Zeca Rodrigues and Ines Eiras Interview
Item
Title
Zeca Rodrigues and Ines Eiras Interview
Creator
Rodrigues, Zeca
Eiras, Ines
Contributor
Borges, Diniz
Language
ENG
Relation
Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute
Date
1/18/2022
Identifier
SCUAD_pbbi_00069
extracted text
Zeca Rodrigues: Hahaha.
Diniz Borges: Welcome everyone to another presentation by the
Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute. That's PBBI from California State
University, Fresno. Welcome to those who are following us uh here on
the Zoom webinar and welcome to those who are already following us and
uh putting some likes as well. Thank you. Already on Facebook live.
The webinar is also going to be, it's going to be recorded and it will
be archived through the two different formats. The Portuguese Beyond
Borders Institute’s Fresno State YouTube channel and also through the
Portuguese American oral history archive at the Henry Madden Library
at Fresno State. Great news for everyone that watches that we are in
the process of right now putting together the website within the
library where folks can go and search for all the different uh
recordings that we have done so far. We are just in the beginning
stage. We're very happy to have two guests with us as we continue to
explore the history of the Portuguese in California. You know, this is
a very important date. All days are important to all of us as long as
we're alive and healthy. But the uh day July first is Madeira Day. So
uh, the Autonomous Region of Madeira, the archipelago of Madeira uh
celebrates its day on July 1st, as Portugal celebrates on June 10th and
its sister archipelago, the archipelago of the Azores on uh it depends
that's on the Segunda-fiera do Espírito Santo so that made it harder.
That's always a different week and different day every year. We're
happy to celebrate Madeira with oral history because oral history is
the history of who we are. A lot of times throughout those of us who
studied history, whether it be in school at college level, undergrad,
graduate studies, etcetera. Sometimes we get a little bit focused on
battles and, and on wars and dates and the history of the history of
the people. So, the best way to commemorate Madeira in California is
to learn a little bit about the history of, of its people, whether you
were an immigrant or 1st, 2nd or third, I'm sure even 3rd and 4th
generation uh, of Portuguese with roots in Madeira in the state of
California. So, we have two young ladies and uh, they're from opposite
ends of the state and from San Diego and from the San Leandro-Hayward
area. And so we'll go start in the San Diego area with Zeca Rodriguez.
And then in the San Leandro area, Inez Eires. Zeca. I'll start with
you if I can, I'd like to talk about uh, if you will, a few minutes,
as long as you need, actually, both of you, we'll start with you to
tell us a little bit about, about yourself about the uh yourself here
in, in, in California and your, and your uh, your connections to the
archipelago of Madeira.
Zeca Rodrigues: Um I was born in [inaudible] and given the nickname of
Zeca and that's what I've been using. Although when I first arrived in
San Diego, my cousin changed my name to Mary Jo, which I used for a
little bit and then anyway I came to America in December of 1968 and I
couldn't speak English. Uh eventually graduated from Point Loma High
School in ‘73 and then I went on to uh study at UC Berkeley and
graduated in 1978 actually in physical education with a minor in
romance languages um through the language department in Berkeley I
went on a work study program to Paris, France in ‘75. And uh in ‘70 I
had also been accepted to uh study at the University of Perugia in
Italy but I got sick and could not do that. After graduating from UC
Berkeley, I returned to San Diego became very involved, not so much
for the community itself, but with Point Loma High School and their
bilingual and uh English as a second language program and just helping
immigrant, immigrants from different parts of the world that most of
them were from Portugal, Mexico, Vietnam. I loved it and designed,
actually help design a curriculum to aimed at teenagers running their
households, you know paying bills, doing the finances, you know
grocery shopping, all the things that I had gone through with my own
parents because of them not speaking English. Um anyway I explored at
that time the going through a master's program or becoming a physical
therapist or teaching degree and so forth. I did none. Uh and I did
not because suddenly I was contacted by a maritime attorney here in
San Diego who found out I could speak mainly the Portuguese, Spanish,
and Italian and therefore he hired me as his in-house interpreter. Uh
and you know, he could, that would communicate with his uh clients at
any time. Um now if you represented many fishermen in in San Diego.
And so, through that I became a paralegal, office manager and, and uh
continued interpreting and that's basically what I've been doing for
the last 40 years. So, through that work I have gained a wealth of
information about fishing operations and the, the industry itself,
which led me to become very curious about the Portuguese community and
particularly how Madeirans, how we Madeirans ever got to San Diego. Um
well unfortunately I couldn't find much information on, on that point.
Uh, so what I started doing was talking to the old timers right? Uh
the older the people I could find uh, you know the better and, and so
that's been sort of a, I guess a hobby, but, but that's how I have
developed this connection. But so, I don't know if I should keep
going.
Diniz Borges: No, no, that's great, that's great. We're going to come
back to that. I want you to actually talk to a little bit about that
experience uh, of all the information that you have gotten from San
Diego. We're going to jump up to the northern California and Inês. Um,
your, your connection to Madeira and your, and your immigrant
situation or your parents’ immigrant situation.
Inês Eiras: Well, I was born in Madeira and I immigrated in the ‘70s
with my uh four siblings. My father had emigrated three years before
with the two oldest siblings. We’re seven siblings and we were the
last of my, my father's family was the last of his siblings to
immigrate [phone interrupts]
Phone: Geronimo Lopez.
Inez Eiras: I'm sorry I got to shut my phone off here. Okay. So yeah,
my father was the last one of his siblings to leave Madeira. His
siblings had left. Uh, his oldest sister had left in 1939 to the
United States and then she called for her sister in 1944 and then his
brother had gone to Brazil. One went to Curaçao and then the Curaçao
ended up in the United States. And so, they were all over the place.
And my father was the very last one. Uh, he stayed in the village of
Ponta do Sol where we're from. And he came and worked for three years
at the Embers restaurant in San Lorenzo-San Leandro that was owned by
my aunt um to call for us and my mom came with us five and we went to
San Lorenzo schools. Uh, kind of took care of each other. My parents
went to work to raise seven kids and when I was of age to go to
college I went to the University of Cal State University, Hayward at
the time, which is now East Bay and I graduated with a degree in
business, bachelor science in business administration with marketing
concentration. I also studied Portuguese. Um I decided that I wanted
to get a minor in Portuguese, so I've always been connected to my
culture, just have a deep love for it. Um even as a little girl, you
know, I, I was eight years old and I wanted to go see Amalia and got
to see Amalia in my Portuguese school. My parents belonged to what was
called a club social Maderense and that's where I learned Portuguese
every Friday night, we had Portuguese classes at the club and it was
wonderful. We had these wonderful teachers who volunteered, I can't
believe they did that all those years. Um and I was able to do my
quartra class though I didn't do the exam because that was right
before the 1974 over, you know when the government was being
overthrown in Portugal. And so there was a lot of chaos in the
education department. But one of the things that I liked to do growing
up was having pen pals in writing to my family in Portugal, I had a
mentor, a godfather who was a professor in Lisbon and he always made
me feel like, you know your, you got this and he gave me so much
confidence and I, I owe a lot of gratitude to him to my uh my love of
culture and language was uh definitely deepened by his mentorship in
my life. So going forward I went in uh tried to work in corporate
America and learned early on that I was not a corporate girl and uh
then I got my real estate license and have been a real estate agent
for 32 years.
Zeca Rodrigues: Wow.
Inês Eires: So, that's been my career and I've been able to help a lot
of people uh you know real estate agents uh they don't just sell
homes. We you know we change lives sometimes we feel like people’s
shrinks, we solve a lot of problems and I do work with the Portuguese
community. I moved a lady to the Azores and I know I ended up being,
being everything to her, because all her family was gone and I walk
into her house one day and she was laying on the ground uh ill and no
family here so I ended up being her nurse and doctor too um which was
a real joy you know we’re very good friends now and I get to visit her
when I go to Terceira which is really great. Um so I, I love what I do
um it's uh It's something that I started through my family business,
my family started investing in real estate and I was started at 15
years old basically um property managing for my parents, they didn't
speak English so I was the one that you know when and evicted somebody
without even being of legal age. Yeah I just went out and did it. So I
just learned to grow up very fast and take care of problems and I'm a
problem solver and help my parents in every possible way until I got
married and established a home of my own and raised a family. I have
two sons, 27 and 22 yes and uh my, my siblings all live in the Bay
Area except for one that lives in Ojai, California and she is
incredible. I am very proud of her because she has been such a voice
for our Madeira culture in terms of music, she plays the braguinha and
sings their music. So, we have a good time with that. We represent our
island whenever possible. For probably 40 years my father and mother
and friends and family, I would go to the Festa Thornton where they
had [inaudible] and there was a family there from [inaudible] that
invited us one year and then we just kept coming a year after year. My
father was a musician. He is now no longer with us. My brother is a
musician. My sister's a musician and we all kind of sing a little bit,
we have fun. My mom loves to sing, she is not uh the singer that she
used to be. She's had a little bit of a challenge, but she definitely
has her memory and she leaves a lot of great things for us to pass on
to future generations. Um for many years uh she, well she started a
lot of Madeira traditions at the [inaudible], one of them was making
the bread. She was one of the first ladies to make the bolo do caco.
And she also started some traditions there that are still being done.
One of them is the homages d natal [assumed spelling] where the group
get together and they have a [inaudible] and of course we don't, we're
not doing that, but there are still people that are running the
organization that are very, very talented and that are making these
traditions continue and I'm very proud of them for doing that. Um what
else with me? I uh with my uh love of culture, I decided a few years
back when I was serving in the [inaudible] board and my husband was
serving on the Filarmônica do Credo Immigrant [assumed spelling] in
Newark, California. He was one of the, I think vice president was the
vice president. And uh at the time we were kind of split, I was in
one, one place, he was in another place and there was all these events
happening and I, we say well how we're going to promote these events
uh when we're just all over the place. So I had this idea of forming
this uh Facebook group when Facebook was brand new. And I started this
Facebook group called Portuguese Culture on social events in
California. And I invited everyone in to post all of their things and
to have this unified in one place. Um and I always felt like I had a
little bit of cultural knowledge to give and that was my ministry to
give to my community. Um the other thing that made me very motivated
with uh teaching people about our cultures with the city that I'm from
in San Leandro has a big contingency of Portuguese roots and there
were a lot of third, fourth, wash down Portuguese people that I would
meet up with at coffee shops sometimes in the morning and I would over
hear their conversations about how they felt about you know their
mother in law or this and that and you know they're Portuguese and I
felt that there was a lot of just not misinformation and I, it kind of
bothered me and I said no we got to do something, I have to do
something about this. I have to educate them about the great culture
that we have. And in one of those uh coffee meetings that we had, we
actually invited this 90 year old actually he was 80, 80 something at
the time to go with us to Terceira Island in the Azores where my
husband is from to go to the San Juaninas and he was all excited
because he was a descendant of Terceirense and I mean talk about
making this man's uh you know, day and life, you know, he had a great
old time and we took him to all the festivities. He kept up with the
teenager and we took pictures of him jumping over a wall so he
wouldn't get hit, he wouldn't get uh you know, uh injured by the bulls
that were running after him and I actually filmed it and showed it to
all the people that were there at the coffee shop. It was unreal. It
was just a great story. But anyway, so I'm going off topic and
basically just to say how much I love to talk about our culture and,
and to spread it and to spread the great will of the Portuguese people
and, and the island of Madeira, the Azores, Portugal. Today, we're
talking about Madeira. Behind me on the screen is my village where I
was born, Ponta do Sol and the church I was baptized in and I'm very
proud of the island that I come from, very proud of my people, very
proud of all the things that they had to endure in the past to be
what, who they are today.
Diniz Borges: Indeed, indeed. And uh there's uh we're gonna dive in a
little bit of this to the history of the Madeirans in California. So,
um there are a couple of distinct areas and both of you will correct
me. I'll start with Zeca uh because I'm probably gonna be wrong, but
there are a few, when we think about Madeirans in California, folks
from the archipelago, mostly I'm sure from the island of Madeira, I'm
sure some from Porto Santo. Um the-- we look at and we think in uh in
generalities of course, uh we think of San Diego, we think of uh you
know the Hayward-San Leandro-East Bay area and we think a little bit
of Sacramento. Uh I know a few uh personally I know a few of them in
uh that are Portuguese who are from Madeira in Sacramento. And a
little bit in uh in here, some parts of the west of the San Joaquin
Valley, there's a little community uh here called Lemoore actually
good size city nowadays where there were a few Madeira families. One
of the few areas in the Central Valley where there were some families
from the, the island of Madeira. So, Zeca um in your research and your
personal knowledge of someone who immigrated from Madeira with your
parents. Um give us a little bit of a synopsis of the Madeira uh folks
in uh in San Diego and, and why San Diego?
