Chapter Ten, Brazil: 1950-1951

I was met at the Greyhound Bus Station in Salt Lake City by Sarah and her family, my sister Jerry and my brother Paul.  My parents had not returned from their California vacation and my sister, Jayne. was serving in the southwest Indian Mission.  Ruth's father was there and after picking up my luggage, I went home with him to the new DeYoung home in East Millcreek.  It was a large, comfortable home built for future sale in a nice neighborhood.  Mr. DeYoung had just started to build a very large, two-story home with two attached rental units on a hilly lot on West Capital Street.

Ruth and I talked most of the night.  She told me that she had never seen the baby.  She had experienced a breach birth and had hemorrhaged excessively.  She was told that she had almost died.  Her parents had been shunted away from her during the birth process.  The baby boy, when born, lived just long enough for Ruth's father to give it a name and a blessing.  Both Ruth and her parents felt that she had not received adequate medical care at the L.D.S. Hospital.  Several days later she and I talked to the doctor, Heber Kimball, who told us that the baby did not develop a normal brain.  He called it a case of anencephaly and encouraged us to have more children.  A short time later we learned that he had run off with his secretary, deserting his family and medical practice in Salt Lake City.

It was a bit awkward, living at the DeYoung residence.  I felt very much out of place in that lively, vibrant, emotional, argumentative family.  Her father had struck out of his own as an independent contractor, buying lots, building homes, living in them until other homes were built, and then selling them.  The margin of profit was not great and economic tensions were present.  I paid room and board but still felt rather awkward.  Her mother had not accepted our marriage and both parents were opposed to her going to Brazil.  Her mother felt that she ought to stay until her brother Melvin returned from the army and her brother Lewis from the Dutch mission.

I was under strong pressure from my Vanderbilt committee to leave for Brazil as soon as possible.  I had been awarded a Pan American Air Lines travel grant, an exchange fellowship and I still had my G.I. educational benefits.  But I did not want to leave for Brazil until Ruth had fully recovered and I was able to make some provision for her welfare.  While I marked time my parents returned from California.  I talked my situation over with my father, who arranged for me to tae out a bank loan of $1,000 for Ruth's benefit.  We also encountered a number of old friends: Betty Thayer, now a Relief Society social worker in Salt Lake City and Bruce Clark who, upon finishing his graduate work in English at the University of Utah, had accepted a position at Brigham Young University.  My other relative and close friend, Marden Clark, joined him in the English department.  Ruth and I also encountered Roland Thunell, John Vloyantes, and Albert Everett one day in Provo while visiting the Bingham Young University.  Finally Ruth and I came to the conclusion that she would attend the University of Utah for a quarter while I went to Brazil.

With four hundred dollars in my pocket, I caught the bus for Miami, Florida on February 23rd, with considerable regret at leaving Ruth.  I enjoyed the bus trip from Salt Lake City to Denver, then to Dallas, and finally on the morning of February 27th, arrived in Miami.  I checked into a nearby hotel, the Leamington Hotel, bathed, shaved, changed clothes, and then hurried to the Brazilian consulate to secure a resident visa.  Contrary to what they informed me by mail, they told me that I would have to present a marriage certificate, letters of financial responsibility, and a Brazilian health certificate.  Quite discouraged, I sent telegrams to Vanderbilt University and to Ruth requesting the necessary documents.  A local doctor filled out the Brazilian health form for me free.  Knowing that I might be in Miami over Sunday, I called President Barfield of the Miami branch and discussed my plight with him.  He immediately invited me to stay with him until I secured my visa.  I did so and quite enjoyed my brief stay with his family.  I spent much of my time wandering around Miami.  I did not like the climate, the commercialization of the city, of the mosquitoes.  Finally, on March 3rd, with the help of a missionary companion, Robert Sorenson, employed by Pan American whom I had encountered in Miami, I secured my resident visa.  Elated, I thanked the Barfields for their gracious hospitality and boarded the Pan American flight for Sao Paulo, Brazil. 

