The Heart & Hustle of Portugal

Filipe Santos, a Portuguese-American entrepreneur born in Newark, hrecounts a path that began in the tight-knit Portuguese community of his childhood and passed through more than a decade of heroin addiction. Listen to “The Heart & Hustle of Portugal”.

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Trained as a translator and interpreter, Rita Barros came to photography almost by accident. It began with a Tom Waits concert, where she took photographs that turned out overexposed but salvageable, and which she ended up selling to a journalist when the singer had banned the press. From there came years of concert photography, developing film in her own kitchen and delivering prints by noon the next day, before she tired of a competitive, largely male environment. Of all the musicians she photographed, she singles out Iggy Pop as the most generous subject. Her work turned to the Chelsea itself, with the book “Chelsea Hotel. 15 Years”, dedicated to her neighbors, followed by self-portraits and self-published handmade books.

Rita Barros also recalls the 11 years she and other long-term tenants fought the hotel's new owners to stay, a battle she won, even if she admits the Chelsea Hotel of today has lost much of its earlier character. She now teaches photography at NYU, where she notes growing student interest in analog film, and keeps close ties to Portugal, with regular stays, exhibitions and books. “I don't have to decide whether I'm one or the other, I'm both”, she says, naming warmth as the defining trait of the Portuguese and recommending, for Lisbon, a beer at a garden kiosk, with nothing to avoid.

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After working at the Portuguese mission to the United Nations and trying out journalism, Ana Miranda decided, in 2011, to build something of her own: a platform to show contemporary Portuguese culture abroad, starting with a short film festival she funded out of her own salary.

Fifteen years later, the organization has taken more than 1,500 Portuguese artists to stages in 37 countries, from Saramago Week and Pessoa in New York to dance programs at Alvin Ailey and a film festival now in its 16th edition. Ana Miranda says the lack of institutional recognition from Portugal remains her biggest frustration. Public support, she notes, has barely changed, and funding came first from companies such as EDP. She argues that culture should be treated as investment, not charity, and points to Brazil, whose telenovelas, music and cinema built its international image, as proof.

The conversation also takes in what Miranda calls a Portuguese habit of envy and self-criticism, a theme she links to the treatment of Cristiano Ronaldo, to whom she says the country owes much of its global visibility. Her view is that the diaspora, with the perspective that distance brings, has a role in pushing Portugal to see its own potential. She names resourcefulness, the Portuguese knack for “making do”, as the defining national trait. Her advice to those chasing a dream is simple: know what the dream is, and the energy follows.

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Joey Bats put pastéis de nata on the map in NYC, and he did it by refusing to sell people a history lesson. He'd never cooked a day in his life. Engineer, corporate job, bored out of his mind. He got his mother's Bolo de Bolacha recipe first, sold it door to door to restaurants and bodegas, then switched to pastéis de nata because they freeze and travel. Early on, giving away free samples on the street, people heard "Portuguese pastry" and walked. It doesn't look like much. Nobody knew what it was.

Then Joey changed the pitch. He stopped mentioning Portugal. He told people to imagine a warm creme brulee wrapped in a croissant. That one sentence took him from selling a few to selling thousands.

But the bigger opportunity was never inside the diaspora. Joey has a theory about why Portuguese food stayed invisible in America - Portuguese immigrants came to New York, then left for Long Island and New Jersey, away from the cities that shape what the country eats. New York has more Ethiopian restaurants getting written up than Portuguese ones, and there are hundreds of thousands of Portuguese people around this city. Joey built his shops in exactly the cities with that kind of exposure, on purpose.

Ten years, a pandemic, an outdoor shed he built himself with no permit, and now a shop in Boston already doing the same daily numbers his original Chelsea Market spot did on day one.

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Chef Nuno Sousa reflects on his journey from immigrant worker with three jobs to restaurant owner, and on how New York’s culture of resilience, risk-taking and reinvention shaped both his career and his outlook.

The conversation traces the growth of Leitao from a street-food concept inspired by New York’s Smorgasburg market to a restaurant that introduced many American diners to Portuguese dishes such as leitão, francesinha, bacalhau and octopus. Sousa discusses the challenges of presenting Portuguese food outside Portugal, the importance of quality ingredients and hospitality, and the opportunity created by the growing international interest in Portuguese culture, tourism and gastronomy.

