A personal note on Listening, Belonging, and the Work That Remains

A year does not end with certainty. It softens. It quiets. It settles, like salt on the skin after a long crossing. When I look back on these months, I do not see a catalogue of achievements, nor do I wish to name them as such. What I see instead are attempts—often tentative, sometimes imperfect—to remain faithful to the Azores and to those who carry the islands within them, wherever they may live.

Much of this year was spent listening before speaking. Listening to books that asked to be translated not as monuments, but as bridges. Listening to voices shaped by departure, by labor, by silence, by resilience. Translation, once again, revealed itself not as mastery, but as humility: the understanding that another voice passes through your hands only if you treat it with care. Each page became an act of service—an effort to ensure that the literature of the islands might reach those descendants who no longer speak Portuguese fluently, yet still feel an ache for something unnamed, inherited, unfinished.

There were moments when the work felt small against the immensity of what has been lost over generations—language thinned, memories shortened, communities dispersed. And yet, it is precisely in that smallness that meaning resides. A single book finding its way into the hands of a reader. A conversation opening a door to curiosity rather than nostalgia. An oral history preserved not for display, but so that someone, someday, may recognize themselves within it. These are not triumphs. They are responsibilities.

The year also unfolded through conversation—through presentations and debates, conferences and symposiums, interviews and lectures—each one an attempt to turn culture into encounter rather than display. These gatherings were never about consensus, but about connection: spaces where difficult questions could be asked aloud. How do we move forward as a diaspora without losing depth? How do we democratize culture so that it is not guarded by institutions or confined to a few, but open to all who wish to be part of the Azorean experience beyond the geography of the islands themselves? Again and again, the same challenge surfaced: how to move past the simplified language of paradise and the fleeting gesture of the tourist visit, toward a more honest, shared responsibility.

Slowly, another realization took shape. That this work—rooted in the Azores and their diaspora—also gestures toward something wider: the possibility of a more connected Lusophone world. Not unified by uniformity, but by shared values. By a belief that culture can be a language of peace, that dialogue can be a form of care, that literature and memory can contribute, quietly but persistently, to health, understanding, and human dignity. In these moments of exchange, culture ceased to be performance and became practice—something lived daily, carried into classrooms, kitchens, clinics, and conversations, shaping how we see one another and how we choose to coexist.

In these exchanges, the Azores emerged not as an idealized place to be consumed, but as a living culture in dialogue with others—capable of learning from, and contributing to, the many traditions that shape this multicultural country and the broader Lusophone constellation. What took form, slowly and imperfectly, was the sense that the future of the islands, the diaspora, and our shared linguistic world depends less on nostalgia than on participation: on coming together as a unifying force, willing to listen, to collaborate, and to imagine a better tomorrow not only for ourselves, but for the wider world we inhabit.

If this year taught me anything, it is that commitment must be renewed constantly. Love for the Azores and for the Azorean diaspora—and for the wider Lusophone family—cannot rest on sentiment alone. It demands work—often slow, often unseen—and a willingness to doubt oneself, to listen more than proclaim, to accept that what we pass on will always be incomplete. But incompleteness is not failure. It is continuity.

As the year closes, I carry forward not certainty, but intention: to keep translating—not only texts, but values; to keep building bridges grounded in peace, health, culture, and understanding; to keep moving culture from the stage into daily life; and to remain accountable to the islands that shaped me and to the communities, near and far, that continue to trust this work. Like the ocean that binds us, this commitment does not end. It recedes only to return, reshaped, asking once more to be crossed.

Abraços e Feliz Ano Novo!

Diniz Borges

Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) – Fresno State.