Human migration is as old as history itself. Since the very beginning, humans have been on the move, for the most part in pursuit of better living conditions. In general, people usually migrate for the same recurring reasons: To escape from poverty, unemployment, natural catastrophe, war, violence, political or religious persecution. In short, humans migrate in order to flee terrible situations and conditions but also in order to seize employment opportunities in countries abroad that need additional labour.
Immigration is not a bad thing. Time again history has shown that immigration contributes to the cultural, social, and economic development of both the countries of destination as well as the countries of origin.
The Azorean archipelago, a group of nine Portuguese islands in the middle of the Atlantic, has been an immigration destination primarily in the past three decades and saw a significant influx of immigrants at the start of the 2000s. This was a pivotal moment for the creation of an organization that would stand up for the rights of immigrants on the islands and support the implementation of favourable immigration and integration policies. That is how the “Associação dos Imigrantes nos Açores” (Association of Immigrants on the Azores) or “AIPA” was founded by a group of immigrants and locals in 2003. For 19 years now, AIPA has been defending the interests of immigrants and contributing to their integration on the Azorean islands.
This summer I had the invaluable opportunity to do a one-month long internship with AIPA at their main office in Ponta Delgada on São Miguel. Working at AIPA has been one of the richest and most rewarding experiences I have ever had. I learned a lot about immigration, both on the legal as well as human level, and I met a lot of incredibly inspiring people.
One of them was the amazing Leoter Viegas. Leo is one of the original founders of AIPA and also the vice-president of the organization. Towards the end of my internship, he kindly agreed to do an interview with me that I could transcribe and translate, so that more people would find out about AIPA and immigration in this very specific part of the world. I thought of a couple of questions I wanted to pose to Leo, questions that would give a good representation of who AIPA is and what they do. Below is a translation of our interaction (the original Portuguese transcript can be found here).
Leo, you are the Vice-president of the Association of Immigrants on the Azores. Can you tell us a little bit about the organization?
AIPA is an association of immigrants on the Azorean archipelago and was created in March 2003. It’s important to know that the Azores is principally a region of emigration. There are thousands of Azoreans who, primarily since the 1970s and 1980s, have emigrated to various countries – the United States, Canada, Brazil, etc. However, the Azores slowly began to receive immigrants in the 1970s.
It was in the 1980s and at the end of the 1990s that the archipelago saw a greater immigration influx because the region started to develop and a greater workforce was needed. That is why many immigrants started to enter the islands. As you know, when immigrants enter their country of destination, they bring a certain potential with them, but they face a number of integration problems as well.
With this in mind we decided to create an association in March of 2003 that could contribute to the reception and integration of foreigners that came to live on the Azores. That is how a group of people created this association of immigrants on the Azores with the mission of welcoming and integrating the immigrants that came here.
Who are the primary clients of AIPA?
Initially when we created the association we were planning to create an association for immigrants from ‘PALOPs’ on the Azores. ‘PALOP’ (Países Africanos da Língua Oficial Portuguesa) countries are African countries where Portuguese is the official language. But soon we realized that it did not make much sense to limit the association only to immigrants from PALOP countries, so we decided to open the association to all immigrants.
At that time there were many foreigners from PALOPs on the Azores, but there were also Brazilian immigrants and immigrants from Eastern European countries – many Russians, Ukrainians, and Romanians. If we created an association only for foreigners from PALOPs, we would turn our back on all other immigrants.
So we decided to open up the association. That’s why there is also a “P” in “AIPA’s” name – it stands for “PALOP” countries. Today the ‘P’ does not make sense because AIPA is an association for all immigrants on the Azores.
Our main clients are therefore all immigrants on the archipelago – all immigrants that want our support and which we are able to give our support to.
When we created the association in March 2003, three months later, in July, we signed a cooperation contract with the High Commission for Immigration, which is a national entity that coordinates all immigrant reception and integration policies in Portugal. The High Commission, alongside civic organizations and municipalities, create local support centres for immigrants. This way we were able to open the first local support centre for immigrants in July 2003 under the name CLAIM (Centro Local de Apoio à Integração de Migrantes). Five years later, in May 2008, we opened a second local immigration support centre on Terceira island in Angra de Heroísmo. And then in June of last year we created a third support centre for immigrants in Madalena on the island of Pico.