Zeca Rodrigues: Right. Um actually, I should have told you I was born
in a very, very small, even smaller than Ponta do Sol probably, um
village called Paul do Mar. And what's interesting about Paul is that
most of the people who are from Madeira here in San Diego are from
this one little village. Okay. We have maybe, you know, a handful of
people from other villages, including, you know, a couple from
Funchal, but they’re minimums. Uh, so most of the people in Paul are
from in uh, San Diego that are from Madeira have this Paul do Mar
connection. Um, and then you have, one of the things that I learned
was that um, you know, I've spoken to, to, different people and so,
um, there are people from Madeira from Paul in the San Leandro area. I
have cousins up there and what not. And it actually in the early days,
some of the people kind of stopped there, but then they ventured off
to the, to the coast and started fishing rather than construction and
agriculture. So, that was kind of the connection. It started, they
started going, uh, you know, fishing up and down. Some initially, uh,
stopped in San Pedro. I lived in San Pedro for a while until
eventually, uh, you know, Madeirans called Point Loma or San Diego
their home. Um, from what I can tell um, the early Madeirans were here
in around 1910. Um, I have a personal connection with an aunt. Her
name was Veronica Filante [assumed spelling] to, and uh, she was
actually a great aunt and she arrived in San Diego around 1930. She
did immigrate to America in you know Lowell, Massachusetts in 1920 and
she was kind of a remarkable lady because uh and I remember her from
her going back to uh to Paul. Um and the many times she went, and I
remember her because she would bring people back with her. So, in the
early days like in 1920 when she first came, she brought with her a
companion which was her brother, right? And then when she came to San
Diego um they, she would go back and she was already married and we
had left her children, younger children with her mother and then
brought a, uh brought a niece who was already a teenager and could
work and so she could support her family. So, she would make these
trips all through, you know, the, the 1940s and whatnot and uh and
just try to help people as she came. My memory of first probably in
the early 1960s or so I remember her going back and I loved to sit
right next to her because she smelled so good, you know, and then I
was at awe when she would dress up on a weekday, just like it was
Sunday. I mean her clothes were just incredible and, and she had a
thing about her, you know, and, and so it was kind of like she, I
remember she would give us like trocanos [assumed spelling], little
change so we could buy uh some, some stuff and, and it was just like
it was out of this world. But she truly was for Madeirans here in, in
San Diego, she truly was a pioneer of that. Um, there were, and then
there were other people that came as the, the fishing and whatnot.
and, and uh, I remember I spoke with Mrs. Mary Nunes, she was uh, when
I spoke with her, she was probably already in her late in her late
eighties and early nineties and she had immigrated uh, from Madeira
and had, she was also from Paul, she had immigrated from Madeira and
went to Massachusetts, and she said that when did she remembers? She
just was not happy to be Massachusetts and you know, she was there
because her husband was there, and they wanted to make a better
living. But they had, we're hearing about how fishing was so good in,
she started getting letters from, you know, family and friends about
how fishing was so good in San Diego and they, you know, they should
consider moving. And the most importantly, she heard how the weather
was just like Madeira. So, there was no turning back that was her, you
know, we used to say it was a gold rush, you know, come to San Diego
for the weather and so from her, it was just kind of, you know, uh,
that was, there was sort of the exodus from the East Coast into the
West Coast for Madeirans and into San Diego now. Uh there are a lot of
very different stories about people coming to San Diego. And again,
I'm talking about people from Paul. So, there's this lady, her name is
Mary Freitas, it's now and in talking to her, I found out that she had
immigrated when she was 10 years old. She came by herself. What had
happened was her mother and her had been called to come to America
through her mother's sister and everything was approved that they were
coming when she got to Funchal to board the boat um, she couldn't come
because she had skin tags. So, she had to stay behind with her
grandmother. The mother had to come because otherwise they would have
lost all their money. So, she stays behind and when she's 10 years old
a year later, um, she comes, she's put on that boat and she comes to
America, by herself.
Diniz Borges: Wow.
Zeca Rodrigues: And I, you know, I asked her, I said weren't you
scared? She says, you know, “I don't think so. Just the excitement of
knowing that I was going to see my mother again and knowing that I was
going to be needing all my family. Um, fear never entered into the
equation. Right?” So anyway. Um, and there's others like this, there's
um, there's this guy here who's a very prominent uh, fishing
management company guy. And when I talked to him, he came when he was
seven years old by himself and what he remembers his mother put him on
a plane. This was already in the, I believe, late ‘50s, early ‘60s,
his mother put him on a plane, and he remembers he had this little
suit and on the pocket of the suit was his name and the address where
he was coming to. He says, you know, I felt like a package but, and
there's more into that, that whole thing, you know. But anyway, these
were the stories that kind of made the Portuguese in the Madeirenses
in San Diego. Um, and so you know, when we look about through the
Madeirenses in San Diego, we look at the many, many routes the people
came and, and Madeira and San Diego immigration is this little bit
different than most Portuguese communities. And I think it's different
from this. So, you know, we discovered Brazil and in the 1500s were
sending people of Brazil. Well, some of the boats kind of got lost
along the way. Some of them went into Curaçao and Venezuela. Well,
jobs were good that the oil industry is good. And so people started
coming through that well. And then, you know, of course, you know
about the whaling and uh, mainly the Azores. Um, but what was also
happening in the 1800s around 1876. Um, uh, Hawaiian Islands, uh, went
to Madeira and they actually got people to come, mainly families who
came to make the very long trip from Madeira to Hawaii to work on the
sugar cane fields. Well, the reason I'm bringing this out because
there is a San Diego connection. So, I got my DNA a couple of years
back. And lo and behold I find in my DNA result that my DNA is
probably found in Madeira Island and Hawaii. So somehow in the past,
you know, there's a connection there. But what was also very
interesting is that I was doing a presentation on fishing a couple
years back and a woman came up to me, ChInêse and, and she says I was
born in Hawaii and uh but I know that my grandfather was from Paul do
Mar, Madeira.
Diniz Borges: Wow.
Zeca Rodrigues: Isn't that amazing?
Diniz Borges: That is.
Zeca Rodrigues: So, so anyway we talked and I came to trace because
what she said was that at some point she grew up in Los Angeles and
she remembered that her father used to come to San Diego to visit a
cousin. So, I'm like going, I gotta find out, I mean I know everybody
in Paul. I got to find out what these people are from. And, and so and
she tells me that she had actually gone to Paul to find out about her
family, her grandfather's family and had given me some information. Lo
and behold I'm able to make the connection of her family and who they
are here in San Diego. So, we have that connection through uh the
Hawaiian Islands. Now the next thing that was happening was as you
know in the 1900s, early 1900s fishing became very popular in San
Diego. And so, like my father he had immigrated to, he had left
Portugal around 1940, long before I was long before I was born but he
went to, to, to work in Venezuela, Curacao, in Brazil and, and
eventually made his way into Panama and was able to get on a fishing
boat and work in the US tuna fleet. Uh at that point it was primarily
what's called pole fishing is when you use the polling line which is
an incredible uh way to fish. And um and so uh he made really good
money doing that, so much so that in 19 and when he was in his forties
he went back to Portugal and decided I don't want to fish, and I don’t
want to go anywhere anymore. I want to stay home with my family. Well
only after a couple of years he's going nuts because he loves fishing.
And then he was also, he also had had a taste of what's called the
purse seine system which your luxurious tuna fishing vessels and, and
so he just decided you know what I want, I want to go back fishing but
he didn't want to come without us. So, my mother had a brother who
already lived in San Diego had married in San Diego and he was a US
Citizen. So, he called for us to come. And, and so uh and my brother
who was already in the uh his teen years uh and my father at that time
was very concerned that he was going to be called into the military
service. So, that was another way of you know parents just as soon as
their kids were teenagers you know you made sure you got him out of
Portugal or out of Madeira and, and was one of the things so they
would usually send them to Panama, because they could find they could
get a job on the US tuna boat. So, and, and so what would happen with
that is you know the tuna boats will come into San Diego. And then uh
you know people fell in love and then you know you have Madeirans from
San Diego and that was a very, very uh good way of bringing people
home because people from Madeira at least my understanding at that
time is you could go into Panama or Ecuador but mainly Panama at that
point since uh and the reason for that was because tuna vessels were
offloading their catch in Puerto Rico at the time and so they had to
cross the Panama Canal. So, once they put it you know they want to uh
port into Panama they could hire crew right? And so, you hired your
family. So, um so that's kind of how, how that came about um and then,
you know, there's um the, the way the Portuguese came here to, to San
Diego and uh you know, again very different than up north is we have
the tuna industry, right? And the Portuguese in San Diego created the
US tuna fishing industry um and, and basically made it the global
industry that it is even today. Uh now I have to say that this claim
is usually given to the Italians and we must correct this. Okay, the
Italians were influential, but when you look back at records and, and
um and everything else, so ship building records, the Portuguese owned
most of the, most of the vessels. When you look at the innovation uh
made to the fishing industry itself, the Portuguese and not
necessarily just Madeirans, but you know, a lot of people from the
Azores um were very influential in the innovation of, you know,
created the Medina Panel which is Harold Medina um is a method that is
still used to this day. And that method was to uh save the porpoise.
So, he was very good. My own brother um you know, coming as a teenager
basically with parta class [assumed spelling] um has, was a captain in
the industry and many, many boats and uh he designed what's called the
mechanical brailer. And it's a way that you use this to scoop the fish
from the ocean or the, the net to the, to the boat, which again
revolutionized uh, uh the industry itself. And so, um the tuna
industry was in the 1970s, the third largest industry in San Diego.
Okay. It was preceded only by the Navy and aerospace. So, San Diego in
the 1970s was known as the tuna capital of the world, right. And we,
in that time span from, I want to say from the 1910 to you know, 1980,
um most of the people were Portuguese, the ship builders, the owners
of the boat, the officers on these vessels, you know, the cannery
workers, all of this. Uh it was just mainly Portuguese. One thing that
many people may not know is during World War II, we had what was
called the tuna clippers. It's the small tuna boats, you know, it's
still fishing the, so in World War II there were 2, 52 tuna vessels
that were um asked by the government to give to give their vessels in
essence for service. They were called YP’s or yard patrol boats. And
the reason for that is number one, the vessels were conducive to
exactly what was needed. Number two, they could go into very shallow
waters which needed to be monitored at that time and, and number
three, the fishermen were expert navigators. So, you know, they could
go out there. So basically, you know, there were 52 vessels that went
into, they just basically painted these boats gray and give them a
number and put you know guns on them and they became navy vessels and
uh, and very, very a very, very important part of that. So, which very
few people know even us Portuguese, you know, so um, so those are kind
of the things that, that I guess the connection here in San Diego. I
have been, I have been trying, I was kind of pulled on a couple years
back to give a presentation on tuna fishing and you know, and I was
kind of going, you know, I'm a woman, should I be presenting tuna
fishing and, but I had an, an understanding of it. So I did a
presentation and uh, I invited like eight of our old timer fishermen
to come in number one to make sure that I would say, what I was saying
was right, but number two, so that they could share their own
experiences and from that have been asked to do a couple more
presentations, but, and really sparked this, this whole um idea of
people need to know about us Portuguese in San Diego and what we have
done and contributed to, you know, the city. So um, you know, I go, I
go on so please stop me.
Diniz Borges: No, no, no, that's, that's great. It was a lot of
information. You give us a lot of information. I'm going to go back to
a couple of points actually, I want to turn to Inês to ask her a
little bit about. So, um northern California is a little obviously
different as Zeca said, there are quite a few Madeirense as well in
your area. Um, and uh, of course not involved as heavily in fishing
and at one time probably because everybody was one way or another was
it was either the land or the sea.
Zeca Rodrigues: The sea, correct.
Diniz Borges: Uh, and uh, and, and, and, and the very first actual,
according to Dr. Eduardo Mayone Dias, the very first uh whaling
station established by the Portuguese were in, in Monterey area was,
was established by Madierans and Azoreans together. Um, so um, a
little bit about, you know, when you Inês came to, you had family here
as you said, and so you're, there was a family connection already. One
of the reasons that brought you obviously to the area, the restaurant
that your dad worked at. Um, what some of your initial um feelings,
you know, you came very young obviously, but some initial feelings
when you arrived here and how have you, how have you seen the
community evolve. Uh, and, and, and, and obviously we're all
Portuguese whether we’re from Madeira, the Azores, or mainland
Portugal, but how would you see in, in a specific case the Madeira
community, you know, you've been very involved with Bom Jesus
Milagroso. It's one of the very few Portuguese halls that are
dedicated to Madeira in, in, in, in, in California. So, tell us a
little bit about the Madeira presence that you have felt and you have
been, has been part of your life there in the East Bay.
Inês Eiras: Sure. Well, I, I need to let you know that besides Hayward,
East Bay, uh, there was a community that was very prominent at one
time, uh, that was related to sugar and Madeira is related to sugar
cane and uh, in Crockett, California. I don't know if you've ever
heard of that town, that there was a refinery, C&H refinery. And that
was a location where many Madeirans landed and lived and worked at the
C&H factory. It happened in the turn of the century, the beginning of
the 1900s where some Madeirans, you know, came to California and they
worked at the refinery and some actually went back. One of my cousins,
grandfathers made his money at the refinery and bought some very nice
real estate in Funchal, Madeira. And then my aunt went uh both of my
aunts, the ones that came in 1939 and 1944, they both worked at C&H
and that was their first residence was Crockett, California. And then
they made their way into the, the East Bay and one of the things that
I find very interesting being married to an Azorean family is that I
found that many Madeirans thought it was very, a good idea to own real
estate and a lot of Madeirans are in the real estate business as
investors. They own real estate, they own rentals. Um, and I've
noticed that that's, that's something that it's a commonality, not
that the Azoreans don't, I know a lot of them do. We are outnumbered
by so many percentage points in terms of the population, but for the
little numbers that we are, it seems to be a commonality that I think
because of being in an island where there were more people than plots
of land. I think land was a very prized commodity and it's something
that's part of the Madeiran culture for sure. Um there, I know I, I,
when I first arrived I felt that the community in Hayward was very
tight that used to celebrate at least 3, 4, 3, 3 famous festas that
happen all the time, a Festa do in, in August, it's Nossa Senhora do
Monte, which was like the big festa in Funchal and in September right
around Labor Day weekend it's the Festa do Bom Jesus Milagroso, which
was the big Festa of Ponta Delgada in Madeira and then there's Nossa
Senora do Loreto, which is in Calheta. And so these three festas were
the things that the Madeirans lived for and they had this plot of land
that was owned by these, these uh Madeiran men that in the early 19
was 1921 and I actually met a girl through ancestry who happens to be
a distant cousin, her father donated the land to the Bom Jesus. I
thought that was very, very interesting that she could share the story
and that they're celebrating the hundred years. Um, so they at that
time, you know her a different generation obviously, but they were in
the agriculture business um they had buggies, they, they, they took
their horses. I understand my aunts also lived in San Jose and in the
Cherryland area of Hayward and there was cherry, there was fruit
drying operations and then also some chicken um businesses. So, they
were in agriculture and the Cherryland area of Hayward was very uh
rooted with Madeira people, Portuguese people. Again, I haven't, I
came very young so there's a lot that I need to learn but I do know
that in San Leandro for example where I live, many people that had a
connection to uh being Portuguese were descendants of an older uh
immigration that went into Hawaii in the mid-1800s. So, you know, we
have those people in San Leandro that have very distant Madeiran
heritage. But so, we have kind of a new arrivals from the ‘50s, ‘60s
and ‘70's and then older descendants. So, it's kind of nice to have
this mix of people and we all share information that we have from the
various levels of, of uh Madeirensedense, or Madeirensidad, that we
have uh that we can share with each other today and I find that today
more than ever people really want to connect to their island. A lot of
times in the past. I find that a lot of our ancestors did not want to
talk about their arduous work, their arduous lifestyle and it was
difficult. It was almost like it hurt them and so they didn't share as
much as we would have liked them to share or some and so people are
reaching out there. They want to know, and they want to know about
their genealogy. They want to know about what life was like and so
there's a definitely a thirst and hunger for it are our numbers here
in the in the Bay Area of Madeirans are small and we are getting
smaller and smaller as our descendants will marry non Portuguese. So,
you know then it becomes we become more and more distanced from the
core culture, so I find that more than ever before we need to unite
and, and try to preserve what we have. And San Diego is amazing. I've
been there quite a few times and I love the people there of San Diego
and their spirit. I was able to meet some of the fishermen in the
1980s that my parents became friends with and I used to take their
trips down there all the time to make sure they got their tuna fish.
