Azorean Identity, Diasporic Imagination, and the Renewal of a Transatlantic Dialogue.

“But the necessary longing: just four syllables of commitment.”
— Vasco Pereira da Costa, My Californian Friends

Some islands exist not only in geography, but in the bloodstream of memory. The Azores are one of those places—an archipelago of belonging suspended between continents, between what was left behind and what is forever carried within. To be Azorean is to inhabit both absence and presence: a people who, by leaving, multiplied their homeland, who, by crossing oceans, expanded the meaning of home. Our history is a geography of longing mapped by courage. And yet, longing alone is no longer enough. It is time to transform the nostalgia, the saudade that defined us into structure, into dialogue, into new paradigms that ensure the Azores and their diaspora continue to speak not only through memory but through purpose.

For several centuries, the Azores have lived in an unbroken conversation with the Americas, a daring courtship written in wind and salt, in hope and survival. Across the United States, from New England to California, and into Hawaii, there exists an archipelago of hearts and houses: communities that are not merely extensions of the islands, but their most vibrant continuation. To walk through the dairy lands of California’s Central Valley, the docks of New Bedford, or the neighborhoods of Fall River is to feel the pulse of an Azorean republic beyond the sea. The diaspora is not an echo—it is the other half of our identity.

To speak of the Azores is to speak of those who departed, carrying not just suitcases but the entire landscape of their islands, their voices, prayers, and silences. Every Azorean family has someone who has left. Every emigrant who looked westward carried with them a piece of the archipelago’s soul. Without emigration, we would not be who we are. These islands, blessed by the serenity of the Atlantic, have been shaped as much by departure as by the remaining. As Mário Machado Fraião once wrote, “the house had a door that led to America—a heavy door.” That door still stands, though it opens now to new worlds of opportunity and imagination.

Our cultural fabric—literature, music, visual arts, performance—is threaded with the texture of America. In the rhythms of a poem, in the chords of a guitar, in the palette of a painter, we can feel the pulse of the other side of the ocean. The American presence may once have weighed heavily, but it also nourished us. Today, that legacy must be cared for with the same tenderness with which earlier generations cared for the vines of Pico or the wheat of Graciosa. We cannot simply commemorate the past; we must cultivate continuity. We must prepare for the future.

And this continuity demands more than sentiment—it requires structure, foresight, and renewed imagination. The dialogue between the Azores and its diaspora must not remain occasional, ceremonial, or nostalgic. It must become a sustained, creative force: a transatlantic partnership of ideas, education, and culture. New paradigms must emerge—spaces for shared governance of memory and innovation, for academic exchange, for bilingual publishing, for the construction of a future that honors its roots while growing toward the horizon.

If we fail to nurture this connection with 21st-century tools—digital, cultural, and human—we risk losing a generation. Bonds do not survive on lineage alone. “Scattered cousins,” Pedro da Silveira warned, “relatives ignored by each other.” It is not enough to celebrate heritage once a year; we must live it daily, in the way we teach, create, and imagine. A true connection must be emotional, cultural, and intellectual before it can ever be economic.

The diaspora in the United States—diverse, integrated, and increasingly multigenerational—embodies the evolution of Azorean identity. No longer defined solely by the nostalgia of departure, it is a living culture of belonging and contribution. These are not merely descendants of emigrants; they are citizens of two worlds who carry within them both the rhythm of the Atlantic and the pulse of the Pacific. In California alone, the brotherhoods of the Holy Spirit—at least seventy of them—cannot be relics.  They must be living bridges. Each crown, each festa, is a testament to a people’s ability to reinvent tradition as community. That reinvention must not grow old. 

Assimilation does not mean erasure. The Azorean-American identity has matured into a confident duality: proudly American yet indelibly Azorean. This metamorphosis is not a loss but a flowering—a dynamic, intercultural strength that enriches both homelands. Through their work as politicians, teachers, writers, scientists, entrepreneurs, and artists, Azorean descendants in America give new meaning to the idea of homeland. Their Americanism and their Azoreanism coexist, creating a model for how small cultures can survive through openness and exchange.

But we must not let these conversations fade after conferences or visits. It is time for continued reflection—less ephemeral, more constructive. Time to build institutions and initiatives that can outlast generations: cultural centers, bilingual archives, joint academic programs, and creative networks that weave together island and continent. The diaspora must no longer be seen as a sentimental afterthought, but as a strategic, defining force for the Azores’ future. Our Diaspora must not be seen in the archipelago as a part of our past; they are the architects of our continuity.

In this century, where distances shrink and identities expand, the transatlantic bond must evolve from memory into mission. The Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute, the Azorean university system, and civic foundations across both sides of the ocean can and must lead this transformation—building not only bridges but pathways of permanence.

And so, as the planes of SATA still cross the Atlantic (even if they don’t reach the Pacific) like silver swallows, let us not see them merely as carriers of nostalgia but as messengers of possibility. For every traveler who departs or returns, the dialogue continues.

The infinite blue between us is not an expanse of separation, but a living bridge — fluid, luminous, and unfinished. It is the mirror where our identities meet and are renewed. Across that blue, memory becomes imagination, and imagination becomes action. The waves that once carried us away now return, carrying ideas, voices, and shared purpose. To be Azorean in the twenty-first century is to inhabit that space of becoming — neither solely of the islands nor entirely of the continents, but of the current that binds them. The infinite blue between us is our common horizon, our unfinished sentence, our enduring commitment. It calls us to keep building — patiently, collectively, poetically — the next chapter of this transatlantic home.