Word: cabral
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...Ruben Cabral, executive director of the Cambridge Organization of Portuguese Americans (COPA) points out that ethnic identity is of fundamental importance to the Portuguese in this country. "It is important to preserve your own heritage," Cabral says, "for if you lose your heritage you lose yourself. We have to keep our own things that can identify us. The Portuguese can become anything. They have shown a tremendous facility for adopting other cultures. To preserve our culture we have to have a very strong emphasis on what it is to be Portuguese...
...goals of COPA are two-fold: The organization seeks to raise Portuguese consciousness and to employ this awareness in Cambridge politics. "We are trying to educate the Portuguese community in being Portuguese," Cabral says. "We want to get people not to be ashamed of being Portuguese. We are trying to become united so that political gains can be made. We should get into the American society as Portuguese...
...Portuguese are now where the Irish and Italians were at the turn of the century," Cabral says. "They are searching for an identity. Up to now the Portuguese have taken on the character of the community they were in. The present is a unique time for the Portuguese. They are still trying to get where they want...
Some of the Portuguese community leaders feel that the Portuguese are aware of the negative implications of their political heritage, but that they cannot overcome it. "They feel it," Cabral says. "Whey you take the train from Lisbon as an immigrant, there is nothing but silence. The people are sad. But when they cross the border they begin to talk and the first thing they talk against is the government. They feel the oppression there...
...Cabral observes that one of the reasons the Portuguese are unwilling to rock the boat to obtain increased benefits is that conditions in America, bad as they are for the Portuguese, are still better than what they left behind...