Portagee
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Portagee is a term often ascribed to persons of Portuguese ancestry. The term found usage during the major waves of Portuguese immigration to the United States, from the late 1870s until the recent wave, which began in the 1960s.
Initially, the term found usage by Anglo-Saxons of the WASP variety in describing the immigrants from Southern Europe that they encountered as fisherman and factory workers in New England and on farms in California. Although ethnically white Caucasians, at the time, the Portuguese faced the same discrimination and accusations of non-Caucasian heritage that befell Irish, Italians and Jews of that era.
While the term still carries a derogatory connotation in some parts of the country, in other areas of the United States, persons of Portuguese descent often call each other Portagee as a term of bonding and endearment. This seems more common in New England, where Portuguese from the Azores and Madeira Islands have settled since the late nineteenth century. More recent immigrants to New Jersey do not use the term as much.
In California, a portagee gate characterized the tightwad stereotype attributed to Portuguese immigrants. The gate involved flimsy construction, implying that the Portuguese who made it attempted to save money in purchasing materials. A 2004 biography by Charles Reis Felix, entitled Through A Portagee Gate, makes reference to the usage of portagee as an ethnic term in Massachusetts during the 20th century. Felix analyzes the term while examining his own Portuguese-American roots and those of his father.
The term portagee also denotes a type of beans typically eaten by the Portuguese, as well as a type of bread eaten with meals. The term supposedly originated from a mispronunciation of the word Portuguese itself. Residents of Hawaii are also familiar with the term, which was also applied in a derogatory fashion to Portuguese workers from Madeira who harvested sugar cane on the islands.
[edit] Further reading
- Felix, Charles Reis (2004). Through a Portagee Gate. Dartmouth: Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture, University of Massachusetts. ISBN 0-9722561-4-8.
- Monteiro, George (1968). "And still more ethnic and place names as derisive adjectives". Western Folklore (27 (1), 51.
[edit] External links
- Excerpt from Through a Portagee Gate [1]
