso. Lisbon, PT: Tinta da China, 2013. Print. Clemente, Alice, and George Monteiro, eds. The Gávea-Brown Book of Portuguese-American Poetry. Providence, RI: Gávea-Brown, 2013. Print. DaCosta Holton, Kimberly and Andrea Klimt, eds. Community, Culture, and the Makings of Identity: Portuguese-Americans along the Eastern Seaboard. North Dartmouth, MA: Center for Portuguese Culture and Studies, 2009. Print. Fagundes, Francisco C., Irene Maria F. Blayer, Teresa Alves, and Teresa Cid, eds. Narrating the Portuguese Diaspora: Piecing Things Together. New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2011. Print. Ladeira, António. “Invisible No More. Introduction: The Double-Edged Sword—Some Perplexities and Perspectives on Portuguese-American Literature.” Gávea-Brown: A Bilingual Journal of Portuguese-American Letters and Studies 34–35 (2012–2013). 7–21. Print. Monteiro, George. “‘The Poor, Shiftless, Lazy Azoreans’: American Literary Attitudes towards the Portuguese.” Proceedings of the Fourth National Portuguese Conference: The International Year of the Child. Providence, RI: The Multilingual Multicultural Resource and Training Centre, 1979. 188 │ InterDISCIPLINARY Journal of Portuguese Diaspora Studies Vol. 4.2 (2015)

166–97. Print. Moser, Robert Henry, and Antonio Luciano Tosta. Luso-American Literature: Writings by Portuguese- Speaking Authors in North America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2011. Print. Pap, Leo. The Portuguese-Americans. Boston, MA: Twayne, 1981. Print. “Peter Francisco Award.” Herculesoftherevolution.com. Peter Francisco—Hercules of the Revolution, n.d. Web. 1 Oct. 2015. Rogers, Francis Millet. Americans of Portuguese Descent: A Lesson in Differentiation. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1974. Print. Scott, Dulce Maria. “Portuguese-Americans’ Acculturation, Socioeconomic Integration and Amalgamation.” Sociologia: Problemas e Práticas 61 (2009). 41–64. Print. Scott, Dulce Maria, and Filipa Pinho. Entrevista a Dulce Scott. Lisboa, PT: Observatório da Emigração, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), CIES-IUL e DGACCP, 2012. Web. 1 Oct. 2015. Silva, Reinaldo. Representations of the Portuguese in American Literature. North Dartmouth, MA: University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Center for Portuguese Studies and American Culture, 2008. Print. Vaz, August Mark. The Portuguese in California. Oakland, CA: I.D.E.S. Supreme Council, 1965. Print.