For most of the Portuguese in Cambridge, the plunge from the familiar rural-agricultural life of the Azores into the mainstream of Cambridge's urban and industrial environment has tremendous cultural impact. Faced with the formidable task of staying economically and socially afloat in a new and alien environment, the Portuguese are confronted with an intense ethnic identity crisis.

Marching to the beat of the traditional social and cultural mores of the homeland, they are thrust into a society that pulses with an entirely different thythm. In this conflict of cultures the Portuguese have few options for dealing with their ethnic identity crisis.

For the Portuguese the impulse to preserve familiar cultural and social traditions must be measured against the adverse effects that ethnic isolationism brings. Insulation within the Portuguese community, while providing a measure of stability and security for the Portuguese, has significant negative implications--minimizing social and economic mobility and crippling efforts at political organization.

Earlier generations of Portuguese immigrants sought to resolve the problem of ethnic identity by complete assimilation into the American mainstream. But while assimilation resolved the Portuguese identity crisis, the price paid was ethnic emasculation, as they diluted their national customs and heritage in American currents.

Today, among the Portuguese the impulse to assimilate is giving way to an increased emphasis on ethnic heritage. Among the newer Portuguese immigrants, pride in national origin and customs is replacing the impulse to Americanize.

Maurino Costa, who came to the United States in 1966, says, "I have learned [since coming here] that sometimes people have been ashamed that they are not from the United States. Today everyone is a little more proud. I think for ourselves we must keep the good things that we have. The 'mixing pot' ideal is not good. We can gain from living in the United States, but we have something to offer too. Everything should not be put in the 'mixing pot' and come out the same."

Many of the younger Portuguese, like Madalena Barboza, who came to Cambridge in 1961 when she was nine years old, flatly reject assimilation as a solution to ethnic identity problems. "We should de-emphasize the ideal of Americanization," Barboza says. "If I'm going to be called anything, I'd like to be called Portuguese, because I don't believe in giving up a nationality and taking on another one. There is no American heritage. I feel that I would be giving up something by becoming American."

Ruben Cabral, executive director of the Cambridge Organization of Portuguese Americans (COPA) points out that ethnic identity is of fundamental importance to the Portuguese in this country. "It is important to preserve your own heritage," Cabral says, "for if you lose your heritage you lose yourself. We have to keep our own things that can identify us. The Portuguese can become anything. They have shown a tremendous facility for adopting other cultures. To preserve our culture we have to have a very strong emphasis on what it is to be Portuguese."

The founding of COPA in 1970 was largely influenced by the question of ethnic identity, especially in its effect on politics. "The whole thing [COPA] developed out of black awareness," Aurelio Torres, a former director of COPA, says. "A lot was being said about black awareness at the time--we wanted to raise Portuguese awareness."

The goals of COPA are two-fold: The organization seeks to raise Portuguese consciousness and to employ this awareness in Cambridge politics. "We are trying to educate the Portuguese community in being Portuguese," Cabral says. "We want to get people not to be ashamed of being Portuguese. We are trying to become united so that political gains can be made. We should get into the American society as Portuguese."

The unification of the Portuguese community in Cambridge has been a less-than-successful undertaking for the COPA organizers. The pressures to assimilate, though declining, are still strong in the Cambridge Portuguese community, and these forces have hampered COPA's efforts to foster Portuguese ethnic identity and political organization.

The Portuguese in Cambridge have not wholly been able to reconcile the warring impulses towards assimilation on one hand and ethnic identity on the other. Precariously balanced between cultures, the Portuguese are forced to walk a tightrope of assimilation over an ethnic no-man's land. While the Portuguese have become increasingly aware of the tangible rewards for ethnic awareness, the forces of assimilation into American society still threaten to engulf them.

"The Portuguese are now where the Irish and Italians were at the turn of the century," Cabral says. "They are searching for an identity. Up to now the Portuguese have taken on the character of the community they were in. The present is a unique time for the Portuguese. They are still trying to get where they want to be."

The irony of COPA's predicament is a sad one for the Portuguese people in Cambridge. For while COPA has based its campaign of political mobilization on the issues of ethnic identity and national pride, their major obstacle has been the heritage of oppression and forced non-involvement that the Portuguese bring with them from Portugal.

Vasco Caetano came to Cambridge three years ago from southern Portugal for political reasons. Unlike Caetano most Portuguese in Cambridge come from the Azores, where economic, not political, issues are felt most acutely,