Portuguese emigrants are exemplary for immigrants

In the US, we have been able to drive a car with a “Portuguese license plate” since the celebrations of Portugal Day on June 10, 2025. Portuguese emigrants convinced the authorities of the state of Rhode Island (RI) to issue a permanent local license plate , but with the five quinas, the seven golden castles and the armillary sphere of the Portuguese flag. This is not something that happens by chance, nor is it something that just any community has: it took almost 10 years of negotiations and required special legislation. It happens because we, the Portuguese emigrants in America, in addition to loving Portugal, do everything we can to integrate in an exemplary way, earning the genuine goodwill and respect of the native population. In this article, we will tell you what good Portuguese emigration and immigration are, and, while we’re at it, love for Portugal. Tolerance towards our culture was not imposed by force, but was won by the excellent and consistent examples of the Portuguese community in the US.

Before presenting such examples, we would like to point out that in Portugal, it seems that they want to impose tolerance by force, not allowing diversity of opinion, nor giving decision-making or negotiation power to the native population, while not demanding acculturation from others. Now, we should demand from immigrants in Portugal the same high standards that the Portuguese demonstrate abroad when they are immigrants. For any country to prosper and have a future, there must be unity based on a sense of belonging supported by cultural values ​​and common goals. This is not understood by the weather vanes of the globalist woke fashion, which is already worn out and out of date, but still potentially lethal to our culture and the best interests of Portugal and the Portuguese.

The short stories of Portuguese journalism about the 1.2 million immigrants who suddenly (8 years after Costa) appeared in Portugal without an electoral referendum or campaign warning are cold. Costa seems to have dodged democracy, but they warn us that we are the ones who don’t like it. They indoctrinate us that if we question what was imposed on us it is because, of course, we hate it. In the texts we see the faces of the authors, but we wonder if it wasn’t a basic AI that did them under orders: “He writes banalities, clichés, denials of reality and woke fictions much used in the past by the Guardian newspaper in London, but adapts them to today’s places in Lisbon.”

But the current reality is much more complex than such outdated woke preaching. Is it nonsense to attract the most qualified employees in the world from OpenAI (ChatGPT) at a cost of 100 million dollars, as Meta (Facebook) does, and are the woke promoters of 600 euro salaries in Portugal the smart ones? Such indoctrinators tell us, for example, that in Portugal there is no downward pressure on salaries because a million mostly unskilled people suddenly arrived, in contrast to the million mostly qualified natives who left . They insist that exporting qualified labor and importing unskilled and poorly paid labor is the key to competitiveness and future success for Portugal, including social security! In addition to thinking they are smarter than the leaders of ChatGPT and Facebook, they also insist that there is no overload on housing or public hospitals in a small country with few resources. There are not even security issues, only perceptions when millions of citizens are imported. The reader does not believe in so many wonders and thinks that Altman and Zuckerberg understand more about economics than our woke preachers? They will insult you to intimidate you into believing: “Salazarist!” Such indoctrinators think that our entire past and present can be summed up as a bogeyman. They have never been as moved as we were when they heard the Seventh Legion sing “there is a thousand years of history of living and sailing” . We are part of and continue this history that we should all be proud of and want to share. Portugal has produced, for example, exemplary emigrant communities that we have witnessed throughout the world.

We currently live in the Boston area, the capital of the state of Massachusetts (MA) in the USA. On Sundays we enthusiastically drive our family, including our young children, about 70 km south, to a small, big Portugal. In the south of MA, spilling over into the aforementioned neighboring state of RI, Portuguese culture is proudly alive and well. Here, despite living far from our origins, amidst so much innovation (Boston is a leader in AI, biotechnology and robotics) and many more economic, leisure and cultural offerings (for example, New York is just a few hours away by car) than those that the aforementioned indoctrinators have access to in Lisbon, we respect Portuguese culture. In cities such as Fall River and New Bedford in MA or Cumberland and East Providence in RI, among many others, there are numerous Portuguese institutions full of Portuguese-American families ( Associative movement – ​​Portugal in USA – Consulate General of Portugal in Boston ; Associative movement – ​​Portugal in USA – Vice-Consulate of Portugal in Providence ).