On the flight from Miami to San Juan, Puerto Rico, I sat glued to the window utterly fascinated by the interplay of color in the ocean and sky and by the numerous large and small islands constantly in view.  Arriving at San Juan in the later afternoon, passengers were taken to the Pan American Guest Motel.  The next morning after breakfast, although my flight did not leave until nearly noon, I hired a taxi to take me to the airport.  Midway I discovered that I had left my overcoat at the motel.  Returning to the motel, I picked up the coat.  My taxi driver then said that for five dollars he would take me on a tour of the city and get me to the airport in time to catch my flight.  I agreed.  He first showed me a horrible slum, La Perla, clustered between the ocean and a breakwater.  From there we toured the Spanish castle, El Morro, the central business district, the Capital building, and several middle and upper class neighborhoods.  It was a fascinating trip.  I learned that he felt the island government to be corrupt and not interested in the people.  He said that they were virtually abandoned by the American government, but he was not sure that independence would be a good thing.

  From San Juan my flight flew to Port of Spain, Trinidad.  I was quite interested in the black population and the local dialect of English and tried to leave the airport to tour the city, but the police would not let passengers leave the terminal.  So I lazed around the airport, watching the incredibly diverse mixture of races come and go until my flight left.  From Trinidad we flew through the darkness to Belem, Brazil.  I saw little of the city; we were not allowed to leave the plane as it refueled.

The flight from Belem to Rio de Janeiro was sheer joy.  I was impressed by the vastness of Brazil, the size of the Amazon and its many arms, the unbelievable expanse of the jungle, and the sparse population.  I loved the beauty of Rio and thought about my earlier visit to the city in 1939.  We refueled and within a few hours arrived at Sao Paulo in the evening.  Going through customs, I had an argument with the customs personnel, who wanted me to pay duty on my old typewriter.  I put up a substantial argument in Spanish, pointing out that the typewriter was heavily used and showed signs of age and that I would take it out of the country when I left Brazil.  I was quite amused by the vociferous support given me by the crowd of Brazilians behind me who demanded that I be permitted to take my typewriter into Brazil without paying duty.  Defeated, the customs officer threw his hands up in the air and retired into an inner room.  A Brazilian grabbed my typewriter, pushed me out of customs and told me to go.  I found a taxi and went to the Brazilian mission office.  Arriving at the mission home, I was taken in by the mission president, Rulon Howell, a good friend of my father, and his charming wife.  At dinner I met two missionaries, an Elder Ross Viehweg, a cousin to our Viehweg in Nashville, and an Elder James Faust, whom I had known at Granite High School and Brigham Young University.  That night I went to bed feeling quite secure within the Mormon network.  Several days later I rented a room from an English lady, Olga Sommers.

     The next morning Elder Faust took me to the Escola Livre de Sociologia and Ciencias Sociais and introduced me to Dr. Donald Pierson, to whom I was to report at the suggestion of my graduate committee.  Dr. Donald Pierson was a very congenial American sociologist, having resided in Brazil for most of his adult life.  He had trained several generations of Brazilian social scientists at the Escola Livre in the methodology and theory of American social sciences and had sent many for advanced graduate training to the United States.  These scholars returned to Brazil Americanized.  I found that the social scientists at the University of Sao Paulo, in contrast, were apt to be French in training and values.  Considerable conflict existed between them and the faculty at the Escola Livre.  As the terms of my grant required that I enroll for courses at a Brazilian school, Dr. Pierson promptly registered me for a course in Brazilian ethnic and racial groups taught by Dr. Eduardo, who had completed graduate work in the United States.  I enjoyed the course very much.  Although it was taught in Portuguese, I managed to survive because Dr. Eduardo spoke English and my fellow students helped me to understand the lectures and write my papers.

