Familiar experiences among continents (Portugal – Africa – Brazil)

The political movements and the colonial war in Portuguese colonies in Africa in the 1970s were fundamental in determining migration to Sao Paulo (Brazil), of Portuguese settlers and their descendants born in African soil. We seek to understand these migratory flows and its interference in family experiences using oral histories of immigrants, with the addition of other sources.  In the case of these immigrants, there was crossed, into their stories, very different experiences of socio-cultural contexts: 1) their belong to the families of Portuguese origin, with the Portuguese colonial context as a reference; 2) the context of African experience, considering that many individuals were born in Africa; and 3) the context of insertion in the state of Sao Paulo. This paper will explore the complex experiences of displacement and integration in the new context and conflicts that this migration process and will put the new experiences of these immigrants: men and women, adults, youth and children. The narratives allow the apprehension of complex family dynamics in the displacements. We verify the conditions for the arrival of Portuguese settlers to African territories and the experiences of generations and immigration to Brazil. We observed the frequent separations in the immigration process and the constitution of families with different “cohabitation” in Portugal, in Africa, and in Brazil. The displacements from Africa towards São Paulo in the 1970s involved the formation of “intercontinental” and mutant families, formed in each context by different participants. The reports make reference to absence of relatives, the meetings and mismatches, to living in long-distance. The displacements did not end for the most part of the families. There is still a constant flow among Portugal, Africa and Brazil; permeating these flows, there are economic, political, and sentimental reasons, which approach/separate individuals from different contexts.