Guest Blogger: Portuguese-American Poet MILLICENT BORGES ACCARDI

GUEST BLOGGER 

Millicent Borges Accardi

http://www.millicentborgesaccardi.com

“The Luso-Debate –

What’s In A Name? 

Depende!”

In my mind, the world has JUST gotten used to or is starting to realize that there is a place called Portugal which is NOT in South America.


And, after a trip to Lisbon in the summer of 2010 for Disquiet (International Literary Program) (http://disquietinternational.org), my personal focus has been to spread the word about Portuguese culture, as best as I can: through poetry, through posts on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/MillB), through book reviews and public readings.


However, there are issues. Starting with, the name. Does the term Portuguese-American include or exclude?
It is a hard call to make and one which muddies the waters, but what is the proper name for what I had previously used as a moniker for myself: Portuguese-American (PA for short) or Lusophone? Iberian? Or, something else?


Luso-North-American is certainly not as short and sexy as Portuguese-American. And, unless you are an academic or consider yourself Luso, you probably don’t know that the term Luso is derived from the Lusitanians, one of the first Indo-European tribes to settle in Europe.


So are we Lusitanics? Are we Hispanics? Still others feel the correct term to describe those of Portuguese descent is Lusophone. Heck, even the government is confused. The U.S. Department of Transportation defines Hispanic as, “persons of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican, Central or South American, or other Spanish or Portuguese culture or origin” but the U.S. Office of Management and Budget excludes Portuguese.


Thus, when I organized a public off-site reading for the Associated Writing Program’s (AWP) (https://www.awpwriter.org/) conference in Chicago in March of 2012, I agonized over what to call “us,” this group of wonderful writers who had bonded together and found each other the summer of 2010 in Portugal. It was a reading that would technically be the first time any Luso-esque writers had gathered together during AWP.


As far as the conference, our announcements appeared in places called Portuguese American Journal, the Portuguese-American society, The Azorean Nation, Portuguese American Review. Early on, I tested the waters with the term Luso, and it did not resonate with a general population. Not one of the 500 members in my online Poetry Group knew what the heck a “Luso” was.


And, essayist Oona Patrick (http://www.shewrites.com/profile/OonaPatrick) told me she once posted flyers in Provincetown and had to go around crossing off Luso and writing in P-O-R-T-U-G-U-E-S-E A-M-E-R-I-C-A-N because the local Portuguese denizens had no clue about Luso!
The Italian-Americans have this issue too. With Sicilians versus Italians. And I have never heard the term Italian-Canadians, but that is my own ignorance I am sure.


As a way to make peace with the issue for the AWP book fair logo. I went with the simple label of “Portuguese-American Writers” against the red and green flag of Portugal and the famous o galo de Barcelos (colorful rooster symbol of Portugal).
However for the public reading, I adopted both terms, with this title, “Kale Soup for the Soul, Luso-writers present work about family, food and Portuguese culture.” That description, I felt would include everyone. Of course with letter scramble “soul” easily becomes “luso,” a fact that was pointed out to me by my clever husband!


There is a rather large PA population in Chicago, so we were hoping to attract a non-AWP audience. And, if I listed everything as American and North American and Canadian and Brazilian and Portuguese for the Book Fair, I was afraid of scaring off potential customers who would leap away from our booth like rats on a sinking ship–if our sign was too erudite, academic and confusing.


The best brands are short and completely describe the product. Like 7-Up, the un-cola. Seven ingredients, a clear, sweet bubbly beverage.


I long for THAT level of simplicity.


Now, I also have my own issues with definition since, technically, my family is from The Azores NOT the mainland. So am I Azorean-American (not very catchy)? Then there is Angola. Then there is Macau.


Heck, Europeans don’t even use the term “Hispanic” To them, if you are from Portugal or Spain or Italy or France or Romania, you are lumped into the “Latin” category. And “Hispania” is just an ancient name (23 centuries ago) for the Iberian Peninsula, so, essentially, then, the only true “Hispanics are those from Portugal or Spain?


At any rate, this whole debate is MUCH larger than me and my opinions.


Perhaps a reason why we Luso-Portuguese-Azorean-North-Americans are still unknown and isolated IS related to the whole definition of what and who we are?


