There were several evangelical groups wherever there was a Brazilian community. In the summer of 2000, as soon as I arrived in Newark from Australia, I didn't know what to do. I went to several Brazilian stores to see if I could ge information on how to find accommodation, but I was treated coldly by every Brazilian I met on the streets of the Ironbound. It was a Sunday afternoon, and I kept walking along Ferry Street with my backpack on my back. Suddenly a young Brazilian man, standing on a corner, gave me an evangelical pamphlet in Portuguese and we started talking. I told him I had just arrived and needed some accomodation badly. He was friendly and ready to help me. He actually took me to some Portuguese or Hispanic guesthouses but there were no vacancies. He felt sorry he wasn't much of a help to me. and warned me to keep my eyes open and not fall into the trap of bad company and enter the world of drugs. It must have been the drama of his life until he found refuge in an evangelical Church. If only he knew I had already been there and done that
Dejected about not finding living quarters, I was on the verge of going back to Manhattan when I hit the jackpot. I entered a Brazilian store called “Vem Q Tem”, on Merchant Street, just off Ferry Street, close to St. Stephen's, talked to a Brazilian shop-assistant at the counter and miraculously I ended up making friends with him. Carlos was his name. He was very friendly and forthcoming. I thought he'd be my age but he told me he had been born in 1959, which made him 10 years younger than myself. Carlos was born in Penha, an eastern suburb of São Paulo and migrated to the US in 1979, when he was 20 years old. He had lived in Newark first, and moved to Florida after a few years where he became a taxi driver. When his two kids were about to become adults Carlos divorced his wife and came back north to Newark, and kept on working as a taxi driver.
As the twilight approached, the end of another business Sunday, Carlos shut the store and we went out together. Carlos intended to find me accomodation near where he lived so he took me to 2-story house on New York Avenue. He spoke to Nelly, real name: Rubmela, an old Chilean woman, and she immediately agreed to sub-let me a room next to hers and her boyfriend Gordon, who she called ‘Gordo’. I was really happy to be back in the heart of the Ironboud, a place in which I had been very happy at the height of my youth. I still think we did the right thing when we decided to migrate to a foreign country, especially the USA in our youth.
I hardly believed my luck when I finally went to bed on that Sunday night. I hadn't slept on a bed for many days since I had flown out of Sydney, to Tokyo and then a non-stop flight to New York City. I was happy to be able to fall asleep in the Ironbound again after all those years.
As soon as Monday came, I got up, went out and walked down Ferry Street again just like I had done 29 years before. It was so good to be back there in 2000. I walked down New York Avenue every day with a smile on my lips again. I found out about Newark's Public Library branch on 140 Van Buren Street and started using their public computer. They had only two of them, so after a few enquiries I realized I could use the facilities of the Main Library on 5 Washington Street, opposite Military Park where they had many computers and one didn't have to wait in a queue to use them.
I made a habit of walking all the way to the Newark Public Library, almost every day. Sometimes I stopped at Pennsylvania Railroad station, took a PATH train to Manhattan, where I walked until I dropped. And just like the Rodgers & Hart song I was able to turn Manhattan into an isle of joy. New York is a fascinating city, and I enjoyed myself exceedingly during the several weeks of the summer of 2000. My great disappointment was to find 42nd Street completely transformed. My heart ached when I realized Neo-Liberalism had destroyed the place we loved so much in the 70s.
In addition to this service, there are dozens of international calling cards for sale at newsstands or stores. It's a plastic card like our phone cards, where you scratch a certain place and a number appears. You then call that number and is able to talk to another country for one hour. Cards cost $5 to $10 and are of varying quality. Some can only be used once. Others may be used for several calls until you use up the time specified in it.
It's interesting how conservative Americans are in their habits. You well know that they never adapted to the Decimal System. Because to this day they use the so-called “Imperial measurements”: miles, feet, yards, pounds, pints, quarters, acres, etc. No matter how hard they try, they cannot change the habits of these people. Because to this day they still use coins to call on pay-phones. There is still no calling card like the rest of the world. The United States is so advanced in some aspects and so behind in others.
