Upon their first arrival in New England through the end of the 19th to the early 20th Century, and during subsequent waves of migration, the Portuguese migrants were inserted into complex local discourses and laws in the US racial binary with the group often characterized by contradictory racial classifications. Portuguese migrants during the mill worker period responded to these racial and ethnic identity discourses in the US and negotiated laws and codified social categories by participating in various forms of social activism, including protests and their engagement with the early 1900s labor movement.


Researchers

Cristiana Bastos

Bastos’ work in the New England track addresses the articulation between the lay racializations of the Portuguese migrants in Southern New England and the production of a racialist science in the context of eugenics and immigrant regulation. A first result of this analysis is publish in Migrants, inequalities and social research in the 1920s: The story of Two Portuguese Communities in New England History and Anthropology 29(2): 163-183.

Miguel Moniz

Moniz’ work focuses on racialization processes among migrant mill and agricultural workers in Portuguese communities in New England, examining the law, unionization, associativism and political community building.


Associate researchers 

Graça Cordeiro ISCTE

Bela Feldman UNICAMP

Gloria de Sá UMASS Dartmouth

Paula Rioux UMASS Dartmouth

Onesimo Almeida Brown University 

Frank de Sousa UMass Lowell


Publications

Bastos, Cristiana, Bela Feldman-Bianco and Miguel Moniz, eds. 2021. Migration and Mill Work: the Portuguese in New England. Dartmouth: Massachusetts University Press.

Bastos, Cristiana. 2018. “Migrants inequalities and social research in the 1920s: The story of Two Portuguese Communities in New England.”History and Anthropology 29(2):163-183.

Conferences and seminars

Bastos, Cristiana. “Comparing and connecting: labour and racialization in plantation and industrial economies – notes from colonial Guiana, Hawaii and New England”, invited lecture, Two-day International Workshop “Towards establishing a comparative framework for the study of indentures labour”, The Centre for Research on Slavery and Indenture, University of Mauritius in collaboration with Aapravasi Ghat Trust Fund / Secretariat, Indentured Labour Route Project, COLOUR project and ICS-ULisboa, 5-6 March 2019.

Bela Feldman (Unicamp), “A diáspora portuguesa de New England: black portugee, escravos brancos, santas e madalenas“, COLOUR Distinguished Lectures Series, ICS-ULisboa, 13 April 2018

International Conference “Migration and Mill Work: Portuguese Communities in Industrial New England.”, organized by COLOUR project in collaboration with the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture, 3–6 December 2017

Bastos, Cristiana. “The Racialization of labor“, paper presentation, International Conference “Migration and Mill Work: Portuguese Communities in Industrial New England.”, COLOUR project in collaboration with the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture, 3–6 December 2017

Bastos, Cristiana. “Racialism, Social Sciences and the Politics of Knowledge in the 1920s: the case of Two Portuguese Communities in New England”, paper presentation, International Conference “Migration and Mill Work: Portuguese Communities in Industrial New England.”, COLOUR project in collaboration with the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture, 3–6 December 2017

Cordeiro Graça, “Neither Slum nor élite suburb. The ‘emergence’ of a Portuguese colony in Cambridge, MA, in the early 20th century”, paper presentation, International Conference “Migration and Mill Work: Portuguese Communities in Industrial New England.”, COLOUR project in collaboration with the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture, 3–6 December 2017 

Moniz, Miguel. “English language journalism about new immigrants from Portugal”, paper presentation, International Conference “Migration and Mill Work: Portuguese Communities in Industrial New England.”, COLOUR project in collaboration with the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture, 3–6 December 2017 

Moniz, Miguel. “Ethnic and racial identities and civic life. Establishing Portuguese-American chartered cultural, socio-religious, political, and economic associations in New England (1880s-WWII)”, paper presentation, International Conference “Migration and Mill Work: Portuguese Communities in Industrial New England.”, COLOUR project in collaboration with the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture, 3–6 December 2017 

Rioux, Paula. “The Portuguese of Fall River, 1920”, paper presentation, International Conference “Migration and Mill Work: Portuguese Communities in Industrial New England.”, COLOUR project in collaboration with the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture, 3–6 December 2017

Rodrigues, Rose. “Demographic data on New Bedford 1900”, paper presentation, International Conference “Migration and Mill Work: Portuguese Communities in Industrial New England.”, COLOUR project in collaboration with the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture, 3–6 December 2017

de Sá, M. Gloria. “The Occupational structure of Portuguese-American women in the U.S. from 1900 to 2000”, paper presentation, International Conference “Migration and Mill Work: Portuguese Communities in Industrial New England.”, COLOUR project in collaboration with the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture, 3–6 December 2017

Viveiros, Camilo. “Mill labor, organizing in a multi-ethnic workplace”, paper presentation, International Conference “Migration and Mill Work: Portuguese Communities in Industrial New England.”, COLOUR project in collaboration with the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture, 3–6 December 2017

Media

2016 “O êxodo da Madeira.”Super interessante, nº 128: 42-25, Junho

2015 “Revisiting Donald Taft’s Two Portuguese Communities in New England.” RTP, 10 Novembro

Radio

Miguel Moniz. 2017. “Migration and Mill Work: Portuguese Communities in Industrial New England” WJFD Radio, 3 December