In my research on this topic I found MANY Brazilian sites online and none of them include Portugal. Not the meet-ups or the film clubs or even the associations. Except for one, bookseller Elena Como (founder of Atlantico Books) (http://www.atlanticobooks.com) who stocks Portuguese-Portuguese as well as Brazilian Portuguese books in her online bookstore and includes those from all Portuguese-Speaking countries in her blog-posts about Portuguese language activities, such as literary events and films series, that happen in New York City. Most Brazilian associations and businesses, concentrate ONLY on Brazil. There does not seem to be much discussion about whether or not to include poor little Portugal. In fact, since many people think Portugal is IN Brazil, why bother?


Though, personally, I find Brazil VERY different. And I have, for most of my life, felt more akin to and closer related to the Latino(a) culture than Brazilian. In junior high, I was bused across town because of my Hispanic last name, Borges. And I made fast friends in that community.


My childhood experiences as a second-generation Portuguese-American are similar to my Mexican-American and Cuban friends: Catholic festivals, family picnics, spicy sausages. And since Portuguese and Spanish are Latin countries, and speak neo-latin languages, does that make us “Latino.”? My counselor in elementary school pointed out that my family came from the Iberian Peninsula, which made me Hispanic. So am I “Iberian”? or “Hispanic” or both? Or neither?


To be sure, created in 1143, Portugal is one of the oldest countries in the world and technically Spain was part of Portugal, which really confuses things. Plus, Spain is 450 years younger than Portugal. And Brazil, like Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, St. Tome, Principe, Angola and Mozambique; and Macau are former Portuguese colonies.


There was a time when Portugal ruled the world. We were known as the navigators. Just look at what Magellan accomplished.


So, what to do now, though.


If there were an easy label or brand which included everyone, I would have used it for the two events at AWP. Also, I am wary that in America, we seem possessed with the idea of American-made. American-born. The Good Old US of A. America the Beautiful. People are never Mexican-North Americans. They are Mexican-American. One hyphen being the limit.


I don’t know. The term to define us and its definition are problematic. Like I think it was the poet Carolyn Forche, who said her grandmother called the colander “the bowl with the holes that makes the spaghetti go out” presumably because of the lack of a word for colander in Czech. And, I feel we run the risk of not appealing to anyone if our description for ourselves is too long and convoluted for deciphering by the very public we wish to attract and educate about all things literary and Portuguese.


Heck, it was only after years of individual self-identification and growth that a group of cultures (Mexican, Puerto Rican, Spanish) grew together to form Latino(a), a group that I personally feel very much a part of. But, even THAT is a debate and another story.


There are many talks to have. In the meantime, preciso de verdade e da aspirina! Or, I need the truth AND an aspirin. 

Photo Description and Copyright Info

1

Millicent Borges Accardi facebook logo photo.  In Lisbon. 

2

Disquite web page logo.

3

Map showing the main pre-Roman tribes in Portugal and their main migrations. Turduli movement in red, Celtic in brown and Lusitanian in a blue colour. Most tribes neighbouring the Lusitanians were dependent on them. Names are in Latin.

4

AWP poster for March of 2012.

5

Oona Patrick’s webpage logo photo.

6

Millicent Borges Accardi, left, and poet Lori May (http://www.loriamay.com) at AWP in March 2012 in Chicago.

7

Advertising poster for “Kale Soup for the Soul, Luso writers present work about family, food, and Portuguese culture.”

8

7 up logo.  Public Domain.

9

Flag of Portugal, created by Columbano Bordalo Pinheiro (1857-1929), officially adopted by Portuguese government in June 30th 1911 (in use since about November 1910).  Public Domain.

10

Elena Como facebook logo photo (https://www.facebook.com/elena.como)

11

Jacket cover of Injuring Eternity, published on December 1, 2010 by World Nouveau (http://www.worldnouveau.com/World_Nouveau/World_Nouveau_Inc..html)

12

Jacket cover of Woman On A Shaky Bridge, published in 2010 by Finishing Line Press (http://finishinglinepress.com)

13

Carolyn Forche announcing the five 2010 National Book Critics Circle finalists in poetry on January 22, 2011.  Attributed to David Shankbone.  CCA3.0UNP

14

Millicent Borges Accardi.  Web 

LEONARD CHANG the storyteller, the memoirist, and the philosopher

Christal Cooper – 1,425 Words

caccoop@gmail.com  caccoop@aol.com

https://www.facebook.com/christalann.ricecooper

LEONARD CHANG
the storyteller, the memoirist,

and the philosopher
www.leonardchang.com

 

THE FRUIT ‘N FOOD

For six months Tom lay in a hospital bed, blind, in a coma, though he didn’t know that – all he knew was that he sometimes heard voices around him, wavering, echoing away, and he couldn’t see, couldn’t speak.  

