A digital bridge over a continental divide

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2XUjbeWIEA

This is the third article in an ongoing series on Brazilian immigration and how it transformed Martha’s Vineyard.

MANTENOPOLIS, Brazil — In the mountains of this coffee-growing region of Espírito Santo, next to a dirt road that winds through eucalyptus trees, sits a farm with a modest cinder-block house.

A woman comes out of an open door, a dog barks in the background, and she is told that a message has been delivered to her from the United States. She is a mother, her granddaughter by her side, and soon she is in tears when she learns that the gift is a message from her son, who has been working on Martha’s Vineyard for four years. It is a message of comfort from an estranged son to his mother. It is the story of so many American immigrants trying to reconnect with the family they left behind, even when they are 4,000 miles away.

The message was soothing, explaining how his son kept the faith as he went through a difficult time in the United States, at a time when immigrants are sometimes vilified, often vulnerable and almost always overworked.

The messenger was Aluísio Ferreira de Sousa, the host of a show in Brazil that helps connect families across immigrant divides.

Although the scene took place last spring, it symbolized a moment that Brazilian immigrant families have been going through for decades.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the first wave of Brazilian immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard were part of this sometimes painful history, as they communicated with friends and family through handwritten letters carried by international mail, expensive phone calls on faulty landlines and faulty homemade VHS tapes.

“They sent tapes with their stories of burned feet crossing the desert, of scars from walking through thorny plants, of hunger, thirst and snakes along the way,” said Paulo de Tarso Lemos, a psychoanalyst and writer from Cuparaque, Minas Gerais; four of his eight siblings immigrated to the island.

At the time, neighbors would gather in the homes of the few people who had a VCR to watch the videos. They would show immigrants barbecuing and listening to Brazilian music, a sign of their success. “The families would cry when they saw that they were safe and well,” Lemos says.

In the past, it was hard to find information about Brazil, and locals relied on local newspapers like the Brazil Times, founded in the Boston area in 1988. Today, communication is fast: families and friends connect by posting on social media or making video calls, using WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. Vineyard Brazilians have Facebook groups and hyperlocal online news channels from their home country. Brazilians can also now follow the news of the island in the MV Times with an instant translation of each article into Portuguese, thanks to generative AI.

For three consecutive weeks, The MV Times has published a series – in English and Portuguese – exploring Brazilian immigration to the island. 1987, when Lyndon Johnson Pereirathe first known Brazilian immigrant, started working here, the series follows the first Brazilian entrepreneurs, such as Wilson Peresand considers the situation of the current Brazilian community, today estimated at 20 percent of the island’s population, where Portuguese has become the second most spoken language after English. This community has gradually come together, thanks to social networks –– sharing relevant information, organizing to help each other and advertising their services. Social networks have also helped connect Brazilians to their hometowns and publicize their successes. For home news, the public tunes in to ConectShow Notícias, a 24-hour online news and entertainment channel on Instagram, Facebook, TikTokAnd YouTubetotaling over 100,000 daily viewers. The island’s Brazilian community also relies heavily on news updates on the “Brazukada” Facebook page, created by a local community organizer Meiroka Nuneshere at the Vineyard.

There is even a local show that streams online, keeping communities in the interior of Brazil connected to towns on Martha’s Vineyard despite the 4,000 miles (6,500 kilometers) that separate them. Aluísio Ferreira de Sousa, known as Lu, created “ConectShow” in 2018 and has hosted it ever since. He is considered a celebrity among Brazilians on the island and their families back home. A reporter and anchor based in Mantenópolis, Espírito Santo state, De Sousa has never been to Martha’s Vineyard, but he knows the parties that take place there. “One day there was a party in Cuparaque, and I remember they had a big screen that was showing a concurrent party live on Martha’s Vineyard,” he said.

De Sousa reports on current problems in 26 cities in the region, 21 of which have a large portion of the population in the United States. “It’s almost like a disease, the American dream is very present in this region,” he says, adding that of the 30 students in his high school class, he is the only one who has remained in Mantenópolis: “For a long time, I resented the United States because they took my friends away from me.”

De Sousa’s workshop is in the back of his store, where he sells appliances and supplies, many of which are not common in traditional Brazilian homes but are inspired by the common comforts of the American way of life. His products include, for example, toasters, Stanley cups and mops.

