On the banks of the Ipiranga, a river became a frontier, and a cry became the symbolic beginning of a nation. On September 7, 1822, Prince Pedro proclaimed Brazil’s separation from Portugal with the celebrated declaration “Independência ou Morte.” He would soon become Pedro I, emperor of the newly independent country.
Yet independence was not completed in a single dramatic moment. Armed conflict continued, and Portugal formally recognized Brazilian sovereignty only in 1825. Nor did political independence immediately dismantle the injustices inherited from colonial society, particularly slavery, which endured in Brazil until 1888. Independence was an essential beginning, but not the conclusion of Brazil’s long struggle to fulfill the promise of freedom.
Brazilian Independence Day should therefore be more than a commemoration of national birth. For those of us living in the United States and connected to the Portuguese-speaking world, it should also invite reflection on what we might accomplish together, and what we risk losing if we continue to live divided.
Portuguese, Brazilians, Cape Verdeans and the smaller, but equally significant communities whose origins lie in Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe, East Timor and other Lusophone territories share more than a language. We share histories of migration, adaptation, displacement and cultural survival. We understand what it means to carry one country within us while building a life in another.
Yet in the United States, we too often remain separated into small national, regional and even insular communities. We preserve our particular traditions, and rightly so, but frequently fail to recognize the political, educational and cultural strength that could emerge from acting together as a unified Lusophone presence.
Other American communities have understood this lesson. Hispanic does not erase the differences among Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Salvadorans or Colombians. Asian American and Pacific Islander embraces enormously diverse languages, histories and cultures. These collective identities are not declarations of sameness. They are instruments of visibility, representation, solidarity and civic power.
Communities from Portuguese speaking countries the United States must learn from that example. We do not possess the demographic strength to indulge endlessly in divisions that render each of us smaller. If we remain fragmented, we risk gradually disappearing from universities, public institutions, political conversations and the American cultural imagination. Our organizations will weaken, our language programs will struggle, and future generations may inherit little more than surnames whose histories they no longer know.
The Portuguese language should be one of our greatest instruments of unity. Dividing it rigidly between “Portuguese from Portugal” and “Brazilian Portuguese,” as though they were competing or unrelated languages, is intellectually indefensible and culturally self-defeating. Portuguese is a pluricentric language. It possesses different accents, vocabularies, cadences and literary traditions, but it remains one immense linguistic homeland.
Many university Portuguese programs in the United States naturally focus heavily on Brazil, the largest Portuguese-speaking country in the world. At Fresno State, many of my own students enroll in Portuguese courses because of an interest in Brazil, its people and its culture. Are we going to suggest that their studies are somehow not “Portuguese enough”? Are we prepared to reject students who come to our language through Brazilian music, family connections, travel, literature or friendship?
Such thinking would be absurd. A student who discovers Portuguese through samba, bossa nova, Machado de Assis or Clarice Lispector has entered the same language that can eventually lead that student to Camões, Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, José Craveirinha, Corsino Fortes, Mia Couto or Vitorino Nemésio. Every doorway into Portuguese enlarges the house. What matters is not the accent through which one first enters, but the willingness to inhabit the language in all its breadth.
A united Lusophone presence would not require anyone to surrender a distinctive identity. On the contrary, it would create a larger home in which every identity could be more fully seen. Beneath that shared roof, we could celebrate Holy Ghost festas and samba, Cape Verdean morna and Madeiran bailinho, fado and capoeira, cachupa, feijoada and sopas do Espírito Santo. Each tradition would retain its history while contributing to a richer collective inheritance.
Unity is no longer merely desirable; it is necessary. It means developing coalitions among organizations, universities, businesses, cultural institutions and elected officials. It means supporting one another’s festivals, language programs, publications and community initiatives. It means approaching public institutions not as scattered groups pleading separately to be noticed, but as a significant Portuguese-speaking constituency with a common civic agenda.
We must continue to be proudly Portuguese, Brazilian, Cape Verdean, Azorean, Madeiran, Angolan, Mozambican and every other identity within our shared world. But we must also learn to say, with equal conviction, that we are Lusophone Americans.
On this Brazilian Independence Day, let us issue another peaceful cry of independence: independence from the divisions that diminish us. Let us organize, advocate and speak together—not as fragments competing for recognition, but as a diverse Portuguese-speaking American community determined not to disappear.
The Lusophone world has always been an archipelago of cultures. Its strength does not lie in making every island identical, but in building bridges across the water. If we bring our accents, memories, music and tables together, Portuguese will cease to be merely the language we inherited. It will become the common voice with which we endure, renew ourselves and claim our rightful place in America.
Diniz Borges, PBBI Director
The illustration was AI-generated.