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61 4 How They Ar­ rive I tell them God made the earth, and Man made the bor­ ders. To go any­ where in the world to bet­ ter your­ self is God’s way. To not go be­ cause of bor­ ders and law is Man’s way. We fol­ low God’s way. Bra­ zil­ ian ­ priest, Fram­ ing­ ham, Mas­ sa­ chu­ setts In re­ cent years, many Bra­ zil­ ian im­ mi­ grants com­ ing to the ­ United ­ States en­ tered the coun­ try by cross­ ing over the bor­ der from Mex­ ico, a de­ cid­ edly dan­ ger­ ous and ­ costly route. For some im­ mi­ grants, se­ cur­ ing a tour­ ist visa to the ­ United ­ States has al­ ways been dif­ fi­ cult, but, after Sep­ tem­ ber 11, 2001, the bar­ riers to travel­ ing to this coun­ try as a tour­ ist­ mounted. Since the be­ gin­ ning of the new mil­ len­ nium, going to sev­ eral west­ ern Eu­ ro­ pean coun­ tries and En­ gland to find work also has be­ come more prob­ le­ matic for Bra­ zil­ ians and other ­ would-be im­ mi­ grants. The lone ex­ cep­ tion for Bra­ zil­ ians—at least those of Jap­ a­ nese an­ ces­ try—is Japan, where the vast ma­ jor­ ity of those who have ­ traveled there to work have done so with the of­ fi­ cial bless­ ing of the Jap­ a­ nese govern­ ment and Jap­ a­ nese in­ dus­ try. The means of entry is im­ por­ tant, since the con­ di­ tions under which inter­ na­ tional mi­ gra­ tion takes place can have ­ long-term and ­ farreaching con­ se­ quences for ­ immigrants’ legal ­ status. As we will see in this chap­ ter, how Bra­ zil­ ian im­ mi­ grants enter the­ United ­ States, Por­ tu­ gal, Italy, other na­ tions in west­ ern Eu­ rope, and En­ gland—­ places fa­ vored by Bra­ zil­ ians—is ­ linked to their so­ cial class and fi­ nan­ cial re­ sources, their level of ed­ u­ ca­ tion, and their place of res­ i­ dence in Bra­ zil. In a few cases, it also de­ pends on their an­ ces­ try. As a gen­ eral rule, Bra­ zil­ ians of more mod­ est means and those with less ed­ u­ ca­ tion have more trou­ ble ac­ quir­ ing tour­ ist and stu­ dent visas. Then, too, ap­ pli­ ca­ tions for tour­ ist visas from cer­ tain towns and ­ states in Bra­ zil raise red flags. Ap­ pli­ cants from ­ places well known as major ­ immigrant-sending lo­ cales, such as How They Arrive 62 Govern­ ador Val­ a­ dares and the sur­ round­ ing towns in Minas Ge­ rais and­ Criciúma, in south­ ern Santa Cat­ a­ rina, are calls to arms for ­ American con­ su­ lar per­ son­ nel in Bra­ zil. For ex­ am­ ple, in a group of fifty as­ pir­ ing “tour­ ists” from Govern­ ador Val­ a­ dares who ­ sought visas at the ­ American Con­ su­ late in Rio de Ja­ neiro, only five were suc­ cess­ ful. The town has such a sus­ pect rep­ u­ ta­ tion among con­ su­ lar per­ son­ nel that even peo­ ple with con­ sid­ er­ able re­ sources may be de­ nied visas. One local man rep­ re­ sent­ ing the In­ dus­ trial Fed­ er­ a­ tion of Minas Ge­ rais who owns, among other prop­ erty, a pasta fac­ tory that em­ ploys two hun­ dred peo­ ple, was ­ turned down for a visa. Sim­ i­ larly, in re­ cent years it has be­ come ex­ tremely dif­ fi­ cult for res­ i­ dents of ­ Criciúma to get tour­ ist visas at the ­ American Con­ su­ late in São Paulo, the one clos­ est to their town. Some have opted to ­ travel ­ greater dis­ tances to es­ tab­ lish “res­ i­ dence” in Rio de Ja­ neiro by ­ briefly rent­ ing an apart­ ment there and then going to the local ­ American Con­ su­ late in hopes of ob­ scur­ ing their ac­ tual home­ town and being ap­ proved for a visa (Dos San­ tos 2006). When I vis­ ited Govern­ ador Val­ a­ dares in the early 1990s, the dif­ fi­ culty of get­ ting tour­ ist visas from the ­ American Con­ su­ late was a con­ stant topic...

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