A brilliant mind, quick-witted, critical, and wise. A magnificent heart overflowing with love. An open, wide, and captivating smile. A vibrant, positive, and venerable aura. That was Clara Angélica Porto Caskey.
There are magnificent qualities of human beings that are rarely found in the same person. It is rare, for example, to have a pure and limpid soul and also be angelic at the same time. This rarity did not apply to Clara Angélica Porto Caskey. In her very name she carried candor, wisdom, beauty, the grandeur of angels, and that is why she was the Porto of so many people. In Clara, it was easy to identify the best that life has to offer: warmth, a smile, simplicity, and erudition.
The month was January, the year was 2008, the city was New York, the neighborhood was Little Brazil, on 46th Street, in the middle of Times Square, and the newspaper was The Brasilians.
It was there that I met Clarinha, or, for me, Claríssima.
While pursuing a master’s degree in journalism at New York University, I wanted to connect with the Brazilian community in the region and sought an internship at the Brasilians newspaper.
I got the position with the then editor-in-chief, Edilberto Mendes, and received from Clara, at the time editor of the English section of the publication, that unique Sergipe-style hug and smile that I will never forget.
A few months later, I was given by Edilberto Mendes the position as the associated editor of the Portuguese section of The Brasilians.
Under the competent guidance of Mendes, Clara Angélica Porto and I edited the newspaper with Mendes for eight years. During this time, a journalist with a keen sense of investigation, poetic flair, and commitment, I saw that Clara dedicated herself to the newsroom as a mother dedicates herself to her children.
Astute, she made news and entertainment journalism a true mission of dedication, engagement, and zeal for the profession, always treating the newspaper’s reader like a precious stone.
In this immersive and transformative way, with care, with impeccably written texts in English, Clarinha brought to the readers so many interviews with personalities, authorities, artists, information about the cultural calendar of the Big Apple, critical and elaborate editorials, and political analyses that covered the lives of presidents, consuls, ambassadors, and, more importantly, the lives of immigrants from the Brazilian community in the United States.
Uncompromising in her pursuit of quality, impartial, and independent journalism, Clara Angélica Porto Caskey made research and the search for news a pleasurable and touching endeavor that made history and left its mark on the newsroom of The Brasilians, a publication founded in 1972 by Jota Alves and published for decades after by businessman João de Matos, a personal friend of Clara.
With the rigor of journalistic textual elegance, Clara once taught me: “Fabres, take a look at this article (she had written the text in English but spoke with me in Portuguese), do you find there’s any grammar err (cabelim de sapo)?” I read the article, reread it, and made two or three changes, and suggestions common to editors.
Our Claríssima, with her own editing’s protests was clear: “Fabres, you didn’t find even a single run-on and improved what wasn’t good? I’m going to rewrite everything.” We laughed a lot about that.
The Brasilians Newspaper joins countless others in paying tribute to its unforgettable English-section editor, who contributed impeccably to the improvement of the paper, the expansion of its readership, and the milestones of the fundamental principles of ethical and professional journalism that have always guided the publication and Claríssima herself.
We’ll always love you, Claríssima
FABRÍCIO SILVA
Journalist