The President of the Government has sent congratulatory message to Luiz Antônio de Assis Brasil, who has just entered into office as Secretary of State for Culture of Rio Grande do Sul.
“Being the first person of Azorean descent to hold the position of Secretary of State for Culture, this achievement fill us with justifiable pride and remarkably consolidates our conviction that the Azores, for their History, their people and their indelible presence in the world, are far greater than the small territory confined by geography textbooks,” Carlos César wrote...
The President of the Government added to “our feeling of joy, the certainty that, from now on, the Secretary of State will further reinforce the already valuable contribution to the strengthening of ties that link the Azores to Rio Grande do Sul either with his work “Um quarto de Légua em Quadro” - which recovered the memory of Azorean couples of the 18th century – or with the permanent attention that he has dedicated to Azorean politics and culture, which he has tirelessly defend among the Brazilian media.”
One should remind that approximately sixty Azorean couples arrived in Rio Grande do Sul in 1748 with the purpose of populating the territory, thereby; consolidating the Portuguese presence in Southernmost Brazil in a saga whose history has been recovered by researchers from both sides of the Atlantic.
Assis Brasil, writer and senior professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, whose ancestors from Terceira Island took part in the aforementioned colonisation, is one of the most committed promoters of this historical event, having dedicated to it the book “Um Quarto de Légua em Quadro,” which was made into a film titled “Diário de um “Novo Mundo.”