In 1969, then-Governor Ronald Reagan established Portuguese Immigrant Week in California.
In honor of that event San Leandro dignitaries laid a wreath at the Statue of the Portuguese Immigrant at Root Park on East 14th Street this weekend.
Present were former mayors Shelia Young, Tony Santos and Ellen Corbett, now a state senator, and current Mayor Stephen Cassidy.
The Library of Congress says the first Portuguese immigrant to San Leandro was Antonio Silva in 1861. His family settled and named Oakes Boulevard. By 1930 there were nearly 12,000 people of Portuguese descent in the city.
In 1880, Council No. 1 of the União Portuguesa do Estado da Califórnia (Portuguese Union of the State of California, U.P.E.C.) was established in San Leandro.
THE U.P.E.C. Supreme Council is still based in San Leandro.
The Frietas Library, also in San Leandro, houses one of the largest collections of Portuguese history and literature in the United States.
The library is located in the Portuguese Fraternal Society of America building at 1120 East 14th Street.
So here are four former and/or current mayors of San Leandro When do you think the city was in its prime? During one of their tenures? Or before? Or is the best yet to come?
