THE EMIGRATION
PREPARATION
Azoreans have long been dreaming about better worlds. The American dream dominates family and friends gatherings. Many Azoreans have already left the islands for Brazil and the United States.
In my family, two of my great aunts, on my mother’s side, Belmira and Mariana do Rego Raposo, epitomise that dream more than anybody else. In 1917, at age 15 and 16, they left to work in the textile plants of New England. They send the famous white cotton bags (sacos de roupa) full of clothes and fabrics. These smell America. We take deep breaths when we open the bags. Around the same time, one of my grandfather’s brother and a sister, also left for the United States.
In 1953, a new and better world opens its doors to Azoreans. At the church and at all family meetings, everybody talks about this new and unknown world: Canada. The big country north of the United States, needs workers for its farms, railroad construction and other big projects.
When the news gets to São Miguel, my father is very interested, his father a little less so... He doesn’t sail on the first ship, but a few months later, he leaves. He joins his friend Guilherme Cabral, one of the 18 Azoreans who left on the Saturnia in May 1953. Guilherme now works at a farm in the north end of Montreal, in an area called Saint-Michel.
Nine months later, on February 22nd, 1954, my parents start the emigration process, they complete the ficha de emigrante, an official document. My father leaves two months later on April 23rd, 1954, after he went through a series of very thorough medical examinations. The rest of the family will follow four years later on March 25th, 1958.
The medical examination certificate allowing me
to emigrate to Canada
Official document initiating the emigration process of the family.