Luísa Custódio Lopes Interview
Item
Title
Luísa Custódio Lopes Interview
Interviewee, Interviewer
Lopes, Luísa Custódio
Mattos, Abigail
Relation
Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute
Date
11/18/2019
Identifier
SCUAD_pbbi_00014
extracted text
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Speaker 1: All right, awesome. So could you repeat your your name for me
please?
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Speaker 2: Luisa L-u-i-s-a.
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Speaker 1: All right. And last name?
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Speaker 2: It is custodio C-U-S-T-O-D-I-O, that's my maiden name.
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Speaker 1: Okay.
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Speaker 2: And my husband's name is Lopes L-O-P-E-S.
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Speaker 1: So now have your full birth including the name. Um, is there
were you named after anybody or is there a story around your name at all
that, you know?
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Speaker 2: No, I don't know of any story about my name.
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Speaker 1: Oh, when were you born?
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Speaker 2: I was born June 21 1968.
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Speaker 1: Where were you born?
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Speaker 2: I was born in a village which is a villa in St. George, which
is one of the islands in the Azores.
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Speaker 1: What early memories do you have as a child working in American
community? Or in Portugal?
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Speaker 2: Okay, so I, we actually went to Africa when I was three years
old and I lived in Africa for three years. So I have some vague memories
of that. And then we moved back to the Azores for
about a year and then came here. So my earliest memories, I really don't
have a lot of memories about Africa or the Azores. Most of my memories
are from here. I was seven when we came to America. So I
have memories of the first house we lived in and going to school, my
teachers.
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Speaker 1: Those, what what brought your family to Africa.
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Speaker 2: Opportunity. So my there were two. My dad was in the
Portuguese army and they went to Angola. And his troop did and then when
he married my mom, there was an opportunity the governmen
would. It was there was a Portuguese colony there called Mozambique. And
so they, they would give the Portuguese citizens incentives to go over to
their colonies and work there. And so my dad wa
given the opportunity to go work in Mozambique and given land. And so he
took that opportunity. And then in, there was a civil war that broke out
and so we my parents left before right before th
Civil War broke out for their independence.
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Speaker 1: So that was the reason for moving back to America?
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Speaker 2: That was the reason for moving back to the Azores.
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Speaker 1: Azores?
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Speaker 2: Yes, yes. And then my uncle, my mom's brother lived here in
Los Angeles, actually. And so he's the one that sponsored my parents
again for opportunity. That's why they came, there wasn't a
ot of work in the Azores and America is the land of the opportunity. And
so, so that's why they came here.
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Speaker 1: Okay, so you like primarily spent childhood he said, like
California?
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Speaker 2: Yes, we moved to LA. We were there for about two months and my
dad is a farmer by nature and so not LA is not necessarily the place for
farmers. So he knew people that lived here in the San
Joaquin Valley. And so that's why we moved over to Fresno. They got him a
job in the dairy industry. And so that's why we're here.
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Speaker 1: Okay. And then my next question was like, Did your parents
ever tell you what it was like to adjust to life in America? Specific
stories or anything like that?
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Speaker 2: Well, I kind of live the adjustment. I am the oldest of five
siblings. And so being the oldest, I did a lot of translating for my
parents to this day. They still don't speak English very
fluently. And even though we've been here for 44 years, we've actually
been here longer than they were lived in the Azores, but we did all of
the translating for my parents like parent conferences and
going to the doctors or and I was, I was seven. One of my earliest
memories actually is we went to go visit my uncle in LA. When I was
young, and my dad, my uncle, we were coming back home and my
uncle said, you know, I'll guide you out of LA. So when we go when I get
on this one freeway, you continue straight You go on the other end, and
that'll take you home. So my dad was like, Okay, and so
my uncle went to the right. And my dad kept going. Well, that wasn't,
that wasn't the exit. He was supposed to continue following my uncle. And
actually, so we ended up getting stuck in LA for about
five hours. And I was yes. And I there was no GPS at the time or anything
like that. And I was, I was the one that had to ask, we would stop at a
gas station. Can you help us get back to Fresno? And
so they tell me and I was probably eight or nine. I had no background
knowledge of freeways and driving or anything like that. And I was
translating for my parents. I think that's part of why it took
us five hours to get out of there because I didn't really know what I was
talking about. But I was supposed to translate between these two
languages that I was learning myself. So yeah, that's when so
to this day when I have to go to LA and kind of like shiver inside Yeah.
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Speaker 1: I mean, I just started learning to drive like maybe like two
years ago. It's still time. I'm like, just now getting to know all exits.
Yeah, like I couldn't even imagine as an eight year
old. That's, that's, Wow, that's really wild.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. So that's one of the adjustments we had to do is like me
just translating for them. And not really necessarily knowing what I was
translating, but trying my best.
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Speaker 1: to share these questions because you're, you're answering most
of these questions really ahead at the time, which was great. Um, so I
would ask, How important was it to your parents that
you'd be raised with a strong Portuguese identity?
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Speaker 2: It was kind of like that we were raised in two worlds. So I go
to school and I, we, my siblings and I kind of had to adjust To, to what
the American way of life was. And then we'd come home
and just spoke Portuguese. I remember my parents saying, hey, in this
house, we speak Portuguese, because they didn't speak English. And so and
they wanted to know what we were talking about. So I
remember a lot of times, like, if we start to speak in English amongst
each other, they'd be like, No, no, no, in here, you speak Portuguese.
And so now I'm, like, really grateful that we had to do
that, because, you know, I still have that language. And we went to the
Portuguese celebrations. I mean, like, that was the reason why we moved
to the valley was because there were other Portuguese
people that my parents knew. So within the broader culture, there's, we
still hung on to our own culture, and then we kind of created it. You
know, there's a Portuguese culture here that's a lot
ifferent than the Portuguese culture back in the mainland. And even the
way like, even our Portuguese is not necessarily the correct Portuguese
because we've kind of adjusted to the way, you know, we
t's kind of like Spanglish, but it's Portuguese and english put toget
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Speaker 1: That's a pretty common occurrence.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. And so we didn't even know we weren't speaking proper
Portuguese until like, I would go back and visit and people would look at
me like, I think I know what you're saying. But, and so
that's when I realized, Oh, we've kind of created our own language here,
too.