Zeca Rodrigues: Yeah, absolutely.
Inês Eiras: And we still have friends in San Diego today that we visit
that were, that were tied to the tuna business, the tuna industry. So,
it's a, it's a great connection.
Diniz Borges: Um let me ask both of you a question and uh this time
we'll start with you Inês instead of starting, starting with Zeca. How
does a community that's so small and that's not the case in San Diego,
I think the community in San Diego is actually in Zeca will of course
correct me. Uh there but it's in relationship to other, the other
Portuguese which are mainly from the Azores, um how does a community
that is so small continue with its specific traditions that are
specific to the islands of, of the just like some specific, specific
elements to the Azores, some specific elements to Northern Portugal,
to Southern Portugal and of course there are specific elements that
are Portuguese but they are of Madeira and some of the festas as you
just mentioned for example. So how does the community so small uh keep
their traditions alive? I mean we know what they've done and it's been
an amazing job but how do you see it’s continuing uh not being totally
englobed by the Azoreans, you know with all due respect to my
archipelago, but you know it depends sometimes when you're a very
small number it's very hard to have that, I, that specific identity
survive.
Inês Eiras: Mhm. Well, I find that when you're small you need to uh
open up and share what you have with everyone else. And I find that
because there was quite a large number of Azoreans in California that
a lot of Azoreans did not know about our culture and that a lot of
them want to know, they just didn't have the opportunity to know and I
think sharing the festas and inviting them and they're already doing
that. It's a very, I think the communities today are more melded
together and cooperating together. No one is saying, oh well this is a
Madeira festa that you know, we want everyone there and I want to go
to all the Azorean festas and I want to go, I want, everyone wants to
have experiences. And so, I believe that just sharing our culture with
one another is how to preserve our culture going forward. Having
everyone involved, whether you're from Madeira or not doesn't matter.
It’s people, we need to share what we know what we have with our other
our compatriots from and not just for our compatriots but from people
from other cultures. You know, we see a lot of families that are
intermarried into American families, a lot of people want to have a
culture that they can identify with and they love having, being
married into a Portuguese family, a Madeiran family an Azorean family
and I find that that is that's the way to keep the traditions alive,
to keep having events, inviting other people whether they're from
Madeira or not teach them how to dance the bailinho, the machete or
whatever. Our do [inaudible] they're doing that already. And uh, you
know, invite them to the festas and invite them to be part of the
board. Be part of the BF status [assumed spelling], we don't call them
mordomo, we call them status [assumed spelling] and, and we've done
that already there, doing that already. I'm not serving on the board,
but they're doing a fantastic job there and I'm sure they will going
forward. It's a fun place. Uh, there are other places, um, that
existed before that were not, a festa place per se. Uh, the
A.P.U.M.A.C., for example, was part of what is now the P. F. S. A. and
you know, and in the old days I heard that they, they did a lot of
festas in Oakland. Oakland was a big community for Madeirans. In fact,
I don't know if you people know this, but Oakland and Funchal are
sister cities that are inactive because of that old correlation of
having a lot of people from Madeira in Oakland. So yeah, we're not
seeing any more on immigration. It's too fun to live in Madeira that I
don't see why people would come here. Um, in fact, I see the opposite
happening where people from here would like to retire or work in
Portugal. The village that you're looking at is a digital nomad
village. It's one of the few in Europe in Portugal and Madeira it’s
the only one and there's all kinds of people from young people from
all over Europe staying in the village now working remotely from their
computers and looking at this beautiful view. Yeah, so it's uh you
know things are kind of turning, we get people so excited about our,
our country, our villages, our island that they want to go back and
experience it. So that's, that's what it's all about and you know
we're not going to all be in one place for, for the rest of our lives,
you know, we can be here today and who knows, maybe I'll be living
somewhere else in a few years and experiencing something different,
but we can all be ambassadors wherever we are.
Diniz Borges: Indeed, indeed. And of course uh Zeca same thing there.
So, San Diego of course Azoreans, mainlanders as well as one of the
areas that actually has mainlanders, which a lot of areas don't. Folks
from mainland Portugal. Um and you kind of have a little bit of all
three of the parts of Portugal but is um Madeira a probably a bit more
significant than, than some of the other areas. So how did the
Madeirans, uh how did the Madeira community keep their foot in the
DS’s and all of the other organizations that exist there?
Zeca Rodrigues: Well, I think, I think here in San Diego we have a good
base of young people who are getting more involved. I think also
because a lot of Madeirans and Azoreans in a marriage, intermarried
and so they, they kind of want to keep up with uh their parents’
culture. So, I think that kind of helps we have uh here in San Diego.
I was talking earlier about my aunt Veronica who came first. She
established um what's called humo dias [assumed spelling] which is um
uh singing groups that go into uh to church on Christmas Eve, very
traditional in Paul do Mar and she, and that practice is actually done
up to this day. Uh she introduced the [inaudible] which is you know
singing from house to house which again is done still today. Um we
have um a Madeira organization called Santo Amaro. Uh Festa do Santo
Amaro and um and that's predominantly Madeira but uh we have opened
that several years back. We opened that to anybody of Portuguese
descent. So, we kind of exchanged the you know the traditions. I
remember when I first came to San Diego, you know I came to a melting
pot of, of Portuguese culture. It was the first time I had met anybody
from the Azores. Okay. You know I had known a couple of people from,
from the continent but other than that I mean, and it was just trying
to learn each other's you know traditions we all have like you know
they we cooked malassadas, they cooked filhós. You know but it's, it's
kind of the same melting pot and, and so that was always very um
interesting to me so here in San Diego we keep the U.
P. S. E. S. which is uh mainly our hall um keeps a lot of the
traditions alive. Um you know we have a very good group, the dancers
who are very good and, and so it's always fun to watch them perform.
We do have a Bom Jesus interestingly enough but its main it's ran by I
believe people from Pico. So it's not a it's not a Madeira, a Madeira
thing but um now you know we kind of intermingle with, with each other
and like I said the, the younger people are getting more and more
involved in in all of those different activities and communities and
you know just a few years back somebody went to, to Paul for, for the
summer and got introduced to what's called the Festa da Lapa and lo
and behold the following year we were celebrating Fest da Lapa here.
So, you know and there's kind of different things uh I know for myself
I like taking my you know, my nieces and nephews at least two of them
at a time and I taking a Portugal and Madeira and, and uh introduce
them to, to that and they absolutely love it after that they want to
learn Portuguese, right. So, I think that that's one good thing to
have that connection to always go back not forget where we came from
but uh really embrace where we are and the opportunities that this
land has given us and, and uh, you know, when I look back and I think,
wow, how amazing was it that, you know us from Paul do Mar landed in
San Diego, you know. Uh, it was kind of funny. I was, I was talking to
a friend of mine just recently and I may be going off topic but, you
know, the area of La Playa here in San Diego is probably the richest
area in San Diego. It's right on the water. Well, that's where the
Portuguese first, um, settled, you know, and nobody wanted to live
there at that time into probably the 1930s because it was very stinky.
That's where people dried out the fish. That's where the Portuguese
dried out the fish, you couldn't get water over there. Well now you
can't touch a shack for a few million dollars. But you know, I was
just kind of like, it's amazing that we live where we live and we came
from where we came from. The sad thing about all of this is with the
tuna industry kind of like disappearance no longer in San Diego, the
base is no longer here in San Diego, but it's in American Samoa. So
now you have people from different places, including people from Paul
who instead of coming and trying to get into the United States just
can go directly to Samoa and get on their boat. So, you don't have
that, that influx of immigration as much anymore. But, um, but you
still have, uh, you still have the management and everything else from
here. And so, you know, uh, it's just keeps that, that alive. Um, I
don't know if I answered your question.
Diniz Borges: You did, you did, you did very well as always, both of
you. Um, I have, uh, I have promised you about an hour, but we're
gonna go over if it’s okay with the both of you a little bit more. Um,
we a couple of things. First of all, you both touched on something
that I think is important that we discussed a little bit, uh, further,
which is the Portuguese American community. We talked quite
extensively there the first hour about your personal experiences. I
appreciate that and also the communities that you're both part of in
two different opposite parts of the state, but with lots of
commonalities because close to water and everything else we, um, but
uh, now moving it to today and forward. And both of you touched upon
that already a little bit with a new and the younger generation and
the newer communities are coming, coming through. Um, there is this
sense of in the Portuguese community and uh, maybe it's a little bit,
uh, apocalyptical in some people's mind, but there is a sense of the
Portuguese community that the communities are changing drastically,
uh, that the communities are not the same that they were 50 years ago.
Nothing is the same as it was 50 years ago. Um, and nothing is going
to be the same. You know, I tell still my students, you know when I
left the Azores in 1968, the island of Terceira for example the major
uh major transportation method in most of the islands of the Azores
were still the ox cart. So, you know, things have changed when, when I
went back a few years later, when I left the street I lived in, there
were two cars in 1968. When I went back four years later, there are
already 10 cars and now I go back and every family has like three or
four. So, the idea the life changes there as it changed here as Inês
mentioned with uh with her beautiful village there, you know where
people can live there and we have uh Portuguese Americans living back
in different parts of mainland Portugal, Madeira and the Azores and
actually working for multi uh companies in the technology world and
doing their work from there.
Inês Eiras: Right.
Diniz Borges: So um, knowing that, let me ask you that in your two
areas. So, the, the overriding theory, let's put it this way within
our communities is that the community is changing and everybody is
concerned about how is the community going to be five years from now,
uh, maybe too soon, but you know, 15, 20, 25 years from now.
Portuguese language is certainly not the same that it was when all,
when you arrived or when I arrived also in 1968 um Portuguese radio is
uh has existed now in in a different format, but it's not the same
that it was in the 1960s and 70s and so, the community is changing in
all different ways and, and we don't have to look very far. We can
look at our own families and um you know, my sons were both born here.
They speak Portuguese, right and reading Portuguese, my grandchildren
don't and so you know, it's just that is kind of the law of the land.
It seems like with most families, 350,000 in California, according to
the latest census that we will have some numbers of course, as you
know later on this year. Um but 350,000 as of last census and
according to the surveys that were done on that, only 31,000 of those
350 claimed that they still speak some Portuguese at home. So, 31,000
out of 350 means that over 90% of those who claim to be of Portuguese
background don't speak any Portuguese. So, my, my two questions to you
as we contemplate on the community today as we got this historical
background from both of you, and I appreciate it, is how do we look
and now just in generality of the Portuguese American community,
whether you're from Madeira or Porto Santo or uh, or Corvo or Trás-osMontes. How do we look at the Portuguese American community past uh,
this uh, past what we're living today, um, different areas and Inês
can elaborate on that. Her area for example, especially the San Jose
area, it's not the San Jose I knew in 1970. Many, you know, everyone
used to live around the Cinco Chagas Church and now there's very few
Portuguese families in Cinco Chagas Church, they’re all up in the
mountains or they're driving to Tracy or wherever. Um, and so because
of all this, because of the cosmopolitan areas growing and people
looking for other areas and other opportunities because of what you
mentioned also, both of you, which is people marrying folks outside of
the Portuguese ethnicity. You know, and other ethnic groups as well.
People for job opportunities, better education, more job opportunities
as well. So, there's a host of reasons why the community will be
different. Uh, my question is, how do we maintain what we have and are
we being too idyllic by thinking that we can maintain what we have uh,
what we have had in the last 40 years, because the community is
already different and certainly will be different 20 years from now.
So, your thoughts on that? We’ll start with Inês.
Inês Eiras: That's a very deep-rooted question with a lot of thought,
but that's something that we've been thinking about in, in general all
over the Portuguese community for a while now. Um well I think that we
will never be able to go back 50 years and have what we had 50 years
ago, that's just not gonna happen. Um we have to look at what we, we
have now and accept the fact that our society’s maybe a little bit
more skeletal or we have to change what the societies offer that our
children and grandchildren, I don't have any yet but future
grandchildren, would want to have whether it's, I don't know you know
this the generation now of my millennial sons, they want to have
experiences, so experiences is the key word and we have to do
something in our society to create experiences for the millennial
generation and their kids. Um although a lot of them are settling down
and buying homes and all that, but that has been what has been shared
with me that, you know traveling. If we can find ways to get them to
travel to Portugal with family or non family too find out more about
the traditions you know while there maybe have them enter the folklore
circle and you know and just kind of develop a love for these things
that they can bring back to their, their communities. Um-Diniz Borges: Mmhmm.
