[Magdalen] The Good Book

[ME Michaud]

Coastal New England has loads of Portuguese speakers (came from Cape
Verde and the Azores for the fishing) and prejudice against them was
overwhelming, at least before WW2. When I was young "Portagee" with a
hard G was the N-word.

The only time I ever saw this bias on display in the media was in the
movie Mystic Pizza, where the characters' Portuguese heritage makes
them subjects of disgust, mistrust and mockery.

Portuguese is the third most commonly spoken language in Massachusetts.
Whenever I hear someone speaking French or Italian, half the time it turns
out to be Portuguese. I'm pretty confident that's what Spanish sounded like
before the Moors added those Arabic gutterals & rattles.
-M, currently just down the coast from Mystic

On Friday, September 25, 2015, Jay Weigel <jay.weigel at gmail.com> wrote:

> Portuguese is funny generally.
>