Introduction

For this project, I researched the Ironbound neighborhood in Newark, NJ. An area bordered by namesake railroad tracks, it became an industrial center in the 1830’s. With economic opportunities came the first waves of immigrants, largely from southern and eastern Europe. Since the 1960’s, it has been the home of a large Portuguese, and in subsequent years a Brazilian and Central and South American immigrant community.

What initially struck me about this neighborhood is that it is an historically Portuguese-speaking and ethnic Portuguese neighborhood that ended up attracting a large Brazilian population starting in the 1980’s. What brought Brazilians to the ethnic Portuguese Ironbound, and what keeps them there? Could it be just the language? To answer this question, I chose to examine the role of newspapers in promoting dialogue and community in a home away from home.

This project will feature clips from Leo Ferreira of the Brazilian Voice newspaper. A Portuguese speaker from Brazil, he is in between, both geographically and historically, the major movements that define the demography of the contemporary Ironbound, which started half a century ago with the Portuguese and continues today with Spanish speakers from Latin America.

Maps

The changing demographics of the neighborhood are evident through these maps, which show a decrease in the concentration of those with Portuguese ancestry across all census tracts, as well as an increase in the concentration of Spanish speakers, all in the same communities. These maps show the difference between the years 2000 and 2015.

Portuguese Ancestry: 2000 and 2015

Spanish Spoken at Home: 2000 and 2015

Parallel Portuguese

Question: Are Portuguese and Brazilians ‘fast friends?’

Answer: “Even though we Brazilians and Portuguese share the same language, the history of Brazil and Portugal is like America and England…We’re not exactly the same culture, as Americans are not English.”


Certainly, the differences in languages are clear enough that one can differentiate from the other quite easily. But do these small differences accumulate and engender conflict? Speaking with Leo, it seems that this relationship is, at its worst, one of micro-conflict. Otherwise, one would hope that their shared status as Portuguese-speakers and immigrants offers something more substantial in the way of community building.

Question: Is there still animosity between speaking groups?

Answer: “The Portuguese are the creators of the Portuguese language…They have this idea: ‘Oh, we are the owners of the language, and you guys came after us, so you don’t speak the same Portuguese. You don’t even speak Portuguese, you speak Brazilian.’”

Does the linguistic tension between Portuguese speakers mirror that of the relationship between English and Spanish, described in Salinas’ “Immigration and Language Rights?” The connection seems to hold some weight. The Portuguese who came before had time to develop an identity extending from their roots in Europe, and compared to Brazilians have had, historically, the economic upper hand. Is there “little hope” that these new immigrants will have “the ability to learn to speak English”? The issue of language status seems to be less important than the fact that Brazilians are newer and threaten the established ‘makeup’ of Ironbound demographics. Download Report

Bringing Brazil to the Ironbound

Question: What brings Brazilians to the Portuguese Ironbound?

Answer: “First…what keeps us together is the language….After we start living together, we learn how to share the same space….Of course, not everything is rivalry.”

Leo continues: “When [Brazilians] come to America, they don’t tend to master the language [English], so they go to places where they can communicate and get jobs.”



The military dictatorship in Brazil, from 1964-1985, made contact outside of Brazil very difficult or impossible. This in turn made learning Spanish, the second (by a small margin) most spoken language in South America, also very difficult, let alone the leap to English. Thus, the lack of a social and educational infrastructure for learning English, or any foreign language, prompted Brazilian immigrants to find communities where Portuguese is already spoken in large number, as is the case with the Ironbound.

Portuguese Respond to Change

Question: How do Portuguese in this community respond to this change?

Answer: “If you are here for generations and then you see this influx of people, sometimes it gives you the feeling of being invaded.”



The change in the demographics of the Ironbound, as shown through the choropleth maps, is corroborated by the anecdotal evidence that Leo provides. The Portuguese population is thinning out; Portuguese marry non-Portuguese (Brazilians), older people move back or pass away, and children move on and out to different parts of the U.S. Like those worried about the waning “American-ness” of the country in Salinas’ piece, many Portuguese notice a change in their environment. Yet this is inevitable, as labor demands and shifting desires draw people away from a location once considered a home away from home.

Born in Latin America: 2000 and 2015

Langauge Justice?

Question: In the context of the Brazilian Voice and the role of the journalist, how is the term ‘language justice’ going to be used?

Answer: “The role of the newspaper is keeping the language for the new generations.”



Ethnic and language specific newspapers are unique in the publication landscape in that they manage to maintain a solid readership which supports the business, despite the overall decline in readership of traditional news publications like the New York Times. In the case of the Brazilian Voice, this publication is free of charge. The strength of these niche publications suggests that there is a strong connection to ethnic identity for these immigrants in the U.S. that doesn’t exist in more traditional outlets.

Further, Leo described pre-Internet function of the Brazilian Voice as connecting Brazilian immigrants in the U.S. with events in their home country. This kind of journalism helps these migrants become “agents of place-making” as described in Sarah Lynn Lopez’s article “The Remittance Landscape.” Just as Brazilian migrants invariably send remittances back to their home, so too do they establish a piece of their home in New Jersey, through the open discourse of Brazilian Portuguese and culture. Money goes back home, and home filters its way to Newark.

What this means is that the newspaper is, in some ways, the last line of defense in protecting the Portuguese language from being washed out as subsequent generations acclimate to America and the English language. That both strains of Portuguese thrive in the Ironbound must be due in no small part to newspapers, like the Brazilian Voice, that continue their journalistic work.

Conclusions

So, we have seen that preserving identity in a new place is important for the immigrant communities that inhabit the Ironbound. From my understanding, this neighborhood has garnered a reputation as a haven for exactly these kinds of individuals and families. In recent years, economic factors have driven the changing demographics. Despite this, the Ironbound is still known as a definitive Portuguese-speaking and immigrant community. One can remain protected with others who speak the same language, those who can provide work, and people who may even shelter those who are undocumented. A kind of crossroads, the Ironbound is as much a center of ‘conflict’ as it is one of contact, unity and resilience.

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Alex Curtis:

Columbia College - Philosophy, 2017, Interests: Transportation

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