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4. How They Arrive
- University of Wisconsin Press
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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...