Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa arrived in San Diego this Saturday, where a Portuguese president had not been in 33 years, to begin a five-day visit to Portuguese communities in California.
“It’s been 30 years since a President has come here, 33 years, it’s a sure thing, it’s capicua,” said Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, getting out of his car on Avenida de Portugal for the first point of his program. , a meeting at a century-old Portuguese association that is one of dozens of Espírito Santo societies that exist in California.
“It’s a very emotional moment,” he added.
Still on Avenida de Portugal, the President of the Republic talked with some people who were waiting for his arrival and took a baby of Portuguese descent named Daria in his arms, exclaiming in English: “It’s the future”.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa recalled that his promise to visit Portuguese and Portuguese-descendant communities in California dates back to 2018: “I promised to come here. Then came the pandemic. I did not know that there would be two years of pandemic. But now, with the pandemic dead in Portugal and here too, here I am.”
Mário Soares was the last President of the Republic to visit San Diego, in southern California, in 1989, in a visit that also visited Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, which includes the city of San José. Aníbal Cavaco Silva, when he visited California in 2011, he only visited São José and San Francisco.
Between this Saturday and Wednesday, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa will pass through these three large centers of Portuguese emigration to the West Coast of the United States of America and will also go to the Vale de São Joaquim, part of the central valley of California, an agricultural region of the interior of the state that none of his predecessors had visited.
He is accompanied on this five-day visit to California by the Secretary of State for the Portuguese Communities, Paulo Cafôfo, and deputies Eurico Brilhante Dias, the parliamentary leader of the PS, João Moura Rodrigues, of the PSD, Rui Paulo Sousa, of Chega, and Pedro Filipe Soares, parliamentary leader of BE.
California is the US state with the largest number of citizens of Portuguese origin, more than 300,000, according to data from the official census of the United States of America.
Portuguese emigration to the west coast of North America dates back to the 19th century and comes mainly from the Azores.
Asked about the absence of the president of the Regional Government of the Azores, José Manuel Bolieiro, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa replied: “You can’t bring everyone, because people have positions, that’s all. We’ll be here, and he’ll be here soon.”
Source: Observadora