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Speaker 1: So, yeah, that kind of goes on to my next question. How was
your identity expressed through language foods, traditions and like
specialization?
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Speaker 2: Um, well, I think in school being that I went to a very small
school and there were other Portuguese students, not very many, but like,
we lived on a dairy and there were eight other
families and they were all Portuguese. And they all had lots of children.
And so I did have other people like me that I could identify with, but we
weren't in like the majority, we were still the
minority. So actually, I remember one time we went on a field trip, and
and so my mom packed me a lunch. And I was so embarrassed to eat my lunch
because my lunch didn't look like everybody else's
lunch. So everybody, you know, had like the Wonder Bread with the Bologna
and cheese and I had this homemade, we call them pop six, but it's like a
homemade bun or bread and then it had like, it
actually had like a pork chop in it. And so I was eating it, like trying
to hide the bagel sandwich so that no one would see that it didn't look
like theirs. So, you know, we never we acclimated to
the American culture, but we never lost our culture. Yeah, sounds really
good. Yeah. And nowadays I'm like, oh, man, I wish I had you know, my it
was homemade my mom's homemade bread with, you know, a
pork chop. It was like a pork chop sandwich. But I was so embarrassed at
that time. But now it's like, yeah, those those are, so it would be nice
to have honor my culture. Even if I had other people
honoring it, then I would have like, I'm in the educational system now.
So when my kids bring like, you know, like, they say they bring a burrito
or I'm like, Oh my gosh, I wish I look so good. Did
your mom make that instead of instead of being embarrassed about it, so
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Speaker 1: And then like, speaking now, like current times, what cultural
traditions have you maintained? And why has it been important to you to
maintain them?
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Speaker 2: Well, my daughter, she's, she's in college. She's almost 20
years old, but about two two years ago, she was the big Queen for the
Portuguese celebration actually here for this hall. And
then when she was little, she was a little Queen for the hall as well. So
that's something that we do this this year, I actually am part of one of
the festivals committees started helping out with
that. And so I'm doing that and then my, my, my son's not as much into it
as my daughter. And one of the things when I was young, was that I would
sorry, keep reverting back.
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Speaker 1: No,
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Speaker 2: yeah
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Speaker 1: no, I love it.
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Speaker 2: but I had friends who were Portuguese, but they didn't
necessarily speak it because like their grandparents were the ones that
immigrated over here and so their parents were already born
here and and then they didn't teach their children and so, like I would
go places with them and and they didn't speak Portuguese and so I will to
myself, when I have my own kids, I'm going to teach
them how to speak Portuguese. That's so sad. And I pretty much ended up
doing exactly what I said I wasn't going to do only because well not
because we're like my husband's Portuguese, we both speak
Portuguese. But I think in English, and so to speak Portuguese to my
children was more laborious than then speaking English. And so, so I
regret that. But as my daughter got older, she started wanting
to speak. She was always around it like my parents speak it and so she's
around and she hears me and my husband's speaking it, but it's kind of
funny because like she wanted to say things in public,
but she didn't want other people to know what she was saying. So she
started trying to say it in portuguese so over like she was about 14 when
she started to do that. Do that and now she's almost 20
So, over the years for Portuguese has gotten progressively better because
she's been trying to do that. And, and my son on the other hand, he
knows, like maybe a handful of words and that's and he's
younger than she is, but, but she'll like she'll try to speak to my
parents in Portuguese where my parents when they babysat both of my kids
when they were younger stuff, but my mom especially like,
she doesn't speak English, but with her grandchildren, she would speak
English, it's like her her affective filter was lowered and she wasn't
nervous about things and so she would she would speak to
them in English. Well, we were like, No Mom, you need to speak to them in
Portuguese so they could learn it. So now it's been reversed. So now my
daughter will try to speak to her in Portuguese so
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that she can build her vocabulary.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, my grandparents will first like they speak
Portuguese. My parents don't. So now I'm like, I'm hoping I can pick it
up. Uh huh. This isn't about me, but I'm here and it looks
like that's really cool to hear that your daughter.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
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Speaker 1: Awesome. So next question. Have you been to the Azores?
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Speaker 2: Mm hmm. Yeah. Some yeah, when I was we actually hadn't gone. I
came when I was seven. And my my mom's my grandmother got really sick. A
couple of years after we were here, and my mom went
back to go see her and, and took my little brother who had never seen his
grandma cuz he was born here. And so she took him and we didn't get to go
back. And then it wasn't until close like 10 years
later, I was, well, 11 years. I was 18 when I went back for the first
time. So my mom and dad, they took all five of us kids, and we went back
we got to see my grandfather, my grandmother had passed
away by then. And that's when I realized, and even my mom says it
nowadays it's like you think you're Portuguese and then you go back there
then they're like, Oh, I'm an American, because everybody
treats you like an American when you get there. And so it's kind of like
you really, you don't really have a homeland necessarily, like, wherever
you're at. You feel out of place a little bit. You
know, so so when you're in your community with other people that have
immigrated as well, that's kind of like when you feel at home when you're
in with other immigrants, because they, they have the
same story you do, and they know what it feels like. But when you go
there, like I remember people saying, Oh, that's not how you say that.
I'm like, Oh, it's not or so. Yeah. So that was the first
time we went back. Sorry, I digress and start Kyle tell stories.
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Speaker 1: I love that. At one point, they were like, oh, try to listen
for a quote that you really liked, because we're kind of doing a project.
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Speaker 2: Uh huh. Yeah, my mom went not very long ago, and she was
actually there during Fourth of July and so she's like, no, you know,
it's Fourth of July but she was there, which was kind of
weird. And then my aunt was my mom wasn't a citizen at the time and my
aunts like, you're not you're not an American, you're not a US citizen
and my mom's like, what? I, you know, I go over there and
I'm not an American. I come over here and you know, so so she's like, Who
am I? You know, who where do I belong? So yeah, that's, that's exactly
how a lot of us immigrants feel.
