Portuguese Culture in New York City

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Portuguese New York City

There is a Portuguese community in Astoria, Queens, but the Ironbound District in Newark, New Jersey is the center of Metro New York’s big Portuguese community. There used to be a community in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

Portuguese Cultural Centers in NYC

• Luso-American Cultural Center is in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. Facebook

Portuguese Festivals in NYC

• The Newark Portuguese Festival and Portugual Day Parade is Metro New York’s big Portuguese Festival.

Portuguese Food in NYC

Portuguese food is delicious with amazing seafood including bacalhau (salted cod)

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Culture of Portugal

Fado is the most famous Portuguese folk music, There was a NY Fado Festival in 2017, but it hasn’t continued.

Saudade

Saudade is that heartsick feeling of being far away from loved ones. That loneliness is inherent in a society of seafarers. New Yorkers understand saudade too because most of us are from somewhere else.

Portuguese Music

Mariza is a famous Portuguese singer.

Portuguese Soccer

Portuguese soccer teams produce many great players, but they are often acquired by big teams around the world. Ronaldo is the most famous.

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Portugal

Portugal is a small country famous for its seafaring culture. It launched the Age of Discovery when Europeans explored the world, by sailing down Africa’s Atlantic coast in 1418.

Bartolomeu Dias reached the Indian Ocean in 1488. Vasco de Gama reached India in 1498. Portuguese reached Indonesia in 1512, China in 1513, and Japan in 1543. Ferdinand Magellan’s crew became the first to circle the globe in 1519-22.

The Americas are named for Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian working for the Portuguese. Pedro Álvares Cabral reached Brazil in 1500. Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed Panama to the Pacific Ocean in 1513.

Today Portuguese is an official language of Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, Guinea Bissau, Macau, Mozambique, Portugal, and São Tomé and Principe speak Portuguese. Goa, India used to speak Portuguese, but it is dying out.

Portugal also started and ran the TransAtlantic Slave Trade. It was another time with another way of thinking, but this shouldn’t be forgotten.

Patron Saints

Portugal is very Roman Catholic so saints are loved. The people like Santo António (Saint Anthony), São João (Saint John), and São Pedro (Saint Peter).

Holidays in Portugal

National holidays say a lot about countries. Many were defined during the Colonial Era when religion controlled every part of life. Holidays are good times to visit countries to see the old traditions.

• New Year’s Day is January 1.
• Good Friday
• Easter
• Freedom Day on April 25 celebrates the Carnation Revolution of April 25, 1974, a military coup that led to Portuguese democracy.
• Labour Day on May 1 both celebrates the International Labor Movement, and gives the working class a day off.
• Corpus Christi celebrates the Roman Catholic tradition that the wine and wafer of the Eucharist are the actual blood and body of Christ.
• Portugal Day is Portugal’s national day. It commemorates the death of Luís de Camões, the poet wrote Portugal’s epic national poem “Os Lusíadas” in 1572. It tells the story of Vasco de Gama opening the trade route with India in 1497-1499.
• Assumption of Mary on August 15 marks peak summer holiday period in Europe.
• Republic Day
• All Saints Day
• Portugal Restoration of Independence Day
• Feast of the Immaculate Conception.
• Christmas celebrates the traditional birth of Christ.