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NOT QUITE WHITE: THE ETHNO-RACIAL IDENTITY OF A PORTAGEE

Rui Vitorino Azevedo

Charles Reis Felix’s Through a Portagee Gate portrays the life of a first generation American of Portuguese descent and his father’s own immigrant experience. In fact, it is Charles’s introspection into Joe’s (struggling) acceptance of American society and values that resonate throughout this auto/biography1 as one of the main themes. As Joe’s memories are imaginatively recalled and penned by Charles, the fluid alternation between voices exposes the underlying qualms shared by both father and son. However, one main difference persists insofar as Joe’s overwhelming pride in his Portugueseness is juxtaposed to Charles’s own misgivings regarding his ethnic background. Thus, it is Charles’s identification as an “imperfect American” (Felix 177) accompanied by the growing fears of being exposed as a “total imposter” (275) that delineate the terminus a quo for my reading of this narrative.

By concentrating essentially on the first section of the auto/biography, titled “I Come to California,” I will consider Charles’s initial inquiries about his mode of self-identification and relate it to the historical denigration of the Portuguese in America. It is therefore the connotation of the Portagee as non-white or inferior that leaves Charles uneasy about his ethnic identification. However, this leads further to the questioning of whether Charles is to be considered an ethnic autobiographer. In other words, how can the author’s conscious decision to disguise his true ethnicity allow him to represent an ethnic group? Hence, this brief discussion focuses on two essential premises: first, that the author questions his ethnic heritage ab initio because of the discrimination that Portuguese immigrants and their descendents have suffered; and second, that Charles’s battle with the social construction of this racial or class categorization is a necessary requirement for him to be considered an ethnic autobiographer.

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The Hierarchization of the PortageeOur point of departure towards understanding why Charles initially questions and then hides association to his ethnic heritage is connected to the structure of the first section of the auto/biography. Although it begins in medias res as the narrator moves westward to Escamil, California, – and which can be equated to his father’s own migratory experience from Setúbal, Portugal to New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1915 – the opening chapter is actually centered on Francis A. Walker’s ethnocentric attitudes towards immigrants. Surprisingly enough, it is an excerpt from Walker’s essay titled “Immigration,” published in the Yale Review in 1893, which inaugurates Felix’s auto/biography.2 In fact, every other chapter in the first section gives voice to this prejudiced warning against mass immigration into the United States with quoted passages from the above essay, thus offering an intriguing oscillation between Felix’s story and Walker’s chapters. Felix’s narrative therefore begins in Walker’s chauvinistic tone:

So open, and broad, and straight, now, is the channel by which immigration is being conducted to our shores, that there is no reason why every foul and stagnant population in Europe, from Ireland to the Ural Mountains, should not be completely drained off into the United States. The stream has fairly begun flowing and it will continue to flow so long as any difference of level, economically speaking, remains; so long as the least reason appears for the broken, the corrupt, the abject, to think that they might be better off here than there. (19)

The book’s opening is not only strongly xenophobic, but also based on a nativist ideal.3 Moreover, Walker’s restriction on immigration relies on the character traits of the new immigrants which he deems as being economically and culturally inferior to that of the native “American” population.

This stereotypical notion of inferiority is indeed troublesome for Charles and it first surfaces as a hint about his ethnic misgivings in the exchange of words with the rancher named Tom Post when his move to California might be perceived as the need to get away from a community where he was labeled as “Portagee” (Felix 22). In fact, the ensuing dialogue posits some differences between us-Americans, to which Charles hoped to belong, and them-foreigners. Furthermore, this division is routinely based on an economic and class distinction between white Anglo Americans and the Portuguese. Thus, it is at the outset of the auto/biography that we become well aware of the stereotypical reputation that the Portuguese have gained for being stingy. This is reinforced by Tom’s pernicious designation of the “Portagee gate” which is understood as a hasty solution to a “good gate” since “the Portagees are too tight to spend any money and do the job right” (22).

