On 22 November 1963 the United States of America mourned the death of one of its most beloved presidents, John F Kennedy. The president was assassinated in Dallas in the state of Texas. John F Kennedy was president of the USA and he and his administration faced great moments such as the Cuban missile crisis, the building of the Berlin wall by the Soviets, the beginning of the space race and the Vietnam war, as well as the Civil Rights Movement.
On 27 September 1957 the Capelinhos volcano erupted on Faial and lasted a total of 13 months. Kennedy, not as president but as a senator, contributed immensely to the Azorean Refugee Act’s passage through the US Congress.
In the first phase, the Capelinhos volcano’s ashes did great damage to agriculture, which was the island’s most important economic activity. Later the seismic crises destroyed many houses and made many people homeless. At this time many Azorean and Portuguese emigrants sent large amounts of goods such as food and clothes to Faial to help the victims of the volcano and pressured the American authorities to help the Faialese. Clair Engle, Democratic Senator for California was the first politician to suggest American aid to Faial.
The AzoreanRefugeeAct was a law passed by US President Eisenhower on September 2, 1958, it became Public-Law 85-892 and allowed the issuance of 1500 visas to people from Portugal due to the natural disasters in Faial. One of the people who most contributed to this law was John F Kennedy, Democratic Senator for Massachusets, John Pastore, Democratic Senator for Rhode Island, and other members of the American Congress and people from the Azorean and Portuguese community in the USA.
Fonte da informação: MARCOS, Daniel, The Capelinhos Eruption – Window of Opportunity for Azorean Emigration, Gávea-Brown Publications, 2008.
Last modified: 15 de November, 2021
