|
 The construction of a buildings complex covering a 30,000 square meters area in the Brás neighborhood, in the city of São Paulo, between 1886 and 1888, in São Paulo, was an ambitious project. At the time, the Brazilian city, which today is the fourth largest in the world, was little more than a village.
The construction received the name of Hospedaria dos Imigrantes (meaning the Immigrants' Inn, in Portuguese) and was part of the policy of the State of São Paulo to motivate the migration of foreigners to tire their arms in the coffee farms and, later, in the industry that was beginning to crawl. The foreigners also came looking for a better life and the first stop was the Immigrants' Inn. They would stay there until they were sent to the coffee plantations. It was this grain that financed the development in the region of São Paulo that earned the state, for a long while, the nickname of powerhouse of the country. It was the hands of the immigrants that drove the state's new phase. "São Paulo became a lot more than it was after the arrival of the immigrants. Before immigration it was nothing, it was an expressionless villa, smaller than the city of Campinas (in interior of São Paulo)," says the historian Sonia de Freitas. The Immigrants' Inn was the supply station of foreigners who brought in their workforce, as well as new ideas on work organization being used in Europe. They were not only the pioneers of a fighting workers' class, but people who incorporated new customs to the regions where they arrived, changing what the country looked like. These workers arrived at the Santos Port, on the coast of São Paulo state, and were taken to the Inn and from there sent to the many farms. Sometimes they would spend no more than 24 hours at the inn. The Immigrants' Inn saw many immigration cycles and received 2.5 million people from about 60 nationalities. Deactivated, it was declared an architectonic set in 1986 and part of the complex of historical buildings now holds, since 1993, the Museum of Immigration and the Immigrant's Memorial. There are exhibited objects of workers who came from other countries and photographs of the time. There are also permanent exhibits, such as one that simulates a small coffee plantation, where there are objects used in the crops, and temporary exhibits related to the immigrants. A good part of the registers of the people that passed by the Inn are kept in the Museum of Immigration, as are 400 testimonials of immigrants registered in video by Sonia Maria de Freitas. In the stories, immigrants and descendants tell their life-stories, their impressions of the new country and difficulties they faced. Both the registers and the multimedia database are available for research. As well as being used by researchers on immigration and the city, the registers may be studied by descendants of immigrants who wish to know more about their family tree and their family history. Turks? No, Arabs As of the 18th century, Brazil received different waves of immigrants. One of them was of the so-called "Turks", who in fact weren't Turks, but Arabs, especially Lebanese and Syrians. They began arriving in Brazil between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. The immigrants came from what was called "Great Syria", a territory formed by the regions where today are Lebanon, Syria and part of Jordan, all under the dominion of the Ottoman-Turkish Empire. The immigrants in this region had their passports stamped by the Brazilian authorities when they arrived at Santos Port. In their documents could be read: "Turks - Subjects of the Ottoman-Turkish Empire". The mix-up lasts to this date. In some of the reports obtained by Sonia de Freitas, the Arab immigrants tell how they ended up in Brazil. Some wanted to go to "America", but not South and yes North America. They ended up coming to South America for a series of misunderstandings and mix-ups and also because there wasn't so much bureaucracy to enter Brazil as there was to enter the United States. "After that absurd migratory movement to the United States, they started making entry into the country more difficult and in Brazil it was easier. There wasn't so much information, they came from small villages, settlements and didn't differentiate North from South America. For them it was the myth America, 'I'm going to make America'. They were left to the hands of the ship owners, of the agencies," says the historian. But the country was also very well liked by the Arabs, since Emperor D. Pedro II had visited the region of the "Great Syria" and Egypt. Speaking Arabic, the emperor impressed officials and the population, motivating yet during his reign the first migration from that region to the country. Peddlers It was mostly men who came here to establish their lives, bringing their families later. At the time of the Turkish Empire, these Arabs were not interested in serving the army of an empire that they had little or no sympathy for. The population also had to face the lack of work under the Turk-Ottoman dominion and, due to this, decided to migrate. Fatala Antibas, born in Syria in 1919, came to Brazil in 1926, when he was still a child, with his father, mother and another seven brothers. His father heard, through an acquaintance that worked at the port, that there were cheap tickets on vessels leaving to "America". In one of the reports registered at the museum, Antibas explains the luck of his brothers: "The lack of work and the Turkish dominion was strong. Military service was three years! So those under the age of 18, on leaving the army were already 21, sometimes even as old as 32, and knew how to do nothing apart from being soldiers. So many wanted to open a new front, to win in life. And I admire the people who came at that occasion. Because we got here with three pounds in our pocket!"
A large part of the success of these immigrants, however, is due to solidarity among immigrants. Families in better conditions and that had been in Brazil for a while offered jobs to those arriving. Those who had no relatives in Brazil were often "sponsored" by somebody. In most cases, Arab immigrants dedicated themselves to trade. They travelled Brazil as peddlers, with their bags of products, in which they took from combs to fabrics and complete wardrobes. The peddlers travelled the whole of the country taking retail novelties to regions far away from the capitals. They thus started taking on a different function, that of communicators, as they also took news from one place to another. The greatest difficulty for these tradesmen was the language. In the beginning, they only knew phrases that were essential for their work, and this ended up creating confusion and losses. In another report at the Museum, Abdul Hajur, a Lebanese man who arrived in Brazil in 1955, explains how the Arabs entered the business world. "We arrived here, my uncle had a store. What is he going to give me? A hoe to till the land? No, he filled a bag with products and said: go and sell," according to the report. As they did not know how to read or write in Portuguese, the best way to identify the homes of customers was not by the name of the street, but by some detail of the house: the color, characteristics of the gate or an antisocial dog. The characteristics of the client were also written in the notebook: "the tall one, short one, the one with long hair". Abdul only knew basic expressions for making sales, such as "it costs so much, sale on credit, pay later". This was all written on paper. He only knew whether the client was interested in buying if the after to question "do you want to buy anything today?" was "yes", which was also written on the paper. The salesman started recognizing the traits of business when one day he arrived at a house and a child immediately told his mother who he was: "Mum, the Turk has arrived."
"How are you, ma'am? Would you like to buy anything today?"
"I don't think so. Not today." As the answer was different from the "yes" he had written down, he left. The following day, when talking to his uncle and explaining the sale that he did not make, his relative and boss explained: "But 'I don't think so' is better than 'no'. 'I don't think so' shows more interest in buying than 'not today'." Addul added, "if they said anything that was not on my list, I got lost." Everything, who owed what and for what date, was written down in the peddler's notebook that became as famous as his bag. This worked as a true control of purchases and sales. In his report, the former peddler explains that this kind of sale, in which you trust the buyer, no longer works. "I never lost a cent while I was a peddler. But nowadays, if you sell to 100 people, ten pay correctly, and the rest just give trouble." Time for the Study Also common to these immigrants was the concern with providing the best possible education for their children. It is common to see in the reports registered in the Museum that peddlers educated brothers and sons with their work. It is from there that comes the great volume of Arab and Arab descended doctors and engineers in Brazil. "If you analyze a report showing the students that entered the University of São Paulo (USP) medical and engineering schools, for example, you will see many Arab names, they invested very heavily," stated Sonia. The concern with the training of their relatives and with the maintenance of their mother culture shows in the considerable quantity of papers printed at the time, most in Arabic, and in the number of immigrant clubs and associations that exist to date. Anba - www.anba.com.br
|
Subscribe to this comment's feed