The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth will host an international colloquium titled “Portuguese Migration and Mill Work in New England: Past, Present, and Future of Portuguese American Studies” on Friday, October 24 and Saturday, October 25 in the Claire T. Carney Library Grand Reading Room.
This two-day event will assess the contributions of the recently published volume Migration Mill Work and Portuguese Communities in New England, edited by Cristiana Bastos, Bela Feldman-Bianco, and Miguel Moniz (Tagus Press, 2024), while exploring future directions of research in Portuguese American studies.
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A century after the publication of Donald R. Taft’s controversial Two Portuguese Communities in New England (Columbia University Press, 1923), participants will present and discuss the struggles, encounters, and achievements of Portuguese and Portuguese Americans under the pressures of upward mobility, racialized tensions, the politics of assimilation and multiculturalism, and labor and ethnic revival movements.
Sponsored by the Ferreira-Mendes Portuguese-American Archives and the Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture/Tagus Press, this event underscores UMass Dartmouth’s ongoing leadership in advancing Portuguese American scholarship and cultural heritage.
The program begins on Friday, October 24, with breakfast at 9:00 a.m., followed by opening remarks and two morning sessions: Setting the Context, featuring Cristiana Bastos, and Portuguese Spaces in Urban New England, featuring Rose Rodrigues, Graça Índias Cordeiro, Paula Celeste Gomes Noversa, and Gray Fitzsimons. Afternoon sessions include Narrating Portuguese Lives, moderated by Antonio Ladeira, with presentations by Carmen Ramos Villar, Silvia Oliveira, and Frank Sousa, and a panel on the Politics of Portuguese American Communities, featuring Miguel Moniz, Daniela Melo, and Camilo Viveiros. The day will conclude with closing remarks from Cristiana Bastos and Caroline Brettell, followed by dinner from 5 to 7 p.m.
On Saturday, October 25, the colloquium will open with remarks by Bela Feldman-Bianco, followed by a screening and discussion of the award-winning ethnographic documentary Saudade (Documentary Educational Resources, 1991, 57’)—one of the outcomes of the Portuguese Oral History Project, founded by Feldman-Bianco when she was University Professor of Portuguese Studies at Southeastern Massachusetts University (now UMass Dartmouth). A roundtable discussion and lunch will conclude the event.
The colloquium is organized by Mario Pereira (UMass Dartmouth), in collaboration with Bela Feldman-Bianco (Universidade Estadual de Campinas) and Cristiana Bastos (University of Lisbon).
This event is free and open to the public, but registration is kindly requested. Please RSVP to Marlene Roberge at mroberge1@umassd.edu.
Source: Press release | UMass Dartmouth