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Speaker 1: This is kind of a this was kind of mentioned earlier, but it's
my stated trace, if you will, some of your experiences growing up in the
Portuguese American community, in the valley
throughout your life.
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Speaker 2: Well, my, you know, because they're, they feel out of place.
One of the things that my parents made sure to do was go to a lot of like
the Portuguese celebrations and like my dad's favorite
one was the one in Augustine, which is a lot of people's favorite one.
It's like the most attended. Like thousands of I don't call me but it's
like over 10,000 sometimes, and people come from Idaho
and people come like, that's like, like, that's kind of like where they
would meet meet up. So we would go to a lot of celebrations, but like my
dad, he can talk your ear off, like he will be like, he
was the first one there in the morning, we'd find like the spot, you
know, and we were the last ones to leave and like we were, we were in the
car and even if he didn't know somebody, like he'd find
people and by the end of the night, he would know that and we would be in
the car and it was like the gusting celebration i think is in September.
So it's kind of like late, you know, in the in the in
the year and so it starts to get chilly at night and we'd be like
freezing like Come up. We've been tired. We've been running around all
day. And it's like, Yeah, dad let's go home and my mom would be
in the car, she'd be mad at him. And he's like, okay, just one more, you
know, just be him this load this other one other person that he had
found. And so those are like, those are memories that I'll
never forget. And my brother, I mean, I do talk a lot, but my brother
over there, he's the spitting image of my dad, and he is the exact same
thing. We'll go to the celebrations and he'll be sitting
next to people. He's never met his life. And by the time they're done
eating lunch, like he, he knows, like the whole story and like so that's
one of the things that has been passed on. And, and the
other thing too, that I that's very much a part of our culture is like
even now we'll go when we were little that like all of our family, when
they would get together they'd sit at the kitchen table
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and they just reminisce about times. In the past, and the kids, we'd like
to try to watch TV and they get really loud and we've be like be quiet,
you know, we're trying to watch cartoons and stuff
like that. And now that's like, we'll go to my mom's house and my
cousin's will come over or whatever. And that's what we're doing. We're
sitting at the kitchen table reminiscing and then my dad and
mom, and like the older generation that are still here. Like, they'll
talk about things that my brother and I have no idea about, but we just
like, they'll sit there and just enjoy the conversation
and, and know Oh, and the other thing, they they have a nickname for
everybody. Everybody has a nickname, so and so or, you know, toothless
or, you know, the one without the leg, just like, they were
like, but what's his name? I don't know his name. They just called him
the guy without the leg. Yeah. So yeah, those are the things that you
know, I don't know eventually, the generation is going to
be so far removed that they won't have experienced that those things but
those are just like iconic images of, you know.
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Speaker 1: How many siblings do you have?
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Speaker 2: I'm the oldest and there's five of us
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Speaker 1: Oh, I'm the youngest of five.
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Speaker 2: Oh, really?
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: And that's another thing. Most of them had a lot of kids too.
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Speaker 1: Um, so it's kind of a big question. What does being Portuguese
American mean to you?
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Speaker 2: Well, my husband actually, he would have loved to be here
today cuz he's much more like he has a pride about his I have a pride
too. But like, one of the things that he does is like every
every actor who might have even a fate trace of Portuguese, you know,
he's Portuguese, or he's put on like, I think everybody's Portuguese. But
he just like He just has this pride about his culture
And so I think that's one of the things that being important is American
is. I mean, I think a lot of cultures have pride in who they are. But I
think that's something that being Portuguese America
is, you really, you really take the opportunity to boast about your
culture and, and the other thing I think it means is like, one of the
things my parents instilled in us is just like hard work an
never giving up and I think them my mom, you know, she both my mom and
my dad, but the year that they came over, it was in 1975. And like, there
was a wave of immigrants that came that year. And my
you know, they they left the land that they knew to, I don't know if I
could do that today. Go to a country that I don't speak the language. I
don't know what I'm going to do when they get there.
They had to borrow money to come here. But they came. And they never
gave any excuses. They worked for everything they ever got. My one of the
things that I remember my parents teaching me was, it'
not how much money you make, it's how much money you save. And so like,
I remember my dad, you know, basically he raised seven people, my mom and
my siblings on a $24,000 salary. And that was like,
thought that was a lot back then when I'm thinking now it's like, Wow,
my mom made her own clothes. She make clothes for us, like, back then.
Like, I was sometimes embarrassed to go to school with th
clothes my mom made, but they were so resourceful. You know, she, she,
there were times where she went outside the home to work, but when she
was home, you know, she'd make bread and like she's th
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most talented person. I know. She's a seamstress. She she could Cook she
can, you know she, she would paint the house she would mow the lawn, she
would only think she she's afraid of mice but othe
than that but other than that, you know, my dad, you know, he worked
days he worked nights he could work swings he'd worked through Christmas,
you know. So I think being a Portuguese American, thos
of like just being ethical, hard working, you know, not really believing
in handouts but working for what you want and, and having pride in what
in who you are and you know what you have
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Speaker 1: So to what extent do you believe in Portuguese American has
shaped the way you have moved through life, both professionally and
personally?
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Speaker 2: Well, I think my last answer kind of summed it up. Yes. Being
a hard worker having, being at the end of the day being an honest person
who doesn't look back with regret on what they've done
always Yeah, I think just hard working. Honest. hard working and honest.
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Speaker 1: Would you say it's great? It's just
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: It's kind of reiterated, but yeah, nice. Um, a couple more.
How do you see the Portuguese American community today?
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Speaker 2: Well, we were just set a a matança, which is a pig slaughter.
