Luso-Can Tuna: Academic Tradition and Pride in our Roots

By Sandy Costa, Luso-Can Tuna’s Secretary and Treasurer

Please note: Luso-Can Tuna will be performing with Escstunis from Lisboa and TAUA from Ponta Delgada this 22, 23, and 24 of March at an event series called Lusofonia. Tickets are currently available; please contact Luso-Can Tuna on Instagram for more information.

Luso-Can Tuna is an organization that stems from a centuries-old academic tradition from the Iberian peninsula. In the thirteenth century, the first version of today’s universities were created in Spain and Portugal, allowing young people of certain means from all over the peninsula to formalize their studies. Some of these students would come to be known as “sopistas”, poorer students who used their musical talent, their charm, and their playfulness to pass through noble homes, convents, streets, and public squares, and play in exchange for a plate of soup (thus their name). Over time, these students created traditions and a shared history, which has spread to Europe and Latin America.

Luso-Can Tuna is a continuation of that history in North America. As the only tuna in North America, Luso-Can Tuna is charged with keeping the academic and musical tradition of tunas alive. In 1997, the Tuna Academica da Universidade dos Acores (TAUA) travelled to Canada, and dared a group of university students to create their own tuna here in Toronto. As such, TAUA is considered the “tuna madrinha” of Luso-Can Tuna; they were officially baptized on March 14, 1998.

Since then, Luso-Can Tuna has spread the history of this academic tradition through Toronto and the GTA, as well as spreading their particularly Canadian version of this tradition around the world to places like Mexico, Portugal, Spain, and the United States of America.

While in Lisbon, Luso-Can Tuna was granted the honour of a meeting with the Canadian Ambassador to Portugal, Dr. Robert Vanderloo, and His Excellency, the Secretary of State for Communities, Eng. Jose Lello, as well as other Portuguese and Canadian government officials.

On February 28, 2014, Luso-Can Tuna had the enormous honour of receiving the Order of Merit, given by then-President of the Portuguese Republic, Anibal Cavaco Silva. This Order is awarded to Portuguese civilians who have performed actions of self-sacrifice for their community.

Luso-Can Tuna has curated a series of festivals over the years where tunas from Portugal, Spain, Europe, and Latin America have travelled to compete in the Festival Internacional de Tunas No Canada (FITCa). In between these festivals, other events such as Noite de Fados, community events, and this year’s Lusofonia have kept Luso-Can Tuna afloat and relevant to the tunante community in Portugal as well as the Luso-Canadian community in Canada.

The primary objectives of this tuna are the reasons it has flourished in these past 20 years:  keeping close the cultural bonds of their roots and home; keeping contact with TAUA, their godparents; promoting pride and interest in their roots to Luso-Canadian youth; creating a new cultural expression with a base always in tradition; representing the Torontonian Portuguese and Canadian communities wherever they go; and, above all, being ambassadors and showing testament to teamwork and camaraderie to the rest of the world.

Luso-Can Tuna practices every Friday at St. Helen’s Parish Hall, and practices are open to everyone!

To learn more about the history of tunas, visit Luso-Can Tuna’s website: www.lusocantuna.com.

Follow Luso-Can Tuna on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

Help us write History. Contribute your story, memory or experience related to this organization by sending an email to contact@lusocanada.com.