Sousa also looks ahead to Galo, his new restaurant project, which aims to showcase Portugal’s regional wines and culinary traditions in a more ambitious setting. Throughout the conversation, he reflects on identity, migration and the values he associates with the Portuguese community: resilience, courage and hard work. The result is a portrait of an entrepreneur using food as a way to represent Portugal on one of the world's most competitive culinary stages.

The synopsis of this episode was created with the help of AI. Read more about Impresa’s use of Artificial Intelligence

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Hayden Inacio grew up in Modesto, California — Central Valley, agricultural, working class. His grandfather emigrated from Terceira in the Azores, came through the East Coast, and eventually built a dairy. By the time Hayden came along, the Portuguese was mostly gone: no language, not much culture, just a last name and a grandmother's saying that would end up in a song.

He started rapping at 13. At 16, he was in a near-fatal car crash that killed two people, broke his back, left him on life support for six days, and eventually produced “29” — written from a hospital bed, recorded before he could walk properly, and the song that launched everything. A billion streams, three albums, and a platinum plaque later, he walked into an IPMA pre-party in Providence not really thinking of himself as Portuguese. He left with an award, a cousin pointing at a photo of his avô, and a challenge to record something in the language his mother decided not to teach him.

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Richie Campbell went to Jamaica at 18 with one contact and no plan. He printed out Patois lyrics at school to learn the language. He learned to compete in Kingston studios before Portugal fully understood what he was building. Speaking with Tony Gonçalves, one idea prevails: Portugal gave him roots, Jamaica gave him meaning.

His new album is called Elephant in the Room. This is the conversation behind it, recorded live on location at the IPMA.

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Nuno Seixas, 24, grew up in Sintra and attended the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston. When he came back, he didn’t only bring his music: he brought a bench, a camera and a simple request: sit down and share what’s going on in your life. The project “Everyubody’s Going Throug Something” took him through the streets of New York, Pittsburgh or Los Angeles. Nuno believes that behind every face there is a story that needs to be told.

His grandfather hooked him on Frank Sinatra, he took saxophone lessons at 14 and a friend convinced him to submit his application to Berklee. He shared writing sessions with producers that worked with Ed Sheeran (one of his idols), Nina Nesbitt or Shawn Mendes. This year, he recieved the award for Best Videoclip at the IPMA, a notification he recieved in his pajamas, about to go to bed. Nuno is not looking for fame, instead, he is looking for light, hoping that his music reaches someone that needs it. That might be a simple ambition, but it’s the simplest things that touch us more dearly.

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Winning two IPMA awards back to back is reserved only for the best. Mackenzie Arromba has done it at only 25. Even more impressive, her first award was for the very first song she wrote: “hate myself for loving you”. Before the stage, before the photos, before the fame, was a young girl sitting on her bedroom floor turning pain into melody.

Music has been a part of Mackenzie’s life since she was four years old. She recalls how a viewing of “The Phantom of the Opera” turned her into a child who sang everywhere: hockey rinks, grocery stores and, eventually, jazz speakeasies when she was only 7. Songwriting came much later, born after a series of mental health struggles and a relestless search for purpose after leaving university. A chance connection led her to meet Steve Molella, drumme for the canadian band Finger Eleven.

At her core, Mackenzie writes to make people feel less alone — and it shows. She describes herself as a vessel when creating. With the instincts of a true artist and the honesty of someone who has lived through real darkness, Mackenzie Arromba is only getting started.

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He started with a camera, a kitchen, and a mission. Dave, the creator behind “How to Cook Stuff”, has built one of the most-watched Portuguese food and culture channels on the internet by doing something deceptively simple: teaching people how to cook Portuguese food in English, with humor, warmth, and an unshakeable love for his heritage. But what looks effortless online is the result of years of consistency, thick skin, and a clear sense of purpose.

We sat down with Dave at the International Portuguese Music Awards, where he was honored as a representative of Portuguese American culture, a recognition that speaks directly to what he has built. Because this was never just about recipes. It was always about identity.

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