There are hundreds of thousands of us here sharing our love for Portuguese culture and passing it on to our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Even if young children do not speak Portuguese well, they already know what Portuguese culture is, they love it and they value it. We want to keep this culture alive in the world and celebrate it for generations to come! We understand the value of preserving the excellent things that have been built and accumulated over past generations in Portugal. A solid foundation that cannot be destroyed, to further improve our culture.

There is a whole Portuguese-American community here that, through their experiences and organized volunteer work, maintains Portuguese cultural values, such as the gentle customs that have made Portugal one of the safest countries in the world (and will continue to do so if we respect and defend them). Interestingly, some of these cities are quite “tough” and have violence, but when you get to the Portuguese neighborhoods you can walk freely on the streets. For example, despite all the exaggerated fuss in the Portuguese media about the current American administration’s raids on illegal immigrants or those involved in illicit activities, according to recent news from the Portuguese Times (no link because the physical edition is not always available digitally), you can count on the fingers of one hand the number of Portuguese-American families affected. This is out of hundreds of thousands of Portuguese-American families living in New England. The Portuguese community is exemplary in respecting local law, so it is not significantly affected.

We, Portuguese-American emigrants, also bring here the spirit of exploration, navigation, creativity and proactivity in overcoming the most varied difficulties, until we reach success through hard work, when we arrive in new places. We do not ask for anything from the government in adulthood and productive age. We do not queue up in front of the American social security system, except when we are elderly (federal retirement from the age of 62 and Medicare from the age of 65) or if we really need it ( Medicaid for those who earn below the limit). We roll up our sleeves, work and do the best for our family and pay all the bills, without causing any trouble. We could list endless very positive and commendable Portuguese cultural values, but let us emphasize that such values ​​include above all respect and obedience to the laws and customs of any of the many countries to which we emigrate, in this case America. We have had or observed the same behavior from Portuguese emigrants in France, Luxembourg, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Macau, South Africa and Brazil.

The countries to which the Portuguese emigrate welcome them because we strive to do so, individually and together, to demonstrate gratitude and integration. We do not isolate ourselves or nullify the local culture, we simply add our Portuguese culture to those who want to experience it. Any country likes to have emigrants with such a friendly culture! For example, we recently celebrated the aforementioned June 10th day of Portugal, Camões and the Portuguese communities (to which we invited Americans of all other ethnicities) throughout New England ( See the ceremony at the RI State House to showcase Portuguese culture ; https://providence.consuladoportugal.mne.gov.pt/en/the-consulate/news/2025-ri-day-of-portugal-events ; | Community | 41st Annual Heritage Day of Portugal in Massachusetts – Boston, MAPortuguese American Journal ; https://www.heraldnews.com/story/news/local/ojornal/2025/06/13/guide-to-new-bedford-day-of-portugal-celebration-music-food-and-more/84191563007/ ). We are already preparing to celebrate the Portuguese Popular Saints' Day here, such as São João, with sardine parties and sagres (or superbock) with Portuguese friends, who are scheduled to attend various clubs. However, on July 4th we will also celebrate American Independence Day with American friends, having American barbecues washed down with Miller, watching the many fireworks. We proudly hoisted the American and Portuguese flags together on the lawns in front of our homes here in the USA. We continue to “go to India without abandoning Portugal”, as Agostinho da Silva explained.

Our good values ​​are exemplary and do not happen by chance. For example, our mild customs, even when compared to neighboring Spain, may be due to our peripheral location. This has spared us from the “warlike bestiality” of the rest of Europe, according to Oliveira e Costa in “Portugal Na História Uma Identidade.” José Gil in “Portugal ou o Medo de Existir” explains these mild customs as a consequence of the slowness of the justice system, which has forced the Portuguese to come to an understanding and resolve differences between themselves without violence. All of this can coexist. Freitas do Amaral in “Da Lusitania a Portugal” prefers to emphasize our deep connection to Western Europe, rather than the periphery. Our culture was built over a long period of time and by the Portuguese-speaking world, and is a unique phenomenon of great accumulated value. This is clear in all the good stories about Portugal, from Oliveira Marques to José Mattoso, including Rui Ramos and Jaime Nogueira Pinto (the latter two, besides being excellent historians, are among the best here at Observador at pointing out future paths for the Portuguese people that are different from the worn-out globalist left. It is an honour to be able to write alongside them).

