What a difference 29 years make. Ironbound in 2000 was a far cry from Ironbound in 1971-1973.
The number of Brazilians walking around the Ironbound streets in 2000 was much higherr and from different parts of the country. In the 1970s they were mostly Mineiros & Paraenses with a Paulista minority made up the Brazilian mix...in 2000 there were Paranaenses & Gaúchos and everyone else.
There were no Portuguese-speaking evangelical churches in the 1970s, nor a Brazilian press either. Weekly 'Brazilian Voice' no doubt had its name inspired by the (Greenwich) 'Village Voice'...and was eagerly read by the migrants.
In the 1970s, Brazilians were resigned to never speaking to their loved ones left in the old country once they arrived in the USA. Now, one had telephone exchanges on the main roads where one could talk for hours with relatives without being bankrupt.
Vespucci claimed to have understood in 1501 (after having traveled there twice) that Brazil was part of a fourth continent unknown to Europeans, which he called the "New World". The claim inspired German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller to recognize Vespucci's accomplishments in 1507, by applying the Latinized form "America" to a map showing the New World. (Wikipedia).
The problem with the United States of America is that, as Caetano Veloso sang in his 1967, 'Soy loco por ti, America', this is a country without a name. Yes, it is a country without a name.
In the early 1600s, when the English began to inhabit these lands on the American continent, each colony had its own name: Virginia, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, etc. Over time, they came together and called themselves the United States of America. But the country itself was left without a name. This is a federation, not a country.
And like today, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Italy, France and 8 other countries in the European Common Market decided to become a Federation, calling this federation the European Community, but each country has kept its own name. Now, here in the U.S.A., things weren't very well thought out, perhaps they didn't think that one day they would be a homogeneous country and not a federation.
The fact is that this is a country without a name. This is the source of all this confusion.
Maybe if reader Adinam Nogueira knew all these facts he wouldn't be so outraged to see certain Brazilians referring to the United States as 'America'. The poor things don't have a name. Perhaps the right thing to do would be to call the country as the United States and the inhabitants Americans. But Canadians and Mexicans are also North Americans... Try to get out of this.
Luiz Amorim, Newark (NJ)
Brazilian journalist Roberto Lima (37 years old) writes about something all migrants bitterly know: Sunday is arguably the worst day of the week. Monday through Friday glides along effortlessly for one usually works and don't have time to think about his plight. On Saturday, he usually goes shopping, goes to the movies or else... but on Sunday, especially those who don't have children, he stares into his loneliness in such a way that it is really painful.
Ontem foi domingo, um domingo plúmbeo (leaden Sunday), que nem de longe deixou transparecer um domingo de primavera. Quase enlouqueci. Acho que o fato de ter sido véspera de um feriado também ajudou, transformando as ruas de Kearny num pavilhão de escombros. Fiquei inconsolável com o panorama que se desenhou diante de meus olhos. Da janela do apartamento vislumbrei o manto cinza (grey cloak) que cobria a tarde, trazendo de reboque a lembrança de muitos outros domingos melancólicos (gloomy Sundays) de minha vida.
Sempre vi o dia que Deus descansou de uma forma morna, ressaqueada (hung-over) como se algo tivesse se quebrado, ou reerguido das cinzas, dentro de mim. Essa sempre foi a percepção. Em alguns domingos, penso que o mundo vai se esvair em marasmo (doldrums) e melancolia.
Em 1986, aos 23 anos de idade (Roberto Lima was born in 1963), escrevi um livro de poesias, que batizei de 'Tango Fantasma', título de um dos poemas da obra. Nesse poema específico eu falava da solidão de um domingo, que nascia parido da solidão de outros tantos domingos, e de um sujeito que perdera a esposa e amante durante um único ciclo de sete dias.
A primeira mulher, ele perdera para a monotonia do casamento. A segunda, para um profissional liberal que havia contratado para cuidar do caso de sua separação com a primeira. Modernoso, triste, probabilíssimo.
Lembro-me que escrevi esse poema num domingo à tarde, após retornar de um almoço na casa do poeta Marcos Pizano. As ruas de Governador Valadares-MG estavam desertas, e quando tomei o ônibus para São Raimundo, tive uma forte impressão que tinha entrado num trem-fantasma. Apenas o motorista e o trocador fizeram-me companhia durante toda a viagem, o lotação saltando como um cabrito sobre a estrada esburacada.
No alto-falante do teto do ônibus a voz de Chico Buarque cantava: 'Ó pedaço de mim, ó metade arrancada de mim'... Cheguei em casa aos frangalhos, sentindo o peso de uma barra pesadíssima que aquele domingo implacável havia jogado sobre mim. E nunca mais me curei. E assim continua sendo, os domingos se repetindo com os mesmos contrastes, escrevendo uma história com pedaço de carvão sobre uma superfície de pedra.
