Interview by the Diário Insular Newspaper with Tânia Santos, historian and researcher

You’ve just released your book “Jazz, Golf, and American Dream” about the American presence on Terceira Island. What vision do you propose to readers?

First, let me say how important it is to leave this record for future generations, with a view to a greater understanding of Terceira’s and the Azores’ identity.
In terms of contemporary history, collecting memories is an essential complement to traditional history. It is still possible to record the memories of the real protagonists. This research has a human character, the people who are the book’s focus, the social being, and the impact the North American presence had on the island’s people, particularly the Azores.
Returning to your question, it is in this sense that I propose that readers, looking back at a time of many social and moral restrictions, witness the transformations that this foreign force brought to the island’s ways of life and customs. We are talking about a period of dictatorship, a period of censorship and reprisals against anything that served the good of the nation. However, on the small Azorean island, there was a certain modernity, access to a higher quality of life provided by foreigners, and, in a way, there was an American Dream in our own land. So, I propose a journey through the sweetest memories of being an islander under the influence of the Americans and how this presence transformed the island’s way of life and quietness. Above all, the aim is to perpetuate these memories and leave a historical record of the social impact of the American presence on Terceira Island.

What are the essential transformations on Terceira Island and in the Azores that you have seen and related to the North American presence? Of these, which have become so ingrained in the social fabric that they still mark the local population’s practices and worldviews today?

Transformations were of all kinds, resulting from social, cultural, economic, ideological, and linguistic influences. This influence had a transversal impact and was an archipelagic phenomenon, as it was not limited to the island of Terceira. First, we must mention the access to well-paid jobs with a guaranteed salary. The US presence led to greater social and economic dynamism. Working at the Lajes Base became a factor in social advancement and promotion.
In addition, the need for manpower in different areas, plus the good salaries, led to the emergence of the “Base worker” woman, demonstrating a certain emancipation of the female figure.
Even today, we can see a certain quality of life associated with the base worker. A job at the Lajes Base is still something to look forward to.
The influence of the music heard on the island, the new rhythms and sounds that arrived, such as blues, jazz, and swing… Many arrived via the USO program, entertaining the displaced troops and making small tours of the island and the rest of the archipelago. Due to this influence today, we have one of the most prominent jazz festivals on the island—Angra Jazz.
We can’t stop talking about television and how the “little magic box” was a window to the world, showing us what was happening beyond the island. It brought us a certain modernity. We had television before the mainland.
From an early age, it became possible to access little-known products consumed in the Azores, such as cola, ketchup, hamburgers, and chocolates… which delighted the population. The presence of foreigners gave them access to Made in USA products. This facilitated their knowledge of American culture, influencing the locals with the novelties and new experiences that the military provided.
Faced with the indigence of many families, the Americans helped the population. Some saw the spirit of mutual aid as a soft power position, a diplomatic strategy to captivate and influence the host community. For example, American soft power was evidenced in improving the quality of public services, natural disasters, and health care for premature children on the island… Support for childcare institutions is noteworthy. Much of this help was provided through the People to People program and organized by the wives of military personnel.
The movies offered opportunities to see international premieres, an experience of significant cultural impact.
As a general admission, Lajes opened its doors to the local community on “Community Appreciation Day” …..
The language itself changed. The first base workers belonged to the most vulnerable bangs of the community. They couldn’t speak English; in fact, they had minimal schooling. To break down communication barriers, they created corruptions associated with the sound they heard and tried to reproduce. It’s curious that after so many years, these corruptions are almost an integral part of Terceira’s language. We have appropriated this “lingo.”
So, it was a cross-cutting influence in all areas and has been perpetuated over the years, leaving deep traces in past generations, in those that followed, right up to the present. It’s almost like an identity.