I intended to stay in Newark for as long as I could, but after a few weeks I had to return to São Paulo, as my mother wasn't feeling well, but thank God, it was just a scare and she turned out to be fine.
After returning to São Paulo, I found out that a friend of mine, called Marcelo, who coincidentally is from Guarulhos, went to “try his chance” in the United States and settled in Massachusetts. He called me one day and said he had a job for me there; I wanted to get on a plane immediately. I didn't think twice, even though it was already October... you know how Autumn-Winter is there. From New York I took a bus to Boston (it takes about 4 hours) and from there I took a train heading south, which takes 1 hour to Plymouth, a small town on the coast, close to what they call Cape Cod. Plymouth is the oldest city in the United States; It was there that the Mayflower ship landed in 1622.
I always wanted to visit Boston; since 1972, as I had met Brazilians in Newark who had escaped from immigration there, and spoke very highly of where they had come from. In fact MA is where the salary is the highest; much better than NY and NJ. I ended up going to work at a local Kmart, as a night “restocker”. It was very interesting because it was there that I met the new Generation of Brazilians, as I worked with about 20 of them. And I was shocked, because the cultural level is very low compared to “our time”, which between us, wasn't like that anymore... but, believe it or not, things got worse... that is, the bad got worse. But this only reflects the social situation of our country called Brazil. We are living through a horror that is difficult to describe. An endless horror, which began with the 1964 Military Coup and led to what we know today!
In fact, if I were “killing a dog while screaming” I could stay there and even earn a nest egg, as there is a lot of demand for “English teachers” in the Brazilian community, which is large in any medium-sized American city. Brazilians are diversifying geographically, going to places like Atlanta, Georgia and others that I can't remember at the moment. The price per class hour in the region was 10 or 15 dollars per student. You never teach a class to just one student; They are usually small groups of 4 to 6, so it would cost more than 50 dollars per hour of class. You can make a living from it there, as there are many people in need of the most rudimentary teachings. To give you an idea, I spent more time explaining the Portuguese language than English itself. People have no idea what a language is; they know how to “speak” Portuguese, but it is automatic; They never stopped to think about syntax, morphology, etc. I'm not talking about nomenclature, which is actually not important, but about the concept itself. Despite everything, I found the staff to be friendly, people who were very exploited on all sides. A large part of these people spend a base of US$10,000 (ten thousand dollars) to enter the US and spend two or more years paying this money. A horrible exploitation. They come through Mexico and many even die there, from bullets or thirst, as they have to cross a large desert. I heard every hair-raising story; the rest you read in the local press.
“To cut a long story short” I worked at this Kmart until the beginning of December 2000, when I was summarily “laid off” due to the company's spending cuts, as the new North American recession began “right there and then”. Wow, executives follow the financial market daily. Then I took a bus and went to Newark, but I didn't like what I saw. Firstly because it was very cold. Imagine on December 15th you going out to look for a job with snow and ice outside! Those who had to hire for Christmas (Xmas) had already done so and what's more, a recession was beginning. Furthermore, I went to live in a bad place (in a cellar with drugs and violence). I didn't think twice and left for Brazil. Furthermore, I didn't want to “explode” my visa.
In May 2001, I decided to return to Plymouth, MA once again and went to work at the local Sheraton Hotel. Heavy work, preparing halls for conventions, assembling tables and chairs, setting up tables, vacuuming the floor, etc. But it was interesting, because my coworker turned out to be a Brazilian Jew called Paulo Besser, who has lived in the U.S. since 1969. Paulo had a life that could write an adventure book: he was in the urban guerrilla against the Milicos in the late s '60 and fled to avoid being killed by Repression, having gone to Canada and then the US. Imagine he watched the original Woodstock. It was really cool to have worked with this guy; We worked and talked nonstop. Plus he's very musical too, he plays the guitar and everything. He likes Dylan, we even watched “Don’t look back” from 1966, on DVD (documentary about Bob Dylan & Joan Baez’s famous tour in England). He gave me a Canadian acoustic guitar that was a little defective, I had it fixed and it's wonderful. He has a nice house by the sea, he has a Mercedes, he has a latest fashion SUV (Sports Utility Vehical)... anyway, the guy has money, but he works like a bastard! I don't know why? People seem to go headlong into that American system of just working... I can't understand! Australians, despite being less rich, live much better than Americans. I can tell you from my own experience. There is something fundamentally wrong in the United States. I don't really know what it is! Instead of moving forward, they regress. See the death penalty has been re-instated. I just read in the English “The Economist” that the prison population in the USA is the largest in the world and is growing. Something is decidedly rotten in the “Kingdom of Denmark”, to paraphrase our “noble colleague” Billy Shakaspeare!