E é por isso e por muito mais, que meus domingos serão sempre de almoço em família. De irmã chegando com filho pequeno no colo, de mãe mexendo a comida no fogão, de sobrinhos indomáveis correndo pela casa, como se ali fosse o pateo da escola durante o recreio. Meus domingos foram, são e serão sempre de macarronada, de frango assado com farófa, de impadão de camarão, e de salada de legumes cozidos com mayonese.
Roberto Lima wrote this chronicle to 'Brazilian Voice' from 7 May to 13 June 2000.
Cubu, (on the left) a patron of Salão Brasil-USA, Maury Lima, the coiffeur & Josué.
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Portugal Day was celebrated on 10 and 11 June 2000, in the Ironbound.
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O forte cheiro de sardinha assada enchia o ar e abria o apetite de quem passava perto das enormes churrasqueiras espalhadas por toda parte. Ambulantes vendiam toda sorte de miudezas. Restaurantes locais não perderam tempo e colocaram cadeiras e mesinhas nas calçadas. Havia bandeirinhas portuguêsas por todos os stands. O consumo de água gelada e cerveja quase superou o do tradicional vinho.
Na tarde de domingo, 11, houve desfile de carros alegóricos representando as várias regiões de Portugal e grupos folclóricos da comunidade lusa. No desfile também participou o Fire Department do Ironbound e caminhões de cargas de empresas operadas por lusitanos. O clima de alegria e orgulho de ser português era fortemente sentido.
A maior concentração de brasileiros ocorreu no início da Ferry Street, onde foi instalado um caminhão de som tocando MPB. Apesar do clima de festa houve brigas entre indivíduos na multidão que se aglomerou na frente do caminhão. Vamos aprender a nos divertir, meus brazucas. Evoluir é preciso.
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In case one needed a fake ID, a Driver's License or a bogus Green Card, one must bring this flyer along. Ask for Roman or Alex (2000).
Letter I have sent Damazio Nazaré circa 2002, relating my adventures in the Ironbound in 2000 & 2001.
In addition to the greater number of “Portugas”, I have seen in Newark in 2000 & 2001, the number of Brazucas also tripled or quadrupled or even more than that. There are multiple Brazilian stores that sell everything; from VHS tapes of SBT’s “Programa do Ratinho” to Cica’s goiabada (guava paste) and other industrialized products from Brazil. You can practically find everything from Brazil there. On Adams Street there is a mini shopping mall where the majority of stores are owned by Brazilians; hairdressers, freight forwarders, travel agents, etc. In front of this “mall” you will find dozens of Brazilian “matutos” chatting, talking about Atlético or Cruzeiro, how to work in construction jobs, how to get a fake Social Security card which costs between 50 and 60 dollars etc.
If you still have your SS card, please, keep it, as it is currently very difficult to get a “hot” one. Fajutos are everywhere. They invent a number and print a card on home PCs and Employers accept it. Banks don't accept it, so it's difficult to open a bank account, which leads to bizarre facts, like what this one: I went to act as a translator for a Brazuca in Plymouth-MA and noticed that he was carrying a wallet “stuffed” with 50-dollar and 100 dollars bills. I asked him why and he said he didn't have a bank account and didn't trust leaving the money at home. He was a “walking bank”.
The Social Security Department itself accepts contributions sent by the employer in the name of these “fake” cards. Once a year the Department sends a letter warning the taxpayer to check if the number is correct, but they do not send the money back. In other words, everyone pretends they don't know anything about this 'mystery' and so “America” continues in good health, everyone is making money and no one is asking questions!
Getting a driver’s license without the real SS card is also impossible or almost. A fake green card is also easy to get. I paid $170 for mine, but I ended up only using it once. I used my old Social Security and even got a provisional driver's license in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts which is the official name of the State of Massachusetts.
Having a real Social Security card is a “status symbol" among Brazucas. Even if you lost the “paper” but remember the number, the SS card counts. It was a huge help for me. I tried to get a duplicate of my SS card but I was refused it, because at the Federal Building on Broad Street (remember where the dreaded “Immigration” was located?) the employee insisted on seeing my Green Card; I had taken my Australian passport in case I needed to identify myself at the entrance. As she insisted a lot, I ended up showing my passport. She checked the type of visa I had, and said it was not suitable for working. Note that I already had my SS card. I just wanted a duplicate, with the same number, as they changed the card layout. But faced with so much difficulty, I decided not to insist any further, I said ‘Thank you’, and I slipped away.