To maintain our ancient culture, there are Portuguese language and history schools in the area south of Boston and around the capital of MA, Portuguese parades with motifs from the various regions of Portugal and many Portuguese friends clubs (including Madeirans, Azores or Penalva do Castelo) from Central Falls to Bristol in RI or from Attleboro to Taunton in MA. There are also newspapers like the Portuguese Times , radio stations like WJFD 97.3 , supermarkets like Portugália in Fall River, bakeries like Central in Pawtucket, American banks that are actually almost Portuguese (they acquired the old Portuguese financial institutions like Bristol County Savings Bank that inherited Millennium BCP), restaurants like Sagres, music, gastronomy or social events based on various cultural reasons and Portuguese festivals, Portuguese sports clubs, Portuguese football club houses, processions, catechism classes in religious institutions prevalent in Portugal like several Catholic churches, with mass in Portuguese, that honor Our Lady of Fatima, philharmonic bands (similar to the one in David Fonseca's moving video “ Só depois, amanhã” [Só depois, amanhã ]), folklore groups, etc. We have been members of several of these Portuguese-American clubs in MA and RI for almost 20 years, including the most humble ones and always with pride, since we came here. to study at the universities here. We are also members of the groups of Portuguese and Portuguese-American postgraduates from these universities. We socialize with both the older and less qualified Portuguese who came here after the eruption of the Capelinhos volcano and later, after the colonial war, and the younger and highly qualified Portuguese who come to universities in the USA. Both of these groups have made and continue to make fantastic contributions to the country that welcomed them.

While we Portuguese immigrants watch with pleasure as our children play lacrosse on the same afternoon, a very American sport, typical of Anglo-Saxon families but invented by Native Americans, in a prosperous suburb near Boston in MA, but then go to a modest suburb near Providence in RI, dance in a traditional Portuguese ranch, the woke windmills of our newspapers and globalist politics of small circles in Lisbon, they would certainly only want lacrosse for their children in the richest and least Portuguese American city. They would certainly look disgusted because it is very limited and self-absorbed, about ranches. Portuguese culture makes them uncomfortable because it has little world and they think it is okay to prefer only the globalist trends from abroad that dictate what to translate to think and repeat. Politicians and journalists locked in woke cocktails in Lisbon translating the Guardian should broaden their horizons by traveling and living more. They should come to Portuguese communities to see what reality is like, to understand what excellent immigrants are.

In addition to the little Portugal of the New England states in the USA (MA, RI, NH, CT, VT and ME) that we described above, sometimes, when we want sun in the winter and can't get to Portugal, we take longer trips, to Palm Coast in Florida where we also find clubs of Portuguese-Americans maintaining our traditions (and on the West Coast, especially in California, in areas like San Jose, there are also some) equally committed to maintaining Portuguese culture voluntarily, out of pure passion.

In the past, when we studied, worked and lived in the American Midwest, we would drive thousands of miles to Newark, New Jersey (more specifically Ironbound) to relive the Portuguese culture we love and to go to restaurants like Marisqueira Seabra and other Portuguese institutions there, including the aforementioned groups of Portuguese postgraduate students spread across the US whose meetings we still attend when we can. That's when we made friends for life. Likewise, when we lived in Oxford, England, we and other immigrants would socialize and celebrate Portuguese culture in Portuguese cafés in Oxford itself or in South Lambeth, London, in the Stockwell area. In Paris, we go to Portuguese restaurants that are everywhere, from Saudade to Pedra Alta. There were emotional moments of pride and gratitude when we went to Olinda in Brazil and Macau in China and witnessed the fascinating legacy built there over hundreds of years and left by the Portuguese (we only felt this emotional again when we saw our children's First Communion celebrations in contemporary Portuguese-American Catholic churches, equal in strength and participation by the entire population to those our grandparents and great-grandparents described in Portugal. There are many other traditions that have endured here longer).

In Portugal, in the beautiful Vila Praia de Âncora, among many Portuguese-French people who emigrated from there to France, including some from our family, we recently read with pleasure “The Art of Being Portuguese” by Teixeira de Pascoaes. Like all emigrants, whenever we can, we never miss an opportunity to come to the various beautiful places in Portugal to relive our homesickness (a unique example of our culture). Sometimes a weekend in Sertã (from where the other part of our family also emigrated to all over the world) or in Sesimbra, Sardoal or Albufeira, Peso da Régua or Vila Real de Santo Antonio, Caminha or Alcácer do Sal, etc. is enough. We never tire of coming to Portugal to enjoy our culture, which is worth preserving and of which we should be proud.

