BRANCHBURG, NJ: “Share Their Story” Project highlights Portugal’s 25 de Abril

All 7th grade students at Branchburg Central Middle School participated in the “Share Their Story” Project. The main objective was for students to experience how stories shared by a single person’s perspective can help us to meaningfully connect and relate to history.

The project was about the sharing of wisdom, gratitude, and respect across generations.

Students had a chance to discover the history of their own family through an interview and honor their elders through the act of listening. From these interviews, students selected a topic, historical person, or event to research for your “Share Their Story” Project, which culminated with an open-house on April 17th to share what they learned with the community.

Daniel Warren interviewed his Aunt Gina to learn more about why his Mother’s Family emigrated from Portugal to the United States.

He researched the statistics of Portuguese immigrants to the United States and the process of obtaining a US green card.

During the interview Daniel was also very intrigued to learn that Portugal had a dictator Salazar. Tomorrow marks Portugal’s 50th Anniversary of “25 de Abril” known as the Carnation Revolution. Daniel learned about the history of Portugal and the regime under Salazar that finally ended in 1974 with a military coup.

A few other students also honored their Portuguese family roots.

Thor Solberg interviewed his grandmother of Portuguese descent. Tiago Santos interviewed his father that is from Brazil and his mother is from Portugal.

This project was very rewarding for the students, family members that were honored to be interviewed as well as the community that was able to visit and view the many posters from across the world.