
By Len Port
According to reliable sources, the Portuguese and their descendants in the United States mostly welcome President-elect Donald Trump returning to the White House.
“Trump will be welcomed by the majority of Portuguese living on the East and West coasts,” says Carolina Matos, the Portuguese American Journal editor.
She says that one example of Trump’s popularity is in Fall River, Massachusetts. She acknowledged that the Portuguese residents there embraced Trump despite his harsh stance on immigration.
Carolina Matos was unhappy with both candidates in the November presidential election but notes that not only did Trump win big in 2024 among the Portuguese, but he had more votes in the city than anyone since Dwight Eisenhower in 1952.
Fall River with the highest concentration of Portuguese in the country, the majority with roots in the Azores, is sometimes referred to as “the tenth island.”
Journalist Ben Blake, reporting from Fall River, has clearly shown that although support for Democrats had dominated the community for 70 years, it has greatly fallen because most locals have moved to the Right and are now pro-Republican and pro-Trump.
Blake visited Fernando’s bar in Fall River where the manager, Lucy Oliveira, serves Portuguese foods such as pork sandwiches and bifanas to a crowd of regulars. The locals told Blake that nearly all of them support Trump, each for personal reasons. One of Trump’s most liked characteristics is his “toughness.” For Lucy Oliveira, Trump’s brand, as a successful businessman, plays well because of Fall River’s post-industrial economic slump. “Everyone wants Trump because the economy is so bad,” she said.
Daniela Melo, a Portuguese professor at Boston University, joked “You can’t understand the politics of Mass if you don’t understand how the Portuguese are thinking.” According to her, Portuguese past political attitudes stemmed from President John F. Kennedy’s laws on immigration that allowed so many Portuguese to enter the country in 1958, following the Faial Island volcanic eruption disaster.
The Portuguese like many other ethnic groups, have integrated into American society. Like the Jews, Irish, and others many Portuguese families are now in the second, third, or fourth generation in the United States.
Currently, the number of Portuguese people immigrating to the United States has dropped dramatically after their livelihoods in Portugal improved following the overthrow in 1974 of the long Salazar dictatorship.
In California, on the West Coast, it was predicted that the Portuguese community could tip the balance of power in the U.S. Congress. Reporting internationally from the small town of Thornton in Californians Central Valley, Faith E. Pinto, a staff reporter for the Los Angeles Times, visited the small town of Thornton in California’s Central Valle where flags were flying proudly above the streets thronged with festive season revelers. Portuguese people from across the Central Valley flocked to Thornton to celebrate. There was a parade, several Catholic Masses, and even a bullfight. It was a delightful occasion “to share families’ food, language, and culture quietly, but powerfully, tucked away in Californian farmlands,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
“Far away from the center of power in Washington, a small but sizable Portugal’s population has played a meaningful role in shaping the Central Valley – and the community’s politics could prove crucial,” Pinto wrote.
On a “Farmers for Trump” rally involving tractors and trucks blaring their horns and flying Portuguese flags down a two-lane highway, Kenneth Rose, who called himself 100% Portuguese, perched himself on a pick-up truck and declared: “I’ve seen enough. I don’t need any more liberalism in this country.”
“Although the Portuguese are now generations deep in the Valley, many are still close to their immigrant family toots. And in many ways, the story of Portuguese people in California – just over 350,000, according to the 2020 U.S. census – follows the arc of many immigrant groups in the US,” Pinto said.
Generation after generation the Portuguese worked their way up to become the supervisions, managers, or owners of farmlands in California. Portuguese American politicians have been vying to represent their region. Now most are welcoming Donald Trump.
Indeed, the general election of November 4, 2014, returned to Congress four Portuguese Americans from California: Jim Costa (D), Devin Nunes (R), David Valadao (R), and Eric Swalwell (D) who has disclosed being of Portuguese descent. Congressman Jim Costa (D) was able to hold on to his seat in a narrow victory in competition with another Portuguese American, Johnny Tacherra (R).
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en Port, born in Northern Ireland, worked as a news reporter and correspondent, mainly in Hong Kong and South Africa, before moving to Portugal many years ago.