Two years ago, a friend who lives on the island suggested he deliver gifts from Brazilians abroad who want to see their families but can’t. Since then, De Sousa has been delivering gifts and reading messages to loved ones. His video team records each delivery and posts it on Instagram. These “tributes,” as he calls them, have totaled more than 1,500, and he estimates that 60 percent of them come from the island.

Last spring, I accompanied De Sousa to deliver a gift to a mother whose son had been working on the island for four years. The son’s directions to the place were very informal, one being, “Turn around the sharp bend after a large eucalyptus tree.” We found the house in the mountains, surrounded by coffee and banana plantations.

Cristina Reis wept as she listened to her son’s message, read by De Sousa, who told her how her wisdom had helped her son overcome the challenges of life away from home. She herself immigrated to Portugal for eight years, leaving her three sons with her mother. “He’s here to have a better life,” she said. “You have to go and see the world; that’s what the world is here for. If you stay attached to your mother and father, you won’t have a story to tell.”

In the 1980s, VHS tapes and letters “helped create an image of the United States, sharing key information about work, housing and how to immigrate,” said Glaucia de Oliveira Assis, a professor at Vale do Rio Doce University (UNIVALE) in Governador Valadares, Minas Gerais, who conducted research on immigrants’ letters“The gifts immigrants sent home and the houses they built in their home countries were a way of showing that they had succeeded.”

Experts highlight the rise of social media as a form of advertising for migration. According to the Migration Policy Institute, social media “has made the world more accessible, including showing people how to travel from one place to another, and has also highlighted economic disparities and opportunities for improving livelihoods.”

But the stories many Martha’s Vineyard immigrants tell on social media tend to highlight only the positive aspects of their lives on the island, which ultimately fuels others’ ambition to pursue the American dream, according to organizer Nunes, who runs the popular Facebook page “Brazukada.” She urges people to learn the realities of life on the island, including its downsides, which have increased in the past two years with the surge in Brazilian immigrants.

In general, most immigrants do not achieve their goals, according to Sueli Siqueira, a professor at UNIVALE who has been studying immigration since the early 2000s: “Many eat poorly, live poorly, work too much, get physically and mentally ill, so in that sense, immigration can be a frustration. For some, it is the fulfillment of a dream, but for others, it is not.”

“The letters from the past and the ones on Instagram today talk about the need people have to say they’re okay, even when they’re not okay,” Siqueira said. “They tell themselves it was worth it.”

No issue better illustrates this disparity between dream and reality than housing. Nunes noted that the governor of Massachusetts has declared the housing situation for migrants to be “a major problem.” state of emergency.

Nunes explains: “People want to come to the island because they think the salary is higher, but they don’t take into account the cost of living and rent. Right now, people can consider that they have found a low price if they pay $1,500 to sleep in a bunk bed, sharing the room with three or four other people.”

Some immigrants are even sleeping in their cars because of the housing shortage, Nunes said. Others are renting homes in New Bedford, Falmouth or Mashpee because they can’t find housing on the island. “They’re getting up at 4 or 5 a.m. to catch the first ferry at 6 a.m. to work all day, and then they’re getting on the ferry at 8 or 10 p.m. to go home. People are completely exhausted by this situation, but they have debts and they have to work.”

Nunes explained that in the past, people could earn more money, but today, competition is tough and incomes are more equitable on the island than in other regions, due to high costs. “In the photos (online), Brazilians see us wearing an Apple watch, driving a good car, see our clothes and think it’s easy.”

Nunes runs a virtual helpline for those in need within the community with the Facebook and WhatsApp groups “Brazukada” she created, and was recently recognized for her work within the community. Her daily experience of people’s struggles guides the urgency of her words: “It’s important to raise awareness of the reality that people will find here, because they bring children with them… People need to understand that the island is no longer this paradise.”

The author of this article, Paula Moura, is a Brazilian journalist based in Massachusetts and a regular contributor to the MV Times. She is originally from Minas Gerais, but since the state is huge, this was her first time visiting the cities and towns where so many immigrants come from on the island. She said everyone there was very welcoming and, in the traditional Minas Gerais way, she was offered coffee and cheese bread.