A predisposition for stinginess is not just the reason why anyone should question his own ethnic heritage. In fact, what leads Charles to mask

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his ethnicity is the class distinction inherent in the designation of the term “Portagee” along with its association to a status of inferiority that is also racially felt as will be shown. This is reinforced by the term’s usage as a derogatory ethnic slur that relegates the Portuguese to an inferior standing when compared to white Anglo Americans. In this context, the dialogue between Charles and Harry is a good illustration of the issue. Harry is a westerner who settled in California and expresses fears that his daughter will elope with a “Portagee.” The prejudice betrayed by his words clearly affects the autobiographer and at the same time shows that Harry is not aware of his ethnic affiliation:

I was traveling incognito. I had long since learned not to advertise my nationality. But those chilling words were like a bucket of ice-cold water dumped over me. I don’t want a Portagee in the family. They cleared the head of any fuzzy sentiments in a hurry. Just when I was lulled into thinking I was a member of the club, I was being cast out.4 (42-3)

Although hurt, Charles admits that they should come to him as no surprise given Harry’s own attitude towards the Mexicans. The reason for this is that the majority of rural Californians place the Portuguese and Mexicans on a similar social scale: at the bottom are the blacks, followed by the Filipinos, the Mexicans and the Portuguese, who are only “slightly above them” (43).

Placing the Portuguese on a social or class scale is not limited to those who identify themselves as white American for the Spanish had similar beliefs. In an attempt to ingratiate a Spanish lady who knew about Charles’s ethnic background, he suggests that the Portuguese and Spanish people are almost the same. To this he is reminded by the lady that “the two people are very different” given the fact that Portugal is very poor and that “they have nothing” (29). In other words, it is this economic meagerness that has shaped Portuguese culture and character in the popular view. Moreover, it is this economic difference that also allows the Spaniards to be placed above the Portuguese on the social scale.

At this point in the narrative Charles questions himself on the connection between Portuguese character and poverty. He tries to come up with an answer by drawing on examples of Americanization from his home town, in New Bedford, Massachusetts, which he illustrates through stories. The stories told are of Portuguese men who changed their names for “business reasons” and patriots who worked two shifts to support the war and elevate their financial wellbeing (31), thus offering testimonials as to why these immigrants should be considered American. The presumption here is that in order to become American – meaning “white” – and be treated equally, one has to assimilate and achieve a high socioeconomic standing. However, this example also demonstrates Charles’s initial move to accept his ethnic

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background as he becomes cognizant of the “social blindness” that does not provide any evidence on people’s actual traits (43).

Although Charles seems fully assimilated and enjoys his position as an elementary school teacher in Escamil, it is noteworthy to mention that he continues to feel this stratified divide between “us” and “them”. Here, however, his disguise is not successful and he is consigned to occupy the role of the latter. This kind of self-marginalization is exposed when he decides not to attend a one day painting event at the principal’s house because he couldn’t “afford to give up the day” (36, emphasis added). Not becoming one of the “fellows” takes on an interesting turn when he describes another principal that he calls “White-ass” (37). He says: “I called him White-ass because I found his pale blue eyes, his wispy blond moustache, and his general excessive whiteness to be an irritant” (37). There is a clear division presented here regarding the private and public sphere because such designation is only used in the family setting. Nevertheless, we must also consider that it is Charles’s constant dismissal from the “us” category which ultimately places him as an inferior other that leads to his responding with an infuriating reaction.

The focus on ethnic inferiority is also dealt with in the chapter titled “Polocks and Other People” which can be found in the third section of the narrative. This chapter looks at the epithets and negative stereotypes of several ethnic groups including “Jickies, Frogs, Polocks and Portagees, with a sprinkling of Jews for flavor” (317). Despite Charles’s affirmation that they “were all equal” because they were “foreigners or children of foreigners,” the fact remains that the autobiographer was, at a time in his life, affected by the way the Portuguese were described and identified as dumb. Felix writes: “I heard the two words ‘dumb’ and ‘Portagee’ put together so many times, that I had periods of doubting my own smartness. Could they be right? Were all Portagees dumb?” (319).5 Such an uneasiness reveals someone who is attempting to move beyond memories and experiences of manifest bigotry and ethnic stereotyping.

