Today, August 9, is Singapore's National Day. The country is celebrating 59 years of independence a few days before the close of the 2024 Olympic Games. The Singaporean athletes who made it to Paris included Veronica Shanti Pereira, one of the top hopefuls who was ranked 1st in Asia in 2023 by World Athletics for both the 100m and 200m sprint.
Pereira suffered a leg bone injury a few months ago and took a few weeks to recover before restarting training. Unfortunately this might have meant she wasn't in her top form as she didn't qualify for the semi-finals of both the 100m and 200m sprints.
For the readers of this blog, Veronica Shanti's last name might have caught their eye: Pereira is a clearly Portuguese last name that means 'pear tree'. Pereira's father, Clarence, was born in Kerala, India, before moving to Singapore as a months-old baby. Kerala is an Indian state along the Malabar Coast which includes the city of Kozhikode. Formerly known as Calicut, this is where the Portuguese first arrived in India in 1498, when Vasco da Gama's expedition sailed from Europe and rounded the Cape of Good Hope in southern Africa to reach the Indian Ocean. Although the Portuguese presence in India was later centred on Goa to the north in the Konkan region, there remain many traces of their influence in Kerala, also known as Malabar. A earlier blog post provides more details.
Clarence Pereira identifies ethnically as Malayalee (i.e. from Kerala) rather than Eurasian, but his daughter Shanti is still celebrated by the Eurasian community in Singapore. Shanti is personally a proud Singaporean, but her last name is a gentle reminder not only of the diversity that makes up the 59-year-old nation of Singapore, but also of the enduring traces of the historical Portuguese presence across Asia.
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