AEMI

SUSANA CASCAO
Conclusions: Building Bridges
Between the Community and Host
Society
It is undeniable that foreigners play a
key role in Luxembourgish society, if
they were not yet granted the right to
participate in general elections they will
with certainty over the generations to
come become Luxembourg’s future citizens.
Contacto’s promotion of the interaction
and mutual knowledge between
both the Portuguese speaking communities
and the host society is a palpable
demonstration of its intercultural efforts.
In view of the central role media
play in this particular interpretation of
integration, we consider that Contacto
is indeed a platform where intercultural
media integration has been taking place
for decades. A limitation to this study
lies, however, in the difficulty 13 of verifying,
in parallel, how politics and
mainstream media in Luxembourg have
acted to put the same model into practice.
A comparison between Contacto
and mainstream media sources would
have certainly contributed to a deeper
understanding of the role intercultural
media plays in current processes of integration.
In Contacto’s approach to the promotion
of intercultural integration, we can
trace various features of both a political
and a cultural nature. On the political
level, we can point to the call for dual
nationality, the insistence on the need
for participation in both municipal
and general elections, and the raising
of awareness on the rights of workers
through the 40 year presence of the
Trade Union LCGB in its pages. These
cannot be but an expression of desirable
197
intercultural dynamics and highlight an
approach that presumes an ideal interaction
between minorities, organisations
and Institutions of the host country.
As for politically related landmark contents,
they featured as early as 1979,
with the coverage of parliamentary Luxembourgish
elections, or the first of the
interviews with Jean-Claude Juncker
(then prime minister of Luxembourg).
On the cultural level, efforts were
taken to promote intercultural integration,
as seen through the above-mentioned
first editorial by Huss and Pina
expressing the wish to establish bridges
between the Portuguese and the Luxembourgish
community. As well, there
have been numerous weekly articles on
historic and cultural aspects of Luxembourg,
and consistent coverage of matters
relating to inter-ethnic relations. 14
As the leading Portuguese-language
newspaper in Luxembourg, Contacto
has assumed that dual role of providing
space to the group for the expression of
its language and culture, while simultaneously
acting as facilitator upon the
settling in a new country, throughout
four decades of existence. It has been
the guardian of the mother tongue, promoting
the affection bonds and practices
that unite every immigrant with
his own roots without however having
gone down the road of ‘ghettoization’.
The analysis of 40 years of publications
shows that the newspaper has not been
at risk of promoting a marginalization
of the Portuguese community in Luxembourg,
rather the opposite. Findings
revealed that although concerned with
keeping strong links with its mother
tongue and culture, and in perpetuating
some Portuguese traditions, it was not