I don't know if you've ever been to one of those. They just had it this
Saturday. Here at the Hall when we were young. So that
was one of the traditions that they brought over. So when we were young,
we would, this is just like one one example I'm going to take you through
to kind of show you the change over the years. So
when we were young, we would have pigs honors and so they were usually in
the wintertime because that's when they did them in the old country
because there was a refrigeration so you wanted to do
these things during the winter when it was cold this thing could keep the
meat, you know fresher. So everyone would come over to our house, all of
my aunts, uncles, cousins, and we would and everyone
would help and from bringing the pig home to slaughtering it to I want to
say burning the hair off and then to scraping it to hanging it up to
breaking it down. All the women they would have to, they
would go clean out the pig's guts. This is disgusting but and then the
girls were in charge. The men were in charge of like breaking it up,
breaking the pig up into like the different parts and cuts
and the women were in charge of cleaning out like pigs gut so they can
make linguisa and all these other things. Yeah, that we just say, and and
then the girls we were in charge of like, holding the
pictures of water that they would use to wash the pig's guts and they
make this big old pit and then like they'd dump all of the stuff in there
and and like, like, I hated that job. Like it was so
disgusting, like doing splatter, and it was, it smelled awful. And then
slowly over the years, like it started happening less and less like it
was every winter and then it was like, just like every
two to three years and then Not as many people would come, but like that
whole day it was like from early morning to by the, by the evening time
there was like food on the table based on what they
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have created that they like they call them Twizzlers. I forgot what
they're called in English, but they're like chit chat on is
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Speaker 2: yeah. Pork rines. Yeah. And there's like, you know, there was
sweet potatoes and all these, all this food on the table after a long day
of laboring and then so then it was like, Oh, we
won't kill the pig at home. We'll have it already killed and, you know,
cleaned out and drained. And then we'll just bring it home and cut it
out. And then over the years, it was like, oh, we'll just
buy that. So now they're at the point where like, it's like, we'll buy
the meat and make linguisa like that. We don't even make everything. We
just like to make the linguisa and we buy the intestines
already from the store cleaned out. And, and so it's like, that's kind of
where I see our culture. So when my parents pass, I don't even know that
I'll know how to make linguisa, you know, artists
have to buy the silver linguisa that doesn't even taste like the real
language. So, you know, today's like, this was really good, but and so
like, my, my children will never had that experience of the
pig slaughter because by the time they were born, we were done with that.
And even now, like they they don't even eat Linguisa. So let alone know
how it's made. So I think that's part of like, what
like the culture is like slowly morphing?
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Speaker 1: Oh
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: And loose to happen. Mm hmm. Yeah. So yeah.
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Speaker 1: That's very different I remember like my mom would tell me
about like, like rabbits like skinning rabbits all all the time.
70
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Speaker 2: my mom would do that. Yeah. And now Oh, she says, Noah's
little girl I would, I was in charge of killing the chickens. I just
grabbed those chicken by the head and swinging them around. And
not very long ago, she tells me she's like, I don't know how I did that I
couldn't, I couldn't stomach the thought of having to do that again.
Whereas when she was young, like that was a part like
that was surviving, you know, somebody had killed chickens. And it was
just given it was like everyday life. And now it's like, now they don't
even want to eat shrimp with the head off. That was you
know, when we went to when I was 17. And we went the first time and we
ordered shrimp, and they put the shrimp in front of us and they have like
those little tentacles sticking out in the heads and
we're like, this isn't shrimp you know, we had no idea what it was. Yes,
so I think just the culture is it'll still be Portuguese, but it won't be
It won't be the same, you know, it'll be different
and our kids won't even know the difference I think.
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Speaker 1: This makes me want to make languisa. Okay, so last question.
Is there anything we didn't cover that you'd like to share?
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Speaker 2: Um, I mean, I think the, like the big overall picture, I think
that I would like people to take away from us immigrating over here is
that our parents did it to make a better life for us.
And if we don't have a better life, it's not it's not without lack of
them trying, you know, it's like, nobody came here, because they were
doing well there. Everybody came here because they wanted to
provide for their children even not even knowing what what they were
getting themselves into, but that there was this dream somewhere out
there that everybody said was possible. And I think it I can't
say that for every family that's immigrated over here, but I think like
my parents achieved that, you know, and I and I think they're grateful
that their children were able to bank on that dream or
accomplish that dream.
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Speaker 1: This is a good area.
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Speaker 2: Oh thank you.
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Speaker 1: All right, um, I don't know if I should stop filming.
1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:34,440
Speaker 2: Had to be Portuguese and you had to be Catholic, and you know,
and and now it's like, they're just, they're lucky, if anybody wants to
do it, because people don't want to do it anymore, and
it is a big commitment, but I go to celebrations or even when my daughter
was a queen, and we'd go to celebrations and I mean, there's kind of
like, sometimes like, you can tell Oh, they're
Portuguese, like you can tell your own, but then there'll be times I'm
like, I'm not sure. There's, you know, they're Portuguese. All I mean,
Portuguese people come in all different.
2
00:00:34,510 --> 00:00:34,930
Speaker 1: Yeah
3
00:00:34,960 --> 00:00:54,970
Speaker 2: colors of the rainbow, but but I know for a fact that there's
a lot of times where there aren't, you know, they're not Catholic.
They're not Portuguese. And and they're the Queen because
the Portuguese people don't want to do it anymore, which is really sad.
But
4
00:00:55,420 --> 00:01:00,280
Speaker 1: yeah well. I think we are good.
00:00:01,170 --> 00:00:04,590
Speaker 1: All right, awesome. So could you repeat your your name for me
please?
2
00:00:05,190 --> 00:00:07,560
Speaker 2: Luisa L-u-i-s-a.
3
00:00:08,940 --> 00:00:09,930
Speaker 1: All right. And last name?
4
00:00:09,000 --> 00:00:17,640
Speaker 2: It is custodio C-U-S-T-O-D-I-O, that's my maiden name.
5
00:00:17,790 --> 00:00:18,300
Speaker 1: Okay.
6
00:00:18,330 --> 00:00:21,570
Speaker 2: And my husband's name is Lopes L-O-P-E-S.
7
00:00:27,390 --> 00:00:36,330
Speaker 1: So now have your full birth including the name. Um, is there
were you named after anybody or is there a story around your name at all
that, you know?
8
00:00:36,990 --> 00:00:39,930
Speaker 2: No, I don't know of any story about my name.
9
00:00:41,850 --> 00:00:42,870
Speaker 1: Oh, when were you born?
10
00:00:43,830 --> 00:00:47,040
Speaker 2: I was born June 21 1968.
11
00:00:49,080 --> 00:00:49,800
Speaker 1: Where were you born?
