[ISL] "Azorean Diaspora Can’t Resist the Powerful Pull of Home"

[rfmcdonald]

The New York Times' Raphael Minder writes about the return of the Azorean diaspora, as tourists, to their homeland. This is something I see first-hand: the quoted former parliamentarian used to represent my neighbourhood.

Before a recent religious procession here, a wooden statue of the Holy Christ of Miracles was draped in a new cape, but with a distinctly non-Portuguese twist: images of Canadian maple leaves were woven into its silk and velvet embroidery.

The leaves were more than just a token offering for one of Portugal’s most important feast days, but a reminder of how this archipelago in the middle of the Atlantic has spawned a far-flung and influential diaspora, concentrated in the United States and Canada, whose ties home remain vital even generations later.

About a million North Americans were born in or descend from the Azores — four times the current population of these islands. Each year, thousands of former residents return to the Azores for the feast day in May to give thanks to the Christ of Miracles for helping them on their travels.

“This is the feast that symbolizes the hardship of the islands that they left and their opportunity to give thanks for having managed the difficult journey,” said Mario Silva, the cape’s donor, a former politician who was the first Portuguese-born member of the Canadian Parliament.

[. . .]

“I don’t think there’s another place in Europe with a diaspora that has kept such an intense relationship with the U.S.,” said Gonçalo Matias, director of the Migration Observatory, a Lisbon-based institute that monitors Portuguese migration.