As a matter of fact, these are stereotypes that have no critical foundation as shown in Leo Pap’s The Portuguese-Americans, which is a book intent on examining some of the inherent character traits attributed to the Portuguese at the start of the twentieth century. Actually, the large number of sources that he presents makes reference to the Portuguese as:

(1) “Law-abiding,” “obedient,” “peaceful,” “orderly.” Sometimes a negative connotation is added: “docile,” “subservient,” “lacking in initiative.” In this connection, also, crime statistics are cited showing the Portuguese ethnics to have a very low crime rate. (But a rise in juvenile delinquency among the second generation was noted on some occasions.) (2) “Hard-working,” “industrious”—particularly in relation to farm work. They rarely turn to

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public welfare or charity. (But some American-born descendants show less industry and do apply for relief.) (3) “Thrifty,” “frugal,” “sober.” (4) “Honest,” “loyal.” They don’t like to go into debt and they pay promptly. (5) “Cleanly,” “neat.” They keep their homes clean despite poverty and slum conditions. (6) “Quick-tempered,” “impulsive”; “melancholy,” “gentle; “generous,” “hospitable.” (Pap 119)

Pap’s finding of the Portuguese as frugal is reflected in Charles’s own questioning when he states that the defining character of the Portuguese is based on Aesop’s fable “The Ant and the Grasshopper” where the credo is to save for a day in need (Felix 57). Nonetheless, Pap’s research clearly does not reflect the bigoted opinions of the many people Charles comes across in the Californian section of the auto/biography. It merely shows that the spiteful stereotypes of the Portuguese are not only unfounded but also fabricated. Furthermore, it is demonstrative of how stereotypes based on ethnic or class hierarchizations such as these affect the author’s self-identification.

The Portagee as “Colored”The first section of Through a Portagee Gate focuses on the stereotypical attributes that distinguish the Portagees in terms of class. Nevertheless, it can be argued that this term also carries an embedded racial connotation that affects social standing. In other words, it is the past meaning and usage of Portagee as “colored” and its linkage to class that affects the way in which Charles identifies himself in the first section of the narrative. Therefore, I fathom the author’s choice to masquerade his identity as a result, in part, of how the Portuguese have been historically attributed with the racially charged category of non-white along with all the ensuing implications this may have on self-identification.6 Furthermore, I believe that it is Charles’s intent to fight against this categorization that actually allows him to be identified as an ethnic autobiographer.

What actually sets the stage for attributing the Portuguese a racial category other than white is linked to the cultural and linguistic affinities between the Portuguese and Cape Verdean immigrants. This is expressly shown in Leo Pap’s work as he explains: “since Cape Verdeans tended (until fairly recently) to identify themselves as ‘Portuguese’, the popular impression arose among many New Englanders earlier in this century that the Portuguese ethnic group in general, including the Azorean majority, was more or less ‘colored’” (Pap 114).7 However, this classification was not limited to the United States because Pap also observes that the Cape Verdeans “were commonly known as Portuguese – ‘Pokiki’ in older Hawaiian pronunciation – not as Negroes!” in local statistics taken from the Hawaiian island of Oahu in 1853 (32).

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Conjoining the Portuguese and Cape Verdeans into the same racial category is further complicated, as Marilyn Halter’s ethnographic study duly notes, because the Cape Verdeans or “Afro-Portuguese” population is seen as “never having belonged to a clearly defined racial or ethnic group” given “their ability to traverse the worlds of black and white” (Halter xiv). In fact, Charles’s father Joe also makes reference to the Cape Verdeans by distinguishing them from the “blacks” in Philadelphia who are “truly black” and “bad.” In his understanding: “What we call blacks here are in reality Cape Verdeans. They are not very dark, are more brown-like, and they live at peace with us” (Felix 115). What is interesting about this affirmation is that Joe is not abiding by the dualistic racial system in America where people can only be identified as either black or white. Moreover, it is suggestive that the racial categorization of the Cape Verdeans is socially constructed as opposed to a sole reliance on biology or rigid racial structures. In other words, Joe’s perception of the Cape Verdeans is based on his own validation of the cultural similarities between the two ethnic groups, as opposed to the exclusively physical constitution.

Although Charles never identifies himself as “colored,” he is quite cognizant of how physical appearance can be a cause for marginalization or prejudice.8 This can be seen in the auto/biography when Charles encounters a woman named Lois Bonhoffer. Being a former Navy wife, she had divided society into a ranking of three classes, meaning “her superiors, her equals and everyone else” (Felix 47). Unsure of where to place Charles because of her own unawareness as to his lineage, she seems to be uneasy. Charles points out that what must be bothering her is his physical appearance: “the dark suspicion rose in her head that I was some bizarre specimen, an Arab perhaps or a Jew, God forbid, a Mexican. Was I masquerading as an American?” (48, emphasis added). This woman’s insistence on satisfying her own curiosity leads her to ask him about his surname. To this, she is told that it is a French name pronounced “Fay-leaks”. Although Charles is accepted as someone who belongs to the right sort of people by means of this subterfuge, a series of questions on why he assumes a different identity is suggested.

