A Portuguese Immigrant's Life in Brazil by Jessica DA SILVA

I would like to tell you my mother's uncle's story. He grew up in Portugal and his childhood was very hard. From a young age he used to wake up in the morning to milk the cows in a field. He left home with only a piece of bread as a meal. He had to leave to work because he was the oldest of the family. He did not have the choice at that time. It was to help his parents and work to earn money and help feed the family. Later, it was too hard to continue his life in his village in Portugal. He did not have any opportunities for the future.

A few years later he found a job earning a minimum wage. But what did he want to do with this money? He told me that he was already thinking of his new life, this life which he dreamed of. This perfect life for him was in the sun, in Brazil. For him there would not be the barrier of language in Brazil, because Brazil's national language is Portuguese. When he became an adult, he took this decision that he had waited for so long, the decision to leave Portugal. But the hardest thing was to announce the news to his parents…..especially his father. And indeed, when he announced what he planned to do, his father took it very badly. He never spoke to his son any more.

So he left on a long boat journey to cross the Atlantic to Brazil. But the conditions were dreadful and that's why he was reluctant to speak about this time in his life. When he arrived in Brazil life was not as simple as he had imagined. It was violent and very hard. It took him about a week to collect the building materials he needed to build a shelter. In the meantime he travelled to the city to look for work. When he came back to the place where he had stored his building material it had all been stolen and nothing was left.

Later his brother came to Brazil. This pleased him greatly and he decided to pay him a visit. When he arrived at the entrance of the district, two men were guarding it armed with rifles. He did not know what was going to happen and was terrified. These men warned that the next time he came he’d have to ask for their permission if he did'nt want the two men to kill him. Later he found a job in a rich Brazilian family. But for him this job was very hard and they didn’t show him any respect! That’s why it was impossible for him to work in this family; he was so badly treated and badly paid... But thanks to this job he found a wife. He later had two daughters but tragically his wife left and he never saw his two daughters any more. But the story ends well because one day at his brother’s funeral, in Brazil he saw his daughters and after that they remained in contact.