Copyright by Leonard Chang

DISPATCHES FROM THE COLD

Everything I learned about Farrel Gorden I learned from reading his letters, and although I knew reading someone else’s mail was illegal . . .The letters helped distract me from my problems. . . Copyright by Leonard Chang

 

OVER THE SHOULDER

         I glance at the tape recorder.  She sighs and shuts it off.  “Okay, you want to start off the record?  I’m just trying to do my job, Mr. Choice.”

         “My job requires that I stay quiet.  I’m not supposed to be noticed.”

Copyright by Leonard Chang

UNDERKILL

This is a story about Linda as much as it is about me, about the disturbing events we would witness together and separately, about what happened after she visited her mother and stepfather in Los Angeles. 

Copyright by Leonard Chang

FADE TO CLEAR

         Allen lives off Clement Street, around the corner from the New May Wah Supermarket and near Green Apple Books, where he has been buying used, well-worn, and student highlighted copies of Kierkegaard and introduction to philosophy texts.   

Copyright by Leonard Chang

Los Angeles, California based writer and Korean-American Leonard Won Chul “the pinnacle of wisdom or philosophy” Chang, along with his older brother and younger sister, was raised in Long Island, New York by his parents, Korean immigrants. 

Chang was a quiet, shy, imaginative child living in an environment that could be described as tumultuous.  By the age of seven, he found escape by reading voraciously outside his apartment building or at the Merrick Library. 

“I used to read everywhere but I liked reading outside, even if it was cold.  Huddling with my parka on, my hood over my head, my gloved hands cradling the book, I felt as if I was burrowed with the characters I was reading.  Maybe on some level the book was warming me up.”

Upon entrance to Dartmouth College, he chose to study Philosophy instead of writing.  “I wanted to study philosophy because I’ve always had questions about God, religion, the purpose of our lives, and all those other big questions, but no real avenues or opportunities to explore them.  I found that studying Philosophy was just a different way to approach the same questions I had in fiction writing.” 

         After two years Chang found himself stressed and unhappy.  “I needed to get away from school, from taking classes I wasn’t very interested in, from my peers who seemed not to have similar goals and ambitions.  I wanted to focus on my writing, which I wasn’t at the time.”

         Chang chose to enter the Peace Corps and moved to Kingston, Jamaica where he worked on the computers, automated the database systems, and managed the head office library. 

He also focused on his writing – by reading at least one novel per day and writing short stories, which was both cathartic and moving.  “I realized I had actually composed something that seemed to work.”   Two of those short stories, “Clay Hats” and “Collect Call” were published.

He also traveled to his parent’s homeland, Seoul, Korea, to learn the language and culture.  “This affected me as a writer insofar as I felt completely alienated and isolated in Korea, that despite my ancestry Koreans viewed me as some oddity.  I did find kinship, friendship and fellowship with other Korean Americans.  I knew that I wanted to write about the Korean American experience as we knew it.”

         After one year at Kingston he returned to the states with a new zest for writing, but he chose to pursue his philosophy degree.  “Most writers advise aspiring writers not to major in English because you approach texts as a critic, not as an author. I found this to be true.” 

After graduating with honors from Harvard University, Chang moved to California to attend the University of California Irving’s MFA Creative Writing Program, where he made a habit of reading two to five novels per week. 

The two novels that influenced Chang the most were The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, which he reads at least once a year. 

“The Great Gatsby is wonderfully unified and tightly-written novel, and is a constant reminder of how a novel can be a piece of art.  Hemingway is rougher and cruder, and the power of his writing comes from concision, repetition and ambiguity.”

Since then Chang has written five novels, each exploring authentic Korean-American characters:  Thomas Pak and the Rhee Family in The Fruit ‘N Food are hard working Korean Americans who focus all of their dreams on the family grocery story, only to have the end come to devastating results;

Caucasian Farell Gorden’s journey from dissatisfaction to anger and violence against his Korean-American boss and his anonymous Korean American letter reader is explored in Dispatches From The Cold;

and then, perhaps, Chang’s greatest character come to reality, Allen Choice, is born in Over The Shoulder, and continues to fascinate readers in Underkill, and Fade To Clear. 