12
00:00:50,130 --> 00:00:59,430
Speaker 2: I was born in a village which is a villa in St. George, which
is one of the islands in the Azores.
13
00:01:01,390 --> 00:01:08,950
Speaker 1: What early memories do you have as a child working in American
community? Or in Portugal?
14
00:01:09,650 --> 00:01:47,660
Speaker 2: Okay, so I, we actually went to Africa when I was three years
old and I lived in Africa for three years. So I have some vague memories
of that. And then we moved back to the Azores for
about a year and then came here. So my earliest memories, I really don't
have a lot of memories about Africa or the Azores. Most of my memories
are from here. I was seven when we came to America. So I
have memories of the first house we lived in and going to school, my
teachers.
15
00:01:48,320 --> 00:01:50,780
Speaker 1: Those, what what brought your family to Africa.
16
00:01:50,000 --> 00:02:53,720
Speaker 2: Opportunity. So my there were two. My dad was in the
Portuguese army and they went to Angola. And his troop did and then when
he married my mom, there was an opportunity the governmen
would. It was there was a Portuguese colony there called Mozambique. And
so they, they would give the Portuguese citizens incentives to go over to
their colonies and work there. And so my dad wa
given the opportunity to go work in Mozambique and given land. And so he
took that opportunity. And then in, there was a civil war that broke out
and so we my parents left before right before th
Civil War broke out for their independence.
17
00:01:52,880 --> 00:02:54,050
Speaker 1: So that was the reason for moving back to America?
18
00:02:54,000 --> 00:02:56,880
Speaker 2: That was the reason for moving back to the Azores.
19
00:02:56,910 --> 00:02:57,180
Speaker 1: Azores?
20
00:02:57,000 --> 00:03:20,280
Speaker 2: Yes, yes. And then my uncle, my mom's brother lived here in
Los Angeles, actually. And so he's the one that sponsored my parents
again for opportunity. That's why they came, there wasn't a
ot of work in the Azores and America is the land of the opportunity. And
so, so that's why they came here.
21
00:03:20,700 --> 00:03:24,150
Speaker 1: Okay, so you like primarily spent childhood he said, like
California?
22
00:03:24,000 --> 00:03:48,630
Speaker 2: Yes, we moved to LA. We were there for about two months and my
dad is a farmer by nature and so not LA is not necessarily the place for
farmers. So he knew people that lived here in the San
Joaquin Valley. And so that's why we moved over to Fresno. They got him a
job in the dairy industry. And so that's why we're here.
23
00:03:48,840 --> 00:04:01,710
Speaker 1: Okay. And then my next question was like, Did your parents
ever tell you what it was like to adjust to life in America? Specific
stories or anything like that?
24
00:04:01,800 --> 00:06:06,540
Speaker 2: Well, I kind of live the adjustment. I am the oldest of five
siblings. And so being the oldest, I did a lot of translating for my
parents to this day. They still don't speak English very
fluently. And even though we've been here for 44 years, we've actually
been here longer than they were lived in the Azores, but we did all of
the translating for my parents like parent conferences and
going to the doctors or and I was, I was seven. One of my earliest
memories actually is we went to go visit my uncle in LA. When I was
young, and my dad, my uncle, we were coming back home and my
uncle said, you know, I'll guide you out of LA. So when we go when I get
on this one freeway, you continue straight You go on the other end, and
that'll take you home. So my dad was like, Okay, and so
my uncle went to the right. And my dad kept going. Well, that wasn't,
that wasn't the exit. He was supposed to continue following my uncle. And
actually, so we ended up getting stuck in LA for about
five hours. And I was yes. And I there was no GPS at the time or anything
like that. And I was, I was the one that had to ask, we would stop at a
gas station. Can you help us get back to Fresno? And
so they tell me and I was probably eight or nine. I had no background
knowledge of freeways and driving or anything like that. And I was
translating for my parents. I think that's part of why it took
us five hours to get out of there because I didn't really know what I was
talking about. But I was supposed to translate between these two
languages that I was learning myself. So yeah, that's when so
to this day when I have to go to LA and kind of like shiver inside Yeah.
25
00:06:08,940 --> 00:06:18,630
Speaker 1: I mean, I just started learning to drive like maybe like two
years ago. It's still time. I'm like, just now getting to know all exits.
Yeah, like I couldn't even imagine as an eight year
old. That's, that's, Wow, that's really wild.
26
00:06:18,630 --> 00:06:29,250
Speaker 2: Yeah. So that's one of the adjustments we had to do is like me
just translating for them. And not really necessarily knowing what I was
translating, but trying my best.
27
00:06:32,940 --> 00:06:48,960
Speaker 1: to share these questions because you're, you're answering most
of these questions really ahead at the time, which was great. Um, so I
would ask, How important was it to your parents that
you'd be raised with a strong Portuguese identity?
28
00:06:48,420 --> 00:08:13,590
Speaker 2: It was kind of like that we were raised in two worlds. So I go
to school and I, we, my siblings and I kind of had to adjust To, to what
the American way of life was. And then we'd come home
and just spoke Portuguese. I remember my parents saying, hey, in this
house, we speak Portuguese, because they didn't speak English. And so and
they wanted to know what we were talking about. So I
remember a lot of times, like, if we start to speak in English amongst
each other, they'd be like, No, no, no, in here, you speak Portuguese.
And so now I'm, like, really grateful that we had to do
that, because, you know, I still have that language. And we went to the
Portuguese celebrations. I mean, like, that was the reason why we moved
to the valley was because there were other Portuguese
people that my parents knew. So within the broader culture, there's, we
still hung on to our own culture, and then we kind of created it. You
know, there's a Portuguese culture here that's a lot
ifferent than the Portuguese culture back in the mainland. And even the
way like, even our Portuguese is not necessarily the correct Portuguese
because we've kind of adjusted to the way, you know, we
t's kind of like Spanglish, but it's Portuguese and english put toget
29
00:08:14,160 --> 00:08:15,780
Speaker 1: That's a pretty common occurrence.
30
00:08:15,810 --> 00:08:28,650
Speaker 2: Yeah. And so we didn't even know we weren't speaking proper
Portuguese until like, I would go back and visit and people would look at
me like, I think I know what you're saying. But, and so
that's when I realized, Oh, we've kind of created our own language here,
too.
