The diasporic community of any country deals with one issue many locals ignore: how to maintain the language and the culture of that country while living abroad. If culture is something that influences and even defines your identity, keeping one’s culture is a matter of being, belonging.
With that in mind, many scholars, community leaders and authorities reunited in Praia, Cape Verde for the International Colloquium of Praia about the Portuguese in the Diasporas, promoted by the IILP (International Portuguese Language Institute, acronym in Portuguese) and the CPLP(Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries, acronym in Portuguese). The objective was to talk about the issues involving the Portuguese language in the Diasporas of the several countries that speak that language. San Francisco, California was represented by Valeria Sasser, who leads IBEC-Instituto Brasil de Educação e Cultura (www.ibec-ca.org) and Projeto Contadores de Estórias (www.contadores-de-estorias.org), both programs for Brazilian children who live in the Bay Area.
During the colloquium, the participants exposed and analyzed what is already done and what can be done to improve the current situation, and also how can these countries collaborate to develop a joint effort for their communities.
At the end of the colloquium, the participants created the Carta da Praia (Letter from Praia), which had several recommendations for the CPLP’s governments and for the II International Conference about the Future of the Portuguese Language in the World System, in Lisbon, October 2012.
Let us now hope that the governments of the CPLP understand and promote a long-term public policy for development and promotion of the Portuguese Language abroad, within their Diasporas and outside them.
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