Breakfast in America: The Emigration of the Soares Family in 1967

My Great Grandfather Gil, Great Grandmother Isabel, Father Paul, Grandmother Aurelia, Grandfather Norbert after my Father's graduation from Bristol-Plymouth Voc. Tech. H.S. in 1976. Source: Soares, Paul

The 1960's and 1970's were a time of change in America. This is no surprise to anyone living in the country at the time. There was great achievements, a horrible war, and scandals like Watergate and the Chappaquiddick incident. But how does all of this look in the eyes of a family that had just made it to the United States in 1967. This is the story of my father's transition from his life in the Azores, 9 Portuguese islands in the mid-Atlantic, to his life here in Massachusetts.

On September 29th, 1967, Norbert, Aurelia, and Paulo Soares of a small island called Sao Miguel of the Azores arrived at Logan Airport in Boston, MA for the first time ever. My father Paulo (now Paul) being 8 years old at the time lived through a time of achievements, struggle, and most importantly, change. For this research paper, I have chosen to write about his life in the mid 1960’s and 70’s and how it could compare to mine. I have chosen to do this simply to intrigue my readers about how he “adapted” to life in the United States upon arriving here.

I believe the best place to start this story is at the end of it. Paul Soares is my father, a self-employed metal building contractor from Taunton, MA. I am his only child and approaching soon enough is his and my mother, Jacqueline’s 25th wedding anniversary. Now with a basic description of what he has gotten, how has he made it to this point? For this, I interviewed him about life in Taunton while he was growing up.

Coming to America

For my father and his family, that September of 1967 marked the first flight for them. When I asked about the reason for coming to the United States in the first place, my father said quote: “My father and my mother wanted to give me a better opportunity, so my mother had her brother that lived here and my father had his cousins that lived here, and they assured him that they would get them jobs when they came to the United States.” (Soares). He would go on to say “That was during a time where a lot of families were leaving the Azores, some of them would go to the United States, Fall River, New Bedford, and other families moving to Canada, especially Toronto because of the big Portuguese community in Toronto, Canada. The main thing was to give me a better opportunity in life.” (Soares).

Perhaps one of my favorite pictures of my father as a child in the old country, Sao Miguel, Azores. Not exactly sure what age he was at the time, but I believe he was just turning 1 at the time of the picture. Shown is my great grandmother Isabel, my grandmother Aurelia, and my father Paul. Source: Soares, Paul

At the time, he was eight years old, just finished with the first grade. Most of his friends lived on his street which he lived on. My grandfather had a decent job in an insurance firm while doing wedding photos on the side back in the Azores. My grandmother’s brother Carlos along with his family became their sponsors, people either being a US citizen or a green card holder that makes a guarantee to the government and to the family that the ‘party’ attempting for immigration are of good nature and will be able to get into the workforce and abide by state and federal regulations while working for citizenship. (US Consular Affairs). Their first place here in America was my aunt Analia’s mother’s house on Somerset Avenue in Taunton, MA. I asked what was the hardest thing about moving to the United States, he would describe mostly with the “fear of the unknown” (Soares) and that at the same time, his grandparents were still in the Azores. When my father came over, he new some basic english words like dog, chair, table, etc. This proved to be the stepping stone for my grandparents (his parents) learning English.

Settling In

Following up, a few weeks later they moved into their first apartment in the United States on Presbrey Avenue in Taunton. I asked more about their time on Presbrey Avenue and this reveled some information about his home life and what his parents did for jobs: “We went to buy furniture when we moved too, and that was the hardest thing for my parents because they had just started to get jobs and all of a sudden they got a $3000 bill for furniture, couch, TV. They were making you know, back then working in shoe factories making $1.50 to $3.00, really low wages to make $63 a week to pay back the bill and rent at $25.” (Soares). He would also go on to say that my grandfather Norbert held off on getting a car right away. He ended up buying one later in 1970, three years after coming to the United States. As for school, my father attended a transitional school called School Street School (no longer in operation) was a bilingual school where in the words of my father “It's where a lot of immigrant kids where they came from Puerto Rico, Portugal, Italy, wherever, where they were put into this school and learned how to speak English. So as they got better, they would be placed into a regular elementary school.” (Soares). In his case, he was transitioned to the Elizabeth Pole Elementary School (third grade) after only 3 to 6 months in the transitional school. He would also go on to say that he started to pick up stuff by watching TV. Apart from my interview, I had asked my grandfather Norbert about learning English and he would tell me that with my father in this transitional school, it gave him a way of testing my father’s English while learning English himself. Looking at that fact, I’d find it really strenuous to be my father at the time, being that the transitional school acted as his second grade.