31
00:08:28,980 --> 00:08:39,690
Speaker 1: So, yeah, that kind of goes on to my next question. How was
your identity expressed through language foods, traditions and like
specialization?
32
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Speaker 2: Um, well, I think in school being that I went to a very small
school and there were other Portuguese students, not very many, but like,
we lived on a dairy and there were eight other
families and they were all Portuguese. And they all had lots of children.
And so I did have other people like me that I could identify with, but we
weren't in like the majority, we were still the
minority. So actually, I remember one time we went on a field trip, and
and so my mom packed me a lunch. And I was so embarrassed to eat my lunch
because my lunch didn't look like everybody else's
lunch. So everybody, you know, had like the Wonder Bread with the Bologna
and cheese and I had this homemade, we call them pop six, but it's like a
homemade bun or bread and then it had like, it
actually had like a pork chop in it. And so I was eating it, like trying
to hide the bagel sandwich so that no one would see that it didn't look
like theirs. So, you know, we never we acclimated to
the American culture, but we never lost our culture. Yeah, sounds really
good. Yeah. And nowadays I'm like, oh, man, I wish I had you know, my it
was homemade my mom's homemade bread with, you know, a
pork chop. It was like a pork chop sandwich. But I was so embarrassed at
that time. But now it's like, yeah, those those are, so it would be nice
to have honor my culture. Even if I had other people
honoring it, then I would have like, I'm in the educational system now.
So when my kids bring like, you know, like, they say they bring a burrito
or I'm like, Oh my gosh, I wish I look so good. Did
your mom make that instead of instead of being embarrassed about it, so
33
00:10:44,640 --> 00:10:53,640
Speaker 1: And then like, speaking now, like current times, what cultural
traditions have you maintained? And why has it been important to you to
maintain them?
34
00:10:54,260 --> 00:11:37,340
Speaker 2: Well, my daughter, she's, she's in college. She's almost 20
years old, but about two two years ago, she was the big Queen for the
Portuguese celebration actually here for this hall. And
then when she was little, she was a little Queen for the hall as well. So
that's something that we do this this year, I actually am part of one of
the festivals committees started helping out with
that. And so I'm doing that and then my, my, my son's not as much into it
as my daughter. And one of the things when I was young, was that I would
sorry, keep reverting back.
35
00:11:37,340 --> 00:11:37,520
Speaker 1: No,
36
00:11:37,520 --> 00:11:37,760
Speaker 2: yeah
37
00:11:37,760 --> 00:11:38,930
Speaker 1: no, I love it.
38
00:11:38,990 --> 00:13:52,370
Speaker 2: but I had friends who were Portuguese, but they didn't
necessarily speak it because like their grandparents were the ones that
immigrated over here and so their parents were already born
here and and then they didn't teach their children and so, like I would
go places with them and and they didn't speak Portuguese and so I will to
myself, when I have my own kids, I'm going to teach
them how to speak Portuguese. That's so sad. And I pretty much ended up
doing exactly what I said I wasn't going to do only because well not
because we're like my husband's Portuguese, we both speak
Portuguese. But I think in English, and so to speak Portuguese to my
children was more laborious than then speaking English. And so, so I
regret that. But as my daughter got older, she started wanting
to speak. She was always around it like my parents speak it and so she's
around and she hears me and my husband's speaking it, but it's kind of
funny because like she wanted to say things in public,
but she didn't want other people to know what she was saying. So she
started trying to say it in portuguese so over like she was about 14 when
she started to do that. Do that and now she's almost 20
So, over the years for Portuguese has gotten progressively better because
she's been trying to do that. And, and my son on the other hand, he
knows, like maybe a handful of words and that's and he's
younger than she is, but, but she'll like she'll try to speak to my
parents in Portuguese where my parents when they babysat both of my kids
when they were younger stuff, but my mom especially like,
she doesn't speak English, but with her grandchildren, she would speak
English, it's like her her affective filter was lowered and she wasn't
nervous about things and so she would she would speak to
them in English. Well, we were like, No Mom, you need to speak to them in
Portuguese so they could learn it. So now it's been reversed. So now my
daughter will try to speak to her in Portuguese so
39
00:13:52,370 --> 00:13:54,950
that she can build her vocabulary.
40
00:13:55,410 --> 00:14:06,660
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, my grandparents will first like they speak
Portuguese. My parents don't. So now I'm like, I'm hoping I can pick it
up. Uh huh. This isn't about me, but I'm here and it looks
like that's really cool to hear that your daughter.
41
00:14:06,690 --> 00:14:07,650
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
42
00:14:07,680 --> 00:14:12,720
Speaker 1: Awesome. So next question. Have you been to the Azores?
43
00:14:12,810 --> 00:15:43,920
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. Yeah. Some yeah, when I was we actually hadn't gone. I
came when I was seven. And my my mom's my grandmother got really sick. A
couple of years after we were here, and my mom went
back to go see her and, and took my little brother who had never seen his
grandma cuz he was born here. And so she took him and we didn't get to go
back. And then it wasn't until close like 10 years
later, I was, well, 11 years. I was 18 when I went back for the first
time. So my mom and dad, they took all five of us kids, and we went back
we got to see my grandfather, my grandmother had passed
away by then. And that's when I realized, and even my mom says it
nowadays it's like you think you're Portuguese and then you go back there
then they're like, Oh, I'm an American, because everybody
treats you like an American when you get there. And so it's kind of like
you really, you don't really have a homeland necessarily, like, wherever
you're at. You feel out of place a little bit. You
know, so so when you're in your community with other people that have
immigrated as well, that's kind of like when you feel at home when you're
in with other immigrants, because they, they have the
same story you do, and they know what it feels like. But when you go
there, like I remember people saying, Oh, that's not how you say that.
I'm like, Oh, it's not or so. Yeah. So that was the first
time we went back. Sorry, I digress and start Kyle tell stories.
44
00:15:44,020 --> 00:15:50,470
Speaker 1: I love that. At one point, they were like, oh, try to listen
for a quote that you really liked, because we're kind of doing a project.