Inês Eiras: Uh huh.
Diniz Borges: So a little bit more a little more connection with
Portugal?
Inês Eiras: A little more connection and focus on them and because
there's been a lot of focus on what the older people want, what the
older people like. We want to grab onto the past. We did it like this.
We understand that the immigrants tend to hold onto traditions longer
than even some of the people that live in Portugal, because we have a
mentality of when we left, our parents, even us sometimes, and so
sometimes when we see something change, oh, that's not like it used to
be, but you know, Madeira and the Azores and the mainland is not what
it used to be either. You know, if you go to any, any town, they're
not listening to all Portuguese music.
Zeca Rodrigues: Hahaha.
Inês Eiras: They're listening to international music, American music.
And there's only a few that, that, you know, that, that like the more
traditional, but they know that the traditional is what sells tourism.
So, they're never going to give up our traditional music. We're not
going to give up our father or bailinho or [inaudible]. Um, so I think
as our, our organizations start to see the skeletal, um, you know, I
see a lot of my mom's friends passing away. My mom, you know, no
longer is mobile like she, she was. She's not active, she’s in, in a
state of where we need to take care of her now. And so, things change
and with her along of a lot of them have gone already. And so, we
have, I guess I'm the senior generation. So, whoever is even younger
than I needs to uh look at the societies and say what can we give our
future generations to have the experiences that they need to feel
connected to their culture. Well you know, it may not be having a
festa all the time. It might be, you know having, you know going on,
on a, on a trip with a bunch of kids their age or you know [inaudible]
or so or something like that are putting together a group of young
people that want to go experience something in Portugal and Madeira
has this right now where they, you can have your young adults go
experience the culture and learn the language in Portugal, the
government is offering it. So things like that that our societies need
to be more in tune to what are and not just our children but their
partners like Diniz, I'm sure that your, your son's if they're
married, they may not, and they may not be married to Portuguese.
Diniz Borges: They're not either, either married or partner but there's
no uh both of them have a wife and a girlfriend that are not
Portuguese, yes.
Inês Eiras: Our children's partners are not going to be Portuguese
necessarily. But they will both know.
Diniz Borges: Yeah my, my, my eldest son is, his wife is not Portuguese
and, and my of all different, she's a mixture of different European.
Inês Eiras: And she probably loves our culture right?
Diniz Borges: Sure. Sure. And my youngest son, his girlfriend is also
not Portuguese. So it's just that. Yeah.
Inês Eiras: We need to create something for them.
Diniz Borges: Sure and, and, and, and, and, and alliances with other
ethnicities as well because we have a lot in common.
Inês Eiras: Absolutely.
Diniz Borges: Zeca your thoughts on the same subject? I mean how do we,
how do we move this forward?
Zeca Rodrigues: I like and agree with Inês that you know experience and
travel, you know I saw it in my own family, is kind of a trigger that
that ignites the passion of being Portuguese, you know. And so if we
could do something like that, that would be great. Here in San Diego
um and then we have one, one additional thing and that is when these
kids experience Portugal, be it mainland or the islands, you know have
the internet so you can explore and they come up with more things that
they learn to love and, and that's what, that's what we need to of
course the traditions, you know the festas and whatnot. Um they may
not be here for, for a long time, but right now especially
particularly here in San Diego, that's still a good connector. I mean
when we have the festa we see people you know part of one of the
reasons I love the festa because I get to see people I haven't seen in
years who come back, we either have moved out of San Diego or you know
out in the outskirts so you know and just kind of always being
welcoming. Of course, the food is always a good, a good thing to bring
people in. I think one of the things and one of the sad things here in
San Diego you know it's a grace and a curse in that the Portuguese
fishermen worked very hard you know and made many a sacrifice for to
fish. They earned good money, and their families lives became so much
better. The price they had to pay, they were never home to their
families, what, what that did you know and so when I look back and I
think about 1970s, even in the beginning of 1980s when fishing was
still good here in San Diego you would ask any teenage boy and he the
day after high school he had a job to go fishing and some of them were
just because they were gonna make really good money and a lot of them
were because that gave him an opportunity to spend time with their
parents you know with their father and so you know but as far as, as
uh fishermen families became more fluent all of a sudden kids
education became very important to them. So, they were sending their
kids to school and so these kids are now doctors and lawyers and
accountants and whatnot and so they've lost that fishing connection.
They've lost the thread you know, and I say it's a blessing and a
curse because it's a good life for them but unfortunately you know
it's kind of, and then you have another blessing and curse is what
we've been talking about. It's the marriages, you know, being open to,
to marrying, you know into different uh cultures and, and people and,
and so you know, unless one person or the Portuguese person is really
sharing his Portugal, his or her Portugal uh love for the, for the
culture then you know it has that tendency to kind of go away. Um I'm
still hopeful here in San Diego that we're getting more young people
involved. You know, I see a little bit of a problem like in with Santo
Amaro because it's, it has a portrait, that the Madeira traditions,
you know, San Joao na Praia [assumed spelling] and the festa and
whatnot. Uh and our members are getting older and dying and whatnot,
but you suddenly you kind of got a new uh group of young people who
are starting to get involved and by young, I mean in their twenties
and you know, thirties, so, so I'm kind of still hopeful um that
things will continue and uh you know, I, I agree with, like I said, I
agree with Inês that maybe I creating a, um creating maybe a community
type of travel experience back to Portugal or whatever, what would be
very, very helpful in that way.
Diniz Borges: Indeed. Yeah, that's obviously one of the best ways. Um a
couple of other comments I'd like to get from you and that is uh you
know, we hear also from young people um that the festas and these,
these events are a lot of work and, and they are.
Zeca Rodrigues: Yes, yes.
Diniz Borges: You know, if you've ever been involved, and both of you
have, they are a lot of work. Uh and so and uh and you mentioned
something, there's a uh with a tie to the fishing industry, you know,
as people become more professional in other words in other professions
and they were professionals within the fishing industry because they
become involved in other professions um that were not traditional in
the Portuguese American community, whether it be fishing in San Diego
constructions in the bay area, you know the farming and dairying in
Central California then they become as you said, doctors and lawyers,
accountants as you know, business people from all walks of life
technology, their lives are a lot more demanding. You know their
phones are always ringing like Inês you know showed us there, it's
always, it's always, it's a busy life and I hear this, I don't know if
any of you hear this, but I hear this from young people because of my
teaching at the university now in the last few years is and even
before that, you know when I was teaching in a high school, I heard a
lot that high schoolers are different but I mean from their young
parents is that where I don't have, you know, I don't have two days a
week to dedicate to the Portuguese American community although I love
my culture, but I don't have two days a week. My parents did because
my parents, that was their life and, and, and we have that in
Portuguese language schools that at one time were very present in
California. The community schools where my two kids went to learn
Portugues, I mean they knew Portuguese from home, but where they went
to learn to read and write as Inês did, um, where, you know, where
they went, you know, on Monday nights for 2.5 hours a day. Um, and,
and now these community schools still exist, but in some areas,
they’ve died off because they're competing with ballet and with, with
baseball and tennis and everything else. And, and for my gen, for some
of our kids or those of us who are a little bit older, uh, the, that
generation of kids who may be now in their forties. Um, they, it was
the only way that their parents let them go do something. It was at
the Portuguese school or the marchar [assumed spelling] or the
folklore or the band that was the only way that they had to leave home
and to go someplace that mom and dad would let you attend. It's a
different world now, you know, so we're competing with all these, so
do we have, do, do we look at technology maybe as a way to infuse it
and do we look at what San Diego did, for example, a few years ago?
Which is, and Zeca kudos to you and Linette [assumed spelling] and,
and a couple other people but kudos to you and let for all your work,
which is getting Portuguese started at the high school because um,
that is one way to have the kids kind of be involved. They have to
take a language class. Why not Portuguese? And then they also are
seeing their Hispanic friends take Portuguese. And so it's no longer a
language that's just in, you know, spoken by Avô, you know, who
doesn't speak well, Portuguese or English, I should say. But it's a
language that even Hispanic kids want to learn. So that we have to, my
whole conversation, this is, do we, and I'll start with Inês again and
that's do we have to maybe invent some new ways in the American
mainstream where our culture is that people don't have to go and
spend, you know, two days a week, you know, working at, at the
association because they don't have time, but they can, you know,
everything from the foods to everything else, because I'm a proponent
and tell me if I'm wrong but one of the things I see in the future is
that if we don't have more Portuguese restaurants, if our
organizations start closing up for one reason or another in different
areas, they're the ones still cooking Portuguese food.
Inês Eires: Right.
Diniz Borges: So, uh, you know, do we need to make our community a
little bit more uh present in the American mainstream, where people
can have access to things without uh putting in the work for it or
without, you know, having all that time commitment because they really
don't have the time that my father had time, you know, because of his
job. Uh and, and, and the need for it and the younger generations
don't have either the time or also they don't have the need for it,
the they don't have the need for Portugal to be present in their life
24-7. Inês what’s your thoughts on it?
Inês Eiras: My thoughts are that they absolutely want to be connected
in the way that they, they want to make it fit into their lives. And
one of the things that I've noticed is that you're talking about food
well, you know, you can get food at a Portuguese restaurant or you can
get it at a festa or at a club, but there's a lot of things going on,
on YouTube and a lot of people are posting a lot of uh you know,
cooking, how to make this and that and during the pandemic, I know a
lot of people brushed up on those cooking skills.
Zeca Rodrigues: Hahaha.
Inês Eires: Um and I feel that um it's becoming more uh you know
digital in terms of getting information, but I think it's very uh the
classes that are being done, for example by this young man, Jeremiah
uh in Sacramento are being well received and attended. Um it just
shows that they are interested in knowing what grandma used to make or
maybe, you know, they don't have the recipe because the grandmother
passed away and so keeping them connected to the culture in the, in
the new digital era. And you know Zoom, I think these conversations
that we're having right now, this exchange, if we were to do it with
younger people that you know, what would you like to know that you
know that your grandparents never told you. I think this is also
another way to connect where they don't have to leave their house, you
know. Um I asked my son the other day, you know, how are you meeting
people in Los Angeles? He just moved there and he goes well through
Zoom. We, we talked through Zoom, I said okay, but he is going to have
a barbecue on the fourth of July so they're getting together. Um but
yeah, it's, I think food is a big thing. Um it doesn't require a lot
of time. You can watch something and then you can make it at your
home, and you can post it and you can say, hey, I just made a Madeira
dish. You know, I did that last week for my, for my mom and some
friends that visited from Venezuela. Beach da turnê.
Zeca Rodrigues: Ha!
Inês Eires: I'm from San Diego, but who knows, maybe work, but anyway.
Diniz Borges: So, using a little bit more of the digital connections to
Inês Eiras: I think that they—
Diniz Borges: bring it into the mainstream?
Inês Eiras: -where it's at, we need to just embrace it whether we like
it or not, that's where our kids are and we just need to be there. We
need, we need to be where they are.
Diniz Borges: Okay. Zeca your thoughts?
Zeca Rodrigues: I just want to be, before I forgot wanted to let you
know that Portuguese has been approved by the district.
Diniz Borges: Great!
Zeca Rodrigues: So we're uh, we’re uh-
Diniz Borges: It’s growing.
Zeca Rodrigues: Yeah and, and they’re doing, doing well, we need
another teacher. But anyway, so that's one good way uh we're trying to
keep Portuguese alive here in San Diego and you know, you know how
difficult that was, but it seems to finally be yeah. I agree, I mean
trying, I think that allowing or giving the younger generation an, an
experience and whether it be, you know like Inês says, the travel
experience, so be uh maybe some, some presentations about you know who
we are and where we came from or whatever those things may be. Uh but
whatever will ignite uh that being proud of their culture and you know
at that point people start to share. You know, it's kind of
unfortunate here in San Diego, we never really had a Portuguese
restaurant, so we don't have that connection. I mean the hall makes
food and, and we have, you know, so I think all our festas they're so
popular because people come to eat food that they haven't eaten in a
long time and you know part of the reason that that the we haven't
been able to get a Portuguese restaurant was because the men were
always gone right, the woman was mother and father and had to take
care of grandpa and grandma whoever else, so she never had any time to
really invest in, in uh in, in a restaurant besides you want food, you
eat at home right? It was kind of the mentality at one point, but it's
kind of sad that I think if we had that uh it would be a good
connection for a lot of people to come back and, and uh you know uh
kind of learn more about their roots. So.
Diniz Borges: Indeed, well it was a fascinating conversation, I
promised you around an hour and it's been an hour and a half, but it
has been fascinating. I need to bring both of you back into a
different uh format for some other issues that we think we need to
talk about in the Portuguese American communities. Zeca I'd love to uh
you and I to dive into a presentation one day about the matriarchal
society of San Diego becauseZeca Rodrigues: Absolutely.
Diniz Borges: I actually first started learning that with the
presentation a long time ago, very long time ago, I'm dating myself
from Maria [inaudible] that used to be a uh there in San Diego.
Zeca Rodrigues: Right.
Diniz Borges: And uh she made a presentation many, many years ago about
to make the, the role of the, of the woman in, in society, the
Portuguese society in San Diego. And I think that's uh something that
we'd like to tackle. And of course Inês looking at also the community
itself and, and uh in the East Bay and how, how it's going to move
forward. We there's lots of conversations to be held. So, thank you
both for this fascinating and wonderful exchange of ideas for the last
hour and a half for taking, sharing your time with, with all of us. I
want to uh let everyone know who is watching that. We have another one
of these on the 8th and another one on the 15th of July for our summer
series. Thank you. Zeca Rodrigues, thank you Inês Eiras and thanks to
all of you for joining us. And this will be archived at the Portuguese
Beyond Borders Institute, PBBI Fresno State YouTube channel and also
in our library in our oral history. Again thank you both. And
wonderful Dia de Madeira, viva Madeiras.
