AZOREANS IN WINNIPEG

The first Azoreans to settle in the Canadian province of Manitoba, in 1955, were Jaime Rodrigues, from the parish of Santa Bárbara, municipality of Ribeira Grande, and André da Câmara, from the parish of Fenais da Luz, city of Ponta Delgada, who at the time worked for the Canadian National Railway.

From 1957 onwards, many others from the other islands of the Azores settled in Manitoba or stayed here during the winter, as it was the province with the lowest cost of living. Most of these workers worked on the railways, building dams, and farming.

From the 1960s onwards, families were reunited. The already married men were joined by their wives and children, while many of the single men returned to their hometowns, got married and, consequently, sent “letters of call” to their wives, in some cases with newborn children.

In 1966, the first Portuguese parish was founded by the late Father Pedro Fernandes, a Portuguese native of Goa, as well as the Portuguese Consulate and the Portuguese Association of Manitoba.

In 1973, the Lira de Fátima Philharmonic Band was created, with most of its members from the Azores.

In 1974, the Casa do Minho of Winnipeg was founded, and many Azoreans joined this organization because, at the time, there was no direct organization related to the Azores.

Finally, in 1992, the Azorean Cultural Center was founded, later the House of the Azores of Winnipeg, and then a member of the World Council of Houses of the Azores.

Today, it is estimated that the Portuguese community numbers around 30,000 people, including Portuguese descendants, with 70% of them originating from the Azores and their descendants.

Most Azoreans come from the island of São Miguel, followed by Terceira, Santa Maria, São Jorge, Pico, and the rest from the other islands.

Most of the men work in construction and are factory workers. The majority of women worked in sewing factories until around 2000, when these jobs were outsourced, especially to Mexico and Asian countries.

During the first four decades, many Azoreans, to supplement their main salary and cope with the rapidly rising cost of living in the country, often had a second part-time job, which usually involved cleaning buildings.

Nowadays, Azoreans work in a variety of skilled jobs, including doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers, technicians, supervisors, foremen, and entrepreneurs.

In terms of housing, they initially settled in the city’s central area. Later, in the 1980s, with greater financial capacity, they began to buy houses in the more elegant suburbs of Winnipeg and, more recently, even purchased estates outside the city limits. Many Azoreans living in Manitoba also own country houses.

The House of the Azores in Winnipeg was established as the Azorean Cultural Centre on September 13, 1992, to better represent the Azorean community in the province.

After five years of continuous cultural activity, the Azorean Cultural Centre’s headquarters were devastated by a fire, which interrupted the organization’s activity.

In 2000, another group of like-minded people turned the ashes of the Azorean Cultural Center into the House of the Azores of Winnipeg, which has been a member of the World Council of Houses of the Azores since 2001.

Its successive presidents have been Leonete Correia (1992), José Furtado (1993), Artur Elias (1995), Manuel Fernandes (1996), José Santos (2001), Luís Soares (2003), José Santos again (2003), Emanuel Gomes (2009), João Paulo Melo (2010) and, once again, José Machado Ferreira dos Santos, since 2023.

The general objectives of the Casa dos Açores de Winnipeg are to maintain the Portuguese language and culture in the province of Canada, from the perspective of Azorean identity, to preserve and promote our customs and, above all, to try to ensure that children and young people born in the host country of their parents and grandparents always feel Portuguese inside and out.

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José Andrade is the Regional Director for Communities of the Government of the Autonomous Region of the Azores. This writing is based on a chronicle from his book Açores no Mundo (2017)

Translated by Diniz Borges