Thursday, Nov. 05, 2009
From Brazil to the Beach... and Back
Marcelo Araujo, 39, grew up in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the oldest of three children and the family's only son.
A Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu instructor at Gold's Gym in Myrtle Beach, Araujo is proud of his heritage, but enjoys his adopted home.
Araujo had visited Myrtle Beach in the summers of 2001 and 2002 and liked it. The beach town felt a lot like his Brazilian home town and he had a friend here, so he moved from Boston where he had been recuperating from an injury.
"Myrtle Beach is a nice laid back place," he said. "In Boston, people don't say hello in the streets. In Myrtle Beach I see how nice people are. They smile, and I felt like I was in Brazil. People in Brazil are the same way. So I thought I'd come here, chill out a little bit, heal my injury and see where I was going to be."
With Brazilian-based martial arts being taught in gyms and studios up and down the Strand, trendy Brazilian hair techniques offered at local salons, local Brazilian church congregations praising the lord, shops hawking Brazilian-rolled cigars, and five Brazilian restaurants opening in Myrtle Beach within the past few years, it appears Brazilian culture is blossoming along the Grand Strand - yet members of the beach's Brazilian-American community say its tight-knit population has dwindled as the recession deepened.
Some of the restaurants are likely a reflection of a shrinking population as former construction workers try to stay productive until pre-recession building levels return.
As recently as two years ago, the number of Brazilians in and around Myrtle Beach was growing. Some anecdotal estimates reach as high as 3,000 at its peak two to three years ago. But these days the Brazilians interviewed for this article put the number at less than 1,000, with 500 to 800 a best guess.
The ones who stayed are firmly hanging on. They like it here because of the opportunities, and because, believe it or not, South Carolinians and Brazilians are a lot alike. Brazilians feel at home here.
"They see lots of possibilities here,'' said James Henderson, professor of International Studies at Coastal Carolina University in Conway.
And, said Henderson who has a PhD. in Latin American History, our slice of the Palmetto State coast feels familiar to Brazilians because of its Atlantic coastline, a history of agriculture, and on the darker side of history, a past predicated on slave labor. "There are a lot of things in common.''
Who they are
Brazil is close in size to the United States. The U.S. is the fourth-largest country in the world in terms of geography with 9,826,630-square-kilometers, while Brazil comes in fifth with 8,511,965-square- kilometers. When comparing their shapes, Brazil is shaped much like the U.S. if Texas was removed and Florida was half as long. Brazil's population is 190 million; the U.S. has 308 million.
Brazilians like to barbecue, and generally speaking they enjoy music and parties and dancing and hanging out with their families.
Sports are important, but where Americans are nuts about football, baseball and basketball, Brazilians love their brand of football - which we call soccer. Americans revere Knute Rockne, Walter Payton, Michael Jordan and Mickey Mantle. Brazilians have Leonidas da Silva, Pele, Garrincha and Ronaldinho.
Both countries are melting pots, but they have indigenous people who thrived before Europeans arrived. In the U.S., Spanish explorers came looking to conquer something or someone, and in Brazil it was the Portuguese. In both countries the results were the same; the native races in both countries were affected negatively by the Europeans' diseases and desire to claim foreign lands for their home countries. Both countries also had long and similarly timed eras when natives and imported Africans were enslaved.
Some comparisons come at different periods, such as gold rushes. In the U.S. gold fever swept California and Alaska in the mid- to late 1800s, while gold diggers inundated the Amazon Rainforest of Brazil in the 1980s. America's bloody revolutions took place in the mid- 18th and 19th centuries, while in Brazil the military controlled the government for 20 years starting in 1967.
America has vast Bread Basket fields of wheat, corn and soybeans. Brazil also grows those crops, but is more known for sugar cane, coffee and orange juice. Ethanol is also a big Brazilian business. American westerners can identify with Brazilians when it comes to raising beef cattle; it's an important commodity in both countries.
A striking difference is revealed when comparing gross national per capita incomes. According to 2008 World Bank data, the U.S. is ranked 14th in the world at $47,580, while Brazil is at No. 82 with a per capita income of $7,350.
When you factor in the cost of living, the disparity is greater. In a ranking that scores purchasing power parity, the U.S. is 11th in the world with an international purchasing power of 46,970 international dollars. Brazil's money does not stretch as far, with a ranking at 95 and $10,070.
