Luso Americano awarded Ethnic and Community Media Lifetime Award

On Thursday, February 6th the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University held its inaugural NJ Ethnic and Community Media Celebration and Awards luncheon.  The ceremony recognized the excellence and contributions of the Garden State’s more than 145 ethnic and community news outlets – print, online, broadcast and social media.

The luncheon opened with a fireside chat with Mazin Sidahmed, co-executive director of Documented and talks with key legislators.  The event concluded with community awards, honoring and celebrating excellence in journalism and community engagement.

The Ethnic & Community Media Lifetime Award honors an outstanding ethnic and community news outlet that has significantly contributed to its community and played a pivotal role in advancing community engagement and development over many years. The three finalists for this year’s award were: The Ukrainian Weekly (Est. 1933), Luso Americano (Est. 1928) and Nowy Dziennik (Est. 1971).

The inaugural Media Lifetime Award was presented to Luso Americano.  In accepting the award on behalf of Luso Americano, Paul Matinho offered the following remarks:

“On behalf of my family, the staff and correspondents of Luso Americano it is an honor to receive the Ethnic and Community Media Lifetime Award from the Center for Cooperative Media.

The name of our newspaper, ‘“’Luso Americano’, means ‘Portuguese American’. This includes immigrants and those born in the U.S. who trace their origins to continental Portugal, Madeira Island or the Azores Islands. The term ‘Luso’ is a latin prefix referring to Portugal or more specifically to ‘Lusitania’, the name of Portugal during the Roman Empire.

The history of the Luso Americano Newspaper is inseparable from the history of the Ironbound section of Newark, New Jersey. However, the story of the Luso Americano starts in Fall River, Massachusetts when a 20 year old immigrant from Madeira Island landed there in June 1920. His name was Vasco Jardim. After studying graphic arts Mr. Jardim purchased an old rotary printing press in Boston and began his printing and journalism career. During the 1920’s Vasco Jardim gained hands on experience working on several Portuguese language newspaper projects in Massachusetts while also contributing to an American newspaper, the Fall River Globe. 

Meanwhile in Newark, NJ a group of Portuguese-American businessmen which included a university professor, a medical doctor and two local merchants decided that the growing Portuguese community in Newark needed a newspaper of its own.  The group persuaded Vasco Jardim to leave Massachusetts and join them in founding the fledgling newspaper, Luso Americano. So in 1928, Mr. Jardim brought his rotary printing press with him when he moved from Fall River, Massachusetts to Newark, NJ.  He sold the printing press to the newly formed Luso Americano and ran the newspaper operation from day one.

At the time of the Luso Americano’s founding in 1928 there were approximately 6,000 Portuguese in New Jersey. Many of those Portuguese immigrants did not come directly from Portugal; they were former textile workers from New England who were forced to leave when the textile industry collapsed in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Capitalizing on this influx of new immigrants into New Jersey and the neighboring states of New York and Pennsylvania, Vasco Jardim resurrected the Luso Americano newspaper in 1939 after the presses fell silent during the Great Depression.

The Portuguese communities in the U.S. continued to grow as a result of new immigration in the late 1950’s and 1960’s.  In 1979, Vasco Jardim’s son-in-law, Antonio Matinho took over ownership of Luso Americano. Mr. Matinho expanded the newspaper’s print circulation throughout the United States. The newspaper soon had correspondents in every significant Portuguese community from New England to Florida to California. Over the years, the Luso Americano established a national network of local reporters who really cared about the economic and social development of their respective communities.

In keeping with the new technologies that are becoming mainstream in today’s society, the Luso Americano recently expanded its media presence from print into broadcast journalism. Last month LusoAmericano TV was launched in Portuguese with daily news updates and a weekly in-depth broadcast on Saturday evenings.

Whether in print, online or TV, the LusoAmericano will continue to provide information in Portuguese about our community’s associations, commercial life, traditions, festive celebrations, community events and other activities.  We will continue to inform our readers and viewers about life in the U.S., including important labor and legal issues that directly impact them.“