Portuguese Community in Brazil

Source: rouxinoldebernardim.blogspot.com

Brazil is the country with the largest Portuguese community outside Portugal and although official records inform that such community have 5 million members, there are unofficial estimations that this number could be of 18 million members.

Most Brazilians have some degree of Portuguese ancestry: some descend from colonial settlers, while others have recent immigrant Portuguese origin, dating back to anywhere between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries.

Due to "miscegenation", Brazilians of different "races" may have Portuguese ancestry: Whites, Blacks, Amerindians and people of mixed race.

There are no reliable figures for how many Brazilians descend from the Portuguese.

This is mainly because the Portuguese presence in Brazil is very old, making it almost impossible to find correct numbers.

Even though most Brazilians have Portuguese ancestry, most Brazilians identify themselves as being simply Brazilians.

In 1872, there were 3.7 million Whites in Brazil (the vast majority of them of Portuguese ancestry), 4.1 million mixed-race people (mostly of Portuguese-Amerindian-African ancestry) and 1.9 million Blacks (some of whom probably had some degree of Portuguese ancestry).

These numbers give the percentage of 80% of people with total or partial Portuguese ancestry in Brazil in the 1870s. 

At that time, the Portuguese were the only Europeans to settle Brazil in large numbers, since other groups (notably Italians) only started arriving in large numbers after 1875.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a new large wave of immigrants from Portugal arrived. From 1881 to 1991, over 1.5 million Portuguese immigrated to Brazil.

In 1906, for example, there were 133,393 Portuguese-born people living in Rio de Janeiro, comprising 16% of the city's population. Rio is still today considered the largest "Portuguese city" outside of Portugal itself.

Genetic studies also confirm the strong proportion of Portuguese genetic ancestry in Brazilians.

According to one study, at least half of the Brazilian population's Y chromosome comes from Portugal. Black Brazilians have an average of 48% non-African genes; most of them may have Portuguese ancestors.

Source: Wikipedia

Larissa Bona

History of Portugal: Roman Lusitania and Gallaecia

Source: Wikipedia

The first Roman invasion of the Iberian Peninsula occurred in 219 BC. Within 200 years, almost the entire peninsula had been annexed to the Roman Empire.

The Carthaginians, Rome's adversary in the Punic Wars, were expelled from their coastal colonies.

The Roman conquest of what is now part of modern day Portugal took several decades: it started from the south, where the Romans found friendly natives, the Conii.

It suffered a severe setback in 194 BC, when a rebellion began in the north. The Lusitanians and other native tribes, under the leadership of Viriathus, wrested control of all of Portugal.

Rome sent numerous legions and its best generals to Lusitania to quell the rebellion, but to no avail — the Lusitanians gained more and more territory.

The Roman leaders decided to change their strategy. They bribed Viriathus' ambassador to kill his own leader. Viriathus was assassinated, and the resistance was soon over.

Rome installed a colonial regime. During this period, Lusitania grew in prosperity and many of modern day Portugal's cities and towns were founded.

In 27 BC, Lusitania gained the status of Roman province. Later, a northern province of Lusitania was formed, known as Gallaecia, with capital in Bracara (today's Braga).

As with the Roman names of many European countries, Lusitania was and is often used as an alternative name for Portugal, especially in formal and literary or poetic contexts.

The 16th century colony, which would develop into Brazil, was named Nova Lusitânia ("New Lusitania").

In common use are such terms as Lusophone, meaning Portuguese-speaking, and Lusitanic, referring to the Community of Portuguese Language Countries — once Portugal's colonies and presently independent countries still sharing some common heritage.

Source: Wikipedia

Larissa Bona

Brazil vs. Portugal

This is a funny advertisiment made by Nike with the national football teams of Portugal and Brazil.

Very nice!
Have a wonderful weekend!

Larissa Bona

Sounds of Portugal: Fado

Nem às paredes confesso (Not even to the walls I confess) sung by Amália Rodrigues

Fado is currently a worldwide known symbol of Portugal, being represented for many years in foreign countries by Amália Rodrigues, and more recently by Dulce Pontes, Mariza and Katia Guerreiro, among others.

But where did the word Fado came from? It came from the Latin fatum, which means fate, the inexorable destiny that nothing can change. That is why Fado is usually so melancholic, so sad: as it sings that part of destiny that was opposite to the wishes of its owner.