This economic disparity, the Brazilians interviewed for this article say, is the main reason they came here, like many other immigrants, and one of the most important reasons they stay.
The preachers
Arimateia Pereira and Ismenia Pereira have been married for 32 years and have three children: Josafa, 31; Josua, 24; and Joyce, 17. The couple is from a city called Joao Pessoa, which is the capital of the northeast Brazilian state of Paraiba. The Pereiras still own a home in the oceanfront city of 702,000, where the climate is tropical and the city is known for its green lush forests. Its history includes French, Portuguese and Dutch influences.
The father, Arimateia Pereira, retired from the electric company after 25 years. Although the majority of Brazilians are Catholics, he was converted to the Free Methodist Church by an American missionary. He and Ismenia Pereira attended a theological university and became ordained pastors, and then they were sent to the United States to work with Brazilians.
Their son Josua stayed in Brazil, but Josafa and Joyce are with them, and they live in a town home in Carolina Forest. Joyce is a junior at Carolina Forest High School, and the family conducts Brazilian services and programs at a Free Methodist Church in Carolina Forest.
Joyce speaks English fluently; her parents can understand more English than they can enunciate. Some of the quotes in this article attributed to them were translated by Joyce.
The Pereiras have lived here since July 2007, and they say during that time their congregation and the Brazilian population in the Grand Strand have decreased.
"Before, a year ago, we had 75 in our Brazilian congregation," Arimateia Pereira said while seated at his glass-top dining room table. "Now there are around 50. We lost 35, 36 people, then a few more people came. If the economy hadn't gone down, we would have had 100 by now."
"When we got here there were about 3,000 Brazilians [in the Myrtle Beach area]," Ismenia Pereira said, "but today it is about 800, 1,000 maybe. The men here work a lot in construction, the women are cleaning houses. When the economy dropped, they want to go back to their families in Brazil...The [Brazilians] here work a lot. Most pay taxes and they try to leave here better than they came. Their dream is to one day get documents through paying taxes, knowing the language, because they really want to live here."
One reason Brazilians like the U.S. so much is the educational opportunities for their children, despite South Carolina's lackluster reputation.
"Schools function very well here," Joyce said, and added she is an A/B student at Carolina Forest High School. "The public schools in Brazil are really bad. They don't have a lot of materials...In public schools, the teacher sometimes doesn't get paid, so they don't want to teach, or they don't get much money. Kids write on the desks, write on the walls. Everybody goes to private schools if they can afford it; only the middle class or rich people can go to private schools."
The Pereiras said while Brazilian universities are good quality - there is a free public university system with a long waiting list - the public middle and high schools are lacking. Children who earn public high school degrees in the U.S. can return to Brazil and find good jobs, especially since they'll be fluently bilingual.
Before moving to the U.S., Joyce says she was lucky to attend a private school. The minimum wage in Brazil is about 270 reals per month, her parents said. One real is equal to about 1.7 U.S. dollars, so that translates to about $156 per month. The monthly private school tuition is about 200 to 270 reals.
"The quality of life is much better here than in Brazil," Ismenia Pereira said. "What is basic here in the U.S., in Brazil only people in the high middle class or high class would have. For example, I have an Escalade. I would never have that in Brazil; only rich people would have it. And even if I did have one in Brazil, you could die at the first stop light you came to, because Brazil has robbers, and the police take forever to react."
So the Pereiras feel lucky to be able to live and work in the U.S., and they like Myrtle Beach. They're proud their congregation includes a few Mexicans and four Americans, and say they have translation ear phones for anyone who doesn't speak Portuguese who'd like to attend services at 7 p.m. Sunday nights.
Or at least they try to start at 7 p.m. Brazilians are notorious for showing up late for everything, they said, so they put on their church bulletins that services start at 6:30 p.m., and then usually everyone shows up by 7. However, once the congregants figure out services start at 7, they start showing up later. This habit is even starting to rub off on their non-Brazilian parishioners, Arimateia Pereira said with a laugh and a shrug.
Another difference the family has noticed between Americans and Brazilians is their diets, especially for lunch. Brazilians eat beans, rice and chicken for lunch, they say, and they shake their heads in disbelief over the "junk food" they see Americans eating at midday.