Entering any “federal building” after that building in Oklahoma City was blown up in 1996 is a true “war operation”. You have to go through metal detectors; sometimes being “searched by policemen” etc. And this was all before what the Yankees call 9/11 (September the 11th, 2001). Imagine now what paranoia must be like.
It is worth noting that at the very summer of 2001, in early June, I visited the World Trade Center together with Carlos Oliveira, a Brazuca born in 1959, whom I met at a Brazilian shop the first day I arrived in Newark and became friends with. He worked as a shop assistant for a Brazilian old man called Coutinho and decided he wanted to open a store of his own. To do so he needed to get a license to import which was issued by the New York-New Jersey Port Authority located at the World Trade Center. We took the PATH train and went to one of the Twin Towers. The Import-Export Office was located at the 2nd or 3rd floor so we didn't have to go all the way up which was a pity. Had I only known, those towers would vanish in the next 2 months I would have made the extra effort to go all the way up. There were many New Jersey municipalities's representatives in the towers.
I took some photos of Newark and would like to show them to you when we have a chance to meet. In fact, if you went there tomorrow, I think you wouldn't find much of a difference in the city. This is a characteristic of more developed countries; they maintain a certain “sameness”, which does not exist here in Brazil, for example. Obviously you won't be able to visit 'Tia' at 112 Ferry Street.
The Pathmark moved from behind Wilson Avenue to East Ferry Street, that section that Ferry turns onto the direction of the New Jersey Turnpike. They tore down two blocks of houses there, building a huge Pathmark in one side and 'plaza' in front of the market, where there is a Post Office, laundry etc.
Otherwise, almost everything remains the same. The PATH train (Port Authority Trans-Hudson, did you know?) is still the same; with trains, which I believe are the same ones we used to ride to go to New York University every Saturday morning to take that English course, remember? Those trains are over 20 years old. Of course, the PATH no longer goes to downtown Manhattan, as the WTC station no longer exists by the work and grace of Allah. But it still goes to midtown-Manhattan, stopping first in Harrison, Jersey City's Journal Square, Hoboken (Did you know Frank Sinatra was born there in 1915?), Christopher Street (in the Greenwhich Village), 14th Street, 23rd Street, 28th and finally 33rd Street.
I found the new Brazilian Press there very interesting, as there are a lot of publications. There were none in our time... There are two newspapers in Newark alone. There's another one in Flamingham, Massachusetts, and others that I don't even know where they're based at. Most of them are weekly tabloid newspapers. They are regularly distributed free of charge in Brazilian shops, which end up being meeting centers for Brazucas in general. You can also find them in beauty salons, travel agencies, grocery stores, bars etc. Their readership must be in the thousands or more.
The intellectual level of Brazucas in general, I found to be worse than in the 1970s. There are middle class fellows from the Southern States...I even saw some Gauchos at the Newark Public Library using the Internet; but the vast majority are semi-literate people, who come from all over Brazil. Now there are a lot of people from Paraná. Many of them have German descent so sometimes you think a fellow is American, due to his being blond and blue-eyed, and the guy opens his mouth and you hear 'caipira' all over. It's no wonder Ratinho is their idol! I could never write this for a newspaper, but I can write it for you!
I guess ‘our time’ was a better time! Could I be right? In the early 1970s, Brazucas didn't speak English, but compared to today, things got worse, because so-and-so has Globo Cable at home and don't watch North American TV at all. Now there is a VCR and families, when they are not watching Globo, can watch sermons from a local “evangelical pastor” or programs from Brazil. There is a proliferation of evangelical churches with Brazilian pastors; more or less following what happens in Brazil now. If at that time it was difficult for Brazucas to learn English, now it is almost impossible.
WABC reigned supreme back then, remember? Now it's not like that anymore. I don't know which radio station is successful, but even the Top 40 has been destroyed. In fact, I found a super incredible website from the old WABC Music Radio on the Internet, and there I found out what happened to the Top 40’s radio stations. The market has been “segmented”; that is, rappers listen to rap radio; Latinos to Latino stations; teeny boppers listen to their radio stations etc. So things changed a lot there. When we lived in the US it was more democratic. WABC and the others played all sorts of music. Brazucas, poor things, are completely alienated; much more than in “our time”.