Although taking many forms, as it is sung differently in Porto, Coimbra and Lisbon, the Fado is, by self-earned right, the very expression of the Portuguese soul.

Portugal, since the moment of its birth, emerged in a crossroad of cultures. This makes difficult to point out a precise origin of Fado, but all scholars agree that its origins go back many centuries, maybe even to times before the existence of Portugal as an independent country.

The most commonly accepted explanation, at least when speaking about Lisbon Fado, is that it came from the songs of the Moors, which kept living near Lisbon even after the Christian take-over. The sadness and melancholy of those songs, that are so common in Fado, are a good base to explain the rhythms of Fado.

However, there are those who say that the Fado came to Portugal, once more through Lisbon, under the form of Lundum, the music of the Brazilian slaves. By this explanation, it should have arrived to Portugal with the sailors returning from their long trips, approximately in the year of 1822. Only after a while, Lundum started modifying until it became the Fado. Supporting this belief is the fact that the first songs of the kind were related not only to the sea but also with the lands far beyond them, where the slaves lived. One can look as an example to one of Amália's song, called "The Black Boat", which talks precisely of a senzala (place where the slaves were kept).

Another possibility puts the birth of Fado back to the middle ages, to the time of the minstrels and the jesters. Already in that time one could find the characteristics that even today it conserves. For example, "cantigas de amigo" (friend songs), that were love songs for a woman, have great similarities with diverse subjects of the Fado of Lisbon. The love songs, that were sung by a man to a woman, seem to find kinship in the Fado of Coimbra, where the students intone their songs beneath the window of the loved one (serenades). We still have, in the same time, satire songs, or of disdain that are still today frequent themes for Fado, in social and political critics.

Anyway, Fado seems to have first appeared in Lisbon and Porto, being later taken to Coimbra with the University students (since Coimbra was, during many years, the University city by excellence), and having there acquired different characteristics.

Despite Fado being a symbol of the Portuguese nationality, it is not, by all means, the national song. From region to region, Portugal possesses several rich and typical folklores of each geography, which has nothing to do with Fado. Perhaps we can, if you like, say that it is the form of folklore of Lisbon, Porto and Coimbra.

Extracts from the text The History of Fado published at Lisbon Guide.

Larissa Bona

The Portuguese Community in Canada

Source: crossed-flag-pins.com

Today, I am going to talk about the Portuguese Community in Canada, which is the 6^th biggest Portuguese Community in the world, with around 400,000 members.

The Portuguese migration to Canada is not as ancient as the migration to Brazil or the USA, although there are records of Portuguese migration since the 16^th Century.

The first time that a considerable number of Portuguese people migrated and settled in Canada was in 1953, after the Canadian government invited them to come to Canada, most of them coming from the Azores.

The members of the Portuguese Community in Canada are mostly based in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia.

In Toronto the neighbourhood Trinity-Bellwoods is also known as Portugal Village or Little Portugal, because the Portuguese Community and now the Brazilian Community are based there. Due to the fact the most of the Portuguese migrants that went to Canada were of Azorean origin, there is also a street there called “Rua Azores”.

There are several notable Portuguese Canadians, being the singer Nelly Furtado the most famous world-wide, who has strong roots with the Portuguese Community, to the point she was the one who recorded the theme-song of Euro 2004, which took place in Portugal.

My personal impression of the Portuguese Community in Canada is that, although they are in a smaller number than in other countries, they seem to be very united and attached to their roots.

I wish that someday I could have more contact with such community and I am really planning to go to Toronto to pay a visit. This may happen sooner than later.

Larissa Bona

Procedures to Obtain the Portuguese Citizenship

Source: europabrasil.com.br

The Portuguese Nationality Act, on its Title I, lists the procedures through which someone can obtain the Portuguese citizenship, which are:

• The Attribution of Citizenship (Chapter I);
• The Acquisition of Citizenship (Chapter II).

The attribution of citizenship is the procedure that those persons who are entitled to the original citizenship must follow in order to obtain the Portuguese citizenship.

It is in this procedure that we see the “transmission” of citizenship from parents to children and it is the easiest and most straightforward way to obtain the Portuguese citizenship.

The acquisition of citizenship is the procedure that the persons who are entitled to the derivative citizenship must follow to obtain the citizenship.

