lic school teacher. “My rela-tionship with Newark is veryintimate, complex, and onethat continues to shape me.When I was younger and told

people that I grew up inNewark, I had the same reac-tion all of us from Newark get,and was initially ashamed ofwhere I came from. As theyears have passed, the factthat I am from Newark hasinstead become a badge ofhonor. My work directlytransmits that aspect of mycultural upbringing more thananything else.”

Programs like the DisquietInternational Literary program(which funds writers of Lusodescent) are a great resourceto writers like Dos Santos whoseek understanding and guid-ance in transmittingPortuguese culture onto thepage. Dos Santos attendedDisquiet in June of 2014,where he worked withKatherine Vaz in a multi-genreworkshop titled Writing theLuso Experience. One of thediscussions that resulted wason how food in literature con-veys taste and smell and thus“invites memory.” Dos Santosgrew up in a household wherehis family always ate together;as a consequence, his charac-ters often engage in dialogueover a meal. Dos Santos alsosources inspiration from such

Portuguese-American NewspaperEnglish Section Your Community Newspaper

| DECEMBER 26, 2014 | 34

FUNCHAL, PORTUGAL

Aprender Madeira Project dignifies the history of Madeira Island

The project Aprender Madeirais, basically, an encyclopedia aboutMadeira in several formats, such asa 10 volume traditional encyclope-dia, DVD format and an onlineplatform containing all knowledgeabout Madeira Island.

This project aims to raise glob-al awareness, in Portuguese,English and Spanish languages,about the aspect that distinguishMadeira I all forms of human cre-ation and which have made theisland an important issue when itcomes the understanding ofPortuguese and international histo-ry. This thematic range makesAprender Madeira a fundamentalproject to understand the history ofMadeira, which can be used as aneducational tool, and a base forfurther investigation.

This monumental work as beenpossible thanks to the joint effortsof several public and private enti-ties. The Agência de Promoção daCultura Atlântica (APCA), which isthe managing body of the project,the Portuguese Academy by scien-tific coordination of the ProfessorEduardo Franco and by gathering700 scholar investigators in sever-al knowledge areas from more than10 universities all over the world(among these we can find Brown(USA), Oxford (England) andLisbon and Madeira Universities),and the Governo Regional throughthe Direcção Regional dosAssuntos Culturais (DRAC).

All these efforts have resultedin some impressive 9,000 entriesin the encyclopedia, more 2,000than it was first predicted, as manysuggestions were made by severalentities. Moreover, the fact of scru-tinizing the public and the institu-tions that are part of the Madeirasociety is one of the innovations ofAprender Madeira which makes itpart of its own time, which givesthe project the necessary scientificaccuracy, with the rest of society.

On the other hand, there willbe published several books on dif-ferent genres. Besides the encyclo-pedia, Aprender Madeira will res-cue some of the most importantMadeiran literary works, as well asrelease some others recently pro-duced which contribute to deepenthe knowledge about Madeira.Some of these recent works are theminutes of the symposium “QueSaber(es) Para o Século XX?História, Cultura e Ciência na/daMadeira”, which took place inFunchal last February, three comicbooks (one about Madeira Wine,another about Curral das Freirasand the third one tells the story ofthe Funchal bombings in 1917 by aGerman submarine), The NewEconomic History of Madeira andthe complete literary works ofPadre Manuel Álvares.

The Elucidário Madeirense, theultimate collection about Madeira’sHistory, was last time updated inthe 1940s, so it is now insufficient

to suppress the public demand of acontext that makes AprenderMadeira extremely important.

Re-writing the historyof Madeira

One of the important aspectsthat have become relevant aboutthe project is the discovery of newMadeiran authors or for somerediscovering their birthplaces.That was what happened withPadre Inácio Monteiro, the authorof the Descrição da Arrábida.

This discovery results of aninvestigation for Aprender Madeirain which the author for this issuehas considered there should befurther investigations on it.Following this, António MateusVilhena and Daniel Pires have tran-scribed and wrote down the noteson the original text, presenting itas “unmistakably baroque,” editedby the Centro de EstudosBocageanos, part of the collectionClássicos de Setúbal.

In the words of José EduardoFranco: “This means that AprenderMadeira has allowed thePortuguese literature to recognizeanother work in Portugal whobelongs to a Madeiran author andnot to an individual from the Northpart of the country. So, this allowscorrection, it allows us to put it outin the open, moreover this workwas an archive manuscript and nowit is available and can be includedin the educational system.”

