Portuguese-Canadian History & Portuguese Communities in Canada
Latest Articles
Lusocanada is a research and media platform dedicated to Portuguese-Canadian history, communities, and cultural heritage across Canada.
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Searching for Home: An Immigrant Within His Adopted Country
Moving to a new country can be an overwhelming experience, especially when you are still a child. I know this because I was one of those children. Decades ago, my family and I immigrated to Canada from Portugal, and we settled in Toronto, Ontario. It was a challenging transition, but with time, we adjusted and…
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Pioneers: Paying Tribute With A Book
By Devin Meireles My name is Devin Meireles and I am proud to embrace heritage and share this Portuguese thing of ours with my book! My story can resonate with readers to provide inspiration for them to discover the beautiful homeland. After researching my Portuguese family ancestry for nearly a decade I curated all that
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ACAPO’S GALA DINNER – Recognizing Excellence and Empowering Youth
The Merit Award & Scholarship Gala Dinner, promoted by the Alliance of Portuguese Clubs and Associations of Ontario (ACAPO), is an annual event that recognizes excellence in volunteer work and awards young Luso Canadians with scholarships.
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Our Pioneers – We Owe it to Them
The adventure undertaken by our pioneers did not start the moment they waved farewell to their families, neither the instant they boarded a boat filled with strangers nor the day they arrived at their destination. It is a blurred point that encompasses all those occurrences, for some took a while to simply arrive…even if they…
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Luso-Can Tuna: Academic Tradition and Pride in our Roots
Luso-Can Tuna is an organization that stems from a centuries-old academic tradition from the Iberian peninsula. 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.
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The three lives of Jornal da Aliança
Jornal da Aliança was given three lives but, unfortunately, survived none. The newspaper was published in spurts over three distinct decades, but each time succumbed to doom, leaving behind traces of great intentions and countless pieces of information that have become part of our collective history as a community.
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Poveiros Community Centre – Resilience and Optimism
The current president of Poveiros Community Centre has witnessed the best of times and the worst of times. Most of the latter have come recently, particularly as a consequence of the covid-19 pandemic, but she has stood strong, steering the organization onto a new era in order to save it from dissolution.
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Kensington Market – the Genesis
My personal encounter mirrored, in a much smaller scale, many others throughout the first forty odd years of the Portuguese presence in Canada. The area of Kensington Market was, in essence, the birthplace of our community in Toronto and, for many decades, its hub.
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Homesickness is a bummer
I feel a deep longing. I really do. Seriously, I do. I miss hearing Portuguese spoken correctly. I miss knowing the potholes on the streets, driving over crosswalks at 80 and walking along the “beiras” (the edge).
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Leslieville Was Notably Portuguese
However lesser known, was a decent representation of Luso-Canadians in the east end of Toronto. Leslieville was where this writer grew up and remembers a time when Azoreans composed a large fraction of the neighborhood.