A further illustration of Charles’s need to disguise his Portuguese heritage is provided by his given Portuguese proper name and its Americanized version. His father has strong feelings against it: “You know, you shouldn’t call yourself Charley … It is not your name. Your name is Carlos. That is what it says on your birth certificate” (Felix 200). Although Charles states that his parents only called him Carlos on special occasions, he recognizes that he has had a hard time proving who he is (Felix 201). Once again, this entails his initial desire to become an invisible “white” American which is based on the belief that he must assimilate into the dominant society in order to be accepted and valued as an equal.

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This idea of assimilation is highly connected to the melting pot9 concept of identity which reverts to Crèvecoeur’s Letters from an American Farmer. In these letters, we see the formation of a “new race of men” as the immigrants to the United States lose their old identities and leave behind “ancient prejudices and manners” (Crèvecoeur and Manning 44).10 However, Crèvecoeur’s melting pot stressed the supremacy of a white Anglo American society and way of life which conflicts with valuing a person’s ethnic culture or language.11 By making this distinction and excluding many ethnic and racial groups that today comprise the hub of Americanness, this concept of identity can be interpreted as an indicator of discrimination as opposed to effective integration. Indeed, this is applicable to Charles who tries to assimilate and by doing so is confronted with discrimination.

Regarding the relationship between the Portuguese and the melting pot, Clyde W. Barrow’s historical account of Portuguese immigration into the United States shows that many Portuguese-Americans have also embraced this concept since it allows them to be simultaneously Portuguese and American (30). However, Barrow further illustrates in his surveys carried out between 1999 and 2000 that about a third of Portuguese-Americans have felt discrimination based on their ethnicity or race (29). He also explains that there seems to be an even divide between the respondents when asked if applying for minority status would lead to any real benefit regarding education or job opportunities (29). The minority status that is being referred to dates back to the Ethnic Heritage Program enacted into law in 1972, which as Robert Harney reveals: “flatly described Portuguese as one of the nation’s seven official ethnic/racial minorities.” This was in addition to “Negro, American Indian, Spanish-surnamed American, Oriental, Hawaiian natives and Alaskan natives” (117). Adhering to this minority status clearly presented the Portuguese with a dilemma because it entailed not only how the Portuguese are identified by others, but also how they come to identify themselves.12 In other words, accepting this status meant embracing a “non-white” identity, while most ambitioned to become “American” and join mainstream society.

However, I believe that this is more in tune with the consideration of the Portuguese as hybrids or non-whites throughout the world and more specifically how their racial categorization is socially created and based on a class distinction as opposed to an actual color division. One such example is given by Robert Harney’s study of the Portuguese in Bermuda who have been phenotypically distinguished from other white settlers. Once again, the “Portygees,” term often used to refer to Cape Verdeans as well, were not seen as “real whites” by both English-speaking North Europeans and free Afro-Caribbeans, but rather as indentured labor or peons, another variety of “coolie-men” (Harney 115). Harvey’s argument moves on to demonstrate that

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other peoples who resented acknowledging the “whiteness” of the Portuguese include the African and the Indian populations of Guyana who referred to them as “Potagees,” and the Afrikaans who referred to the Portuguese settlers in South Africa as wit-kaffirs (“white-niggers”) (116). Moreover, this study evinces that the classification of the Portuguese in Bermuda as non-white was socially constructed, given their status as unskilled laborers. In this manner, it allows us to see that racial categorization can also be based on a class distinction as opposed to an actual color divide. That is, the role that the Portuguese played in the local economies of where they settled along with the intrinsic social structure of each land is what has allowed them to be racially classified.

The non-white typology of the Portuguese can also be found in a study carried out by James A. Geschwender, Rita Carroll-Seguin and Howard Brill concerning their ethnic making in Hawaii. In this particular case the Portuguese were not called Haole, which is a term that referred to any white foreigner. Curiously enough, they had their own racial category which was classified as “Local” meaning “Caucasian and Other” (Geschwender et al. 515). According to these authors, ethnicity is not automatically attributed when a group is different in terms of their physical and/or cultural characteristics but it is rather based on a class struggle and structure. This social distinction between the Haoles and Portuguese thus stresses the relationship between class and ethnicity. It also permits us to understand how a racial category can be constructed at the margins of a color divide based on phenotype.