The High Commission for Migration coordinates the National Network for the Support and Integration of Migrants (RNAIM), which connects the National Centre for the Support and Integration of Migrants (CNAIM) and the Local Centres for the Support and Integration of Migrants (CLAIM).
The CLAIM are information and support offices where immigrants can receive support during their entire process of immigration and integration. CLAIM offices work closely with the various local entities, and they also promote interculturality at the local level.
The centre in Terceira is intended for immigrants from Terceira island and the other nearby islands. Similarly, the centre in São Miguel focuses on immigrants on São Miguel and on Santa Maria, and in Pico we help immigrants on Pico, Faial, São Jorge, and Graciosa. The goal is to create a network at the regional level and provide answers to immigrants not only in São Miguel but on all of the islands.
What are the most frequent issues AIPA has to deal with?
To begin with, there is the issue of legalization. Immigrants often enter Portugal with a visa that is valid for 4 months. Brazilians can also come to Portugal with a visa exemption, but this means that they can only stay for 3 months.
An immigrant’s objective is, however, to stay in Portugal to live and work, and our primary job is therefore to help these immigrants get a residence permit that legalizes their stay in the country.
Some other primary issues we face include finding employment for immigrants and providing them with access to the national health system. Other problems, for example, have to do with the child of an immigrant’s access to education or with the acquisition of Portuguese citizenship. An immigrant who has legally lived in Portugal for at least five years can apply for Portuguese citizenship. We at AIPA try to help with this process.
Lastly, we also help immigrants with submitting their annual IRS declaration (Personal Income Tax Declaration). To sum up, our aim at AIPA is to help immigrants with anything that will enable their successful integration.
What are some of the success stories of integration and immigration? How did AIPA help in the process?
Yes, there are several. One of the activities that AIPA has developed over the years is the publication of the magazine Viver Aqui and the Rumos Cruzados section in the Azorean newspaper Açoriano Oriental in which we highlight success stories of immigrants.
In these publications we always make a point of showing the success of immigration on the Azores.
Most immigrants who come to the Azores manage to get a residence permit with our help. Some of them then go on to create their own companies or businesses, and they generate wealth for the country and create jobs for other people.
There are many success stories like those, and every day we continue to be immensely proud of them.
What are the biggest obstacles faced by AIPA today?
There are a number of obstacles. Over the years we have already been able to convey to society the importance of immigration for the country and the region.
It has not always been easy making people realise this importance. It is a fact that immigrants contribute to creating wealth and social security in the country.
Every year a study is done proving that immigrants are a valuable asset to social security in Portugal. Furthermore, in 2018 a study was done saying that immigrants contributed 850,000,000 Euros to the Portuguese state that year.
Immigrants are also important for cultural diversity. In Portugal, there are people from more than 170 different countries. On the Azores alone there are people from 91 different countries. They are spread over all the islands and all the municipalities from Corvo to Santa Maria.
These people are a big asset for the country, culturally, but also in terms of raising the birth rate, in terms of sports, and in terms of creating wealth for the Azores. What we need to do is get this message across to people, to young adults, and to society as a whole. However, as mentioned, it is not always easy to make everyone understand this.
There remains a lot of prejudice against immigrants, issues of racism that need to be overcome, and there are often problems with bureaucracy as well. Some institutions simply do not know how to deal with immigration problems. Oftentimes, immigrants go to their local tax administration centre and are unable to retrieve their fiscal identification number. They face similar problems when going to the social security office. Many times immigrants also face issues when accessing health services, as hospitals are unable to provide them with adequate health care.
These are some of the major obstacles that we face and overcoming them is one of our principal roles as an organization that fights for the rights of immigrants.
What is specific about the Azores when it comes to immigration and integration compared to mainland Portugal or other countries?
In general, Portugal is a country of emigration. There are more than 5 million Portuguese people outside of Portugal. In comparison, there are about 1.5 million Azoreans living outside the Azores.
So Portugal is a country that has a lot of experience with emigration, not immigration. What’s particular about the Azores is that it is a smaller region, and there is a well-functioning network between the Azorean government, the city councils, and the various organizations on the islands. Because communication and cooperation work so well between the various entities here we do not have to face too complex immigration problems the way they do on the continent.
