Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Orgulho, preconceito e política: o folclore português no renascimento urbano de Newark

2005; Centro em Rede de Investigação em Antropologia; Issue: vol. 9 (1) Linguagem: Inglês

10.4000/etnografica.2949

2182-2891

Kimberly DaCosta Holton,

Social and Cultural Dynamics

This essay examines the role of expressive culture in the renovation of stigmatized people and places. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and oral histories, this study places revivalist folklore performance center stage within Newark, New Jersey's dramatic narrative of multicultural conciliation and post-riot transformation. Imbricated in processes of urban restoration, social healing, immigrant adaptation and political empowerment, ranchos folclóricos cannot simply be read as the nostalgic hankering for an originary homeland. Ranchos folclóricos perform double duty to both sending and receiving contexts, proactive in demonstrating to audiences on both sides of the Atlantic that Portuguese immigrants, sometimes maligned for having "ditched their country," have harnessed the nineteenth-century traditions of rural peasants to contemporary agendas of incorporation, community building and urban renewal.