The Nationality Act subdivides the acquisition of citizenship into:

1. Acquisition of citizenship through effect of will: this is the procedure that must be followed to obtain the citizenship for spouses and civil partners of Portuguese citizens and for underage children of Portuguese citizens that have obtained the Portuguese citizenship through acquisition of citizenship;
2. Acquisition of citizenship through adoption: this is the procedure that must be followed by the underage adopted children of Portuguese citizens;
3. Acquisition of citizenship through naturalisation: this is the due procedure for grandchildren, great grandchildren, children of foreign parents born in Portugal, foreign citizens that live in Portugal for over 6 years.

Besides these two procedures, there is also the late registration of birth, regulated by the Portuguese Civil Registration Code, which is suitable for the cases in which the birth of the child was not registered within one year of his/her birth.

This is the procedure that must be followed by those who were born in Goa, the former African Colonies, Macau and East Timor, because these people are all Portuguese but, because the territories they were born are no longer part of Portugal, their births were not registered in the Portuguese Civil Register Office.

Summing up and still speaking roughly, we have three procedures through each the applicants can obtain the Portuguese citizenship.

Larissa Bona

Portugal: a Country that Has Changed the World

Source: Video posted on Youtube by user jocamar15 (click here to access his page)

I saw this video on Youtube and thought it would be perfect to introduce our new series: History of Portugal.

The Portuguese history has over 2000 years and it is impossible to tell it in a very detailed manner here. Yet, I think it would be nice for the readers to know a little bit more about the history of their ancestors, because Portugal, indeed, was a country that has changed the world, as the title of the video says.

Therefore, I will try to tell a summed up history of Portugal in this blog, not through a deep approach, but listing all relevant events, every 15 days (I do similar thing at Olhar Direito blog, in which I write about the History of Brazil, but in Portuguese and in a more detailed way).

Larissa Bona

Portugal

Source: Portuguese Embassy in Japan

Before going through the Portuguese citizenship, I thought it is important to talk about Portugal, not only to allow the readers to learn a little bit about the country of their ancestors, but also to make them understand why obtaining the Portuguese citizenship is important.

Actually, every Tuesday, I will write a little bit about Portugal, so people can have contact with the Portuguese culture, history, politics and everything else that is interesting to know about this small but wonderful country. So, here I go:

Portugal is officially called the Portuguese Republic (República Portuguesa in Portuguese) and is located in the Iberian Peninsula, sharing borders with Spain (east and north) and the Atlantic Ocean (west and south).

Besides this territory, whose rectangular shape has originated the nickname “the European Rectangle” often used by the Portuguese people to refer to their own country, Portugal also comprises the archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira, both located in northern Atlantic Ocean.

Historically, Portugal is famous for being the nation who started the Age of Discovery, since the Portuguese people were the first to explore sailing routes to reach India through the Atlantic Coast of Africa, triggering the naval run that resulted in the discovery of America and Oceania.

The Portuguese, which is how the nationals of Portugal are called, have not only established the new route to India by contouring the Coast of Africa, under the lead of Vasco da Gama, but have also colonised several territories in Africa, Asia and South America, creating the Portuguese Empire, which was the first global empire and the longest-lived of the modern European colonial empires, with almost six centuries of ruling.

Today, Portugal is a democratic parliamentary republic, having a president who is the head of state, elected for a five-year term renewable once (the current Portuguese president is Aníbal Cavaco Silva) and a prime-minister, who is the chief of government, nominated by the president – usually the leader of the party that gets more seats in the parliament – for a four year term that can be indefinitely renewed (the current prime-minister is José Sócrates).

The Portuguese population is of about 10 million inhabitants and around 3 million of them live in the metropolitan area of Lisbon, which is the capital of Portugal. Its official idiom is Portuguese, which is a language derived from Latin and believed to be the 5^th most spoken idiom in the world, with estimated 260 million speakers.

Since 1986, Portugal, which is the birth nation of names as Luis de Camões, Fernando Pessoa, José Saramago, Amália Rodrigues, Cristiano Ronaldo, José Mourinho and others, is one of the 27 members of the European Union and the current president of the European Commission is the Portuguese citizen, Durão Barroso.

Larissa Bona

Tomorrow: The Portuguese Citizenship