The first day in the (new) Terrinha [Small Land]
As far as I can tell, the environment of this plane, nationality-wise, is divided between Brazilians and Portuguese, with only a few travelers of other nationalities. Next to me, a blonde woman called T. strikes up a conversation and asks for help in placing her suitcase within the overhead compartment. We chatted briefly and I was confused about her nationality, as her Portuguese was quite hybridized but sounded more like Portugal’s Portuguese (a.k.a. European Portuguese) rather than Brazilian Portuguese. T. tells me that she was born in Rio Grande do Sul, but that her family is Portuguese and that she has lived in the Terrinha (Small Land) for many years, which explains her hybrid Portuguese.
While I’m looking for something to entertain me, I notice two Brazilian teenagers who are a bit desperate, because at first the on-board computer showed that the flight was from São Paulo to Lisbon, although the real destination was Porto. After a few minutes of despair and them starting a movement to get off the plane, they were reassured by the flight attendants and returned to their seats, exclaiming “whew, I think my mother would kill me if I ended up in Lisbon and I don’t even know what I would do to get to Porto if the plane went there [Lisbon, in this case]”.
During the flight, I watched two touristic TV shows to better “acclimatize” myself to my new reality: a TV special on Guimarães & Braga (which would be my new home) and another on Porto. I wrote down some recommendations and was fascinated to discover the different medieval monuments, such as the Braga Cathedral, the Torre de Menagem (Keep Tower) and Guimarães Castle. Besides these, I was also interested in Setra bar, which was presented as a “super cool” bar – curiously enough, these tourist programs were in English.
After a short nap and a massive headache from crying too much, I finally managed to start a movie, or rather two: Disney’s Wish (2023) and A Bela América [freely translated as America, the Beautiful] (2023), a Portuguese film by director António Ferreira. The first tells the story of a fantastic kingdom whose monarch captures the dreams of his subjects for himself, making them apathetic and alienated; the latter tells the story of Lucas, a poor chef from Coimbra, who is evicted from his home after a recent change in housing law, leaving him adrift with his mother, who is visually impaired. Were both films trying to tell me something? Or was my heart, weighed down by the moving process, taking the content in question too seriously?
In any case, what interested me most in A Bela América was the presence of a Brazilian character, who illustrated our remarkable presence in the contemporary Portuguese society, despite the fact that this character is relegated to a supporting role in the office of the presidential candidate, América, who is the protagonist of the plot alongside the aforementioned Lucas. This led me to reflect on the type of jobs that are available to immigrants who come to Portugal. It’s also notable that, despite this Brazilian character, I don’t remember seeing any other immigrants represented in the film, apart from a few extras who were dark-skinned blacks (who could be from any country from lusophone Africa, Brazil itself or – amazingly – Portugal itself). On this point about black “figurative” representation in Portuguese cinema, it is worth recommending Ana Cristina Ribeiro Pereira’s PhD thesis (2019), which focuses on Mozambican representations in Portuguese cinema and vice versa.
After about 9 hours of flying, the plane landed and the Brazilians there clapped their hands for the safe landing, followed by exclamations like “thank God”, while the rest of the non-Brazilian passengers had no reaction whatsoever. In the immigration queue, there was a smaller and faster queue for Portuguese and/or European citizens, but everything went without a hitch. While I was waiting for the checked bags to arrive, I noticed a climate of tension and expectation, including on my own part, as I was ready to jump at the first bag that came along and my mind kept screaming: “Where’s that bag? I can’t lose that suitcase! My whole life is in that suitcase! I put my name on my suitcase, didn’t I? And if it doesn’t show up, what do I do? What clothes am I going to wear here in this country?”. Fortunately, the suitcase appeared, I collected everything I owned and set off for the exit, curious to know what I would find on the other side of the dimensional portal. Before crossing the portal, I was approached by an airport official, who asked brief questions about my arrival: “What have you come to Portugal for? What are you carrying in these suitcases?”. It’s funny how our minds, in moments of extreme mental fatigue and in the face of “people of authority”, seem to almost stop working, because despite these being the simplest answers in the world, I kept mumbling: “Hi! Yeah, so… well, I came here because… (slight silence) I came to do a…mmmhmm yeah… PhD-in-cultural-studies-at-the-University-of… uh… Minho! Here in these suitcases I’m carrying half my life, the other half is on the other side of the Atlantic…”. To my surprise, I received a “welcome and good luck” and from there I crossed the dimensional portal.
