Migration – The Example of Portugal

A nice overview of Portuguese migration, and how Portuguese migrants have managed to preserve their culture while successfully integrating into their host society. And yet another illustration of how identities are complex and varied, and don’t neatly fit into some of the citizenship categories and identities that we try to make:

“If the emigrant is a vehicle through which the Portuguese can think about their attachment to their homeland,  if the emigrant is a vehicle though which the Portuguese can find their roots in their past, if the emigrant is a vehicle through which the Portuguese can represent their ecumenical and tolerant spirit, then the emigrant is also a vehicle for the expression of greatness – for the extension of thought beyond the boundaries of a small country wedged between Spain and the Atlantic Ocean at the very edge of Europe.  The emigrant unbinds the Portuguese nation and Portuguese culture.”

A Culture of Migration