User:Sanfy/3

Ethnic identity
The Roman Catholics from the state of Goa, a region on the west coast of India, and their descendants are generally referred as Goan Catholics. After the Portuguese possession of Goa in 1510, the Portuguese consolidated their power by imposing their own Government and cultural institutions in Goa. After conversion to Roman Catholicism, the Goan Catholics were granted Portuguese citizenship. The Goan Catholics always enjoyed the legal status of Portuguese citizenship thereafter. As Portuguese citizens, Goan Catholics were given the status of "protected subjects" while at the same time they were excluded from the right to vote and from attending Government sessions.

On 3 February 1951, to avert international criticism, Portugal amended her Constitution to declare Goa as an overseas province of Portugal. Being an overseas province of Portugal, the Goan Catholics enjoyed the official rights as Portuguese citizens. After Goa was integrated into the Indian Union in 1961, the Goan Catholics, who had identified themselves with Portugal and Portuguese culture, did not fully integrate with Indian culture. During the first post-Liberation years from Portuguese rule, they found it difficult to embrace the term "Indian". They monopolized more on the term "Goan", which had a dual meaning of "part Indian, yet different from Indians". However, the contemprorary generation consider themselves culturally "Indian" first.

Under Portuguese law, Goans born before 1961, when Portugal's rule over Goa ended, and their children and grandchildren are entitled to Portuguese citizenship. During the late 1800s they started an emigration of a large scale of the community to Bombay in search of greener pastures. At the time Bombay was governed by the British Empire, and learnt the existance of an another native Roman Catholic community, the East Indian Catholics or better known East Indians were already resided in Bombay. Owing to the fact that the East Indian, Goan and Mangalorean Catholic communites were converted to Christianity by the Portuguese, the Bristhers referred them as "Portuguese Christians", and as the East Indian Catholics in those days mostly came from a poor fisher folk background, the Goan Catholics remained aloof from them and considered themselves having a superior identity. However in present day Mumbai they have ward of all their cultural differences and share the same churches and attend many of the same religious functions.

Popular Culture
Goan Catholics have been a part of many Bollywood (Hindi cinema) films owing to their musical skills. They are seen in many films imporsonating Goan Catholic families and are speak Hindi in the Goan accent.


 * In 1977, Amitabh Bachchan potrayed a child (Anthony Gonzalves) adopted by a Goan Catholic priest in the Bollywood film Amar Akbar Anthony. My Name Is Anthony Gonzalves a song in the film in which he of an Easter egg as yesteryear star Kishore Kumar became a hit. The character was based on Anthony Gonsalves, a Goan Catholic, Indian musical composer and teacher from the village of Majorda (near Margao in Goa, India) who, during the mid-1950s, attempted to merge the symphonies of the Goan Catholic heritage with the Hindustani melodies and rhythms in films of the day.
 * Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s film Khamoshi: The Musical, centred on the tragedy of a Goan Catholic family of deaf-and-mute parents with a normal daughter who falls in love with a Hindu boy.
 * Josh (2000 film): Set against the backdrop of Goa and Goan Catholic culture, Josh is a story about energy, youth, love and the zest for life. Max (ShahRukh Khan), a cool Goan Catholic dada, is the leader of the Eagle gang, which is constantly up in arms with the new inhabitants of the town of Vasco, Prakash (Sharad Kapoor), and his pack of the Bichhu gang. The two gangs revel in this enmity and love to showoff their strength to each other. Max's twin sister is Shirley (Aishwarya Rai), who is also a Goan Catholic.
 * My Name Is Anthony Gonsalves (film): Many characters in this movie of Goan Catholic lineage; there is the hero himself (Anthony) of course, an orphan taken in by mobster Sikander (Malhotra), and Anthony’s friend Mike, a petty thief.
 * In the film Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd., Boman Irani plays Oscar Fernandez, a Goan Catholic and his wife Naheed (Shabana Azmi) who have just recently married. They are middle-aged and the target of constant mocking from everyone else. However, they intend on having a great journey and not be bothered by their difficult pasts. This is their second marriage.
 * In the film Golmaal Returns, Gopal (Ajay Devgan) ends up getting stuck on yacht after saving a woman named Meera (Celina Jaitley) from some gangsters and when he returns home his wife Ekta (Kareena Kapoor) begins to suspect him. So he lies and says that he was stuck with a friend fictious friend "Anthony Gonsalves". Trouble comes when the actual Anthony Gonsalves (Vrajesh Hirjee) and his wife Julie (Rakhi Tandon), a Goan Catholic couple turn up.