But otherwise they see much the two cultures have in common, and say the Brazilians here embrace U.S. customs and traditions while trying to instill a sense of homeland pride in their children. At church they celebrate both U.S. and Brazilian holidays, and much of their ministry incorporates the music of both cultures. Arimateia Pereira and his children are all musicians - he plays trumpet - and much of their free times is spent giving free music lessons or performing.
Joyce plays keyboard, bass, guitar and saxophone and is in a pop/rock band called Project 360 with five friends from school. They haven't played any gigs yet, but they have fun practicing. She is in 11th grade, and hopes after graduating she can attend Embry-Riddle University in Daytona Beach, Fla., to study to become a pilot.
But most of the family's time is spent on activities with the Free Methodist Church of Brazil. They thoroughly research the information in their sermons and organize group activities such as camping and a recent tennis tournament. The husband-wife team each has their theological specialties. He performs releasing ceremonies - sort of like an exorcism - where demons are studied and prayed out of sinners. She does what is called "interior cure" counseling trauma sufferers to restore balance to their lives.
And sometimes they'll just throw a barbecue for their friends, or go shopping, to the movies or to area parks. They just want peaceful and prosperous lives like anybody else.
The carpenter who wants to be a farmer
Antonio Ribeiro, 32, was born in Parana, in southeast Brazil about where the state of Georgia would be if transposed onto a U.S. map. His family moved to Minas Gerais, a huge state in eastern Brazil (just west of the skinny state where Rio de Janeiro is located), and this is where Ribeiro spent the first 10 years of his life
"Sixty percent of the Brazilian population in the U.S. is from Minas Gerais," Ribeiro said while seated in a booth at Max and Erma's in Carolina Forest. "We'll find out we lived in the same [Brazilian] city, and then we meet each other in the U.S."
Minas Gerais is the fourth-largest Brazilian state, and its topography includes mountains, hills and savannah. It is known for coffee, milk and cheese production, and in the south it can get cold enough to freeze.
At age 10 his family moved to the Amazon rainforest, in the western part of Brazil.
"Everything I saw was agriculture around me," Ribeiro said. "I went to an agriculture high school, then I got a scholarship to a university in Costa Rica to do agriculture. I have a degree in agricultural science with emphasis in environmental protection, protection of the humid tropic."
After graduation Ribeiro felt he could not find the work he wanted without being fluent in English, so he worked with a placement agent and got a job 10 years ago at Myrtle Beach's Kingston Plantation in the landscaping department.
"But my English was so poor, I couldn't do the work," he said in now-flawless English. "They wanted me to do something related to developing their landscaping, but I was not able to communicate to the other workers. I ended up doing housekeeping. I had that beautiful piece of paper [his degree] but housekeeping was all I could do with my language skills."
In September 2000 Ribeiro decided to return to Brazil, apply for a new visa and try to be placed working in his preferred field of agriculture. He ended up in California's Napa Valley, in Hillsburg, working at a small family-owned organic farm. He loved the job.
"They had small fields with a vineyard, and they grew organic chili peppers. It was really, really interesting. I worked a full year with them; it was an amazing experience with organic agriculture. I sold [produce] for them at an organic farmers market in the Bay Area of San Francisco."
Ribeiro's work visa was about to expire when he received a call from a former boss in Myrtle Beach who offered him a job in his beachwear store business. He helped Ribeiro with his paperwork so his stay was legal, and put him in charge of receiving for the warehouse that serviced 12 Bargain Beachwear stores.
While he was grateful for the job and the chance to remain here, Ribeiro saw friends working in the construction industry making much more money. His English was good enough by then he felt confident dealing with U.S. contractors and began bidding on remodeling jobs on behalf of Brazilian work crews with less fluent language skills. Now he owns ACR Construction of SC, Inc.
"We hooked up with a big general contractor, and he has been keeping us busy the last 3-and-a-half years. I have a very good relationship with him. I have my contractor's license. I'm not a general contractor, just a contractor; insured, bonded and all this. My personal goal is related to real estate. Remodeling caught my attention, and the profit that can be made on rehabbing. I'm really involved in that now. I did two properties so far, and I have been taking classes."
But while Ribeiro is hanging on and hoping the construction industry returns to pre-recession levels, many of his peers have returned to Brazil.