This book was written by PadreInácio Monteiro in the 17th centuryand it is considered to be one ofthe best issues in what concernstravel literature. The work cameout as the result of a trip fromMadeira to the Portuguese conti-nent back in 1685, Padre Ináciotook this trip to take part in theCape Espichel and the ArrábidaConvent festivities.

The Agência de Promoção deCultural Atlântica (APCAMadeira), the managing body ofAprender Madeira project is a non-profit and private association,established in 2004 under thescope of producing, disclosing andpromoting the culture produced inthe Atlantic area, although mainlyfocused in Madeira Island.

Writing the Luso-AmericanExperience: Hugo Dos Santos

� By MARINA CARREIRA

For a Luso-Americanwriter, ancestry is both museand means of conveying histo-ry, politics, and personalbeliefs. Newark is home tosome of New Jersey’s emerg-ing Luso-American writers,homens e mulheres who usetheir pen to diffuse what itmeans to be a product of par-ents, grandparents, anddescendants from the islandsand mainland of Portugal.

Hugo Dos Santos is onesuch writer. Born in Lisbon,Dos Santos immigrated toNewark in September of 1990at the age of ten. Although hisparents (who hail from Fornosde Algodres and Évora) madeit a point that he always speakPortuguese at home, DosSantos didn’t “feel particularlyPortuguese” until he joinedOs Lusíadas, the PortugueseClub at Rutgers University.The Luso literature, culture,and film courses taken atRutgers moved Dos Santos toread Portuguese authors andexperiment with writing inPortuguese. This literaryexperimentation provided himwith a “reawakening” of hisLuso identity: “for the firsttime I was both, not just oneor the other.”

As a husband, new father,and test developer atEducational Testing Services,Dos Santos is not unlike manywriters who carve out time towrite in their day-to-day.Although his fiction and poet-ry do not directly address hisPortuguese identity, DosSantos writes largely aboutNewark, and the Ironbound,specifically. “It is a place thatbreaks my heart, and yet Ikeep coming back to it. In away, it’s part of my fabric.”Dos Santos attended NewarkPublic Schools, followed byRutgers-Newark for his under-graduate and graduatedegrees. He continued inNewark, working at the Star-Ledger, (the former) BroadNational Bank, and as a pub-

Portuguese authors as therenowned Fernando Pessoa(“the master, the canon, themuse”), José Luis Peixoto, andJacinto Lucas Pires, who DosSantos also met this summerand calls a “renaissance man”.In speaking to his own contri-butions to the Luso-Americanliterary canon, Dos Santoscredits both the merit of hiswritings as well as localorganizations like Proverbo,Presence/Presença, and BrickCity Speaks for featuring hiswork. He calls these literarygroups “evidence that there issomething in the larger Luso-American community to justi-fy its place in the world ofAmerican literature”.

According to Dos Santos,being a Luso-American rangesfrom the Portuguese man whohas never visited the U.S. butwith the assistance of moderntechnology, is “fully integratedin our communal discourse”,to the American woman, whoupon visiting Portugal, “fallsin love with the food, the peo-ple, the art and the ocean.” Hestates: “It used to be that cul-ture was inherited from ourenvironment, but now it alsocomes to us from across theglobe through music, film,social media, and places pre-vious generations could onlyimagine. Technology hasmade it so that we can accessanything, anywhere. As aresult, kids relate to oneanother more based on tastesin music, for instance, thanthey do on their shared neigh-borhood. I can only credit myexperiences as a Luso-American for that understand-ing”.

Dos Santos’ debut proseproject Ironbound is availableas an e-book on Amazon. Youcan follow him on Facebookand on his site, hugodossan-tos.com.

� Madeira Island

••••••DDoonn''tt ppaarrtt wwiitthh yyoouurr iilllluussiioonnss.. WWhheenn tthheeyy aarree ggoonnee yyoouu

mmaayy ssttiillll eexxiisstt,, bbuutt yyoouu hhaavvee cceeaasseedd ttoo lliivvee..—— MMaarrkk TTwwaaiinn

US humorist, novelist, short story author, & wit (1835 - 1910)

GIVE A GIFT SUBSCRIPTION TO THE

LUSO-AMERICANO NEWSPAPER(973) 589-4600

� Hugo dos Santos