chinatown_girl
Oyster Bay, NY
age: 18
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While Brazil does not yet offer the job opportunities of Ireland, which has drawn back emigrants in droves, neither is it an economically bleak or war-torn country. And like Italian immigrants early in the 20th century, who typically planned to return to Italy — half of them eventually doing so — many Brazilians arrived with the intention of going back as soon as they met their financial goals.
But like the Borges family, they soon changed their timetable.
“We came here to save enough money to buy a house” in Brazil, Mr. Borges said, recalling the early weeks when the family slept in a friend’s basement and he worked in construction for the first time. They expected to return to Brazil after two years.
Instead, he found his inner entrepreneur. He started a plumbing and construction business that soon employed upward of seven compatriots, paid taxes and helped build name-brand hotels in three states.
But in 2005, as the construction boom began to go bust, larger companies, prompted by labor unions, started to demand working papers, he said. And when his crew could not produce them, they were let go.
As the housing market faltered, weekly earnings in his business shrank from a high of $6,000 to barely $2,000, he said. Expenses like gas and rent rose, making it harder for him and Ms. Borges, who cleaned houses in New York, to pay off loans for the farm they were buying in Brazil.
The dollar, which once bought four Brazilian reals, dropped to a historic low of 1.7 reals in May. Then in June came their personal tipping point: the collapse of the bipartisan bill in Congress that would have offered them, and millions of other illegal residents, a path to legal status.
“After the law didn’t pass, it was like all the hope went away at once,” said Mr. Borges, who had traveled, with other members of St. James Catholic Church in Newark, to rallies supporting the bill in Trenton and Washington.
In past years, he allowed, he spent $26,000 on dubious and doomed efforts to secure a green card. Now, he hopes to make a living by processing sugar cane for ethanol on his Brazilian farm. “If we had papers, we’d stay forever,” said Ms. Borges, 41, who has been active in their children’s public schools. “We love this community.”
Proudly, they showed off the trophy that Marianna won in third grade in an anti-littering poster contest, for a design that is now featured in shop windows throughout the Ironbound.
It is in such neighborhoods, where Brazilians brought fresh bustle to faded storefronts or abandoned factories, that the departures are being felt most keenly.
“I’m scared,” said Francine Melo, the owner of the travel agency in Newark where Mr. Borges bought three one-way tickets for $1,708. “I make my living through these people.”
Another of her last-time customers, Norma dos Santos, a former house cleaner, said she felt she had no choice. Seven years after overstaying her visa, she said, she does not drive to work or pick up her children at school for fear that a traffic stop could put her in immigration detention.
“It’s just getting harder and harder to stay here without documents,” she said.
Still, she is uncertain that she is doing right by her American-born children, a newborn and a 2-year old boy.
“I’m worried they’ll grow up and ask me, ‘How could you have left America?’“ she said.
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chinatown_girl
Oyster Bay, NY
age: 18
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i think some haven't read part two.
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knightnyte2
Spring, TX
age: 55
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P.L.O.M. Disease.. Poor Lil Ole Me
peace... don't be hatin'
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chinatown_girl
Oyster Bay, NY
age: 18
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photographerny
Camp Pendleton, CA
age: 25 online now!
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another witty retort from the yellow journalist.
ooh multiple meanings!
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daddy_s
Oak Ridge, TN
age: 27
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not really sure exactly why i should care, but ok.....ahhhhhh poor bazilians
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chinatown_girl
Oyster Bay, NY
age: 18
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at least they have someplace to go back to when the dollar hits rock bottom... i thought somebody mite have commented on that problem but lets not let that interfere with the immigrant hate.
photog ur comment about a yellow journalist is sooo witty!
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photographerny
Camp Pendleton, CA
age: 25 online now!
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u invented that kinda witty.
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chinatown_girl
Oyster Bay, NY
age: 18
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don't be afraid to take credit for what u do. actually, i had to think a bit about what u meant with multiple meanings.
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photographerny
Camp Pendleton, CA
age: 25 online now!
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making you think isn't much of a trick.
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chinatown_girl
Oyster Bay, NY
age: 18
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ur rite, straight talk doesnt need a chaser at all.
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photographerny
Camp Pendleton, CA
age: 25 online now!
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when you start speaking straight, you email me, so ill know to expect it.
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