The Regional Department for the Communities organized the Second Emigration Journeys/Communities in Ponta Delgada, S. Miguel Island, between January 4 and 8, 2004. Sixty researchers from the communities spread in the United States, Canada, Brazil, Portuguese mainland and the Azores attended this event.
Objectives:
- Discuss the issue emigration/communities, creating a plan of action for the future and organizing a net project of information/communication, to show the bibliographic and documental initiatives, and others, to the public.
Themes in discussion:
- Science and Technology – The Future of Communication in the Communities.
Objectives: encourage the creation of a net project information/communication; choose the themes to be included in the project.
- History of Emigration and the Communities – Publication.
Objectives: evaluate/compare the needs of the Azorean emigration history and the communities; gather the testimony of the participants to the publication of the bibliographic resources about the e/immigration subject.
- Cultural Patrimony – Rescue and Transmission.
Objectives: identify the areas to rescue and preserve (material and immaterially); define transmission strategies to the future generations.
- Education: The World of Portuguese Lineage in Tradition and Innovation.
Objectives: find answers to the youngsters regarding the different cultural and artistic production and uses, in schools and in the associative work; choose the methods to encourage the participation of the youngsters within the communitarian politics.
Conclusions:
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY – WORKING GROUP
THE FUTURE OF COMMUNICATION IN THE COMMUNITIES
The Science and Technology / The Future of Communication in the Communities working group developed a project aiming three global objectives:
1- Establish the basis of a project of information-communication connected to the Azores Website;
2- Introduce the thematic basis (directory) for the Praça das Comunidades (Communities Square) Webpage;
3- Establish the regulation and calendar of Praça das Comunidades.
According to the suggestions of the several working groups, the following areas and temporary interlocutors were pointed out:
- PRESS ARCHIVES, Carlos Enes
- BIBLIOGRAPHY, Irene Blayer
- EDUCATION, Dinis Borges
- FORUNS, Helder Freitas
- GENEALOGY, João Ventura
- HISTORY AND SOCIAL SCIENCES, Vera Barroso
- LITERATURE, José Rebelo
- MEDIA, Pedro Bicudo
- PATRIMONY, Marcolino Candeias
These areas may be altered in the future, if and when the work groups decide so, however without changing the dates.
The group worked towards the implementation of actions which aim at the immediate start based on an organic structure from the General Publisher (Editoria) and Sub-Publishers. These actions can be progressively corrected.
GENERAL PUBLISHER
This group’s main function is to coordinate the beginning of Praça das Comunidades Webpage, from the first step until the subsequent updates. This group is temporary and may be altered whenever it becomes necessary. The General Editors must present a detailed and computerized plan of Praça das Comunidades webpage to the Regional Department for the Communities until April 30, 2004.
General Editors pointed out by the working group:
Carlos Enes
Eugénio Lacerda
Irene Blayer
Lélia Nunes
Pedro Bicudo
Rui Ponte
SUB-PUBLISHER
Each thematic group (directory areas) will choose a sub-publisher, according to its own criterion. They will be responsible for suggesting the computerized criterions and for establishing the contents for each directory area.
Each sub-publisher must choose and inform the General Publisher about the respective sub-publishers until January 19. These sub-publishers must hand over a computerized functional scheme for the respective area until February 29.
Besides working on the final scheme, the working group also tried to establish solid objectives, workability and the calendar, aiming the beginning of the Praça das Comunidades webpage. Since the opening of the Azores Website is expected to happen during the final days of June 2004, all the work and calendar already established aim the simultaneous beginning of both Azores website and Praça das Comunidades webpage.
The Science and Technology – The Future of Communication in the Communities working group had the collaboration of the following people:
Alzira Silva
Antónia Gil
António Oliveira
Bruno da Ponte
Carlos Enes
Eugénio Lacerda
Hélder Freitas
Irene Blayer
João Lupi
José Rebelo
Lélia Nunes
Rui Ponte
Pedro Bicudo
HISTORY OF EMIGRATION AND THE COMMUNITIES – PUBLICATION
The group was made up of people with knowledge within several areas: History, Geography, Anthropology, Sociology, Genealogy and Archaeology.
The participants came from Brazil, North America, Portuguese mainland and Azores.
Objectives:
1 – Evaluate the necessities of the Azorean emigration history and respective communities;
2 – Gather the testimony of the participants to the publication of the e/immigration bibliographic references.
Measures:
1 - The participants recognized the necessity of writing the history of the Azorean emigration and its different communities;
2 – The groups decided to develop a bibliographic survey within the communities and through their representatives, to be sent to the Regional Department for the Communities;
3 – The attendants decided to identify the themes or periods that have not been studied in the communities;
4 – They also decided to catalogue the archives and places, as well as the possible documental resources that may be found, in order to support their researches:
5 – The participants agreed with the need of publishing a magazine or periodic report aiming the interchange of information and the strengthening of the bonds between the researchers and the communities;
6 – They agreed with the importance of creating a laboratory of Verbal History to record the testimonies of the Azoreans abroad;
7 – They recognized the necessity of organizing regional meetings/conferences with researchers working with Azorean themes.
