City of Angra do Heroísmo and Bruma Publications prepare a new initiative to share municipal news with the diaspora

Some bridges are built of stone. Others are made of words that find their way to those who live far from home. A new collaboration between the City of Angra do Heroísmo and Bruma Publications, an initiative of the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) at California State University, Fresno, belongs to the latter kind. With the support of the Tulare Sister Cities Foundation, news from the municipality will be translated into English and published across Bruma’s platforms.

Stories about Angra’s cultural life will appear in Filamentos, while civic and general news will be published in Novidades. Each platform offers a way for Azorean descendants in California and elsewhere in North America to remain connected to the islands. Translating the life of Angra allows it to reach readers for whom the city remains part of their family inheritance, even if Portuguese is no longer the language in which they read each day.

More than 350,000 California residents are estimated to be of Portuguese descent, many with Azorean roots and ties to Terceira Island. Across generations, however, a sense of belonging has not always been accompanied by fluency in Portuguese. For Bruma Publications, reaching younger generations in the language through which they encounter and share the world is essential. Memory, too, must find new ways to remain alive.

Mayor Fátima Amorim of Angra do Heroísmo, who recently visited Tulare and California State University, Fresno, has expressed the municipality’s wish to deepen its bonds of friendship with the diaspora in the United States and Canada. This collaboration gives that commitment a lasting form, bringing Angra’s cultural and civic life to platforms followed by Azorean descendants in both countries.

Tulare and Angra have shared a friendship for sixty years, sustained by visits, encounters, and common endeavors. This initiative adds something more enduring to that history: a regular opportunity to follow, in English, what is happening in Angra’s streets, institutions, and cultural life.

A story from Angra may now reach a family’s table in California or a young reader’s screen in Canada. Perhaps it will prompt a question about the city their grandparents knew. Perhaps it will inspire a journey. And, for a moment, the distance between the two shores of the Atlantic will grow a little smaller.

Photo from PBBI-Fresno State.