Centro forum < To live in Portugal is a huge mistake

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    Racism in Portugal from a U.S. perspective

    geplaatst door  Brian Dring in Centro forum 

    I am a white American married to a black American women of mixed ancestry including Cape Verdean. When we planned a vacation to Portugal she asked me how are the Portugese about race issues? I had no answer at the time.

    Now that we're back home, I have to say that the Portuguese people both in Lisbon and the Algarve were always polite and gracious, happy that I had learned enough of the language to ask for basic things. We never got any "looks" like we might get in America, the race issue never came up. Lisbon has a large percentage of people of color, whether mixed race or African. Once I would "break the ice" with my school book Portuguese, the people we met would then look to my wife to speak Portugese, just assuming from her appearance that she was from there. This is a positive sign to me that people of color are assumed to be Portuguese which speaks volumes to me about a culture of inclusion and race consciousness. To the African American guy about to move there I would say that it is probably better than in the U.S. providing you are polite and make an effort to speak the language. I would move there if I could.

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