The first things to sort out were getting a SIM card for mobile data, eating a bolinho/pastel de bacalhau [codfish fritters] for breakfast and finding out how I was going to get to Braga. Everything went very smoothly, with the first interactions there in Porto bringing to mind one of the reasons why I like the Terrinha so much: the people of Porto were almost always friendly and brought a smile to my face. After a codfish fritter and a Super Bock (because I’m such a fan), I headed for the bus stop to Braga. On the way to the bus stop, I was approached by a beggar who was very happy that I spoke Portuguese, although this happiness could also have been due to the cigarette I offered him. I confess that I was surprised by the existence of such a beggar, not because I believed that “in the ‘first world’ there is no such thing”, but because I remembered that they are not as common as in Brazil, since during my previous experience, when I lived in Porto for 6 months, I believe I had contact with only 3 beggars in general.
Figure 1. Breakfast at the Francisco Sá Carneiro Airport
I finally got on the bus and sent a message to my wife, commenting that here the driver was “one of us” and was listening to rock music, as he was playing Should I Stay or Should I Go by The Clash on the loudspeakers, whereas in Brazil he would probably be playing sertanejo [Brazilian genre that is akin to US country music], a genre of music that we are far from being fans of. Perhaps the driver got carried away with The Clash, because he didn’t stay a minute longer than expected and just went, arriving in Braga in around 40 minutes. Once in Braga, I asked for an Uber and headed for the Airbnb that would be my first home here on Earth.
At the Uber, I’ve noticed a phenomenon that is becoming more and more recurrent in my experiences here on Earth: Brazilian service providers who start the conversation in a hybrid of Portugal’s Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese. The conversation begins with a “have you been here for long already or is this your first time?”, in other words, with a certain degree of formality, with the (correct) conjugation of the second person singular and with the exchange of various terms, for example, the traffic circle [rotunda in Portugal] is always a traffic circle [rotunda] and no longer a traffic circle [rotatória in Brazil]. However, as it becomes clear that the customer is Brazilian, the Portuguese gradually changes to Brazilian Portuguese, both in pronunciation and conjugation and in the reuse of Brazilian expressions. When I mentioned that I had just arrived, the response changed to a very Brazilian informality: “I arrived here about 4 years ago. When I got here, sheeesh, didn’t understand anything! Damn…”. Even so, this informality already carries Portuguese expressions, such as “foogo!” [lit. meaning “fire”, herein translated as “sheesh”, as in a different form of “shit”], which is a milder way of saying the Portuguese “foda-se” [lit. translated as “fuck it”] or the Brazilian “aí é foda” [lit. translated as “that’s fucked up” or “that’s dope”, depending on the use, in here I translated it as a “damn”]. The whole conversation developed as a first process of cultural immersion, in which the driver J. brought me different (alleged) processes of cultural hybridization of “Bragasil” – such as the cuisine which, according to him, has adapted to the Brazilian palate. The term Bragasil, or Braguil, has become increasingly popular due to the large presence of Brazilians in the city (Rattner, 2024).
Once at my destination, I finally met my host C., an Angolan woman who has lived here in Portugal for over 30 years. C. introduces herself as a stoic psychologist, futurologist, youtuber and Airbnb host. As soon as I arrived, I was already dumped with information, having a 30-minute conversation with C., who wanted to know more about Brazil, what I’d come here to do in Portugal, what the Brazilian political situation was like, among other things, while suggesting a number of different outings: “You have to go to Braga Cathedral, but if you want to go out drinking, it’s expensive there and you should look for cheaper places in the surrounding area. There’s also Bom Jesus…”. C.’s house was a bit curious, full of statues from different religions, from Buddha to Vishnu. The living room was rather dark, lit solely by the TV (which was always plugged in at SIC Notícias), as C. avoided turning on the lights in order to save on the energy bill. My little room was about 15 m², with an extremely small and fixed fan, which did little to help me withstand the 40ºC heat, the temperature of which I haven’t experienced even in my Brazil.
The silence in that room calmed me down, but at the same time irritated me, as I had never experienced such silence in my life in São Paulo. Perhaps as a survival mechanism, trying to minimize the culture shock and wanting to “live a normal life”, I decided to go to the nearest Continente supermarket. At first, I could already feel the inflation that has run rampant since 2020. Right away, I noticed that the supermarket cashier’s expression of happiness faded as soon as she heard my clearly Brazilian “good morning” – it’s debatable whether this experience was a xenophobic micro-expression or whether my anxiety made this misinterpretation. Furthermore, I would like to point out that Fernandes, Peixoto & Oltramari (2021, p. 55), in a recent study on the latest wave of migration of Brazilians in Portugal, found that “the majority of interviewees reported that language is a professional barrier, and they have already identified episodes of symbolic violence due to the difficult linguistic convergence. Some students revealed that they are the target of racism and xenophobia when they say they are Brazilian”.