"I have been in Myrtle Beach almost 10 years," he said. "I'm married, no kids, and I go to St. Andrew Catholic Church. I saw a very small population of Brazilians, maybe 300 in [the year] 2000, go all the way to probably 1,800 in 2005. Because of the building boom...the Brazilian community was mostly construction laborers. A few own restaurants, a few are related to beachwear, but 90 percent is related to construction. Since all the new construction went down, right now we're back to pretty much 500 Brazilians here...I think more than half left in the last nine months. Two years ago we were 32 employees [in my company], then we cut it to 16, and right now we have just nine."
When he had 32 employees, 12 of them were Mexican natives, but now his entire crew is Brazilian.
The reason Ribeiro gave up agriculture for construction was all about money.
"I could get a job in agriculture in Brazil," he said, "but the job pays three times better here, and the cost of living in Brazil is not three times cheaper. Food and housing is a little cheaper in Brazil, but food and clothing are pretty much the same if not more expensive there...It's a better opportunity in the United States. Three years ago, a person could come here and work 50 hours a week, and then go home and be able to buy a car and a house. You could do that here in three years what would take 15 years in Brazil."
Despite his success in the construction industry, Ribeiro has not given up on his agriculture dream.
"Agriculture is in my heart," he said. "Every time I go to Brazil, I have to drive to my city six hours from the airport. I see cattle, soybeans, sugar cane, corn. It reminds me of everything I started for. I really see myself going back to it someday. I'd love to have an organic farm."
The Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Champion
After high school in Brazil, Jiu-Jitsu instructor Araujo attended a business college and joined his father in the auto parts business.
"It was fun," he said early one recent rainy morning in the deserted beer garden at Liberty Steakhouse and Brewery. "I spent lots of time on the beach, and I helped my father in his business. He has an auto parts store. We went traveling on the weekends to other places in Brazil; sometimes we'd go for a week. There is an island off the coast from Rio, and we'd get in a boat and go around the island and relax. Other times I'd go surfing, sometimes to the mountains. Everything fun is close to Rio. It's a lot like California."
In 1998 he traveled to Boston to visit a friend and spent a month snow skiing in the American northeast. A year later, the friend called and offered to give him connections so Araujo could live and work in the U.S.
"A whole year he talked to me about it, and I decided to let my sister do the business with my dad. I stayed in Boston a long time and worked for a valet parking company."
He rose in the company ranks, eventually becoming a regional manager and traveling throughout the United States. Also during this time he expanded the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu training he started in Brazil, and began to compete. But in 2007, when he was a purple belt, his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) was injured, and he had to go from his assignment in California back to Boston so he could have knee surgery.
He had to be in Boston for rehab for three months, and lost his job.
Araujo kept up a stringent regimen of physical therapy exercises and as much Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu as his injuries would allow. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was developed in the 1920s by Carlos Gracie, and today it is a recognized sport known for enabling a small-stature person to bring down a large-framed athlete. Eventually Araujo's style attracted attention and people at Gold's Gym in Myrtle Beach, where he practiced, asked to become his student.
Carlos Gracie's son, Rilion Gracie, has a school in Florida. Araujo goes there to train, and now has his black belt. He has about 20 students at Gold's Gym.
"The name Jiu-Jitsu translates to 'the smooth art,'" he said. "You look for an opening and immobilize, then you put them to sleep or you finish them. It's the art for the little guy with the big guy. You can use his moves against him. You can end the fight without getting hurt, or without hurting someone else, or you can put him to sleep until he stops fighting. You can do a lot of damage, but you can also immobilize."
He makes enough money teaching to make a living, but he hopes to find a student good enough to groom to be a champion. He's also interested in mixed martial arts, and says, "...to be a true fighter you have to know Jiu-Jitsu and other arts."
While he visits Brazil to see his family, Araujo has no plans to return there permanently; he became a U.S. citizen in 2006.
Araujo is married to a Ukrainian woman, and he is friends with Ribeiro.
"Brazilians here in Myrtle Beach, we are very connected. We meet each other in the clubs, we talk about business. We see how somebody is doing and we give them support if they open a business...We are bringing our culture here, so we want people to see it, try it, understand our culture. We want Americans to participate with us and see what we have to offer."