What role did the Lajes Base play in consolidating the American dream, and with what consequences, for example, emigration? What new ways of emigrating have emerged associated with the American presence on the island?
The interaction and relationship between the two communities caused even greater fascination with the “American dream.”
The desire to emigrate has always been an island reality; it was on the horizons of the people of the islands, who envisioned greater prosperity and social ascension on the other side of the Atlantic. It is often associated with the belief that, in America, individuals have the opportunity to achieve this mobility and social ascension. For some, this dream was achieved on Terceira Island through access to the American job market and the creation of financial strategies inherent to the foreign presence on the island.
For others, the dream seemed unattainable. Frustrated by American customs and quality of life and wanting to escape poverty, major migratory strategies emerged, such as American couples’ adoption of Azorean children and marriages between young islanders and outsiders.
The Lajes Base as an employer has fluctuated regarding the number of local workers and the quality of employment. In the years you studied, how important was it for local workers to have access to a job at the base?
A job at the base was something everyone wanted, not least because of the guarantee of a paycheck at the end of the fortnight. The first base workers were impoverished people. The first jobs at the base were tough and not so appealing to people from urban areas. Employment at the Lajes Base allowed for social mobility, the much-desired prosperity. Several interviewees talked about how working at Lajes transformed their lives, access, salaries, current pensions, and the “abundance” they brought from the base, which supported many families. One of the interviewees even said that what they earned was enough to pay for the house and what they brought back to eat.
I always like to think of the example of the young caddies, children, and teenagers, “barefooted” from the parishes of Agualva, Vila Nova, S. Brás…, from the outskirts of the Golf Course, who went to the Golf Course to contribute to the meager family budget with the much-desired dollars. Many hoped to be chosen as caddies for the Americans and thus bring home extra income. Later, a scholarship was created for them, allowing them to wear shoes and buy their uniform and equipment. However, they had to attend school (finish 4th grade and learn English), thus preparing them for the exam to join the Base, as the caddies would fill several vacancies, giving them the social status of “Base worker.” And just to see the transformations today, many of these caddies are some of the greatest amateur golfers on the island. But this was only made possible by their employment at the Base.
In addition, the Americans invested in their workers. They provided opportunities to travel to other bases or the US to specialize, train, and improve their skills and competencies. This was also a form of valorization.
In a way, it was prestigious to work on the base, go to American clubs, and have an American friend who came to our house and to our festivities; it was synonymous with social status.

For decades, a kind of first-world American suburban city settled on the island and projected itself over an underdeveloped rural community. When all is said and done, would you say that the benefits for the local population have outweighed the detriments or the opposite?
Although all the benefits provided to the community may have a particular soft power at their root, I think the benefits have far outweighed the possible losses. I say this based on the interviews carried out in this research. I interviewed 67 people, and practically all of them mentioned the importance of the American presence on the island as an agent of development and prosperity. They recognize more benefits than losses. I believe this because I have suffered from these influences like every other Terceira resident. All of us from Terceira have had a family member, a friend, or a neighbor who worked at the base, and we all remember, of course, the “abundance” distributed by the Americans to the community and how this presence transformed the tiny island of Terceira.

You’ve delved into the issue of local children leaving for the US in various ways and apparently taking advantage of legal loopholes. What is the perceived scale of this situation, and what are the main patterns and consequences?
This is always a susceptible phenomenon that requires us to be very careful. We are dealing with cases of private life of the most intimate nature, sometimes still involved in countless trials, and, above all, a significant silence on the part of the local community. This reality is very present in the subjects’ memories, although it remains shrouded in a lot of silence, raising questions in moral and legal terms. This also makes it impossible for us to grasp the phenomenon’s scale and fully understand it.
This silence has had substantial psychological consequences for biological families, who are stigmatized and stereotyped. It has also created obstacles to reunion.
However, we verified and recorded the departure of 182 Azorean children in the company of US couples working at the Lajes Base. But we know that this number does not represent the total reality. Many children may have left the island completely undocumented, without any registration. The possibility that some of these children left the island as if they were biological children of the Americans is mentioned throughout the interviews. We are almost talking about black figures like those associated with clandestine emigration. We are talking about a period when no law was regulating this practice. The first adoption laws in the Civil Code came into force in 1966. However, many children left the island between 1946 and 1966, before this legislation, which led to the departure of undocumented children. In other cases, strategies were created to try to regulate the delivery of children, as was the case with the terms of consent and responsibility. Although, after 1966, we already had a legislative document regulating this practice, many children still left the island without being adopted. We only found the term “adoption” from the 1970s onwards in the documents we consulted.
These adoptions were common throughout the archipelago, justified by extreme poverty and large families, but also as a way of circumventing illegitimacy.
But we can also speak almost of a form of early emigration. Since the parents couldn’t emigrate, this desire was allocated to the children, who could achieve the much-desired quality of life since the Americans offered the possibility of a more promising future for these children. This leads me to reflect on the act of altruism, of love on the part of the biological families, who, recognizing the impossibility of guaranteeing a better future for their children, give them up in the hope that they will reach the American dream and perhaps one day remember the family they left behind and also provide them with an improvement in their lives, perhaps with subsequent emigration, extending to the whole family.

in Diário Insular, José Lourenço director–photos from letras Lavadas, Ernesto Resendes, owner

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) and the Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures Department (MCLL) as part of Bruma Publications from California State University, Fresno (Fresno State)