Zeca Rodrigues: Viva Madeira, do brigada [assumed spelling].
Diniz Borges: Do brigado [assumed spelling].
Diniz Borges: Welcome everyone to another presentation by the
Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute. That's PBBI from California State
University, Fresno. Welcome to those who are following us uh here on
the Zoom webinar and welcome to those who are already following us and
uh putting some likes as well. Thank you. Already on Facebook live.
The webinar is also going to be, it's going to be recorded and it will
be archived through the two different formats. The Portuguese Beyond
Borders Institute’s Fresno State YouTube channel and also through the
Portuguese American oral history archive at the Henry Madden Library
at Fresno State. Great news for everyone that watches that we are in
the process of right now putting together the website within the
library where folks can go and search for all the different uh
recordings that we have done so far. We are just in the beginning
stage. We're very happy to have two guests with us as we continue to
explore the history of the Portuguese in California. You know, this is
a very important date. All days are important to all of us as long as
we're alive and healthy. But the uh day July first is Madeira Day. So
uh, the Autonomous Region of Madeira, the archipelago of Madeira uh
celebrates its day on July 1st, as Portugal celebrates on June 10th and
its sister archipelago, the archipelago of the Azores on uh it depends
that's on the Segunda-fiera do Espírito Santo so that made it harder.
That's always a different week and different day every year. We're
happy to celebrate Madeira with oral history because oral history is
the history of who we are. A lot of times throughout those of us who
studied history, whether it be in school at college level, undergrad,
graduate studies, etcetera. Sometimes we get a little bit focused on
battles and, and on wars and dates and the history of the history of
the people. So, the best way to commemorate Madeira in California is
to learn a little bit about the history of, of its people, whether you
were an immigrant or 1st, 2nd or third, I'm sure even 3rd and 4th
generation uh, of Portuguese with roots in Madeira in the state of
California. So, we have two young ladies and uh, they're from opposite
ends of the state and from San Diego and from the San Leandro-Hayward
area. And so we'll go start in the San Diego area with Zeca Rodriguez.
And then in the San Leandro area, Inez Eires. Zeca. I'll start with
you if I can, I'd like to talk about uh, if you will, a few minutes,
as long as you need, actually, both of you, we'll start with you to
tell us a little bit about, about yourself about the uh yourself here
in, in, in California and your, and your uh, your connections to the
archipelago of Madeira.
Zeca Rodrigues: Um I was born in [inaudible] and given the nickname of
Zeca and that's what I've been using. Although when I first arrived in
San Diego, my cousin changed my name to Mary Jo, which I used for a
little bit and then anyway I came to America in December of 1968 and I
couldn't speak English. Uh eventually graduated from Point Loma High
School in ‘73 and then I went on to uh study at UC Berkeley and
graduated in 1978 actually in physical education with a minor in
romance languages um through the language department in Berkeley I
went on a work study program to Paris, France in ‘75. And uh in ‘70 I
had also been accepted to uh study at the University of Perugia in
Italy but I got sick and could not do that. After graduating from UC
Berkeley, I returned to San Diego became very involved, not so much
for the community itself, but with Point Loma High School and their
bilingual and uh English as a second language program and just helping
immigrant, immigrants from different parts of the world that most of
them were from Portugal, Mexico, Vietnam. I loved it and designed,
actually help design a curriculum to aimed at teenagers running their
households, you know paying bills, doing the finances, you know
grocery shopping, all the things that I had gone through with my own
parents because of them not speaking English. Um anyway I explored at
that time the going through a master's program or becoming a physical
therapist or teaching degree and so forth. I did none. Uh and I did
not because suddenly I was contacted by a maritime attorney here in
San Diego who found out I could speak mainly the Portuguese, Spanish,
and Italian and therefore he hired me as his in-house interpreter. Uh
and you know, he could, that would communicate with his uh clients at
any time. Um now if you represented many fishermen in in San Diego.
And so, through that I became a paralegal, office manager and, and uh
continued interpreting and that's basically what I've been doing for
the last 40 years. So, through that work I have gained a wealth of
information about fishing operations and the, the industry itself,
which led me to become very curious about the Portuguese community and
particularly how Madeirans, how we Madeirans ever got to San Diego. Um
well unfortunately I couldn't find much information on, on that point.
Uh, so what I started doing was talking to the old timers right? Uh
the older the people I could find uh, you know the better and, and so
that's been sort of a, I guess a hobby, but, but that's how I have
developed this connection. But so, I don't know if I should keep
going.
Diniz Borges: No, no, that's great, that's great. We're going to come
back to that. I want you to actually talk to a little bit about that
experience uh, of all the information that you have gotten from San
Diego. We're going to jump up to the northern California and Inês. Um,
your, your connection to Madeira and your, and your immigrant
situation or your parents’ immigrant situation.
Inês Eiras: Well, I was born in Madeira and I immigrated in the ‘70s
with my uh four siblings. My father had emigrated three years before
with the two oldest siblings. We’re seven siblings and we were the
last of my, my father's family was the last of his siblings to
immigrate [phone interrupts]
Phone: Geronimo Lopez.
Inez Eiras: I'm sorry I got to shut my phone off here. Okay. So yeah,
my father was the last one of his siblings to leave Madeira. His
siblings had left. Uh, his oldest sister had left in 1939 to the
United States and then she called for her sister in 1944 and then his
brother had gone to Brazil. One went to Curaçao and then the Curaçao
ended up in the United States. And so, they were all over the place.
And my father was the very last one. Uh, he stayed in the village of
Ponta do Sol where we're from. And he came and worked for three years
at the Embers restaurant in San Lorenzo-San Leandro that was owned by
my aunt um to call for us and my mom came with us five and we went to
San Lorenzo schools. Uh, kind of took care of each other. My parents
went to work to raise seven kids and when I was of age to go to
college I went to the University of Cal State University, Hayward at
the time, which is now East Bay and I graduated with a degree in
business, bachelor science in business administration with marketing
concentration. I also studied Portuguese. Um I decided that I wanted
to get a minor in Portuguese, so I've always been connected to my
culture, just have a deep love for it. Um even as a little girl, you
know, I, I was eight years old and I wanted to go see Amalia and got
to see Amalia in my Portuguese school. My parents belonged to what was
called a club social Maderense and that's where I learned Portuguese
every Friday night, we had Portuguese classes at the club and it was
wonderful. We had these wonderful teachers who volunteered, I can't
believe they did that all those years. Um and I was able to do my
quartra class though I didn't do the exam because that was right
before the 1974 over, you know when the government was being
overthrown in Portugal. And so there was a lot of chaos in the
education department. But one of the things that I liked to do growing
up was having pen pals in writing to my family in Portugal, I had a
mentor, a godfather who was a professor in Lisbon and he always made
me feel like, you know your, you got this and he gave me so much
confidence and I, I owe a lot of gratitude to him to my uh my love of
culture and language was uh definitely deepened by his mentorship in
my life. So going forward I went in uh tried to work in corporate
America and learned early on that I was not a corporate girl and uh
then I got my real estate license and have been a real estate agent
for 32 years.
Zeca Rodrigues: Wow.
Inês Eires: So, that's been my career and I've been able to help a lot
of people uh you know real estate agents uh they don't just sell
homes. We you know we change lives sometimes we feel like people’s
shrinks, we solve a lot of problems and I do work with the Portuguese
community. I moved a lady to the Azores and I know I ended up being,
being everything to her, because all her family was gone and I walk
into her house one day and she was laying on the ground uh ill and no
family here so I ended up being her nurse and doctor too um which was
a real joy you know we’re very good friends now and I get to visit her
when I go to Terceira which is really great. Um so I, I love what I do
um it's uh It's something that I started through my family business,
my family started investing in real estate and I was started at 15
years old basically um property managing for my parents, they didn't
speak English so I was the one that you know when and evicted somebody
without even being of legal age. Yeah I just went out and did it. So I
just learned to grow up very fast and take care of problems and I'm a
problem solver and help my parents in every possible way until I got
married and established a home of my own and raised a family. I have
two sons, 27 and 22 yes and uh my, my siblings all live in the Bay
Area except for one that lives in Ojai, California and she is
incredible. I am very proud of her because she has been such a voice
for our Madeira culture in terms of music, she plays the braguinha and
sings their music. So, we have a good time with that. We represent our
island whenever possible. For probably 40 years my father and mother
and friends and family, I would go to the Festa Thornton where they
had [inaudible] and there was a family there from [inaudible] that
invited us one year and then we just kept coming a year after year. My
father was a musician. He is now no longer with us. My brother is a
musician. My sister's a musician and we all kind of sing a little bit,
we have fun. My mom loves to sing, she is not uh the singer that she
used to be. She's had a little bit of a challenge, but she definitely
has her memory and she leaves a lot of great things for us to pass on
to future generations. Um for many years uh she, well she started a
lot of Madeira traditions at the [inaudible], one of them was making
the bread. She was one of the first ladies to make the bolo do caco.
And she also started some traditions there that are still being done.
One of them is the homages d natal [assumed spelling] where the group
get together and they have a [inaudible] and of course we don't, we're
not doing that, but there are still people that are running the
organization that are very, very talented and that are making these
traditions continue and I'm very proud of them for doing that. Um what
else with me? I uh with my uh love of culture, I decided a few years
back when I was serving in the [inaudible] board and my husband was
serving on the Filarmônica do Credo Immigrant [assumed spelling] in
Newark, California. He was one of the, I think vice president was the
vice president. And uh at the time we were kind of split, I was in
one, one place, he was in another place and there was all these events
happening and I, we say well how we're going to promote these events
uh when we're just all over the place. So I had this idea of forming
this uh Facebook group when Facebook was brand new. And I started this
Facebook group called Portuguese Culture on social events in
California. And I invited everyone in to post all of their things and
to have this unified in one place. Um and I always felt like I had a
little bit of cultural knowledge to give and that was my ministry to
give to my community. Um the other thing that made me very motivated
with uh teaching people about our cultures with the city that I'm from
in San Leandro has a big contingency of Portuguese roots and there
were a lot of third, fourth, wash down Portuguese people that I would
meet up with at coffee shops sometimes in the morning and I would over
hear their conversations about how they felt about you know their
mother in law or this and that and you know they're Portuguese and I
felt that there was a lot of just not misinformation and I, it kind of
bothered me and I said no we got to do something, I have to do
something about this. I have to educate them about the great culture
that we have. And in one of those uh coffee meetings that we had, we
actually invited this 90 year old actually he was 80, 80 something at
the time to go with us to Terceira Island in the Azores where my
husband is from to go to the San Juaninas and he was all excited
because he was a descendant of Terceirense and I mean talk about
making this man's uh you know, day and life, you know, he had a great
old time and we took him to all the festivities. He kept up with the
teenager and we took pictures of him jumping over a wall so he
wouldn't get hit, he wouldn't get uh you know, uh injured by the bulls
that were running after him and I actually filmed it and showed it to
all the people that were there at the coffee shop. It was unreal. It
was just a great story. But anyway, so I'm going off topic and
basically just to say how much I love to talk about our culture and,
and to spread it and to spread the great will of the Portuguese people
and, and the island of Madeira, the Azores, Portugal. Today, we're
talking about Madeira. Behind me on the screen is my village where I
was born, Ponta do Sol and the church I was baptized in and I'm very
proud of the island that I come from, very proud of my people, very
proud of all the things that they had to endure in the past to be
what, who they are today.
Diniz Borges: Indeed, indeed. And uh there's uh we're gonna dive in a
little bit of this to the history of the Madeirans in California. So,
um there are a couple of distinct areas and both of you will correct
me. I'll start with Zeca uh because I'm probably gonna be wrong, but
there are a few, when we think about Madeirans in California, folks
from the archipelago, mostly I'm sure from the island of Madeira, I'm
sure some from Porto Santo. Um the-- we look at and we think in uh in
generalities of course, uh we think of San Diego, we think of uh you
know the Hayward-San Leandro-East Bay area and we think a little bit
of Sacramento. Uh I know a few uh personally I know a few of them in
uh that are Portuguese who are from Madeira in Sacramento. And a
little bit in uh in here, some parts of the west of the San Joaquin
Valley, there's a little community uh here called Lemoore actually
good size city nowadays where there were a few Madeira families. One
of the few areas in the Central Valley where there were some families
from the, the island of Madeira. So, Zeca um in your research and your
personal knowledge of someone who immigrated from Madeira with your
parents. Um give us a little bit of a synopsis of the Madeira uh folks
in uh in San Diego and, and why San Diego?