As the last event of an extremely long and intense day, I decided to have dinner and strolled until close to the University of Minho, as I wanted to eat a hamburger from “The Good Burger” restaurant that I found on Google Maps. The restaurant was already closed definitely, so I ended up going to “100 Montaditos”, which specializes in small sandwiches and runs a promotion called “Euromania” on Wednesdays and Sundays, where any of the “100 Montaditos” costs just 1 euro.
Figure 2. Two Montaditos
Already seated, sipping a pint of Super Bock and waiting for my “montaditos”, I start to notice the place and realize that there are no Portuguese people at the tables. They are all Brazilian/African immigrants or European tourists (in this case, Italians and Spaniards), which is noticeable from the language and appearance of those present. I notice that at the table next to mine, there are two young black men listening to rap music and I manage to strike up a conversation with both of them, soon joining their table. One of them, K., was Cape Verdean and must have been no more than 20 years old. The other, S., was closer to my age (25+) and introduced himself as Angolan-Portuguese, as he was of Angolan descent but was born here in Portugal.
- spoke a hybrid of Cape Verdean Creole and Portugal’s Portuguese, saying that the Portuguese language was “extremely difficul’, so easier to speak Creole, y’know? With Creole […] you understand?” – the ellipsis is there because I didn’t understand everything he said to me. S. is a rapper and was introducing us to some of his songs, while we discussed the recent Drake-Kendrick Lamar conflict. This conversation led to us listening to Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us”, bringing an incandescent synergy between these young black hip-hop fans and descendants of former colonies of this country that now welcomes us. As if our dance and chants of “they don’t like us” were a symbolic war cry against the racial oppression that we suffer due to the legacy of a colonial past.
After a few songs and beers, K.’s speaker battery ran out, which made him feel “really sad, man. If I’m not listening to loud music, I get bored, I don’t like silence, y’know?”. Already tired and with a few beers in my mind, I activated my São Paulo survival instinct and thought to myself: “should I still be out here on the street? I even came with my passport, what if something happened to me? This kid here even looks like me, he has light skin and a black power like me, he could use my passport without noticing…” – I shake off my “third-world” immigrant paranoia and remember that the level of security here is quite different from my São Paulo, where danger can be present at every corner. While I was thinking this, K. told me a little about his life, saying that he was “really smart, man. I’ve already finished high school, ya see?” – adding a pinch of salt to the moral wound that I already felt for, albeit briefly, thinking he might want something with my Brazilian passport.
Since that day, I have only met K. twice, following him around just on Instagram, where he regularly posts photos with all the “drip” [attire] of a rapper, but curiously never shows his face (all the photos are looking downwards). As for S., I have been able to meet him a few more times, but always while passing by the street and his conversation rarely goes beyond “hey bro? Ya good?”. Furthermore, a doubt remained in my mind: “here in Portugal, will I be better received by immigrants than by the Portuguese? After all, as Kendrick would say: they are not like us” – and while I remembered the dance with my “cousins” from Mother Africa, I also remembered, at the same time, the disappearance of the Portuguese cashier’s smile.
Text and images: Lucas Novais (CECS/Universidade do Minho)
Published in December 19, 2024
This micro-essay is the second part of a micro-essay entitled “The arrival: last impressions of my land and first impressions of the (new) old world”.
References
Fernandes, D., Peixotto, J., & Oltramari, A. P. (2021). A quarta onda da imigração brasileira em Portugal: uma história breve. RELAP – Revista Latinoamericana de Población, 15(29), 34-63. http://doi.org/10.31406/relap2021.v15.i2.n29.2
Pereira, A. C. R. (2019). Alteridade e identidade na ficção cinematográfica em Portugal e em Moçambique. Tese de doutoramento, Universidade do Minho, Braga. Retirado de https://repositorium.sdum.uminho.pt/handle/1822/65858
Rattner, J. (2024, Setembro 14). “É estar no Brasil. Isso é o que eu mais escuto aqui” — como foi a festa em Braga. Público Brasil. https://www.publico.pt/2024/09/14/publico-brasil/noticia/estar-brasil-escuto-aqui-festa-braga-2104174
LOCALIZAÇÃO
LOCAL: Braga
LATITUDE: 41.55811229999999
LONGITUDE: -8.3984007