Chanting prayers quickly into a microphone, Brazilian pastor Rev Woolmar Faria leads his congregation in Portuguese, accompanied by a pianist and a keyboard player, who then goes on to play an extensive solo on a saxophone. The congregation spans all ages, from teenagers born in America who translate the proceedings into English for non-Portuguese speakers to older Brazilians with little command of their adopted country’s language.
Nestled on 57th Street in Hell’s Kitchen, this church is one of the signs of a growing Brazilian community in the heart of Manhattan. The 2010 census showed there to be 23,670 Brazilians in New York, but there are still few established places where Brazilians can gather. Members of the congregation speak of their excitement upon finally finding a place where they can gather with their fellow countrymen twice a week.
Nizla Sobel, who has been attending the church for seven months, also plays the piano during sermons. (Photo: Nastaran Tavakoli-Far | City Beats)
Nizla Sobel, 72, plays the piano during services, and has been attending the church for seven months. Despite living in New York for 42 years, this is the first time she’s attended a church mostly made up of fellow Brazilians, she said. The experience enhances her worship.
“It’s my roots,” Sobel said. “My language.”
Psychologist and Hell’s Kitchen resident Alberto Gomes agrees.
“You’ve people of the same culture together speaking the same language,” said Gomes, who has been attending the church for two years. “We share news from Brazil.It makes life a little easier when you find people from your own culture.”
The church shares its space with three others and holds services twice a week. The interior is bright and warm, with grey and black linoleum tiles and an array of colorful eclectic paintings lining the walls and gold curtains on either side of the altar. Music plays a big part in proceedings. Rev Faria is always accompanied by a pianist while giving his sermons, and his 30 year old daughter, Helia, closes Sunday services with her powerful and soulful voice.
Having started the church in July 2008, Rev Faria notes that in a city as large as New York it can be hard to develop a community. He now has a growing flock of people who attend from all over Manhattan.
“My plan was to preach the gospel to Brazilian people,” Rev Faria said, “so they can have a better life in New York.”
Two decades ago Brazilian migrants came to New York came to make money. Today they are still coming for this reason despite their country’s impressive current economic performance. Brazil’s strong growth has been largely export led. Demand for goods and services within Brazil are still not strong enough to sustain a satisfactory standard of living for many. In addition, Rev Faria says that the lack of a welfare state in Brazil makes the US a more attractive place to live in.
Sustaining a middle class lifestyle in Brazil is very difficult, according to Maxine Margolis, who is professor emeritus in anthropology at the University of Florida and has written extensively about Brazilians in the US. She says that this explains why so many Brazilian immigrants continue to be middle class and professionals, in contrast to many migrants from the rest of the continent.
“I haven’t seen any data showing that despite the boom the average well-educated middle class person is getting a job that will sustain a middle class lifestyle,” she says.
Despite years of back and forth between Brazil and the United States, Brazilians seem to be developing roots in New York, which means they are forming communities. Twenty years ago the majority of Professor Margolis’ case studies were young unmarried Brazilians who planned to return once they had made enough money. Given that they expected their stay to be so temporary, many didn’t see a reason to form a community. Now as some of those migrants have ended up staying and marrying each other, there is more of a need for a community, and especially so for those who’ve had children. Furthermore, for migrants who entered the US without the necessary documents, going back to Brazil can render them unable to return to the US again.
“A lot of American-born Brazilian children have no familiarity with Brazil so they anchor the parents here,” she said.
But it is not just the monetary aspect of the “quality of life” argument which keeps attracting Brazilians to America. Thirty-five year old Francine Arroyo, a language student who lives on the Upper West Side, has been in New York for a year and finds life here more favorable to her native Sao Paulo. Though she was pleased with her life as a personal trainer back home, she sees the US as being a far better place to further her career. She also notes another very important aspect of life that she lacks in her homeland: security.
“Here you can walk through the city, talk on the phone and open your bag in the middle of the street and nothing will happen,” she said, explaining that muggings and thefts are standard in Sao Paulo.
But for Arroyo, the personal ties and sense of community in her homeland are overriding factors in her decisions. While family has kept many Brazilian migrants anchored here, family is the very factor that will likely take Arroyo back home.
“I wish I could stay and live here forever,” she said. “If I could bring my family it would be perfect.”