Zeca Rodrigues: Right. Um actually, I should have told you I was born
in a very, very small, even smaller than Ponta do Sol probably, um
village called Paul do Mar. And what's interesting about Paul is that
most of the people who are from Madeira here in San Diego are from
this one little village. Okay. We have maybe, you know, a handful of
people from other villages, including, you know, a couple from
Funchal, but they’re minimums. Uh, so most of the people in Paul are
from in uh, San Diego that are from Madeira have this Paul do Mar
connection. Um, and then you have, one of the things that I learned
was that um, you know, I've spoken to, to, different people and so,
um, there are people from Madeira from Paul in the San Leandro area. I
have cousins up there and what not. And it actually in the early days,
some of the people kind of stopped there, but then they ventured off
to the, to the coast and started fishing rather than construction and
agriculture. So, that was kind of the connection. It started, they
started going, uh, you know, fishing up and down. Some initially, uh,
stopped in San Pedro. I lived in San Pedro for a while until
eventually, uh, you know, Madeirans called Point Loma or San Diego
their home. Um, from what I can tell um, the early Madeirans were here
in around 1910. Um, I have a personal connection with an aunt. Her
name was Veronica Filante [assumed spelling] to, and uh, she was
actually a great aunt and she arrived in San Diego around 1930. She
did immigrate to America in you know Lowell, Massachusetts in 1920 and
she was kind of a remarkable lady because uh and I remember her from
her going back to uh to Paul. Um and the many times she went, and I
remember her because she would bring people back with her. So, in the
early days like in 1920 when she first came, she brought with her a
companion which was her brother, right? And then when she came to San
Diego um they, she would go back and she was already married and we
had left her children, younger children with her mother and then
brought a, uh brought a niece who was already a teenager and could
work and so she could support her family. So, she would make these
trips all through, you know, the, the 1940s and whatnot and uh and
just try to help people as she came. My memory of first probably in
the early 1960s or so I remember her going back and I loved to sit
right next to her because she smelled so good, you know, and then I
was at awe when she would dress up on a weekday, just like it was
Sunday. I mean her clothes were just incredible and, and she had a
thing about her, you know, and, and so it was kind of like she, I
remember she would give us like trocanos [assumed spelling], little
change so we could buy uh some, some stuff and, and it was just like
it was out of this world. But she truly was for Madeirans here in, in
San Diego, she truly was a pioneer of that. Um, there were, and then
there were other people that came as the, the fishing and whatnot.
and, and uh, I remember I spoke with Mrs. Mary Nunes, she was uh, when
I spoke with her, she was probably already in her late in her late
eighties and early nineties and she had immigrated uh, from Madeira
and had, she was also from Paul, she had immigrated from Madeira and
went to Massachusetts, and she said that when did she remembers? She
just was not happy to be Massachusetts and you know, she was there
because her husband was there, and they wanted to make a better
living. But they had, we're hearing about how fishing was so good in,
she started getting letters from, you know, family and friends about
how fishing was so good in San Diego and they, you know, they should
consider moving. And the most importantly, she heard how the weather
was just like Madeira. So, there was no turning back that was her, you
know, we used to say it was a gold rush, you know, come to San Diego
for the weather and so from her, it was just kind of, you know, uh,
that was, there was sort of the exodus from the East Coast into the
West Coast for Madeirans and into San Diego now. Uh there are a lot of
very different stories about people coming to San Diego. And again,
I'm talking about people from Paul. So, there's this lady, her name is
Mary Freitas, it's now and in talking to her, I found out that she had
immigrated when she was 10 years old. She came by herself. What had
happened was her mother and her had been called to come to America
through her mother's sister and everything was approved that they were
coming when she got to Funchal to board the boat um, she couldn't come
because she had skin tags. So, she had to stay behind with her
grandmother. The mother had to come because otherwise they would have
lost all their money. So, she stays behind and when she's 10 years old
a year later, um, she comes, she's put on that boat and she comes to
America, by herself.
Diniz Borges: Wow.
Zeca Rodrigues: And I, you know, I asked her, I said weren't you
scared? She says, you know, “I don't think so. Just the excitement of
knowing that I was going to see my mother again and knowing that I was
going to be needing all my family. Um, fear never entered into the
equation. Right?” So anyway. Um, and there's others like this, there's
um, there's this guy here who's a very prominent uh, fishing
management company guy. And when I talked to him, he came when he was
seven years old by himself and what he remembers his mother put him on
a plane. This was already in the, I believe, late ‘50s, early ‘60s,
his mother put him on a plane, and he remembers he had this little
suit and on the pocket of the suit was his name and the address where
he was coming to. He says, you know, I felt like a package but, and
there's more into that, that whole thing, you know. But anyway, these
were the stories that kind of made the Portuguese in the Madeirenses
in San Diego. Um, and so you know, when we look about through the
Madeirenses in San Diego, we look at the many, many routes the people
came and, and Madeira and San Diego immigration is this little bit
different than most Portuguese communities. And I think it's different
from this. So, you know, we discovered Brazil and in the 1500s were
sending people of Brazil. Well, some of the boats kind of got lost
along the way. Some of them went into Curaçao and Venezuela. Well,
jobs were good that the oil industry is good. And so people started
coming through that well. And then, you know, of course, you know
about the whaling and uh, mainly the Azores. Um, but what was also
happening in the 1800s around 1876. Um, uh, Hawaiian Islands, uh, went
to Madeira and they actually got people to come, mainly families who
came to make the very long trip from Madeira to Hawaii to work on the
sugar cane fields. Well, the reason I'm bringing this out because
there is a San Diego connection. So, I got my DNA a couple of years
back. And lo and behold I find in my DNA result that my DNA is
probably found in Madeira Island and Hawaii. So somehow in the past,
you know, there's a connection there. But what was also very
interesting is that I was doing a presentation on fishing a couple
years back and a woman came up to me, ChInêse and, and she says I was
born in Hawaii and uh but I know that my grandfather was from Paul do
Mar, Madeira.
Diniz Borges: Wow.
Zeca Rodrigues: Isn't that amazing?
Diniz Borges: That is.
Zeca Rodrigues: So, so anyway we talked and I came to trace because
what she said was that at some point she grew up in Los Angeles and
she remembered that her father used to come to San Diego to visit a
cousin. So, I'm like going, I gotta find out, I mean I know everybody
in Paul. I got to find out what these people are from. And, and so and
she tells me that she had actually gone to Paul to find out about her
family, her grandfather's family and had given me some information. Lo
and behold I'm able to make the connection of her family and who they
are here in San Diego. So, we have that connection through uh the
Hawaiian Islands. Now the next thing that was happening was as you
know in the 1900s, early 1900s fishing became very popular in San
Diego. And so, like my father he had immigrated to, he had left
Portugal around 1940, long before I was long before I was born but he
went to, to, to work in Venezuela, Curacao, in Brazil and, and
eventually made his way into Panama and was able to get on a fishing
boat and work in the US tuna fleet. Uh at that point it was primarily
what's called pole fishing is when you use the polling line which is
an incredible uh way to fish. And um and so uh he made really good
money doing that, so much so that in 19 and when he was in his forties
he went back to Portugal and decided I don't want to fish, and I don’t
want to go anywhere anymore. I want to stay home with my family. Well
only after a couple of years he's going nuts because he loves fishing.
And then he was also, he also had had a taste of what's called the
purse seine system which your luxurious tuna fishing vessels and, and
so he just decided you know what I want, I want to go back fishing but
he didn't want to come without us. So, my mother had a brother who
already lived in San Diego had married in San Diego and he was a US
Citizen. So, he called for us to come. And, and so uh and my brother
who was already in the uh his teen years uh and my father at that time
was very concerned that he was going to be called into the military
service. So, that was another way of you know parents just as soon as
their kids were teenagers you know you made sure you got him out of
Portugal or out of Madeira and, and was one of the things so they
would usually send them to Panama, because they could find they could
get a job on the US tuna boat. So, and, and so what would happen with
that is you know the tuna boats will come into San Diego. And then uh
you know people fell in love and then you know you have Madeirans from
San Diego and that was a very, very uh good way of bringing people
home because people from Madeira at least my understanding at that
time is you could go into Panama or Ecuador but mainly Panama at that
point since uh and the reason for that was because tuna vessels were
offloading their catch in Puerto Rico at the time and so they had to
cross the Panama Canal. So, once they put it you know they want to uh
port into Panama they could hire crew right? And so, you hired your
family. So, um so that's kind of how, how that came about um and then,
you know, there's um the, the way the Portuguese came here to, to San
Diego and uh you know, again very different than up north is we have
the tuna industry, right? And the Portuguese in San Diego created the
US tuna fishing industry um and, and basically made it the global
industry that it is even today. Uh now I have to say that this claim
is usually given to the Italians and we must correct this. Okay, the
Italians were influential, but when you look back at records and, and
um and everything else, so ship building records, the Portuguese owned
most of the, most of the vessels. When you look at the innovation uh
made to the fishing industry itself, the Portuguese and not
necessarily just Madeirans, but you know, a lot of people from the
Azores um were very influential in the innovation of, you know,
created the Medina Panel which is Harold Medina um is a method that is
still used to this day. And that method was to uh save the porpoise.
So, he was very good. My own brother um you know, coming as a teenager
basically with parta class [assumed spelling] um has, was a captain in
the industry and many, many boats and uh he designed what's called the
mechanical brailer. And it's a way that you use this to scoop the fish
from the ocean or the, the net to the, to the boat, which again
revolutionized uh, uh the industry itself. And so, um the tuna
industry was in the 1970s, the third largest industry in San Diego.
Okay. It was preceded only by the Navy and aerospace. So, San Diego in
the 1970s was known as the tuna capital of the world, right. And we,
in that time span from, I want to say from the 1910 to you know, 1980,
um most of the people were Portuguese, the ship builders, the owners
of the boat, the officers on these vessels, you know, the cannery
workers, all of this. Uh it was just mainly Portuguese. One thing that
many people may not know is during World War II, we had what was
called the tuna clippers. It's the small tuna boats, you know, it's
still fishing the, so in World War II there were 2, 52 tuna vessels
that were um asked by the government to give to give their vessels in
essence for service. They were called YP’s or yard patrol boats. And
the reason for that is number one, the vessels were conducive to
exactly what was needed. Number two, they could go into very shallow
waters which needed to be monitored at that time and, and number
three, the fishermen were expert navigators. So, you know, they could
go out there. So basically, you know, there were 52 vessels that went
into, they just basically painted these boats gray and give them a
number and put you know guns on them and they became navy vessels and
uh, and very, very a very, very important part of that. So, which very
few people know even us Portuguese, you know, so um, so those are kind
of the things that, that I guess the connection here in San Diego. I
have been, I have been trying, I was kind of pulled on a couple years
back to give a presentation on tuna fishing and you know, and I was
kind of going, you know, I'm a woman, should I be presenting tuna
fishing and, but I had an, an understanding of it. So I did a
presentation and uh, I invited like eight of our old timer fishermen
to come in number one to make sure that I would say, what I was saying
was right, but number two, so that they could share their own
experiences and from that have been asked to do a couple more
presentations, but, and really sparked this, this whole um idea of
people need to know about us Portuguese in San Diego and what we have
done and contributed to, you know, the city. So um, you know, I go, I
go on so please stop me.
Diniz Borges: No, no, no, that's, that's great. It was a lot of
information. You give us a lot of information. I'm going to go back to
a couple of points actually, I want to turn to Inês to ask her a
little bit about. So, um northern California is a little obviously
different as Zeca said, there are quite a few Madeirense as well in
your area. Um, and uh, of course not involved as heavily in fishing
and at one time probably because everybody was one way or another was
it was either the land or the sea.
Zeca Rodrigues: The sea, correct.
Diniz Borges: Uh, and uh, and, and, and, and the very first actual,
according to Dr. Eduardo Mayone Dias, the very first uh whaling
station established by the Portuguese were in, in Monterey area was,
was established by Madierans and Azoreans together. Um, so um, a
little bit about, you know, when you Inês came to, you had family here
as you said, and so you're, there was a family connection already. One
of the reasons that brought you obviously to the area, the restaurant
that your dad worked at. Um, what some of your initial um feelings,
you know, you came very young obviously, but some initial feelings
when you arrived here and how have you, how have you seen the
community evolve. Uh, and, and, and, and obviously we're all
Portuguese whether we’re from Madeira, the Azores, or mainland
Portugal, but how would you see in, in a specific case the Madeira
community, you know, you've been very involved with Bom Jesus
Milagroso. It's one of the very few Portuguese halls that are
dedicated to Madeira in, in, in, in, in California. So, tell us a
little bit about the Madeira presence that you have felt and you have
been, has been part of your life there in the East Bay.
Inês Eiras: Sure. Well, I, I need to let you know that besides Hayward,
East Bay, uh, there was a community that was very prominent at one
time, uh, that was related to sugar and Madeira is related to sugar
cane and uh, in Crockett, California. I don't know if you've ever
heard of that town, that there was a refinery, C&H refinery. And that
was a location where many Madeirans landed and lived and worked at the
C&H factory. It happened in the turn of the century, the beginning of
the 1900s where some Madeirans, you know, came to California and they
worked at the refinery and some actually went back. One of my cousins,
grandfathers made his money at the refinery and bought some very nice
real estate in Funchal, Madeira. And then my aunt went uh both of my
aunts, the ones that came in 1939 and 1944, they both worked at C&H
and that was their first residence was Crockett, California. And then
they made their way into the, the East Bay and one of the things that
I find very interesting being married to an Azorean family is that I
found that many Madeirans thought it was very, a good idea to own real
estate and a lot of Madeirans are in the real estate business as
investors. They own real estate, they own rentals. Um, and I've
noticed that that's, that's something that it's a commonality, not
that the Azoreans don't, I know a lot of them do. We are outnumbered
by so many percentage points in terms of the population, but for the
little numbers that we are, it seems to be a commonality that I think
because of being in an island where there were more people than plots
of land. I think land was a very prized commodity and it's something
that's part of the Madeiran culture for sure. Um there, I know I, I,
when I first arrived I felt that the community in Hayward was very
tight that used to celebrate at least 3, 4, 3, 3 famous festas that
happen all the time, a Festa do in, in August, it's Nossa Senhora do
Monte, which was like the big festa in Funchal and in September right
around Labor Day weekend it's the Festa do Bom Jesus Milagroso, which
was the big Festa of Ponta Delgada in Madeira and then there's Nossa
Senora do Loreto, which is in Calheta. And so these three festas were
the things that the Madeirans lived for and they had this plot of land
that was owned by these, these uh Madeiran men that in the early 19
was 1921 and I actually met a girl through ancestry who happens to be
a distant cousin, her father donated the land to the Bom Jesus. I
thought that was very, very interesting that she could share the story
and that they're celebrating the hundred years. Um, so they at that
time, you know her a different generation obviously, but they were in
the agriculture business um they had buggies, they, they, they took
their horses. I understand my aunts also lived in San Jose and in the
Cherryland area of Hayward and there was cherry, there was fruit
drying operations and then also some chicken um businesses. So, they
were in agriculture and the Cherryland area of Hayward was very uh
rooted with Madeira people, Portuguese people. Again, I haven't, I
came very young so there's a lot that I need to learn but I do know
that in San Leandro for example where I live, many people that had a
connection to uh being Portuguese were descendants of an older uh
immigration that went into Hawaii in the mid-1800s. So, you know, we
have those people in San Leandro that have very distant Madeiran
heritage. But so, we have kind of a new arrivals from the ‘50s, ‘60s
and ‘70's and then older descendants. So, it's kind of nice to have
this mix of people and we all share information that we have from the
various levels of, of uh Madeirensedense, or Madeirensidad, that we
have uh that we can share with each other today and I find that today
more than ever people really want to connect to their island. A lot of
times in the past. I find that a lot of our ancestors did not want to
talk about their arduous work, their arduous lifestyle and it was
difficult. It was almost like it hurt them and so they didn't share as
much as we would have liked them to share or some and so people are
reaching out there. They want to know, and they want to know about
their genealogy. They want to know about what life was like and so
there's a definitely a thirst and hunger for it are our numbers here
in the in the Bay Area of Madeirans are small and we are getting
smaller and smaller as our descendants will marry non Portuguese. So,
you know then it becomes we become more and more distanced from the
core culture, so I find that more than ever before we need to unite
and, and try to preserve what we have. And San Diego is amazing. I've
been there quite a few times and I love the people there of San Diego
and their spirit. I was able to meet some of the fishermen in the
1980s that my parents became friends with and I used to take their
trips down there all the time to make sure they got their tuna fish.
