Holiday Celebration and Reflection
During this time of holiday celebration and reflection, we are reminded to take stock in what we are thankful for. But we are sitting at a volatile global table. Where do we go from here? I look to my own life. I am thankful to be a small business owner who relishes the sound of the Portuguese language, the voice of singer Mariza Nunes, the smell of pastéis de nata, and ameijoas à portuguesa; someone who believes in social democracy, in humanitarianism, and the badassery of Metallica. I am thankful that because of my background, I have deep empathy and appreciation for people, regardless of their country, creed, or religion. I am thankful for my wife, an American who has obtained her Portuguese citizenship and is learning to speak Portuguese, my two boys, who identify as citizens of a world with no borders. I’m thankful for my parents, where they’ve come from, and the journey they took together. They’ve taught me not to put anyone in a box, taught me that we all come from some place, with a point of view, a story, and a yearning.
Looking back at my family’s immigration journey, I now realize there were key experiences that helped build the foundation of Aguardente. The prejudice my family faced two years into our journey still rings vivid in my memory. When looking for a larger living space, my family encountered an elderly landlady who took one look at our handsome olive-skinned, dark-haired Portuguese family and said, “How do I know I won’t wake up with a brick through my window?” My mother, a very short-tempered woman, took off her shoe and threw it in the lady’s direction. Not her best moment, but over the years, we learned to turn the other cheek to such ignorance.
Eventually, we found a picturesque Somerville suburb to lay down new roots. We struck a balance of assimilating to our new home in some ways while still holding proudly onto our culture through festivals, music, dancing, and food traditions. This made for some good eats at the holidays! For Christmas, we’d have bacalhau; Easter was lamb; and for Thanksgiving, we adopted our own American spreads, and the turkey was always cooked to perfection. We’d go around the table to express our thanks, and every year, my parents would speak about the life they’d created in the United States. I won’t lie; growing up in a multi-cultural environment was at times confusing. I felt different from my classmates. My friends thought the food in our fridge was strange, that my parents’ accents were exotic. Even now, I find myself questioning my parents’ decision to leave their birth country of Portugal.
“Little is more extraordinary than the decision to immigrate,”
— John F. Kennedy
Today, we thank our family members, friends, colleagues, neighbors, and students for making the difficult decision to come to the United States, leaving their homeland. Braving the often difficult journey to get here and for giving up so much to join us at this, our, American table.
