VOLTA Portugal - Paperback

by Brad Angeja (Author)

In the waning months of World War II, a worker falls from the scaffolds of Richmond Shipyard #2. His orphaned son is sent to the crowded home of Portuguese immigrants. Against a backdrop of family battles, three American wars, and a Portuguese revolution, they struggle to keep their heritage alive for the future while leaving its scars in the past.

Volta Portugal is a vivid historical record of the San Francisco Bay Area in the 20th Century, a folkloric dance through places and events where immigrants cling to their roots and discover what it means to be American. And where an immigrant son might outgrow the pockmarked violence of his upbringing to discover what it means to be a father himself.

Brad Angeja's grandparents immigrated from Portugal in the early 1900s. He grew up in Portuguese-American communities of the San Francisco Bay Area, including the East Bay where he was born. After studying English Literature and Portuguese Language at UCLA, he returned home to earn his medical degree in San Francisco, where he lives with his wife and two children and is a practicing cardiologist.