Portuguese Americans

Portuguese Americans (portugueses-americanos), also known as Luso-Americans (luso-americanos), are American citizens and residents of the United States who are connected to the country of Portugal by birth, ancestry, or citizenship.

Americans and others who are not native Europeans from Portugal but originate from countries that were former colonies of Portugal are not Portuguese-Americans; rather, they are simply referred to by their present-day nationalities, although many citizens of former Portuguese colonies are in fact also ethnically or ancestrally Portuguese. An estimated 191,000 Portuguese nationals are currently living in the United States.

History
Bilateral ties date from the earliest years of the United States. Following the American Revolutionary War, Portugal was the first neutral country to recognize the United States.

Portuguese people have had a very long history in the United States, since 1634. The first documented Portuguese to live in colonial America was Mathias de Sousa, a Sephardic Jew. Some of the earliest European explorers to reach portions of the New World were said to be Portuguese. Navigators, like the Miguel Corte-Real family, may have visited the North American shores at the beginning of the 16th century.

There is a historic landmark, the Dighton Rock, in southeastern Massachusetts, that a small minority of scholars believe testifies their presence in the area. Portuguese explorer João Rodrigues Cabrilho explored the California coast for the first time.

During the Colonial period, there was a small Portuguese emigration to the present day U.S., especially to the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket.

Peter Francisco, the giant soldier in the US Continental Army, is generally thought to have been born Portuguese, from the Azores.

In the late 19th century, many Portuguese, mainly Azorean and Madeiran, emigrated to the eastern U.S., establishing communities in various New England coastal cities, primarily but not limited to:

Providence, Bristol and Pawtucket in Rhode Island, and New Bedford, Taunton and Fall River in Southeastern Massachusetts. On the West Coast in California there are Portuguese communities in San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Santa Cruz, the Central Valley, the dairy producing areas of the Los Angeles Basin, and San Diego, in connection to Portuguese fishermen and settlers emigrating to California from the Azores. There are also connections with Portuguese communities in the Pacific Northwest in Astoria, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington, and British Columbia, Canada as well.

Many Portuguese relocated to the Kingdom of Hawaii, prior to its overthrow by the United States in the late 19th century.

20th century
In the mid-late 20th century, there was another surge of Portuguese immigration in America, mainly in the Northeast (New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts). There are various Portuguese Clubs, principally in the larger cities of these states, which operate with the intention of promoting sociocultural preservation as venues for community events, athletics, etc. Many Portuguese Americans may include descendants of Portuguese settlers born in Africa (like Angola, Cape Verde, and Mozambique) and Asia (mostly Macanese people), as well Oceania (Timor-Leste). There were around 1 million Portuguese Americans in the United States by the year 2000.

As with other European Americans, some Portuguese surnames have been changed to align with more American sounding names, for example Rodrigues to Rogers, Oliveira to Oliver, Martins to Martin, Silva to Silver, Pereira to Perry, Moraes or Morais to Morris, Magalhães to McLean, Souto to Sutton, Moura to Moore, Rocha to Rock (or Stone) and Pontes to Bridges.

A general contribution the Portuguese people have made to American music is the ukulele, which originated in Madeira and was initially popularized in the Kingdom of Hawaii. John Philip Sousa was a famous Portuguese American composer most known for his patriotic compositions.

A large amount of mingling took place between Chinese and Portuguese in Hawaii. There were very few marriages between European and Chinese people with the majority being between Portuguese and Chinese people. These unions between Chinese men and Portuguese women resulted in children of mixed Chinese Portuguese parentage, called Chinese-Portuguese. For two years to June 30, 1933, 38 of these children were born, they were classified as pure Chinese because their fathers were Chinese.

Portuguese-American literature
There are three anthologies of Portuguese-American literature: Luso-American Literature: Writings by Portuguese-Speaking Authors in North America edited by Robert Henry Moser and António Luciano de Andrade Tosta and published in 2011, The Gávea-Brown Book of Portuguese-American Poetry edited by Alice R. Clemente and George Monteiro, published in 2013, and finally Writers of the Portuguese Diaspora in the United States and Canada: An Anthology edited by Luís Gonçalves and Carlo Matos, and published in 2015. The list of accomplished writers is considerable: Katherine Vaz, Frank X. Gaspar, Millicent Borges Accardi, Sam Pereira, Nancy Vieira Couto, Alfred Lewis, Charles Reis Felix, John dos Passos, Lara Gularte, George Monteiro, Donna Freitas, Carlo T. Matos, Anthony Barcellos, Brian Sousa, Darrell Kastin, Joseph M. Faria, Michael Spring Garcia, David Oliveira, Francisco Cota Fagundes, Lawrence Oliver, Charles Peters, Laurinda C. Andrade, Julian Silva, Emily Daniels, Art Coelho, Sue Fagalde Lick, and Thomas J. Braga.

Demography
Portuguese-Americans are the fourth largest ethnic group in the State of Hawaii, fifth largest group in Rhode Island and the eighth largest group in Massachusetts.

Biggest communities
The three largest Portuguese-American communities in the US (2010 American Community Survey):


 * 1) Providence-New Bedford-Fall River, RI-MA Metro Area: 265,512
 * 2) Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH Metro Area: 113,351
 * 3) New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA Metro Area: 111,892