São Paulo is a hugely diversified city, made of different people with different characteristics, tastes, stores, works and origins. At the paulista capital there is tons of people that came from other parts of the country, as well as many people who came from other countries to venture themselves in this chaotic, but lovely, SP; a place that nowadays they call home. Cásper Líbero College is also a part of the story of some of these people who moved from their birth countries and came to Brazil. Meet a little of the rich, and sometimes really difficult, experience of some current foreigner students of Cásper.
On most of the cases, they came really young and by their parent’s decision, due to economic/political crisis or work transference. Aaron Leite, a freshman Journalism student , is the one of these cases, as he came with fifteen years to live with his father. He moved based on the decision of his mother, because of the political crisis in Venezuela, country where he was born. “I didn’t have a normal life through the repression of the dictatorship”, but he found in São Paulo a better and quieter reality than the one he used to live there.
However, and despite his Spanish roots, he learned easily the Portuguese, he suffered a lot prejudice on account of his accent: “sometimes the people jokes about me and humiliates me… most of the people don’t takes me seriously”. Besides that, he feels bothered by the political comments about his country.
Paula Salas wearing a Venezuelan apparel
Paula Salas, sophomore in Journalism, was also born in Venezuela, and she feels bothered as well when the Venezuelan politics are debated: “people joke about Chavez and these things, who knows me now looks with that face ‘are everything ok, girl’ and ask me about the situation there and of my family. I think that at maximum, they don’t have any concept about what’s happening there or aren’t really well informed”.
In 2006, when Paula was 9 years old, she came to Brazil because of her father’s work, who she was really close to and the distance caused by the work made her miss him a lot. “My parents were very afraid of my reaction, because before I came here, I lived a few months in Caracas and it was awful, I used to suffer bullying, I cried everyday. My parents were afraid that this would be worst when we moved for a country totally different”, but for she the most important thing was the family to be united. However, when she moved to Brazil the adaption was much better: “my father took care of finding a little school which was specialized in foreigners, so I got a lot of attention and help, I fit really quickly. I won’t say that it was easy, but it was a natural process”.
Yahisbel and her family during her mother’s 2012 birthday party.
Yahisbel Valles, Journalism senior, came from Venezuela too, in 2003, when she was 7 years. Due to the economic crisis, her father was transfer to Guaratinguetá, in the countryside of São Paulo state, where she lived till her 18 years, when she moved alone to the capital so she could study at Cásper. At the first moment she discovered that her family would move, she was really sad, “I remember to think (the imagination of a kid hahah) that here would be like in India, with streets without signs and with many tents in the place of houses. And I got very depressed to let the rest of my family there”.
Nevertheless, when she arrived here she find a reality very similar as the one in Venezuela, even though it took her a while to get adapted. “In the begin it was really hard, the other kids were a little afraid of talk to me, as they couldn’t understand me and I couldn’t understand they”, she told us, “what got me very upset, but I remember that, after some time, the mothers of my friends comments that they arrived at home cheerful, because there was a foreigner at their class”.
Yahisbel also talked about the lack of acceptance from the other children: “there was a few uncomfortable comments at school, but I used to laugh out and moved on, because they were my “friends”. One boy called me ET on account of I was from outside and had a different name, but I tried to not care as I thought “Hm, he is my friend, he is just kidding”. It turned out that this caught with all my friends, it was really annoying, but it’s crazy because at that time I never thought that this could be bullying or prejudice, but nowadays I see different. At Cásper my friends calm me “Venezu” sometimes, but is in a lovely way, never as some xenophobic comment, so today I see the difference between this and the treatment I got at school”.
Johnny arriving in Brazil
Aria Park, junior in Journalism, also had a lot of difficulty to get in with others students, because she couldn’t express herself in Portuguese. Aria was born in South Korea and, when she was 7 years, she moved to Brazil on account of family reasons. Due to the big difference of languages, she took a long time to adapt, mainly in the school, where she used to be very participatory and when she came here her grades fell. “I began to be feel trapped and compulsorily shy and fool, whereas I didn’t know how to express myself in other language”, besides the down grades, Aria suffered bullying at this time, “I used to have colleagues that put pens on my cheeks and laughed because I dint knew how to manifest angry in Portuguese”.
Aria during her childhood in South Korea
Johnny Taira, freshman in journalism, had the same horrible situation: whereas he had good grades, he was badly welcomed by other children. “It was quite difficult to get used with the others kids from here, because there was a little (or a lot) of the famous bullying as I was the “strange japanese”. This made me a more retracted kid, of brief talk at school. For a long time I didn’t liked to admit that I was born in Japan, I just began to talk about it when I was more grown up”.
Johnny’s parents were born in Brazil, but they are Japanese descendants and, in spit of the economic context of the 80’s and 90’s they went to Japan in search of better opportunities of work. They met themselves over there, and got Johnny and her sister, although they always had the plan to come back to Brazil. “After a while, I gradually felt proud of being born in Japan, it made me who I am nowadays and I don’t have a reason to deny my origins”.
Catalina before she moved to Brazil
Sophomore in Journalism, Catalina de Vera, born at Argentina, moved here when she was 4, owing to her father’s job transfer. At the beginning she had lot of learning difficulty about Portuguese, she stayed a month without talking when the class began, but after a while this got settled and today she sees this as one experience of much enrichment. “I believe that this change helped me a lot intellectually. The fact that I am bilingual allowed me read in both languages, some things that was strange or different to understand for a Brazilian, sometimes appear really easy, and I think the fact of talk in two languages and have to deal with one culture at home and other at school/with my friends, opened a lot my cultural repertoire”. “Till nowadays, one way or another, I got the marks of being immigrant, of not being Brazilian neither argentine”, told Catalina.
Despite this complicated country transfer, they needed to deal with in such a young age, they all agree that this helped they matured and to form their character. “Accept, drop everything and start again in a new country. Maybe the biggest lesson you can take from it is: things happen when they need to happen, don’t stay thinking “why me?, but take the situation as the way it is at the moment and see how to deal with it in the best way possible with the available resources. And know that time will explain thing that, because certainly I wouldn’t be the person that I am today if I didn’t have came to here, passed by all the things that happened since then and got all the opportunities that I as lucked to have”, said Paula about this experience.
However, the homesickness of their country and all the family that still lives there, as well as the traditions of their culture, they found in São Paulo a home full of opportunities. Opportunities as a big cultural opening: “You end up meeting people from everywhere and with every type of story, and this is magical”, said Johnny. “There is a big Latin community in SP, the folks love to listen to the typical music (reggeaton, salsa, merengue) and there is much latin ballads. It’s more easy to find restaurants that serve arepas and empanadas too”, told Yahisbel.
São Paulo is, as Aaron said, “lovely, sometimes too rude and violent, but quite lovely”.