HOUSE OF THE AZORES OF MINAS GERAIS (1)

On July 26, 2025, we had the privilege of witnessing a historic moment—historic for the city of Belo Horizonte and for the State of Minas Gerais, but also for the enduring bond between Brazil and the Azores.

It was a historic day, too, for the affirmation of Azorean identity across the world. Whenever a Casa dos Açores is born, our cultural identity travels farther and grows stronger.

The House of the Azores of Minas Gerais was founded—the eighth in Brazil and the nineteenth worldwide.

The first Casa dos Açores was established in Lisbon 98 years ago, in 1927. The most recent one had emerged just a year earlier, in 2024, in Portugal’s Central Region. Two more are set to be founded in 2025: one in Portugal’s southern region, encompassing the Algarve and Alentejo, and another in Hawaii, in the North American archipelago of the Pacific.

In nearly a century, the global network of Houses of the Azores has taken root across more than 20 states, provinces, or regions in six countries.

In 1952, the movement reached Brazil with the founding of the House of the Azores of Rio de Janeiro. In 1977, it arrived in the United States with the House of the Azores of Hilmar, California. In 1978, it reached Canada with the House of the Azores of Quebec, in Montreal. In 2011, it expanded to Uruguay, with a House based in San Carlos—a city founded by Azoreans in 1763. In 2013, it arrived in Bermuda, where a House of the Azores represents nearly a quarter of the population of that North Atlantic British territory.

Meanwhile, three additional Houses were established within Portugal: the House of the Azores of the Northern Region in 1980, based in Porto; the House of the Azores of the Autonomous Region of Madeira in 2019, in Funchal; and the aforementioned House of the Azores of the Central Region in 2024, in Coimbra.

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Three more Houses of the Azores were also founded in North America: the House of the Azores of New England, on the U.S. East Coast, in 1982, in Fall River; and the Houses of the Azores in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Manitoba, in 1985 and 1992, respectively, in the cities of Toronto and Winnipeg.

Over the past 45 years, within the framework of an Autonomous Region of the Azores endowed with its own governing institutions, six additional Houses were established in Brazil: São Paulo (1980), Bahia (also 1980, in Salvador), Santa Catarina (1999, in Florianópolis), Rio Grande do Sul (2003, in Gravataí), Maranhão (2019, in São Luís), and Espírito Santo (2022, in the municipality of Apiacá).

With the pioneering House of Rio de Janeiro and the newest one in Minas Gerais, eight Brazilian states now form part of this global network of Azorean “cultural embassies.”

And it could not be otherwise, for Brazil was the first great destination of Azorean emigration—long before the United States and Canada. In the 17th century, Azoreans went to Maranhão; in the 18th century, to Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul; in the 19th century, to Rio de Janeiro, Espírito Santo, São Paulo, and Bahia.

Yet the historical presence of the Azores in Brazil extends beyond these seven states. It reaches, as well, into Minas Gerais.

Consider, for instance, the research of Maria Eduarda Fagundes of the Institute of Lusophone Cultures in Uberaba, Minas Gerais.

She writes that “the Azoreans who first emigrated to Brazil became, in their new land, pioneers, trailblazers, colonizers, cattle herders, ‘white slaves,’ builders of fortresses, founders of towns, cities, and communities, farmers, livestock breeders, politicians, priests, soldiers—in short, men who helped build Minas Gerais and other regions of this country.”

And she continues: “Many of the families who arrived on these shores and who today are part of the fabric of Minas Gerais history—families such as Terra, Brum, Silveira, Dutra, Faria, Fagundes, Rosa, Rezende, Cunha, Garcia, Neves, Bittencourt, or Goulart—came from the islands of mist and lava, and through struggle and hardship helped build, in Brazil, a new world.”

(To be continued in the next edition)

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José Andrade is the Regional Director for Communities of the Government of the Autonomous Region of the Azores
Text based on remarks delivered at the founding ceremony of the House of the Azores of Minas Gerais, held on July 26, 2025, at the headquarters of the Historical and Geographical Institute of Minas Gerais, in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.