At the same time, as this study shows, a problem of lexicon arises between the concept of being white and Caucasian. As Matthew Frye Jacobson discusses in Whiteness of a Different Color, the history of racial classification has changed with each successive wave of European immigration.13 In other words, people are not born Caucasian but “somehow made” so (3). Race then has to be understood as an invented category that changes as societies evolve. And so there is a misuse of the term “colored” when referring to the Portuguese because it represented an assumption at a particular time that being white could not include cultural or class differences. Therefore, the racial connotation attributed to the term “Portagee” resides in both a cultural and economic sphere of difference. This means that the class marker that relegated the Portuguese to a poor and uneducated status is what should be understood as Jacobson’s designation of “inborn racial characteristics” (21). Further to the point, the use of race as an identity marker does not rely solely on a subjective identity. In this particular case there are objective criteria which are used by others in categorizing the Portuguese and it is these racialized biases that lead Charles Reis Felix to initially question his ethnic background.

Nonetheless, it is quite clear in Through a Portagee Gate that a matter of

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choice persists regarding Charles’s mode of self-identification.14 Viewing racial or ethnic identity in this manner simultaneously problematizes and reveals the malleability of these categories for many ethnic groups, including the Portuguese, and Charles Reis Felix in particular. It further shows how enigmatic race relations may be envisioned in these days, a situation that leads Richard Alba to the following conclusion: “fundamental changes to ethno-racial cleavages can take place” (Blurring the Color Line 6). One of the ways in which this is achieved is through social mobility where socioeconomic success can ultimately lead an ethnic minority to identify with and be fully incorporated into white mainstream American society – a position that Charles apparently enjoys.15 However, Alba’s reference to the “ethno-race” combination is also important because the current use of racial and ethnic identities in the United States allows race to signify an ethnicity or vice-versa. In this sense it seems that ethnicity is still being used to replace race when distinctions need to be made.

The Turning of the Page

In the current context of Portuguese immigration, the cultural values of the more recent immigrants are not the same as their predecessors. The same can be said of their children whose detachment from their ethnic heritage arises as they choose the language and customs of their adoptive society. Nonetheless, even though American identity is and has always been an opening process, there seems to be a gap that naturally leads people to search for their ethnic self. This seems to be the case for Charles Reis Felix who, in Through a Portagee Gate, chooses to reveal his true identity to a family from the Azores when he begins to speak to the elementary-age children in Portuguese. By doing so, he is acknowledging the importance of language in retaining his ethnic identity. This can also be illustrated in the encounter with Mr. Oliveira who is the janitor at his school, as shown in the following passage:

Strangely enough, I did not mind the interruption. I welcomed it. I wanted to hear Portuguese spoken. That language which had surrounded me in my childhood, as plentiful as air, not valued, and then lost, forgotten, had come back in his person, with phrases and expressions, echoes from my childhood, precious slivers of memory, now valued, coin of the realm, gold. In his speech I felt an overwhelming sense of loss, a world now gone forever. (53)

It is the search for this lost world that becomes one of the central themes in the book as Charles gives voice to his immigrant father and lets him tells his own life story in Parts II and III, thus showing how ethnocentric categorization and negative stereotyping towards Portuguese immigrants is misleading.

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Charles is therefore capable of crossing boundaries by giving life to his father’s stories of immigrant experience and his own as an American of Portuguese descent. In this sense, the title of the autobiography becomes an appropriate metaphor for the author’s reconciliation with his ethnic identity. Furthermore, as Charles builds on and creates his father’s as well as his own memories, his own self-identification as an “imperfect American” shifts and transforms as Americanization begins to look more like ethnicization as opposed to becoming “white.” In other words, being an “imperfect American” no longer entails a negative connotation, but rather includes a newfound richness that he is intent on expressing, by recapturing and feeling comfortable with his ethnic identity.

If Charles Reis Felix can be considered an ethnic autobiographer, then he has been called upon to be the voice of the majority of Portuguese immigrants, who like so many other ethnic groups have felt the need to assimilate – based on the belief that ethnic differences were demeaning and prevented a social climb or wellbeing – but then slowly moved to a rediscovery of their ethnic identity in the more pluralistic era of the 1970s. In fact, Charles’s autobiography becomes the story of a representative character as his experience may describe that of many Portuguese-Americans in the past as well as in the present day. These are lives that have perhaps gone through their own ethnic revival in an attempt to free themselves from the strictures of what has been historically considered a subordinate ethno-racial identity.