45
00:15:50,540 --> 00:16:30,110
Speaker 2: Uh huh. Yeah, my mom went not very long ago, and she was
actually there during Fourth of July and so she's like, no, you know,
it's Fourth of July but she was there, which was kind of
weird. And then my aunt was my mom wasn't a citizen at the time and my
aunts like, you're not you're not an American, you're not a US citizen
and my mom's like, what? I, you know, I go over there and
I'm not an American. I come over here and you know, so so she's like, Who
am I? You know, who where do I belong? So yeah, that's, that's exactly
how a lot of us immigrants feel.
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00:16:36,420 --> 00:16:46,950
Speaker 1: This is kind of a this was kind of mentioned earlier, but it's
my stated trace, if you will, some of your experiences growing up in the
Portuguese American community, in the valley
throughout your life.
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Speaker 2: Well, my, you know, because they're, they feel out of place.
One of the things that my parents made sure to do was go to a lot of like
the Portuguese celebrations and like my dad's favorite
one was the one in Augustine, which is a lot of people's favorite one.
It's like the most attended. Like thousands of I don't call me but it's
like over 10,000 sometimes, and people come from Idaho
and people come like, that's like, like, that's kind of like where they
would meet meet up. So we would go to a lot of celebrations, but like my
dad, he can talk your ear off, like he will be like, he
was the first one there in the morning, we'd find like the spot, you
know, and we were the last ones to leave and like we were, we were in the
car and even if he didn't know somebody, like he'd find
people and by the end of the night, he would know that and we would be in
the car and it was like the gusting celebration i think is in September.
So it's kind of like late, you know, in the in the in
the year and so it starts to get chilly at night and we'd be like
freezing like Come up. We've been tired. We've been running around all
day. And it's like, Yeah, dad let's go home and my mom would be
in the car, she'd be mad at him. And he's like, okay, just one more, you
know, just be him this load this other one other person that he had
found. And so those are like, those are memories that I'll
never forget. And my brother, I mean, I do talk a lot, but my brother
over there, he's the spitting image of my dad, and he is the exact same
thing. We'll go to the celebrations and he'll be sitting
next to people. He's never met his life. And by the time they're done
eating lunch, like he, he knows, like the whole story and like so that's
one of the things that has been passed on. And, and the
other thing too, that I that's very much a part of our culture is like
even now we'll go when we were little that like all of our family, when
they would get together they'd sit at the kitchen table
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00:18:57,582 --> 00:20:09,859
and they just reminisce about times. In the past, and the kids, we'd like
to try to watch TV and they get really loud and we've be like be quiet,
you know, we're trying to watch cartoons and stuff
like that. And now that's like, we'll go to my mom's house and my
cousin's will come over or whatever. And that's what we're doing. We're
sitting at the kitchen table reminiscing and then my dad and
mom, and like the older generation that are still here. Like, they'll
talk about things that my brother and I have no idea about, but we just
like, they'll sit there and just enjoy the conversation
and, and know Oh, and the other thing, they they have a nickname for
everybody. Everybody has a nickname, so and so or, you know, toothless
or, you know, the one without the leg, just like, they were
like, but what's his name? I don't know his name. They just called him
the guy without the leg. Yeah. So yeah, those are the things that you
know, I don't know eventually, the generation is going to
be so far removed that they won't have experienced that those things but
those are just like iconic images of, you know.
49
00:20:09,750 --> 00:20:10,830
Speaker 1: How many siblings do you have?
50
00:20:11,550 --> 00:20:13,290
Speaker 2: I'm the oldest and there's five of us
51
00:20:13,320 --> 00:20:14,940
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm the youngest of five.
52
00:20:14,990 --> 00:20:15,620
Speaker 2: Oh, really?
53
00:20:15,620 --> 00:20:15,860
Speaker 1: Yeah.
54
00:20:15,860 --> 00:20:18,620
Speaker 2: And that's another thing. Most of them had a lot of kids too.
55
00:20:21,840 --> 00:20:27,810
Speaker 1: Um, so it's kind of a big question. What does being Portuguese
American mean to you?
56
00:20:35,220 --> 00:22:55,620
Speaker 2: Well, my husband actually, he would have loved to be here
today cuz he's much more like he has a pride about his I have a pride
too. But like, one of the things that he does is like every
every actor who might have even a fate trace of Portuguese, you know,
he's Portuguese, or he's put on like, I think everybody's Portuguese. But
he just like He just has this pride about his culture
And so I think that's one of the things that being important is American
is. I mean, I think a lot of cultures have pride in who they are. But I
think that's something that being Portuguese America
is, you really, you really take the opportunity to boast about your
culture and, and the other thing I think it means is like, one of the
things my parents instilled in us is just like hard work an
never giving up and I think them my mom, you know, she both my mom and
my dad, but the year that they came over, it was in 1975. And like, there
was a wave of immigrants that came that year. And my
you know, they they left the land that they knew to, I don't know if I
could do that today. Go to a country that I don't speak the language. I
don't know what I'm going to do when they get there.
They had to borrow money to come here. But they came. And they never
gave any excuses. They worked for everything they ever got. My one of the
things that I remember my parents teaching me was, it'
not how much money you make, it's how much money you save. And so like,
I remember my dad, you know, basically he raised seven people, my mom and
my siblings on a $24,000 salary. And that was like,
thought that was a lot back then when I'm thinking now it's like, Wow,
my mom made her own clothes. She make clothes for us, like, back then.
Like, I was sometimes embarrassed to go to school with th
clothes my mom made, but they were so resourceful. You know, she, she,
there were times where she went outside the home to work, but when she
was home, you know, she'd make bread and like she's th
57
00:22:55,620 --> 00:23:40,020
most talented person. I know. She's a seamstress. She she could Cook she
can, you know she, she would paint the house she would mow the lawn, she
would only think she she's afraid of mice but othe
than that but other than that, you know, my dad, you know, he worked
days he worked nights he could work swings he'd worked through Christmas,
you know. So I think being a Portuguese American, thos
of like just being ethical, hard working, you know, not really believing
in handouts but working for what you want and, and having pride in what
in who you are and you know what you have
58
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Speaker 1: So to what extent do you believe in Portuguese American has
shaped the way you have moved through life, both professionally and
personally?