Strategies:
The group was divided into two smaller groups in order to reflect about the strategies:
a) Those who will discuss the themes until the 19th century;
b) Those who will discuss the 20th century.
After reflecting and discussing the strategies, the two groups pointed out the following measures:
1 - Each participant will send the list of bibliography to be included in the Website to the Regional Department for the Communities until April 30;
2 – Each participant will send a list of themes or periods not studied to the Regional Department for the Communities until April 30;
3 - Each participant will send an inventory of the documents found in the communities to be included and published by the Azores website to the Regional Department for the Communities until April 30;
4 – Concerning the magazine/report, the periodicity, subjects, production and diffusion will be decided according to the responsible person’s criterion;
5 – It was recommended the creation of a Verbal History laboratory in each community to be coordinated by the Regional Department for the Communities and with the duty of recording the history of the life of the emigrants. Universities may be responsible for the execution of these projects;
6 – It was suggested the organization of annual and biannual regional conferences/seminaries to provide an interchange between the researchers;
7 – It was also proposed the inclusion of a world map where the Azores and the diverse Azorean communities abroad would be marked and the presentation of a scheme of the historical periods of Azoreans abroad.
SCHEME (SKETCH)
Period one – Azoreans on the settlement of Brazil (16th century)
Period two – Azoreans on the process of conquest of Brazilian territory (conflicts Portugal/Spain, 17th – 18th centuries) –institutional and individual character to the north and south of Brazil and Colony of Sacramento/Uruguay
Period three – To Brazil: spontaneous emigration (1870/1920)
To the United States: (Whalers’ period)
To Hawaii
Period four – Azoreans Abroad – Present Days (20th century)
To Brazil: Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Bahia
To the United States (from 1958 until present days)
To Canada (since 1953)
Important: Internal migrations are also included, as well as from the islands to the Portuguese mainland.
CULTURAL HERITAGE: RESCUE AND TRANSMISSION
PREFACE
1. The globalization phenomenon ended with utopias and with the feeling of social aid. Instituting the fusion of cultures and cultural homogenization, globalization acts as a way of destroying the differences. Powerful geopolitical interests dissolve the cultural into the economic and the economic into the cultural. Paradoxically, this same globalization is responsible for the appearing of “new” individuals in defence of their specificities, which originates great feelings of regional and national identity. The issue is to endow this “new regionalism” with a strong self-criticism component in order to prevent the repetition of the traditional, nationalist and authoritative speeches, so common during the dictatorships of the last century.
2. Thinking about the Azores in this complex context, one realizes that Azorean culture reappears in a stronger sense, as desire and practise. However, just like any other culture, it is still in transformation and cannot rely upon the stillness of the past searching for an unlikely “lost purity”.
3. Furthermore, when transported to other places through emigration, the islands’ legacy is no longer in a “pure” state; as time goes by, it mixes itself naturally with other cultures, as it can be seen in the immense laboratory of sociological research in the South of Brazil, to where the Azoreans migrated in the middle of the 18th century. In spite of being recognizable by the researchers, the vestiges of its original culture changed significantly. In the United States and Canada, Azorean culture is still very clear, however with some differences, especially in what concerns the language.
4. Azorean community is made up of people and traditions, as well as of the capacity to share its references with other cultures. This process can happen in a coherent way if the adopted measures protect the powerful and original imaginary of the Azorean people. Thus, the Azorean culture should recommend the dialog with the receptor cultures, in order to establish new ways of sociability and happiness. Adaptation is essential to survival, as well as to improve and enrich the dominant culture.
RESCUE AND PRESERVATION AREAS
- ARCHITECTURE
- ART
- ARTS AND TRADICIONAL PROFESSIONS
- DOCUMENTS
- FOLKLORE
- GASTRONOMY
- GAMES/TOYS
- LITERATURE
- MEANS OF TRANSPORT
- MUSIC
- RELIGIOSITY
- OTHERS
TRANSMISSION STRATEGIES
- Create a digital net to share the knowledge of the Azorean communities abroad
- Gather the digital documentation of the communities
- Create a central file with bibliographic information
- Create summer Institutes/Universities where students and teachers may share their own knowledge about Azorean themes
- Involve private and public entities in the supports to the divulgation of the Azorean culture abroad
- Encourage identification and description studies about culture chances
- Encourage the production of bilingual video documentaries about Azorean themes, with the purpose of creating a video library
- Support visits of young Azorean descendants to the Azores
- Organize bilateral annual contests – Literary (Poetry and Narrative) and Essay???, with Prize-Trip
- Youngsters Annual Contests (documental, audiovisual and others)
EDUCATION: THE WORLD OF PORTUGUESE LINEAGE – TRADITION AND INNOVATION
Considering that the main objective of this information board was to listen to the Azorean communities about “Education: the World of Portuguese Lineage – Tradition and Innovation” and in order to show the adopted measures to the Regional Department for the Communities, the participants established the following areas:
1 – Interchanges
a) The participants pointed out the importance of the “Azores-Discovering our Roots” in the promotion of our cultural legacy near the younger generations. Thus, the institutionalization of this workshop becomes very important and may be done with the collaboration of cultural institutions and our communities, which after the elaboration of the criterions should have an important role on the selection of the youngsters