Thus, American identity cannot but be a complex configuration when we consider the successive waves of immigration into the United States. The motivation for those who first arrived entailed a spiritual struggle that crossed over into an economic one for ensuing generations. However, each of those immigrant populations faced the same challenge of self-definition which has always been a complex mediation between their cultural backgrounds and the newfound experiences in their adoptive society. American identity and society today has to be understood as an admixture of immigrant peoples and cultures. Furthermore, the creation of a culturally pluralistic nation is not effortless with the juxtaposition of so many inherent differences regarding class, ethnicity, race and religion. And yet, it has been the race issue that has marked American history and sparked literary debate time and time again. With each successive new wave of immigration, we can only assume that authors like Charles Reis Felix will continue to give us the opportunity to address the ever-expanding boundaries of ethnic identity and inquire into societal relationships in this age of postracial issues.

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NOTES

1 Auto/biography refers to the actual situation of Felix’s book as an autobiography, the story of his life, which frames the biography of the father as told by the autobiographer. For more on the interrelatedness between these two genres see Sidonie and Watson’s (2010) proposed definition and distinction (256).

2 It should be noted that Francis A. Walker (1840-97) was president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the time of this publication and was considered a distinguished economist and educator. For a more elucidating commentary see “Francis A. Walker on Restriction of Immigration into the United States” which was published in the Population and Development Review in 2004.

3 This is echoed in another article by Walker which was published in the June 1896 issue of The Atlantic Monthly and is titled “Restriction of Immigration.” In it he iterates the need to prevent new arrivals from Europe in order to protect “the American rate of wages, the American standard of living, and the quality of American citizenship from degradation through the tumultuous access of vast throngs of ignorant and brutalized peasantry from the countries of eastern and southern Europe” (822).

4 What is interesting and rather contradictory in the autobiographer’s feelings about being cast out is that it also helps Charles come to terms with his identity. He writes: “I confess, I felt a secret pleasure in being cast out, a verification. It was where I wanted to be, where I felt at home. Anywhere else and I felt inauthentic” (Felix 43).

5 This can be compared to his father’s own fears of being identified as a “dumb greenhorn” (86) or a “simpleton” (96).

6 A study that reflects this non-white categorization and which may have affected the type of racism that Charles encounters can be found in Donald Reed Taft’s Two Portuguese Communities in New England, which was first published as a Ph.D. dissertation in 1923. This study, subsequently published in book form, focuses on the mores and racial constitution of the Portuguese as “a semi-negroid type” (18). Taft arrives at this conclusion by tracing the physical characteristics or “anthropology” of the Portuguese in the mainland which he believes differs from those in the islands. Furthermore, he suggests “possible differences in the racial types of different islands” (22). Attributing to the Portuguese this racial composition and distinction clearly entails Portugal’s contact with the Moors, along with the colonization and slave trade period during the sixteenth and following centuries.

7 The reason the first generations of Cape Verdeans immigrating to the United States identified themselves as “Portuguese” is related to the fact that Cape Verde only achieved independence from Portugal in 1975. Thus, in terms of citizenship and national identity they were “Portuguese” (see Williams xvi). Although this association may have reinforced the perception of the Portuguese as non-white, it was also a reflection of the concept of race in America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century where most immigrants who were not Nordic or Anglo-Saxon were seen as being biologically different and inferior. For further discussion on this scientific racism and how Jews and other Europeans were denigrated, see Paula S. Rothenberg (2008).

8 By way of comparison, Francisco Cota Fagundes’s memoir, Hard Knocks: An Azorean-American Odyssey, presents many similarities to Charles Reis Felix’s in that both attempt to overcome their inferiority status by creating a mask that allows them

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to disguise themselves. In Fagundes’s case, this entailed the Americanization of his name when he moved to California. Yet, even more remarkable is that he felt racially inferior as his “natural tawny color” (13) seemed to symbolize his “low-born status” (37). In this line of thought, it seems only “natural” that his godmother – who aspired his social prominence – would attempt to bleach him in the Azores by forcing him to wash his face in urine (22). Another example of a Portuguese immigrant who has experienced racial discrimination is Manuel Mira. He writes: “… I left Portugal and immigrated to Brazil where I lived for five years. Although the language is the same, I was discriminated against and recognized that I was not one of them because I had lighter skin. … After five years in Brazil, I came to the United States in 1957 and then to Toronto, Canada, where I lived for the next 16 years. Again, I felt discrimination because of the language difference and the color of my skin. I was not blonde; I had dark brown hair and brown eyes. In Brazil, I stood out because I was lighter, and in Canada, I stood out because I was darker” (Mira xv-xvi). Despite this personal account, Mira’s book focuses on the Melungeons and relates the discrimination and prejudice they experienced.

