In the Galician neighborhood called “Portugal” the 25th of April is also celebrated – News
Alves, Leite, Ferreira, Santos or Barbosa are common nicknames among residents of Latão, a popular neighborhood in the Meira area, in the Spanish municipality of Moanha. During the first decades of the last century, these names arrived from the South, in the luggage of many Portuguese who sought in the Galician quarries the sustenance for less Portuguese lives. Not that the job and living conditions that awaited them were for soft people.
The job opportunity was observed by other emigrants. At the same time that they left Vigo for Brazil, many Galicians from rural areas, their companions in the fight for the Portuguese and in fado, headed to Argentina or Cuba (this was the case of Fidel Castro’s Portuguese, a peasant from Fidel Castro’s country) . Paradoxically, the port from which all the anchors of commerce and industry in Vigo were shaken. The expansion of its activity required the creation of a robust jetty and the material needed for the work would come from Moanha, on the other side of the estuary.
From 1908 onwards, different companies had already explored the quarries in the county, but many also fled there. The stampede then opened the way for workers from the north of Portugal, most of them from Esposende, according to the newspaper Voz de Galícia, but also from Guimarães or Viana do Castelo. Some men arrived alone and later married and had children with Galicians. Others come as a family, as the sector employs everyone: they transported the material that they chopped and molded.
“The estimate is difficult, but from what we have of older people, it would be about a dozen families”, says Daniel Costas, 41, a social activist, poet and councilor for Equality and Youth in the municipality. His grandmother, who was born in Galicia, was the youngest daughter of a family originally from São Bartolomeu do Mar, in Esposende.
According to Óscar Rodríguez Martínez, a partner in a tourist company from Moa, who settled immigrants from the areas of boats, in tents they built with remains of rock found and went to the naval sites. As they multiplied, as more patriots arrived, they would eventually form an authentic “slum”, which was improved over time. The space is still popularly known as “Portugal”.
“People from Brass call us Portuguese”, says Daniel. The official name of the neighborhood, he also explains, came from the material accumulated there by the activity of conservative companies and local shipyards. But a participant can be organized by a series of characters that can be defined by “long features can also mean other possibilities: in “long features can also be defined others” (long features can also mean other dimensions) and in local slang to designate “vine” (which leaves doubts about the past of the land).
April celebrations and the rushing flag
Immigrant names aside, their mark is preserved in the community, where many of their descendants still reside. Therefore, after organizing some lectures on the Carnation Revolution, in 2021 the municipality of Moanha decided to start celebrating the 25th of April. He created a program “destined to families of origin”, which included an intervention exhibition concert in Latão, a song at the Portuguese town hall, the screening of the documentary the time of freedom and also a meeting with the economist and captain of Abril José Vieira, who has lived in the region for a few years.
This year the celebrations are repeated. On the 20th, the film was shown at the municipal headquarters Galegos in Lisbon: the untold story, by the researcher Xan Lira, responsible for the UNESCO Chair on emigration at the University of Santiago. And on April 29, a tribute will be paid to José Saramago – again with José Vieira as a guest –, followed by a concert dedicated to Zeca Afonso. It will take place in the heart of the neighbourhood, at the work site of the Pilgrim Chapel, inside which there is a Virgin of Fátima bought with a collection made between residents. Because, there, the 13th of May is also celebrated.
There is an episode that, according to Daniel and Óscar, remains in the collective memory of the land. In the late 1970s, shortly after the Transition – the period in which Spain passed from dictatorship to democracy – the inhabitants of Latão, probably infected by the spirit of change and autonomous self-determination of the moment, hoisted a Portuguese flag on top of a pine tree, which could be seen from all over Moanha.
The exploration of the quarries, this one, had ended much earlier, in the late 1930s, giving way to shipbuilding.