It scares us that so many good things in Portugal could be lost because of closed-minded people in Lisbon who think they are open-minded, but don't know what to say or do other than translate newspapers that don't even represent the majority of the English population, let alone ours.

We are fortunate enough to come frequently to the country we love so much, despite living in the US and working around the world. Like all immigrants, we love our culture, and even though we travel and work frequently around the world, we never tire of it or of coming here. We bring foreign colleagues and friends to Portugal with justifiable pride. The best scientific conferences in the world deserve to be held in Portugal. In 2026, Lisbon will host one of the largest biotechnology conferences in the world ( BIO-Europe Spring | Europe's Largest Springtime Biotech Partnering Event ). Portuguese hospitality and restaurants, combined with contemporary architecture and interior design (as well as historical monuments and landscapes) are world-class. The press conferences are always hot and good ( Expresso Imobiliário 12, Tivoli Kopke Porto Gaia Hotel )! For example, on a recent Saturday we flew from Boston to Lisbon on TAP to read Eça and poems by Jorge de Sena (who also traveled between the US and the depths of Portugal “on distant beaches, other clouds, other voices”) and listen to Mariza Liz singing wonderfully Antonio Variations ( Marisa Liz – Guerra Nuclear ) on the in-flight entertainment and watch documentaries about magical places with a Portuguese legacy, to which TAP flies, such as Goa in India or São Tomé and Príncipe in Africa. We came to visit family and friends briefly, as well as to enjoy our culture.

That night, we heard Afonso Rodrigues (who musically caresses the USA when he sings as Sean Riley) at the garage theater in Costa do Castelo in Lisbon. We were touched when Afonso sang the verses that Zeca Afonso sang “ai deus mo deus, ai deus mo levar” ( Songs of May – Zeca Afonso ). That ancient place and those painful verses did not exist by chance, they are not just from the left (and what they are comes from the traditional national left, not from the current degenerate globalist left), but are the result of many sums that have made our culture over many generations, including maritime suffering in navigation and fishing, reported by Torga (“Tormenta”), Verde (“Heroísmos”), Pessoa (“Mar Português”) or Camões (“Lusíadas”). These are just mere pieces of the millions of other pieces that make up Portuguese culture. The value of Portuguese identity cannot be destroyed or denied, it can be preserved and reinvented, adding instead of subtracting.

We took Afonso’s new autographed vinyl to the US, where songs like “Um Amor Qualquer” have been a hit when we have American friends of various ethnicities over for dinner (with Vista Alegre crockery, Sagres and sardines or cod and Esporão, of course!). From Danish-American friends to Vietnamese-Americans, including Indians, Nigerians, Chinese, Greeks, Saudis, Argentinians, Italians, Cape Verdeans or Irish-Americans, etc., everyone loves Portuguese culture! It is widely agreed throughout the world (except in the most wokist minds of a certain small area of ​​Lisbon) that it is worth valuing and preserving. It enriches the US and the planet.

We wrote this article thinking about all the exemplary Portuguese emigrants around the world that we have met and all our friends and compatriots in Portugal who love Portuguese culture. This is in addition to all the foreigners, including those who are exemplary immigrants in Portugal like we are abroad, who value our culture. We also wrote it thinking about humbly educating and opening the eyes of many of our compatriots who are genuinely kind human beings, but who naively believe in the globalist wokism that shames Portugal. This is because in Portugal they are inundated with it all the time in the press and on TV in Lisbon, almost always without any contradiction. There are many more reasons to be proud!

We conclude with what we started with: if in the US it took 10 years of negotiation (in the state of RI, which is much more relaxed and receptive in immigration requirements than the current federal administration ( Trump's 'sanctuary city' order disappeared, leaving RI officials in limbo )) to accept simple Portuguese symbols on local license plates, in Portugal we should also be more cautious and demanding in immigration matters. Portugal is one of the best countries in the world, exporting the best emigrants in the world. Therefore, it also deserves the best immigrants in the world willing to preserve it and contribute to its future success. It should give itself respect and demand respect.