Rancho Folclorico

I remember growing up in the summer we would go to the Portuguese Festivals. There were many in our state. The festivals would include live bands playing portuguese music and american dance music. We would eat churrasco steak on the shipto. Each festival would have or correspond to a saint. Festa do Sao Joao (St Johns Feast) Obviously everyone in the family knows about these feasts because they all went to them. But others may not. One of the other traditions on the Saturday of the festival Weekend for the Saint Johns feast is a parade. It use to go down high street and broad street. Seems that parades were a big part of being a Portuguese American. Including the Processions for the Our Lady of Fatima feast which marked the end of the summer festival season on Labor Day Weekend. Everyone would carry candles and we would all sing ave maria. I remember walking in the processions and as kids we would try to catch the cups on fire that encircled the candle. It was kind of a game we had to see if we could catch it on fire without burning the entire cup or getting in trouble. Occassionally you would see a kid drop his burning cup/candle because he let it go to far. One of the traditions at these feasts and during some of the parades for the feasts was to watch the performances of the Rancho Folclorico (Portuguese Folk Dancing). Growing up many of the Portuguese Amercian kids not only went to Portuguese School 3 times per week after school some of them even attended Folclorico. One weekend during the festival I was watching the parade. As a child I stood there in amazement watching the Folclorico being danced on Broad Street in Cumberland RI. What I found amazing was how this traditional dance was being danced not in Portugal but in another country far far away from Portugal. I also had a deep connection to the music. It seems that many Portuguese music have such a connection and some unknown strength that drives them. Today I found myself once again in amazement about the Portuguese Rancho Folclorico and immigrants. After watching my dad's videos on YouTube some related videos came up that were Portuguese Rancho Folclorico. These videos showed me that what I thought as a child is very true today. There were videos from all around the world of Portuguese immigrants doing the Rancho Folclorico. It really shows how the over 10 million Portuguese immigrants have ended up all over the world. In some ways it also shows how driven human kind is to survive and make a living for their families.

I have created a map to capture all the Portuguese Rancho Folcloricos around the world! I have begun to populate the map with the YouTube videos so that you can get a true sense of the magnitude of how many immigrants there are all over the world and how they continue to have this deep connection to their past and their culture. Tell your friends and help populate the Portuguese Rancho Folclorico map. I really would love to see how world wide we are! Click on the dots to see the videos of the Ranchos.

Pre-Thanksgiving Family Get together

Family events have always been enjoyable. It seems though as I get older I cheerish them more and more. I think time bonds family members more and more. You realize looking back where you all once were and where you are now. Many of us are all in better places than we were way back when. This thought really its home when you see pictures of the family when we and our parents were all younger. Tony has been posting some old photos from the family up on Flickr. You should all check em out. Here are some pictures from the Pre-Thanksgiving gettogether. Thanks to tina for sending them out. This aunts and uncle pictures really capture an essense of the past and present. The past picture was from the great family vacations at the beach house were the entire family would squeeze into a tiny 2 bedroom house. I love the cousins picture the best. You can really see the family resemblence from Avo Dos Anjos and Avo Quim.

Congratulations to Tio Telmo and Tia Cila on their anniversary. I recall the celebration we had in their apartment on hunt St in Central Falls after they got married. You guys have come a long way from then. You have a beautiful family and life to be proud of. I wish we could have been there to celebrate on Sunday. We got to see our daughter compete in a gymnastics event. Big thanks to Suzy for coming out to see her. It meant alot to her and the family to see you there.

My Dad beats me to YouTube?

My dad is quite a song writer and composer. He has hundreds of songs many of them like the one in this YouTube video reflect his experiences as a Portuguese Immigrant. My mother and father's incredible strength at over coming many of the challenges they faced in life are what personally inspired me and others in our family to be strong in life. Simply hearing his voice in this YouTube video reminds me of a saying he often said when I was growing up "Life is hard and it gets even harder as you get older. Accomplish much while you can."

For those of you that don't understand Portuguese. It is about the trip immigrants often make back to Portugal to visit their original home. It describes how they drive their cars through all the different roads heading back to the village they were from at one time, stopping along the way at certain towns.

Big thanks to Tony for taking the time out to Publish Dad to the Web.

FYI all my Dad's song's are Americo Ferreira Copyright 1997 All rights reserved. He is looking for a good band to record his songs. Let me know if you are interested!

Christmas already?

Seems the stores are pushing Christmas earlier and earlier. I was in town doing some photography and came across these cool Christmas ornaments in some of the store Windows. I made this collage using flickr Toys Hope you guys had a nice weekend.

Bon Fire! 2

This past winter I didn't get a chance to post some entries. I am now catching up on some of those. Including the annual Bon Fire that our town has to burn all the Christmas trees after Christmas.

I like the way this picture came out. Something about a fire the memorizes me. In this case even the teenagers paused to check it out. Have a good weekend.