Today's Newark, at times, seemed to me as if it were a “middle class” neighborhood in Brazil, except that the little guys cruising Ferry Street were driving “imported cars”, with their stereos blasting Chitãozinho & Chororó, Daniel, Zé Camargo & Luciano or some Pagode group; I even heard Racionais MC’s on the streets of Newark. Quite often pagode groups or sertanejo duos perform “live” in a club or stadium there and they are paid a lot of dollars. You know that money runs wild in the U.S. There you see the “color of money”; you see “greenbacks” in droves and people really spend it. Very different from ‘our time’, when we listened to John Lennon, Badfinger, Al Green, Roberta Flack, Chicago and even Spanish salsa groups.
In the short time I was there I had the chance to witness that the drug problem is still the same as it was then, if not worse, as now there is a lot of Heroin users among Brazucas. In the winter of 2000, I lived in a cellar that was nothing more than a “tenement” that reminded me a lot of the “other” tenement that I lived in in the winter of 1971-1972. There was a knife fight between a Capixaba man and a Lisbon man. They were both heroin users. There are many people who work all week to throw their entire salary into the hands of “drug dealers”. Disgusting! But I think this is part of the “Immigrant Anguish”, which we already know.
I went deep down “Memory Lane”, as they say! I walked along those streets that led to the old Francis Street record factory. The factory no longer exists, but the building is still there. It gave me a shiver down my spine looking at that street. It even seemed that deep inside they were “cooking” vynil paste, which would then come to our heated metal tables, for us, the cutters, to cut and make our 45 r.p.m.’s. I even heard the voice of that Puertorriqueño Mike saying: “Como le gusta? Do you like it fat and fleshy?” That Black lady (Anna, according to you) who made plastic ashtrays at the night shift, whose husband came to pick her up in the morning in a Lincoln Continental.
Remember that couple from Puertoriqueños who made “long-playing”? I only made 45 rpm singles! Did those who made LPs earn more? I think so, because we, who made singles, were “discriminated against”. The Puertoriqueña woman had long braids. Do you remember her? Do you remember those two Peruvian girls; one called Maria and the other looked like a little boy. They said they were lovers!
Speaking of Peruvians, I remember that there was one of them who was Japanese and was very nice person... I don't recall his name now, but I remember he used to hum George Harrison's “Something” and then sang the only bit he knew: “I don't know, I don't know”. He also sang along to “Where do I begin?” (“Love story Theme” with Andy Williams) and I liked Italian singer Nicola di Bari. Actually, he looked a bit like Nicola for he wore a pair of dark glasses too. He used to tell me Sergio Murilo (remember “Marcianita”?) was a big hit in Peru.
In the letter I sent to Brazilian Voice's letter section I mentioned Dentinho. Now I remember Dentinho's name was Luiz something. I was known as Carlos at the factory. Carlitos for the Hispanics. I think you didn’t get to know Dentinho, as he also worked the night shift whereas you worked the morning shift. Dentinho delivered vynil paste and was a funny little guy; he had a beard and mustache but very young; he must have been 18 or 19. Dentinho shared an apartment on the 2nd floor of a house on Wilson Avenue, next to Saint Stephen's church with Alfredo and G. (I'm not sure of his name), a tall, good-looking fellow with blue (or green) eyes, who had an old Mustang and seemed to be the leader of the pack. The three were from Franco da Rocha. By the way, Saint Stephen's church has now become all but “Brazilian”, as the Sunday services are held in Portuguese by a Brazilian Pastor.
One night I went by their house and they asked me to listen to the LPs I had bought at ‘Two Guys’, a department store on Broad Street. I remember there was a sound track from the movie 'West Side Story', and the boys thought it was 'strange' that I liked that type of music, especially after hearing 'Tonight' with Marnie Nixon singing with a Puerto Rican accent. They laughed, and thought I was bizarre for having that taste. There was a Donovan LP and a few others that I can't remember at the moment.
On the Sunday afternoon that “Dentinho” was arrested on the Pulaski Skyway, he had stopped by my house [I lived above the aforementioned go-go bar] and we went out for a “ride” in his car. After we drove around aimlessly for a while, he dropped me off at home. It was a cold autumn afternoon, just when we immigrants missed Brazil the most. Before going up to my room, I spent a little time with Dentinho, who put a 'quarter' on the juke-box in the semi-deserted bar and listened to “Long ago tomorrow”, by B.J. Thomas. It was his favorite song then. It was the last time I saw him. Minutes later he was stopped for speeding; the “cops” wanted to see your documents; he took the police to his house; There they saw the passport with his visa already expired, and besides Dentinho, the other two friends also “danced”. It was very sad because they were all “nice” guys, despite being legally “illegal”. It was the biggest buzz at Synthetic Plastics Co. on Monday, because in addition to Dentinho, Alfredo also worked there in the afternoon. They were deported to Brazil at the end of 1971.
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