Making Friends & Reuniting with Family

Most of my father’s friends would be made from the kids in his neighborhood. My father had said: “We had used to play pickup games like baseball, wiffleball, dodgeball. We lived behind this office building with a nice big parking lot so we had a nice area to play in.” (Soares). In 1969 (at age 10), his parents sent for his grandparents to come over. Since they were retired, they did not require to have a sponsor here in the United States. In the interview, he says: “When they were coming over, the weather there was terrible, and instead of their plane going to Logan, it ended up going to New York and they had to take a Greyhound bus to the bus station in Boston. It was me, Norbert, and Tony Goulart (a family friend my grandfather was acquainted with by working at Modern Plastics. They both shared the common interest in photography.) I still remembered how to get to Boston, so I was responsible really for directions there. I was ten years old and it was quite a job to give directions.” (Soares). Tony Goulart is someone who I knew since I was born.

My Great Grandparents (whom I never met, grandmother's parents) Isabel & Gil Puim Soares. Source: Soares, Aurelia

My grandparents would have him for dinner and he would stop by sometimes to help with cooking or any yard work. Moving onto his better friends, his good friend Louie Chaves was also an immigrant from the Azores. He came from the smaller island called Santa Maria than my father did, but they became really good friends throughout school and beyond then. This was all at a time where he lived on Hopewell Street in Taunton in 1969. “Well Bob was a US citizen and he was born here. He lived on Maple Street so he lived in the same neighborhood. It was all through side streets.” (Soares). Moving on to his family life, I asked about his interests and favorite things. He mentioned his 5-speed Shwinn bicycle which his father bought him brand new at the time so he was very fortunate about that mostly because other kids in the neighborhood rode less-expensive bikes or had used bikes.

My father on his shiny new orange Shwinn 5-speed Bicycle w/ banana seat. Source: Soares, Paul

Music, Movies & Television

My father has always been interested in a lot of different things. The first major thing that made everyone in the family start to watch TV was nothing less than unbelievable. "On July 20th, 1969, over 500 million people around the world tuned in to watch as Neil Armstrong and the crew of NASA's Apollo 11 make history by being the first men to set foot on the moon." (Chaikin). My father was one of them. He added to my question by saying: "I actually had signed up for a series through a school program which had all the NASA books, something Reader, Highlights, I think it was that. We used to fill out a form and order books. There were actually books on all the space vehicles, like the Gemini rocket, going to the moon, different space craft. I even had a plastic model that I built of the lunar lander." (Soares). I asked him right after about how he felt about it and all he could really say to describe it was how unbelievable it was to see Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. Another event at this time, the Vietnam war, had a huge impact on his families' views since most of what hey would see on the news ended up being very sensitive information. He would describe the news by saying that they would show the number of dead soldiers on the news. In his time also, he described that mostly, the news were on twice a day really only on three news channels and that was all. As compared to today where we can barely stay away from it both on TV and the internet. Along with this, he and his parents watched the Ed Sullivan Show as well as the Red Skelton show. Along with this, they also enjoyed game shows and sketch comedies with special guests, similar to Saturday Night Live of today. When he came here, he wasn't into his home country's folk music like his parents were. He was always interested in the modern style of music and since he was closer to Europe, most of the popular songs from there were available. As he grew up, he would go on to say "my cousin over here, at the time, bought me a record player and I bought 45's an lp's for 69 cents. Mostly bought the top 40 hits and as for the Beatles, I heard them before and after I left the Azores. My parents would mostly listen to Bobby Vinton, BJ Thomas, you know, like Love Songs." (Soares). Later on, he would eventually receive a Sony recorder as a gift and he describes using it during family get togethers, mostly on Christmas. Christmas was mentioned to me as being the happiest times of the year for him because being the only child that he was, he loved it when his family was over or if he visited family. When he grew up, his favorite band became Boston and to this day, he's owned their music in basically all the formats (vynal, 8track, cassette, CD, iTunes MP3). Movies also had a very big impact on my father. His favorite movie was called Shane, a western about a gun-for-hire who becomes friends with a homestead family and through a conflict, forces him to act. (Internet Movie Database). Also, he enjoyed sporting events, especially the Boston Bruins because he always liked hockey and growing up, he played it with friends all the time.