59
00:23:56,600 --> 00:24:38,210
Speaker 2: Well, I think my last answer kind of summed it up. Yes. Being
a hard worker having, being at the end of the day being an honest person
who doesn't look back with regret on what they've done
always Yeah, I think just hard working. Honest. hard working and honest.
60
00:24:38,210 --> 00:24:39,350
Speaker 1: Would you say it's great? It's just
61
00:24:39,410 --> 00:24:39,860
Speaker 2: Yeah.
62
00:24:40,280 --> 00:24:47,690
Speaker 1: It's kind of reiterated, but yeah, nice. Um, a couple more.
How do you see the Portuguese American community today?
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Speaker 2: Well, we were just set a a matança, which is a pig slaughter.
I don't know if you've ever been to one of those. They just had it this
Saturday. Here at the Hall when we were young. So that
was one of the traditions that they brought over. So when we were young,
we would, this is just like one one example I'm going to take you through
to kind of show you the change over the years. So
when we were young, we would have pigs honors and so they were usually in
the wintertime because that's when they did them in the old country
because there was a refrigeration so you wanted to do
these things during the winter when it was cold this thing could keep the
meat, you know fresher. So everyone would come over to our house, all of
my aunts, uncles, cousins, and we would and everyone
would help and from bringing the pig home to slaughtering it to I want to
say burning the hair off and then to scraping it to hanging it up to
breaking it down. All the women they would have to, they
would go clean out the pig's guts. This is disgusting but and then the
girls were in charge. The men were in charge of like breaking it up,
breaking the pig up into like the different parts and cuts
and the women were in charge of cleaning out like pigs gut so they can
make linguisa and all these other things. Yeah, that we just say, and and
then the girls we were in charge of like, holding the
pictures of water that they would use to wash the pig's guts and they
make this big old pit and then like they'd dump all of the stuff in there
and and like, like, I hated that job. Like it was so
disgusting, like doing splatter, and it was, it smelled awful. And then
slowly over the years, like it started happening less and less like it
was every winter and then it was like, just like every
two to three years and then Not as many people would come, but like that
whole day it was like from early morning to by the, by the evening time
there was like food on the table based on what they
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have created that they like they call them Twizzlers. I forgot what
they're called in English, but they're like chit chat on is
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Speaker 2: yeah. Pork rines. Yeah. And there's like, you know, there was
sweet potatoes and all these, all this food on the table after a long day
of laboring and then so then it was like, Oh, we
won't kill the pig at home. We'll have it already killed and, you know,
cleaned out and drained. And then we'll just bring it home and cut it
out. And then over the years, it was like, oh, we'll just
buy that. So now they're at the point where like, it's like, we'll buy
the meat and make linguisa like that. We don't even make everything. We
just like to make the linguisa and we buy the intestines
already from the store cleaned out. And, and so it's like, that's kind of
where I see our culture. So when my parents pass, I don't even know that
I'll know how to make linguisa, you know, artists
have to buy the silver linguisa that doesn't even taste like the real
language. So, you know, today's like, this was really good, but and so
like, my, my children will never had that experience of the
pig slaughter because by the time they were born, we were done with that.
And even now, like they they don't even eat Linguisa. So let alone know
how it's made. So I think that's part of like, what
like the culture is like slowly morphing?
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Speaker 1: Oh
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: And loose to happen. Mm hmm. Yeah. So yeah.
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Speaker 1: That's very different I remember like my mom would tell me
about like, like rabbits like skinning rabbits all all the time.
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Speaker 2: my mom would do that. Yeah. And now Oh, she says, Noah's
little girl I would, I was in charge of killing the chickens. I just
grabbed those chicken by the head and swinging them around. And
not very long ago, she tells me she's like, I don't know how I did that I
couldn't, I couldn't stomach the thought of having to do that again.
Whereas when she was young, like that was a part like
that was surviving, you know, somebody had killed chickens. And it was
just given it was like everyday life. And now it's like, now they don't
even want to eat shrimp with the head off. That was you
know, when we went to when I was 17. And we went the first time and we
ordered shrimp, and they put the shrimp in front of us and they have like
those little tentacles sticking out in the heads and
we're like, this isn't shrimp you know, we had no idea what it was. Yes,
so I think just the culture is it'll still be Portuguese, but it won't be
It won't be the same, you know, it'll be different
and our kids won't even know the difference I think.
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Speaker 1: This makes me want to make languisa. Okay, so last question.
Is there anything we didn't cover that you'd like to share?
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Speaker 2: Um, I mean, I think the, like the big overall picture, I think
that I would like people to take away from us immigrating over here is
that our parents did it to make a better life for us.
And if we don't have a better life, it's not it's not without lack of
them trying, you know, it's like, nobody came here, because they were
doing well there. Everybody came here because they wanted to
provide for their children even not even knowing what what they were
getting themselves into, but that there was this dream somewhere out
there that everybody said was possible. And I think it I can't
say that for every family that's immigrated over here, but I think like
my parents achieved that, you know, and I and I think they're grateful
that their children were able to bank on that dream or
accomplish that dream.
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Speaker 1: This is a good area.
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Speaker 2: Oh thank you.
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Speaker 1: All right, um, I don't know if I should stop filming.
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Speaker 2: Had to be Portuguese and you had to be Catholic, and you know,
and and now it's like, they're just, they're lucky, if anybody wants to
do it, because people don't want to do it anymore, and
it is a big commitment, but I go to celebrations or even when my daughter
was a queen, and we'd go to celebrations and I mean, there's kind of
like, sometimes like, you can tell Oh, they're
Portuguese, like you can tell your own, but then there'll be times I'm
like, I'm not sure. There's, you know, they're Portuguese. All I mean,
Portuguese people come in all different.
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Speaker 1: Yeah
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Speaker 2: colors of the rainbow, but but I know for a fact that there's
a lot of times where there aren't, you know, they're not Catholic.
They're not Portuguese. And and they're the Queen because
the Portuguese people don't want to do it anymore, which is really sad.
But
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Speaker 1: yeah well. I think we are good.