Home is the Journey: Tales from Portugal's Diasporas

Our inaugural "HITJ Fieldcast" focusing on cultural, political, and current events related to Portugal. In this episode we explore the craft beer movement. The first interview is with Octávio Costa of OG & Associates, the co-founder of Artbeerfest Caminha, Portugal’s largest, oldest, and premier craft beer festival. Octávio also organizes other Portuguese and international craft beer festivals...

HITJ explores soccer in immigrant communities with journalist and broadcaster John Gonsalves (O Jornal, WJFD) and Alex Seixeiro (the afternoon sports anchor on 680 News Radio, Toronto—Rogers Sports & Media). John and Alex talk about the role of soccer in Portuguese immigrant communities, including their own love of the game, recounting the development of soccer in New England and Canada. The e...

HITJ's conversation with celebrated authors Katherine Vaz and Pedro Almeida Maia offers insight into the characters, stories, motivations, and narrative themes of these two prize winning writers of diaspora communities. Katherine Vaz has been the preeminent English language novelist about Portuguese and Azorean communities in the US since her first novel Saudade was published in 1994. Her subseque...

Dennis Redmont , the head of the Associated Press Lisbon news operation in the 1960s, and Vasco Abecassis , co-founder with his then wife Snu Abecassis of Publicações Dom Quixote , share their stories about the foreign press' coverage of the Colonial Wars / Wars of Independence in Angola, Guinea-Bissau, and Mozambique (including Vasco's stint as Guinea-Bissau Governor General Arnaldo Schulz' forei...

HITJ highlights the extraordinary Portuguese international study program the Study in Portugal Network (SiPN) powered by the Luso-American Foundation (FLAD), with Executive Board Member Michael Baum and Education Director Ricardo Pereira. SiPN's founders talk about the many study opportunities in Portugal through this unparalleled study abroad program, the growth of international studies in Portu...

HITJ has an in depth conversation with accomplished social justice and labor organizers, activists, communicators, and educators Camilo Viveiros Jr. , from the University of Massachusetts Labor Education Center, and Humberto Da Silva, a union organizer, civilian journalist, commentator and author based in Toronto. We speak about the difference between labor organization theory and practice, their...

HITJ talks about ICE raids, kidnappings, detentions, and deportations in Portuguese immigrant communities in New Bedford and other parts of Massachusetts with Immigrants' Assistance Center President Helena daSilva Hughes and Immigration lawyer Jennifer Velarde . Helena and Jennifer update us on what is happening to Portuguese and other immigrants at the hands of ICE; how green card holders are bei...

HITJ journeys to Portugal's Carnation Revolution of April 25th, 1974, in conversation with the "Captain of April" Col. José Fernando Santos Coelho . One of the leaders of the revolution, Col. Coelho played a major role in planning and executing the occupation and command of the radio stations from which the revolutionaries communicated the operationalization of the military coup to overthrow the E...

Home is the Journey explores queer and non-binary gender identities in the Portuguese Diaspora and Portugal in this conversation with sexually fluid multimedia artist Teresa Ascenção and trans non-binary musician Moon Palmar of the punk rock band Bad Waitress. Teresa and Moon speak with Miguel and Gil discussing the lgbtq+ communities in Portuguese immigrant Canada, the Azores, and Portugal and ho...

Home is the Journey talks to renowned Portuguese/Portuguese Canadian Actors Paulino Nunes (Father Dell’Aqua in the critically acclaimed and award winning series Shōgun and credits including The Boys, Law and Order, Brooklyn, Suits) and Jess Salgueiro (Eve on the Fraser reboot and credits including The Boys, Tiny Pretty Things, Working Moms, Letterkenny, Orphan Black). Paulino and Jess discuss thei...

International comedy group The Portuguese Kids, Derrick DeMelo and Brian Martins, talk to Home is the Journey, about growing up in Massachusetts as kids of immigrants, revealing the sources and conflicts that create their comedy, performing for international audiences, the role of the internet, and discussing the history and future of cultural institutions in immigrant communities. In their openin...