I could have stayed longer, but I didn't want to “explode” my stay, so I returned on July 10, 2001. Two months later the WTC's Twin Towers exploded. In 2002, I intended to return for the summer, but I thought about it and decided to “let my beards soak”. “Insurance died of old age”, as the old saying goes. Who can guarantee that I won't be stopped there and mistaken for an Arab and arrested incommunicado? When I was in Europe in 1991, Arab immigrants spoke to me in Arabic, so I came to the conclusion that I easily “pass for Arab”, which is not very “good for your health” in the United States these days. today, do you agree? It's interesting that the day I took the plane to come here I arrived at JFK very early... really early. I left Newark Penn Station a little after noon. I took the PATH to the WTC (can you imagine), because the A Train (8th Avenue Express) passes there... I even remembered that Duke Ellington song “Take the A Train”... a train that goes to Howard Beach/ JFK Airport. I had to board at 8:00 pm and I arrived for check-in at 3:00 pm.
I'm worse than a Miner. I wandered around the airport. It was a sunny summer day, but not too hot. Air pollution, which in NY can be horrible, was minimal. From Queens, where JFK is located, you could clearly see the island of Manhattan in the background. And I, sitting comfortably in an armchair, listening to local FM radio stations on a walk-man, looked at the “Manhattan skyline”, focusing on the city's two biggest landmarks: the World Trade Center towers in downtown and the Empire State Building in midtown. By then it was past 8pm and as our JAL plane, which was coming from Tokyo to São Paulo, was delayed, the passengers were still in the waiting room. I was enjoying it because I love watching sunsets, especially the very red ones... and looking at Manhattan, with the flaming sun in the West behind the Towers and the Empire State Building, was a very beautiful sight; I never imagined that this would be the last time I would see such a scene. On the morning of September 9, 2001, I was here at home when my brother, listening to the radio, said that a building in New York had “caught on fire”. I ran and called TV Globo and Carlos Nascimento was covering the “fire”; Soon after, the second plane crossed the 2nd tower... well, the rest doesn't need to be said.
Well, Damasio, I think I'll stop here, as this is already becoming a “short story”. I wanted to write to you to, firstly, find out how you, Francisca and the boys are doing, and secondly, so that you can write to me telling me facts relevant to your life at that time, as I intend to write more about our time as an immigrant in the 70s, as I am sure that It is a subject that interests Brazucas readers. You need to see how Carlos became interested in my stories. And look, he is already a “veteran”, imagine the others who arrived there in the 90s or even in the 21st century. Would you have the courage to write to me telling me about your adventures from that time? You don't need to use people's real names, if they are facts that involve living people. It seems like people really like to know about the old Brazilian Jersey Club. Did you attend this Club? Could you say something about him? You, if I'm not mistaken, even played football with them, right? The club's headquarters were on Ferry Street. Do you remember exactly where? I remember once I went with you to a place you lived, and it was a side street on Ferry Street down there, closest to Penn Station. Do you remember this street? You lived in a room there. Remember that going up the Ferry from the station there was Union St., Prospect St., Congress St., Jefferson St., Madison St., etc. It would be one of those.
Damasio, if you have Internet access, go to mapquest.com and type in Newark, NJ and you will have a photo map of the city! This way you can have an exact idea of the places you are looking for. I also always go to the “WABC music radio” website, which is cheap. It seems like we go back to the 60s and 70s in a second. If v. If you have a chance, come in and tell me later. Well, dear friend, I'll stay here, waiting for your response in the near future. Don't feel obligated to write about the past. Only write if you feel like it. But regardless, please say “hello” so I know all is well with you, and that you received my missive. My e-address is: mcarlus@hotmail.com
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