For example, an immigrant that comes to the Azores is able to get their residence permit much more quickly than in mainland Portugal.
Another reason for this is also the simple fact that the number of immigrants on the Azores is much lower. There are about 4480 foreign citizens from 91 different countries on the Azores. At the national level there are more than 600,000 foreigners.
It is a totally different reality, and that is why we are able to solve immigrants’ problems much faster here.
You came to the Azores at a time when it was even more closed off to the world than it is now. What kind of obstacles did you have to overcome as an immigrant back then?
I came to the Azores in 1998 to study at the University of the Azores. At that time there was effectively no organization on the Azores that supported immigrants. Neither AIPA nor any similar organization existed on the islands yet.
Back then the number of immigrants was also much lower than it is today. Nowadays, there is much more openness towards immigrants and many more entities that support them.
Nonetheless, in my particular case, I did not have any major integration problems. On one hand, I come from a country where Portuguese is the official language, São Tomé e Príncipe, and in cultural terms it is very similar to Portugal. On the other hand, I came with the status of a student, which is different from coming as an illegal immigrant or an immigrant who comes to work. It is always different. In my case, therefore, I did not face any major integration problems.
The only problem I had was the climate. São Tome has a tropical climate. During the year we have an average temperature similar to what we have in the summer – about 26 or 27 degrees. It is almost always hot. I arrived in Portugal in December, and I remember it being a very big contrast. I came from the heat to winter. This was probably the most complicated thing.
Do you think it is easier to immigrate and integrate today?
Nowadays, it is definitely easier for immigrants to successfully integrate themselves on the Azores. There are various organizations that offer support to immigrants and a public consciousness about the importance of immigration is starting to grow.
For example, people are starting to see immigration as a tool to combat the lack of workforces on the island, which is very positive. I therefore have no doubt that it is much easier for immigrants to integrate themselves here than it was 10 or 20 years ago.
How do you think the local community can contribute to the successful integration of immigrants?
The notion of community is very important here, and that is why it’s so crucial to include immigrants and bring to the fore their importance to society.
To this end we created the annual “O Mundo Aqui” festival. The “O Mundo Aqui” festival celebrates the various cultures of the immigrants and brings their traditions, their food, their dance, and music to Azorean society. The festival shows the Azorean people all that immigrants have to offer. Conversely, the festival also brings the Azorean culture to the immigrants. They can directly experience it at the festival.
We call this exchange between Azorean culture and the cultures of immigrants “interculturality”. It is essentially and interaction between different cultures. Society must be prepared to receive and integrate immigrants.
The better we can integrate immigrants, the better and the more, they can contribute to the creation of wealth in the country. An illegal immigrant who is not integrated will never be able to contribute to Portugal, neither culturally nor economically. We have to integrate immigrants well, give them all the rights they have, and make them fulfil their duties.
What is your vision for AIPA in the future? What are the organization’s plans for the future? how do you want the organization to progress?
Our vision for the future is for AIPA to become an even stronger voice for immigrants, an active interlocutor that communicates with national as well as local authorities and civic organisations.
We want to convey immigrants’ voices and opinions to the people in power and remind them to always include immigrant integration in public policies. When governments and city councils make new laws they often neglect immigrants and forget that it is crucial to include integration measures in their policies. That is why it is so important to always call these issues to the public’s attention.
We also want AIPA to continue being an organization that is always available and open for immigrants. Moving AIPA to a new space is one of priorities at the moment, as our current office is not fit for our type of work. We will fight for a new headquarters – a bigger space with better conditions for receiving immigrants. Lastly, we also want to start having a more active presence on the other islands. We have a very active presence on São Miguel, on Terceira and since 2021 on Pico as well. However, we have yet to reach Faial, the island with the second-largest number of immigrants on the Azores (around 700). We want to have a presence on the other smaller islands as well through partnerships with town councils that our workers can reach in order to help immigrants. This is our vision for the future, and I am convinced we will achieve it.
Thank you so much for your time Leo. The world needs more organizations like AIPA, and I know the organization will reach its future aims.