Allen Choice, an isolationist Korean American who loves to read philosophy on one hand and carry a gun in the other, is a private detective in each of the novels – which explores not only the authentic life of the detective, but that of Allen Choice, his relationships, and search for meaning. 

Two of Chang’s books have been adapted for movies - Dispatches From The Cold has been adapted by Canary Films, and actor Daniel Dae Kim, a Korean American who is scheduled to play Allen Choice, has optioned Over The Shoulder.  

     In response to questions about the movies being faithful to his books and his readers’ expectations, Chang said, “I hope my readers will view any movies based on my novels not as a representation of my work, but as an interpretation or re-invention.  If they are disappointed then I hope they return to the novel.”

         The people in Chang’s novels and short stories are not characters but real living human beings whom Chang describe as being “sometimes more real than the person standing next to me.”  The process of creating these real-life-characters takes responsibility, discipline, and skill, which Chang takes seriously. 

“I want to be truthful as I can in rendering characters and stories.  I like to try to have the reader come away with something useful, whether it’s knowledge or understanding or simply a greater appreciation of my characters.”  

         Chang’s goal is to write one piece of work in which all three aspects of writers are displayed  – the storyteller, the memoirist, and the philosopher.  To Chang, having these three aspects as well as characters that are “well-written, well rendered, vivid, and dictate the plot” is the ultimate literary novel.   

         Chang does most of his creating in his home office.  “It is a small room with huge windows where I get morning light.  I have a view of buildings, pine trees, and a lake.  It’s messy but comfortable, with papers and books strewn on the floor.” 

Here Chang writes at first dawn on the computer, usually with a cup of green tea.  He is known as a perfectionist and can write dozens of drafts before he is satisfied.  He rewrites some of the drafts at the local café and then edits them with pen and paper, and, after the best draft is chosen, the others are thrown away.  Others might think this is tiresome and self defeating work, to Chang it is the joy of being a writer.

“I’ve never had writer’s block.  I’ve had slow days and frustrating days, but I just keep chipping away.  Writing is just a blessing; never a curse.  I can’t think of anything better except maybe being in love.”       

Or except his love for rock climbing, which Chang’s brother introduced him to about four years ago.  “I spend most of my free time rock climbing.  Rock climbing is both intellectual and physical.  Writers ought to have lives outside of writing, because quite simply, they need something to feed the art.”      

Chang is presently working on the screenplay for Over The Shoulder, short stories, a novel about a young married couple, and future plans for more Allen Choice novels.  He also writes screenplays for television including NBC’s Awake and FX’s Justified.

PHOTO DESCRIPTION AND COPYRIGHT INFO

Photo 1

Leonard Chang and his mother Umee Chang Pepe.  Copyright by Leonard Change.

Photo 2

Welcome sign on Merrick Avenue.  Public Domain.

Photo 3

Leonard Chang’s high school graduation picture.  Copyright by Leonard Chang.

Photo 4

Seal of Dartmouth College (www.dartmouth.edu).  Fair Use Under the United States Copyright Law.

Photo 5, 20, 21, 23

Leonard Chang.  Copyright by Leonard Chang.

Photo 6

Leonard Chang volunteering for the Los Angeles Community Beautification Grant Program.  Copyright by Leonard Chang.

Photo 7. 19, 22

Leonard Chang in his office.  Copyright by Leonard Chang.

Photo 8

Seoul Panorama from Namhonsanseors.  CCA3.0 Unported License.

Photo 9

Leonard Chang attending a workshop at the University of California in Irving.  Copyright by Leonard Chang.

Phot 10

Jacket cover of The Great Gatsby

Photo 11

Jacket cover of The Sun Also Rises

Photo 12

Ernest Hemmingway in 1939 in his Sun Valley, Idaho home.  Attributed to Lloyd Arnold.  Public Domain.

Photo 13

Jacket cover of The Fruit N Food

Photo 14

Jacket cover of Dispatches From The Cold

Photo 15

Jacket cover of Over The Shoulder

Photo 16

Jacket cover of Underkill

Photo 17

Jacket cover of Fade To Clear

Photo 18

Daniel Dae Dkim singing autographs at the Hawaii International Film Festival on February 28, 2007.  Attributed to Crissy Terawaki Kawamoto.  GNUFD License Version 1.2 and CCA-SA 3.0 Unported.

Photo 24, 25

Leonard Chang rock climbing.  Copyright by Leonard Chang.