Zeca Rodrigues: Yeah, absolutely.
Inês Eiras: And we still have friends in San Diego today that we visit
that were, that were tied to the tuna business, the tuna industry. So,
it's a, it's a great connection.
Diniz Borges: Um let me ask both of you a question and uh this time
we'll start with you Inês instead of starting, starting with Zeca. How
does a community that's so small and that's not the case in San Diego,
I think the community in San Diego is actually in Zeca will of course
correct me. Uh there but it's in relationship to other, the other
Portuguese which are mainly from the Azores, um how does a community
that is so small continue with its specific traditions that are
specific to the islands of, of the just like some specific, specific
elements to the Azores, some specific elements to Northern Portugal,
to Southern Portugal and of course there are specific elements that
are Portuguese but they are of Madeira and some of the festas as you
just mentioned for example. So how does the community so small uh keep
their traditions alive? I mean we know what they've done and it's been
an amazing job but how do you see it’s continuing uh not being totally
englobed by the Azoreans, you know with all due respect to my
archipelago, but you know it depends sometimes when you're a very
small number it's very hard to have that, I, that specific identity
survive.
Inês Eiras: Mhm. Well, I find that when you're small you need to uh
open up and share what you have with everyone else. And I find that
because there was quite a large number of Azoreans in California that
a lot of Azoreans did not know about our culture and that a lot of
them want to know, they just didn't have the opportunity to know and I
think sharing the festas and inviting them and they're already doing
that. It's a very, I think the communities today are more melded
together and cooperating together. No one is saying, oh well this is a
Madeira festa that you know, we want everyone there and I want to go
to all the Azorean festas and I want to go, I want, everyone wants to
have experiences. And so, I believe that just sharing our culture with
one another is how to preserve our culture going forward. Having
everyone involved, whether you're from Madeira or not doesn't matter.
It’s people, we need to share what we know what we have with our other
our compatriots from and not just for our compatriots but from people
from other cultures. You know, we see a lot of families that are
intermarried into American families, a lot of people want to have a
culture that they can identify with and they love having, being
married into a Portuguese family, a Madeiran family an Azorean family
and I find that that is that's the way to keep the traditions alive,
to keep having events, inviting other people whether they're from
Madeira or not teach them how to dance the bailinho, the machete or
whatever. Our do [inaudible] they're doing that already. And uh, you
know, invite them to the festas and invite them to be part of the
board. Be part of the BF status [assumed spelling], we don't call them
mordomo, we call them status [assumed spelling] and, and we've done
that already there, doing that already. I'm not serving on the board,
but they're doing a fantastic job there and I'm sure they will going
forward. It's a fun place. Uh, there are other places, um, that
existed before that were not, a festa place per se. Uh, the
A.P.U.M.A.C., for example, was part of what is now the P. F. S. A. and
you know, and in the old days I heard that they, they did a lot of
festas in Oakland. Oakland was a big community for Madeirans. In fact,
I don't know if you people know this, but Oakland and Funchal are
sister cities that are inactive because of that old correlation of
having a lot of people from Madeira in Oakland. So yeah, we're not
seeing any more on immigration. It's too fun to live in Madeira that I
don't see why people would come here. Um, in fact, I see the opposite
happening where people from here would like to retire or work in
Portugal. The village that you're looking at is a digital nomad
village. It's one of the few in Europe in Portugal and Madeira it’s
the only one and there's all kinds of people from young people from
all over Europe staying in the village now working remotely from their
computers and looking at this beautiful view. Yeah, so it's uh you
know things are kind of turning, we get people so excited about our,
our country, our villages, our island that they want to go back and
experience it. So that's, that's what it's all about and you know
we're not going to all be in one place for, for the rest of our lives,
you know, we can be here today and who knows, maybe I'll be living
somewhere else in a few years and experiencing something different,
but we can all be ambassadors wherever we are.
Diniz Borges: Indeed, indeed. And of course uh Zeca same thing there.
So, San Diego of course Azoreans, mainlanders as well as one of the
areas that actually has mainlanders, which a lot of areas don't. Folks
from mainland Portugal. Um and you kind of have a little bit of all
three of the parts of Portugal but is um Madeira a probably a bit more
significant than, than some of the other areas. So how did the
Madeirans, uh how did the Madeira community keep their foot in the
DS’s and all of the other organizations that exist there?
Zeca Rodrigues: Well, I think, I think here in San Diego we have a good
base of young people who are getting more involved. I think also
because a lot of Madeirans and Azoreans in a marriage, intermarried
and so they, they kind of want to keep up with uh their parents’
culture. So, I think that kind of helps we have uh here in San Diego.
I was talking earlier about my aunt Veronica who came first. She
established um what's called humo dias [assumed spelling] which is um
uh singing groups that go into uh to church on Christmas Eve, very
traditional in Paul do Mar and she, and that practice is actually done
up to this day. Uh she introduced the [inaudible] which is you know
singing from house to house which again is done still today. Um we
have um a Madeira organization called Santo Amaro. Uh Festa do Santo
Amaro and um and that's predominantly Madeira but uh we have opened
that several years back. We opened that to anybody of Portuguese
descent. So, we kind of exchanged the you know the traditions. I
remember when I first came to San Diego, you know I came to a melting
pot of, of Portuguese culture. It was the first time I had met anybody
from the Azores. Okay. You know I had known a couple of people from,
from the continent but other than that I mean, and it was just trying
to learn each other's you know traditions we all have like you know
they we cooked malassadas, they cooked filhós. You know but it's, it's
kind of the same melting pot and, and so that was always very um
interesting to me so here in San Diego we keep the U.
P. S. E. S. which is uh mainly our hall um keeps a lot of the
traditions alive. Um you know we have a very good group, the dancers
who are very good and, and so it's always fun to watch them perform.
We do have a Bom Jesus interestingly enough but its main it's ran by I
believe people from Pico. So it's not a it's not a Madeira, a Madeira
thing but um now you know we kind of intermingle with, with each other
and like I said the, the younger people are getting more and more
involved in in all of those different activities and communities and
you know just a few years back somebody went to, to Paul for, for the
summer and got introduced to what's called the Festa da Lapa and lo
and behold the following year we were celebrating Fest da Lapa here.
So, you know and there's kind of different things uh I know for myself
I like taking my you know, my nieces and nephews at least two of them
at a time and I taking a Portugal and Madeira and, and uh introduce
them to, to that and they absolutely love it after that they want to
learn Portuguese, right. So, I think that that's one good thing to
have that connection to always go back not forget where we came from
but uh really embrace where we are and the opportunities that this
land has given us and, and uh, you know, when I look back and I think,
wow, how amazing was it that, you know us from Paul do Mar landed in
San Diego, you know. Uh, it was kind of funny. I was, I was talking to
a friend of mine just recently and I may be going off topic but, you
know, the area of La Playa here in San Diego is probably the richest
area in San Diego. It's right on the water. Well, that's where the
Portuguese first, um, settled, you know, and nobody wanted to live
there at that time into probably the 1930s because it was very stinky.
That's where people dried out the fish. That's where the Portuguese
dried out the fish, you couldn't get water over there. Well now you
can't touch a shack for a few million dollars. But you know, I was
just kind of like, it's amazing that we live where we live and we came
from where we came from. The sad thing about all of this is with the
tuna industry kind of like disappearance no longer in San Diego, the
base is no longer here in San Diego, but it's in American Samoa. So
now you have people from different places, including people from Paul
who instead of coming and trying to get into the United States just
can go directly to Samoa and get on their boat. So, you don't have
that, that influx of immigration as much anymore. But, um, but you
still have, uh, you still have the management and everything else from
here. And so, you know, uh, it's just keeps that, that alive. Um, I
don't know if I answered your question.
Diniz Borges: You did, you did, you did very well as always, both of
you. Um, I have, uh, I have promised you about an hour, but we're
gonna go over if it’s okay with the both of you a little bit more. Um,
we a couple of things. First of all, you both touched on something
that I think is important that we discussed a little bit, uh, further,
which is the Portuguese American community. We talked quite
extensively there the first hour about your personal experiences. I
appreciate that and also the communities that you're both part of in
two different opposite parts of the state, but with lots of
commonalities because close to water and everything else we, um, but
uh, now moving it to today and forward. And both of you touched upon
that already a little bit with a new and the younger generation and
the newer communities are coming, coming through. Um, there is this
sense of in the Portuguese community and uh, maybe it's a little bit,
uh, apocalyptical in some people's mind, but there is a sense of the
Portuguese community that the communities are changing drastically,
uh, that the communities are not the same that they were 50 years ago.
Nothing is the same as it was 50 years ago. Um, and nothing is going
to be the same. You know, I tell still my students, you know when I
left the Azores in 1968, the island of Terceira for example the major
uh major transportation method in most of the islands of the Azores
were still the ox cart. So, you know, things have changed when, when I
went back a few years later, when I left the street I lived in, there
were two cars in 1968. When I went back four years later, there are
already 10 cars and now I go back and every family has like three or
four. So, the idea the life changes there as it changed here as Inês
mentioned with uh with her beautiful village there, you know where
people can live there and we have uh Portuguese Americans living back
in different parts of mainland Portugal, Madeira and the Azores and
actually working for multi uh companies in the technology world and
doing their work from there.
Inês Eiras: Right.
Diniz Borges: So um, knowing that, let me ask you that in your two
areas. So, the, the overriding theory, let's put it this way within
our communities is that the community is changing and everybody is
concerned about how is the community going to be five years from now,
uh, maybe too soon, but you know, 15, 20, 25 years from now.
Portuguese language is certainly not the same that it was when all,
when you arrived or when I arrived also in 1968 um Portuguese radio is
uh has existed now in in a different format, but it's not the same
that it was in the 1960s and 70s and so, the community is changing in
all different ways and, and we don't have to look very far. We can
look at our own families and um you know, my sons were both born here.
They speak Portuguese, right and reading Portuguese, my grandchildren
don't and so you know, it's just that is kind of the law of the land.
It seems like with most families, 350,000 in California, according to
the latest census that we will have some numbers of course, as you
know later on this year. Um but 350,000 as of last census and
according to the surveys that were done on that, only 31,000 of those
350 claimed that they still speak some Portuguese at home. So, 31,000
out of 350 means that over 90% of those who claim to be of Portuguese
background don't speak any Portuguese. So, my, my two questions to you
as we contemplate on the community today as we got this historical
background from both of you, and I appreciate it, is how do we look
and now just in generality of the Portuguese American community,
whether you're from Madeira or Porto Santo or uh, or Corvo or Trás-osMontes. How do we look at the Portuguese American community past uh,
this uh, past what we're living today, um, different areas and Inês
can elaborate on that. Her area for example, especially the San Jose
area, it's not the San Jose I knew in 1970. Many, you know, everyone
used to live around the Cinco Chagas Church and now there's very few
Portuguese families in Cinco Chagas Church, they’re all up in the
mountains or they're driving to Tracy or wherever. Um, and so because
of all this, because of the cosmopolitan areas growing and people
looking for other areas and other opportunities because of what you
mentioned also, both of you, which is people marrying folks outside of
the Portuguese ethnicity. You know, and other ethnic groups as well.
People for job opportunities, better education, more job opportunities
as well. So, there's a host of reasons why the community will be
different. Uh, my question is, how do we maintain what we have and are
we being too idyllic by thinking that we can maintain what we have uh,
what we have had in the last 40 years, because the community is
already different and certainly will be different 20 years from now.
So, your thoughts on that? We’ll start with Inês.
Inês Eiras: That's a very deep-rooted question with a lot of thought,
but that's something that we've been thinking about in, in general all
over the Portuguese community for a while now. Um well I think that we
will never be able to go back 50 years and have what we had 50 years
ago, that's just not gonna happen. Um we have to look at what we, we
have now and accept the fact that our society’s maybe a little bit
more skeletal or we have to change what the societies offer that our
children and grandchildren, I don't have any yet but future
grandchildren, would want to have whether it's, I don't know you know
this the generation now of my millennial sons, they want to have
experiences, so experiences is the key word and we have to do
something in our society to create experiences for the millennial
generation and their kids. Um although a lot of them are settling down
and buying homes and all that, but that has been what has been shared
with me that, you know traveling. If we can find ways to get them to
travel to Portugal with family or non family too find out more about
the traditions you know while there maybe have them enter the folklore
circle and you know and just kind of develop a love for these things
that they can bring back to their, their communities. Um-Diniz Borges: Mmhmm.
Inês Eiras: Uh huh.
