For this land that was not yours
You generously gave your blood,
And you gave it, oh seed of worlds,
your children.
— Pedro da Silveira, Exodus

The centuries of departure that Pedro da Silveira immortalized in his verse have receded into the haze of memory. The exodus has ended, yet its echo still trembles across the Atlantic. Migration is no longer the storm that drove our people westward in search of bread and dignity, but it remains inscribed in the marrow of our islands. Azorean identity—migrant, resilient, plural—has not withered with the ebb of departures. It has simply changed its geography. Across the ocean, on the plains of California or the shores of New England, a new generation still whispers the same confession: I am an Azorean.

It is time to look at these distant kin not as relics of a fading diaspora but as the living continuation of our story. Even when the ancestral tongue has fallen silent on their lips, the memory still speaks within them—the rhythm of sea and basalt, of feast and farewell. Their identity is not linguistic alone; it is emotional, mnemonic, and profoundly spiritual. To belong to the Azores is to carry its wind inside you. These descendants—third, fourth, even fifth generation—constitute the vast, beating heart of the Azorean being in North America. They may dwell far from the archipelago’s mists, but their dreams still smell of salt and hydrangeas.

Much has been written of the relationship between the Azores and its diaspora—this immense Atlantic river, as Onésimo Teotónio Almeida so aptly called it. Yet to make this river truly navigable, we must move beyond nostalgia and mere rhetoric. We must build deliberate bridges of creation, policy, and imagination. The countless voices across the ocean who declare with pride, “I am an Azorean,” even when their lineage stretches back to great-grandparents who first crossed the sea, demand more than mere symbolic affection. They deserve recognition as participants in the future of the islands, not just as keepers of their past.

This invisible continent of Azorean souls has been underused—a treasure of cultural and intellectual energy sleeping beneath the surface of our institutional indifference. For decades, the same speeches have been repeated like rosaries of salt: that the diaspora is vital, that emigrants are our brothers. And then what? The refrain fades into silence. It is time to trade incantation for action—to roll up our sleeves, free ourselves from the empire’s old Sebastianism, and work toward a relationship that is dynamic, reciprocal, and modern. The diaspora must no longer be treated as a sentimental footnote to the Azorean narrative; it is the narrative’s ongoing chapter.

The last few years, especially the pandemic years that confined us yet paradoxically expanded our connections through technology, have been a revelation. They have birthed new dialogues, symposia, and networks, reviving the idea that the Azorean presence abroad is not peripheral but central to our identity. The truth is as luminous as it is simple: without the 1.4 million Portuguese and Luso-descendant citizens of the United States—many of them Azorean—the transatlantic bridge on which Portugal itself walks would be infinitely poorer. From classrooms to Congress, from Silicon Valley to the San Joaquin Valley, they are the quiet architects of Portugal’s standing in the American imagination. To ignore this is not modesty—it is blindness.

We, in the Azores, must not commit the same omission at the regional level. It is time to move beyond the weary clichés and rediscover the creative fire of relationships. As we once sang on my childhood road, Canada dos Pastos, in Praia da Vitória—Estamos fartos! Enough of platitudes, let us build.

It was in this spirit that, at the end of March 2021, the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute at California State University, Fresno — resurrected the Filamentos da Herança Atlântica symposium in virtual form, once held in Tulare, sister city to Angra do Heroísmo. That gathering of scholars, writers, and dreamers generated a constellation of conclusions still awaiting their incarnation in practice. They are not costly nor utopian; they are pragmatic steps toward a living, future-oriented diaspora, one that transcends the nostalgic marketplace of malassadas, chouriços, and the occasional chamarrita half-remembered. Let us stop repacking the past with new labels. Instead, let us tend to the seeds of tomorrow.

Among the most resonant proposals—out of eighteen distilled that week—are these nine, simple, yet transformative acts of cultural faith:

A. Forge digital educational constellations: bilingual teaching modules about the Azores, in Portuguese and English, for use in public schools and community programs across America. Let the islands enter classrooms not as distant legends but as living cultures.

B. Reveal the new Azores to new generations—through media, film, and online presence, including English-language access. Let the ocean of language be a bridge, not a barrier.

C. Cultivate an Investment Circle—a safe channel for small and medium Azorean-descendant investors who wish to root their future in the soil of their ancestors.

D. Amplify the translated voice: support the translation and distribution of Azorean literature into English, not only within the diaspora but in the broader literary mainstream. Every translation is an act of return.

E. (Repeated for emphasis in the original text) Encourage those same modest investors, families, and dreamers to co-author the economic vitality of their ancestral land.

F. Reimagine media exchanges between the islands and their communities abroad. Replace the sentimental postcard with genuine dialogue, trade stereotypes for understanding.

G. Transform tourism into pilgrimage: programs that invite Azorean descendants to live the archipelago’s contemporary reality—not as museum visitors but as participants in its rhythm of faith, work, and festivity.

H. Call upon Azorean-descendant public officials to advocate more boldly for educational and cultural collaboration. Ask regional leaders, in turn, to abandon the subsidy-based model of diaspora policy and to invest instead in sustainable presence—education, art, youth engagement, innovation.

I. Weave living protocols linking diaspora associations, university Portuguese Studies programs, and Azorean civic and artistic institutions. Through shared responsibility, transform isolated efforts into a unified, long-range tapestry of exchange.

These are not mere bureaucratic blueprints; they are moral imperatives. They represent the possibility of a reborn diaspora: participatory, creative, attuned to its time. Without such renewal, the archipelago risks losing its reflection abroad, and the descendants risk losing the mirror in which they still see their grandparents’ eyes.

Culture is not inherited automatically; it is chosen daily. If we fail to reimagine the dialogue between island and continent, if we allow memory to ossify into folklore, then one day airplanes may no longer find enough passengers bound from the West Coast towards the islands—not because the journey is complete, but because the bridge has dissolved.

To be Azorean is to remember—and to reinvent. Between the mist of time and the clarity that we must use to build the future, we must work at it, go beyond the ephemeral celebration, and try ardently not to be sinners against our own identity. The horizon, as poet Jacinto Soares de Albergaria reminds us, is both boundary and promise.

*from the poem “Horizonte” by Jacinto Soares de Albergaria

Diniz Borges