Boston Bruins game circa 1969. Source: werqa123

Citizenship

My father said that "we could've applied after being here for 5 years, being issued a green card, not a citizen, but a permanent alien. I don't really know exactly why we waited so long, but it's just we never felt the need to become a citizen because we all paid taxes like everyone else. We had a dual citizenship, and I needed up applying for both a US passport and a Portuguese passport and also a European ID so I could move freely through European countries without the need of a passport. I along with my parents really became citizens 35 years after coming, and that was in 2002." (Soares). Since leaving his home country, he's visited three times. The most recent time was in 2008, a year before my grandfather's death at the end of 2009. He's always wanted me to come along one day, and this year or next year, it may just happen.

Final Reflection

My father's life in Taunton, MA compared to my life is completely different. "When I lived on Hopewell street, I went to Hopewell School on the corner was a candy store with 5 cent candy, penny candy. They had kind of like gummy bears back then. For curfew, we had to be back by supper." (Soares). In a way, these two points relate to how I grew up. On my grandfather's street, I played with the neighbor kids up throughout my life. I originally went to Raynham Public Schools (the next town over), so most of my friends growing up never went to the same schools. This changed when I got to high school and I went to Bristol Plymouth Voc. Tech. H.S. and some of them went there. Along with this, I too had a curfew and a local corner store. The only difference was that my curfew was when the street lights turned on (6:30 usually) and my corner store was a block away and was in the form of a bakery. Unfortunately, like most corner stores, the candy store my father grew up with closed down sometime in the 1980's, and the bakery I grew up near became the target of an disgruntled employee who torched the place a few years ago. (Lopes).

Life for my father in the United States was very different for someone who was born here at that time. He had a lot more responsibility and in some ways, was far better off than others in the mid-sized city at this time. My perspective of the decade was always set until I interviewed him, but now I finally understand how he and his family made their way to a successful time in America.

Full Interview with Questions

Works Cited

"Bruins vs Oakland game 1969-70. YouTube.com. 12 March 2008. werqa123. 07 Jan 2008 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUNn7ZUFw1I.

Chaikin, Andrew. "Moon Landing Anniversary Renews Debate on Spaceflight." PBS.org. PBS, 20 Jul 2009. Web. 8 May 2011. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/science/july-dec09/apollo_07-20.html.

Lopes, Ashley. "City man charged with Art's Bakery fire." Taunton Daily Gazette 08 OCT 2008: Web. 12 May 2011. http://www.tauntongazette.com/news/x1776786118/City-man-charged-with-Art-s-Bakery-fire.

"Shane (1953) - IMDB." The Internet Movie Database. The Internet Movie Database, n.d. Web. 12 May 2011. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046303.

Soares, Aurelia. (1973). Personal photograph. Taunton, MA.

Soares, Paul. Personal interview. 7 May 2011.

Soares, Paul. "Re: More questions I had..." Message to the author. 8 May 2011. E-mail.

United States Consular Affairs. Family Immigration. Bureau of Consular Affairs, Web. 8 May 2011. http://travel.state.gov/visa/immigrants/types/types_1310.html.