9 Lynette Clemetson’s article, which appeared in a Newsweek special report, “Redefining Race in America,” claims that “Americans are melting together like never before” as the growing rate of interethnic marriages are reshaping current concepts of ethnicity (62). Although “invisibility has its rewards,” the couples she interviews state that whether or not future generations are a part of the melting pot depends on how American diversity develops, thus emphasizing the malleability of ethno-racial categories. For a more recent study on assimilation and intermarriage that stresses the importance of ethnicity over race, see Morgan (2009).

10 This is suggested in Crèvecoeur’s opening question “What is an American?” in “Letter III” to which he replies: “He is neither an European, nor the descendent of an European: hence that strange mixture of blood, which you will find in no other country” (44). However, this follows the no less pertinent question “…whence came all these people?” which arouses the following response in Crèvecoeur: They are a mixture of English, Scotch, Irish, French, Germans, and Swedes. From this promiscuous breed, that race, now called Americans, have arisen. The Eastern provinces must indeed be excepted, as being the unmixed descendents of Englishmen. I have heard many wish that they had been more intermixed also: for my part, I am no wisher, and think it much better as it has happened (42, emphasis added).

11 In this manner, the melting pot can be compared with “classical assimilation theory” which Dulce Maria Scott argues has been criticized for “the ‘blocked mobility’ experienced by exploited minority ethnic groups that have been prevented from assimilating due to racism, discrimination and segregation” (Scott 44).

12 This is argued in Miguel Moniz’s recent essay which refers to the debate on whether the Portuguese should accept this minority status as late as 1973 in the Portuguese Congress in America (409).

13 This can also be seen in Warren and Twine’s essay which shows how the Irish historically occupied a separate racial category. According to them, the Irish are classified as people of color prior to the Civil War given their physical distinctiveness, including “eye and skin color, facial configuration, and physique” (203). In addition, they revert to some of the adjectives previously used to describe the Irish, such as: “low-browed and savage, groveling and bestial, lazy and wild, [and] simian and sensual” (Warren and Twine 203). For more on the Irish and their racial identity see Ronald Bayor (2003). For a look at other European

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immigrant groups that were placed above African and Asian Americans but below “whites” – such as the Sicilians and southern Italians who came to the United States as contact laborers and were called “guineas,” term also used to designate the Portuguese but originally used in reference to African slaves from the northwest coast of Africa, see Barrett and Roediger’s article “Inbetween peoples: Race, Nationality, and the ‘New Immigrant’ Working Class.”

14 On the other hand, it can be argued that racial or ethnic identity does not involve a choice since race has long been understood as pertaining to biology and ethnicity to culture. This common distinction is made in the Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary (see Alcoff, 103) and is also supported by both Morgan (2009) and Browder (2000). However, there lies an intrinsic connection between both concepts as shown in the entries for ethnic/ethnicity in the Oxford English Dictionary (1961) and its supplement (1971): “pertaining to or having common racial, cultural, religious or linguistic characteristics, esp. designating a racial or other group within a larger system” (quoted in Sollors 5, emphasis added). This is accompanied by references to “gentile, heathen, [and] pagan,” along with inferences to “exotic” and foreign (quoted in Sollors 3-5). According to the New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, its entry for ethnicity is defined as “identity with or membership in a particular racial, national, or cultural group and observance of that group’s customs, beliefs, and languages” (Hirsch, Kett and Trefil 432). As ethnicity and race become nearly interchangeable in these two dictionaries, with the notion of foreign or “un-American” persisting in the former, the latter is more inclusive by concluding with references to minority groups, immigrants and an indication for the reader to compare with the entry for “melting pot,” which as we know can also be a source for discrimination.

15 This can be understood “within the current construction of race in America, [where] the Portuguese are considered to be white and as such do not face racial barriers as they integrate socially, economically and biologically into American society” (Scott 47).

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