Santos e Bahia

The city of Santos today is thought of as the place where the greatest futebol (soccer) player and statesman in the world Pelê played the game. Founded in 1535 and located on the coast a hours drive south of Sao Paulo, Santos became a rich harbor for the export of coffee after the Scottish came and built the tram.

The train revolutionized the economy of the entire region when its powerful pistons allowed exporters to move large quantities of coffee beans out of the mountains to the market rapidly. Brazil is now the largest exporter of coffee in the world. Santos and Sao Paulo consequently became wealthy off coffee and it all began here in the port of Santos.

Brazil also has the largest population of Japanese in the world outside Japan. Immigration of the Japanese to Brazil began in earnest after the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 with almost all ancestors coming through Santos harbor.

In one huge wave of immigration, roughly 150 thousand Japanese came to Santos bound to labor contracts but once freed of their obligation (they had to buy their freedom from the bosses) they moved to Sao Paulo to a section of the city known appropriately as Liberdade or Liberation. In Liberdade the Japanese numbers grew and the prospered. This year Sao Paulo is celebrating 100 years of Japanese assimilation.

BAHIA

Almost everywhere you look in São Paulo there are signs of the immigration of the people from the state of Bahia. near the equator. Patricia's mother Odelva is from Bahia. Baiano cuisine brought down from this hot climate of the North and coastal regions is more piexes (fish) based than carne (meat) and often associated with pheasant food.

The Baiano in São Paulo are regarded similarly to the poor Southerners from Mississippi and Alabama who relocated to New York - often with contempt or embarrassment by upper class society. Bahia is associated with discount furniture marts, street food, heads of fish swimming in you stew, and black magic.

Baiano moved to São Paulo reluctantly due to severe draught but kept together with solidarity and pride in their heritage and cultural traditions.

Odelva told me that when she arrived in São Paulo in the early 1970s at the age of 17, she already had three sisters living in this massive city of immigrants. Yet, Odelva could not find her sisters. As a teenager she was employed by wealthy Paulistas in their homes - given food and lodging but no salary or income - she was an indentured cook.

Years past before Odelva realized she might be entitled to a wage or that she possesed the rights to free herself from her labor.

As closely as my in-laws have been able to figure, Odelva left Cruz das Almas and Mauro Timbauba on exactly the same day at the same time without knowing eachother or being incited to this harmonious seminal beginning.