Diniz Borges: So a little bit more a little more connection with
Portugal?
Inês Eiras: A little more connection and focus on them and because
there's been a lot of focus on what the older people want, what the
older people like. We want to grab onto the past. We did it like this.
We understand that the immigrants tend to hold onto traditions longer
than even some of the people that live in Portugal, because we have a
mentality of when we left, our parents, even us sometimes, and so
sometimes when we see something change, oh, that's not like it used to
be, but you know, Madeira and the Azores and the mainland is not what
it used to be either. You know, if you go to any, any town, they're
not listening to all Portuguese music.
Zeca Rodrigues: Hahaha.
Inês Eiras: They're listening to international music, American music.
And there's only a few that, that, you know, that, that like the more
traditional, but they know that the traditional is what sells tourism.
So, they're never going to give up our traditional music. We're not
going to give up our father or bailinho or [inaudible]. Um, so I think
as our, our organizations start to see the skeletal, um, you know, I
see a lot of my mom's friends passing away. My mom, you know, no
longer is mobile like she, she was. She's not active, she’s in, in a
state of where we need to take care of her now. And so, things change
and with her along of a lot of them have gone already. And so, we
have, I guess I'm the senior generation. So, whoever is even younger
than I needs to uh look at the societies and say what can we give our
future generations to have the experiences that they need to feel
connected to their culture. Well you know, it may not be having a
festa all the time. It might be, you know having, you know going on,
on a, on a trip with a bunch of kids their age or you know [inaudible]
or so or something like that are putting together a group of young
people that want to go experience something in Portugal and Madeira
has this right now where they, you can have your young adults go
experience the culture and learn the language in Portugal, the
government is offering it. So things like that that our societies need
to be more in tune to what are and not just our children but their
partners like Diniz, I'm sure that your, your son's if they're
married, they may not, and they may not be married to Portuguese.
Diniz Borges: They're not either, either married or partner but there's
no uh both of them have a wife and a girlfriend that are not
Portuguese, yes.
Inês Eiras: Our children's partners are not going to be Portuguese
necessarily. But they will both know.
Diniz Borges: Yeah my, my, my eldest son is, his wife is not Portuguese
and, and my of all different, she's a mixture of different European.
Inês Eiras: And she probably loves our culture right?
Diniz Borges: Sure. Sure. And my youngest son, his girlfriend is also
not Portuguese. So it's just that. Yeah.
Inês Eiras: We need to create something for them.
Diniz Borges: Sure and, and, and, and, and, and alliances with other
ethnicities as well because we have a lot in common.
Inês Eiras: Absolutely.
Diniz Borges: Zeca your thoughts on the same subject? I mean how do we,
how do we move this forward?
Zeca Rodrigues: I like and agree with Inês that you know experience and
travel, you know I saw it in my own family, is kind of a trigger that
that ignites the passion of being Portuguese, you know. And so if we
could do something like that, that would be great. Here in San Diego
um and then we have one, one additional thing and that is when these
kids experience Portugal, be it mainland or the islands, you know have
the internet so you can explore and they come up with more things that
they learn to love and, and that's what, that's what we need to of
course the traditions, you know the festas and whatnot. Um they may
not be here for, for a long time, but right now especially
particularly here in San Diego, that's still a good connector. I mean
when we have the festa we see people you know part of one of the
reasons I love the festa because I get to see people I haven't seen in
years who come back, we either have moved out of San Diego or you know
out in the outskirts so you know and just kind of always being
welcoming. Of course, the food is always a good, a good thing to bring
people in. I think one of the things and one of the sad things here in
San Diego you know it's a grace and a curse in that the Portuguese
fishermen worked very hard you know and made many a sacrifice for to
fish. They earned good money, and their families lives became so much
better. The price they had to pay, they were never home to their
families, what, what that did you know and so when I look back and I
think about 1970s, even in the beginning of 1980s when fishing was
still good here in San Diego you would ask any teenage boy and he the
day after high school he had a job to go fishing and some of them were
just because they were gonna make really good money and a lot of them
were because that gave him an opportunity to spend time with their
parents you know with their father and so you know but as far as, as
uh fishermen families became more fluent all of a sudden kids
education became very important to them. So, they were sending their
kids to school and so these kids are now doctors and lawyers and
accountants and whatnot and so they've lost that fishing connection.
They've lost the thread you know, and I say it's a blessing and a
curse because it's a good life for them but unfortunately you know
it's kind of, and then you have another blessing and curse is what
we've been talking about. It's the marriages, you know, being open to,
to marrying, you know into different uh cultures and, and people and,
and so you know, unless one person or the Portuguese person is really
sharing his Portugal, his or her Portugal uh love for the, for the
culture then you know it has that tendency to kind of go away. Um I'm
still hopeful here in San Diego that we're getting more young people
involved. You know, I see a little bit of a problem like in with Santo
Amaro because it's, it has a portrait, that the Madeira traditions,
you know, San Joao na Praia [assumed spelling] and the festa and
whatnot. Uh and our members are getting older and dying and whatnot,
but you suddenly you kind of got a new uh group of young people who
are starting to get involved and by young, I mean in their twenties
and you know, thirties, so, so I'm kind of still hopeful um that
things will continue and uh you know, I, I agree with, like I said, I
agree with Inês that maybe I creating a, um creating maybe a community
type of travel experience back to Portugal or whatever, what would be
very, very helpful in that way.
Diniz Borges: Indeed. Yeah, that's obviously one of the best ways. Um a
couple of other comments I'd like to get from you and that is uh you
know, we hear also from young people um that the festas and these,
these events are a lot of work and, and they are.
Zeca Rodrigues: Yes, yes.
Diniz Borges: You know, if you've ever been involved, and both of you
have, they are a lot of work. Uh and so and uh and you mentioned
something, there's a uh with a tie to the fishing industry, you know,
as people become more professional in other words in other professions
and they were professionals within the fishing industry because they
become involved in other professions um that were not traditional in
the Portuguese American community, whether it be fishing in San Diego
constructions in the bay area, you know the farming and dairying in
Central California then they become as you said, doctors and lawyers,
accountants as you know, business people from all walks of life
technology, their lives are a lot more demanding. You know their
phones are always ringing like Inês you know showed us there, it's
always, it's always, it's a busy life and I hear this, I don't know if
any of you hear this, but I hear this from young people because of my
teaching at the university now in the last few years is and even
before that, you know when I was teaching in a high school, I heard a
lot that high schoolers are different but I mean from their young
parents is that where I don't have, you know, I don't have two days a
week to dedicate to the Portuguese American community although I love
my culture, but I don't have two days a week. My parents did because
my parents, that was their life and, and, and we have that in
Portuguese language schools that at one time were very present in
California. The community schools where my two kids went to learn
Portugues, I mean they knew Portuguese from home, but where they went
to learn to read and write as Inês did, um, where, you know, where
they went, you know, on Monday nights for 2.5 hours a day. Um, and,
and now these community schools still exist, but in some areas,
they’ve died off because they're competing with ballet and with, with
baseball and tennis and everything else. And, and for my gen, for some
of our kids or those of us who are a little bit older, uh, the, that
generation of kids who may be now in their forties. Um, they, it was
the only way that their parents let them go do something. It was at
the Portuguese school or the marchar [assumed spelling] or the
folklore or the band that was the only way that they had to leave home
and to go someplace that mom and dad would let you attend. It's a
different world now, you know, so we're competing with all these, so
do we have, do, do we look at technology maybe as a way to infuse it
and do we look at what San Diego did, for example, a few years ago?
Which is, and Zeca kudos to you and Linette [assumed spelling] and,
and a couple other people but kudos to you and let for all your work,
which is getting Portuguese started at the high school because um,
that is one way to have the kids kind of be involved. They have to
take a language class. Why not Portuguese? And then they also are
seeing their Hispanic friends take Portuguese. And so it's no longer a
language that's just in, you know, spoken by Avô, you know, who
doesn't speak well, Portuguese or English, I should say. But it's a
language that even Hispanic kids want to learn. So that we have to, my
whole conversation, this is, do we, and I'll start with Inês again and
that's do we have to maybe invent some new ways in the American
mainstream where our culture is that people don't have to go and
spend, you know, two days a week, you know, working at, at the
association because they don't have time, but they can, you know,
everything from the foods to everything else, because I'm a proponent
and tell me if I'm wrong but one of the things I see in the future is
that if we don't have more Portuguese restaurants, if our
organizations start closing up for one reason or another in different
areas, they're the ones still cooking Portuguese food.
Inês Eires: Right.
Diniz Borges: So, uh, you know, do we need to make our community a
little bit more uh present in the American mainstream, where people
can have access to things without uh putting in the work for it or
without, you know, having all that time commitment because they really
don't have the time that my father had time, you know, because of his
job. Uh and, and, and the need for it and the younger generations
don't have either the time or also they don't have the need for it,
the they don't have the need for Portugal to be present in their life
24-7. Inês what’s your thoughts on it?
Inês Eiras: My thoughts are that they absolutely want to be connected
in the way that they, they want to make it fit into their lives. And
one of the things that I've noticed is that you're talking about food
well, you know, you can get food at a Portuguese restaurant or you can
get it at a festa or at a club, but there's a lot of things going on,
on YouTube and a lot of people are posting a lot of uh you know,
cooking, how to make this and that and during the pandemic, I know a
lot of people brushed up on those cooking skills.
Zeca Rodrigues: Hahaha.
Inês Eires: Um and I feel that um it's becoming more uh you know
digital in terms of getting information, but I think it's very uh the
classes that are being done, for example by this young man, Jeremiah
uh in Sacramento are being well received and attended. Um it just
shows that they are interested in knowing what grandma used to make or
maybe, you know, they don't have the recipe because the grandmother
passed away and so keeping them connected to the culture in the, in
the new digital era. And you know Zoom, I think these conversations
that we're having right now, this exchange, if we were to do it with
younger people that you know, what would you like to know that you
know that your grandparents never told you. I think this is also
another way to connect where they don't have to leave their house, you
know. Um I asked my son the other day, you know, how are you meeting
people in Los Angeles? He just moved there and he goes well through
Zoom. We, we talked through Zoom, I said okay, but he is going to have
a barbecue on the fourth of July so they're getting together. Um but
yeah, it's, I think food is a big thing. Um it doesn't require a lot
of time. You can watch something and then you can make it at your
home, and you can post it and you can say, hey, I just made a Madeira
dish. You know, I did that last week for my, for my mom and some
friends that visited from Venezuela. Beach da turnê.
Zeca Rodrigues: Ha!
Inês Eires: I'm from San Diego, but who knows, maybe work, but anyway.
Diniz Borges: So, using a little bit more of the digital connections to
Inês Eiras: I think that they—
Diniz Borges: bring it into the mainstream?
Inês Eiras: -where it's at, we need to just embrace it whether we like
it or not, that's where our kids are and we just need to be there. We
need, we need to be where they are.
Diniz Borges: Okay. Zeca your thoughts?
Zeca Rodrigues: I just want to be, before I forgot wanted to let you
know that Portuguese has been approved by the district.
Diniz Borges: Great!
Zeca Rodrigues: So we're uh, we’re uh-
Diniz Borges: It’s growing.
Zeca Rodrigues: Yeah and, and they’re doing, doing well, we need
another teacher. But anyway, so that's one good way uh we're trying to
keep Portuguese alive here in San Diego and you know, you know how
difficult that was, but it seems to finally be yeah. I agree, I mean
trying, I think that allowing or giving the younger generation an, an
experience and whether it be, you know like Inês says, the travel
experience, so be uh maybe some, some presentations about you know who
we are and where we came from or whatever those things may be. Uh but
whatever will ignite uh that being proud of their culture and you know
at that point people start to share. You know, it's kind of
unfortunate here in San Diego, we never really had a Portuguese
restaurant, so we don't have that connection. I mean the hall makes
food and, and we have, you know, so I think all our festas they're so
popular because people come to eat food that they haven't eaten in a
long time and you know part of the reason that that the we haven't
been able to get a Portuguese restaurant was because the men were
always gone right, the woman was mother and father and had to take
care of grandpa and grandma whoever else, so she never had any time to
really invest in, in uh in, in a restaurant besides you want food, you
eat at home right? It was kind of the mentality at one point, but it's
kind of sad that I think if we had that uh it would be a good
connection for a lot of people to come back and, and uh you know uh
kind of learn more about their roots. So.
Diniz Borges: Indeed, well it was a fascinating conversation, I
promised you around an hour and it's been an hour and a half, but it
has been fascinating. I need to bring both of you back into a
different uh format for some other issues that we think we need to
talk about in the Portuguese American communities. Zeca I'd love to uh
you and I to dive into a presentation one day about the matriarchal
society of San Diego becauseZeca Rodrigues: Absolutely.
Diniz Borges: I actually first started learning that with the
presentation a long time ago, very long time ago, I'm dating myself
from Maria [inaudible] that used to be a uh there in San Diego.
Zeca Rodrigues: Right.
Diniz Borges: And uh she made a presentation many, many years ago about
to make the, the role of the, of the woman in, in society, the
Portuguese society in San Diego. And I think that's uh something that
we'd like to tackle. And of course Inês looking at also the community
itself and, and uh in the East Bay and how, how it's going to move
forward. We there's lots of conversations to be held. So, thank you
both for this fascinating and wonderful exchange of ideas for the last
hour and a half for taking, sharing your time with, with all of us. I
want to uh let everyone know who is watching that. We have another one
of these on the 8th and another one on the 15th of July for our summer
series. Thank you. Zeca Rodrigues, thank you Inês Eiras and thanks to
all of you for joining us. And this will be archived at the Portuguese
Beyond Borders Institute, PBBI Fresno State YouTube channel and also
in our library in our oral history. Again thank you both. And
wonderful Dia de Madeira, viva Madeiras.
Zeca Rodrigues: Viva Madeira, do brigada [assumed spelling].
Diniz Borges: Do brigado [assumed spelling].