     The students at the Escola studied English and American social science, culture, and history enthusiastically.  They were eager to practice English.  They worked extremely hard to make good grades and, thus, secure a scholarship at an American university.  They subscribed to American journals, read American papers, and purchased American products.  They valued American products and ideas much higher than they did Brazilian or European products or ideologies.  Within a week or two I had been absorbed into their student culture.  for several months my schedule was as follows:  I arose at dawn, studied Portuguese for several hours, ate breakfast, caught a bus to Largo Sao Francisco, walked past the Law Faculty (the intellectual heart of Paulista elite culture), and entered the dingy portals of the Escola Livre.  After class, groups of us walked through the streets of the city, the students telling me about the city, its culture, its cosmopolitan population, and its socio-economic characteristics.  Quite often we turned into one of the numerous bookstores, to be given chairs by the proprietor while we examined his wares.  Books were high in price, although books in English were cheaper than they were in the United States.  In the late afternoon we ended the day in a Brazilian cafe drinking Guarana, my favorite Brazilian soft drink, and other beverages.  Around the table sat five to ten Brazilian students and one American, deeply engaged in talk about the United States, Brazil, international affairs, literature, art, and the future.  I was amazed at the lack of student faith in Brazil, their desire to live in the United States, and their eagerness to study there.  Quite often the night terminated with a late dinner in a student's home.  I seldom got to my room before midnight.  I did not get much work done on my research, but I enjoyed myself and learned much.  The Brazilians are one of the most likeable, gregarious, friendly, and intellectually curious people I have ever encountered.

     I soon became acquainted with that unique Brazilian institution, the Black Market, tolerated by the Brazilian government.  At the time the dollar was worth 12.5 cruzeiros on the official exchange, but on the Black Market, one received from 35 to 40 cruzeiros.  As it would have been impossible for me to live in Brazil at the official exchange rate, I cheerfully sold my dollars to a Black Market operator without any fears of punishment.  Everyone with dollars in Brazil seemed to sell them on the Black Market.  Many times I stood in line with Mormon missionaries, Catholic priests, government bureaucrats, businessmen, Protestant ministers, and students.  I learned that in Brazil, white may be black and black white.  The government may establish a policy and then unofficially permit deviation from that policy as long as there is little publicity.

     The Paulistas, or residents of Sao Paulo are inordinately proud of their city and tend to look down on the rest of Brazil.  They define Brazil as a nation composed on one locomotive, Sao Paulo, pulling empty boxcars--the rest of Brazil.  But, unfortunately, no Paulista has ever said where the train was going.  City population was increasing rapidly.  Sao Paulo was inundated by hordes of poor, ragged Brazilians pouring in from the interior of Brazil.  They begged on every street corner, threw up their shacks on every vacant lot, and slept under culverts and in protected nooks and corners.  Housing was very scarce and expensive.  Inflation was rampant with constantly rising prices.  Public facilities such as water, sewage, electricity, and telephones were extremely inadequate.  Poverty and disease were rampant.  The gaiety and the superficial fun-loving surface of Brazilian life

concealed severe poverty, harsh social-class divisions, heavy unemployment, worker exploitation, and high rates of illiteracy.  Racial discrimination also existed, although concealed and diffused.

     The city of Sao Paulo contained many ethnic neighborhoods, or ghettos, inhabited by Italians, Syrians, Lebanese, Japanese, North Americans, and other immigrant groups.  In many ways the city resembled New York of the 1900s.  In spite of the poverty and unemployment, the city did offer possibilities to more up the socio-economic ladder, although these channels of social mobility

favored the European immigrant at the expense of the native Brazilian.

     Only one branch of the Church existed in 1950 in Sao Paulo. The members met in a rented hall in downtown Sao Paulo.  Mormonism came to Brazil in the luggage of German church members.  Before World War II, the majority of Church members in both Brazil and Argentina were German immigrants.  The Brazilian ban on the use of German during World War II and continued Brazilian intolerance towards the use of other languages forced a shift to Portuguese in mission work.  But even in 1950, the Germans were a major element in the Church.  An English-speaking Sunday school was held at the mission home for English- speaking Mormons.  Many European immigrants and native Brazilians attended.  I taught the adult Sunday School class for most of my stay in Brazil.

     As it had been in Nashville, the Church was a major focus of my life in Brazil.  Brother and Sister Howell were kind enough to invite me to dinner at least once a week.  Whenever there was a

need for a companion to accompany a missionary tract, to visit investigators, or to see members, I was drafted.  Four or five months after my arrival in Sao Paulo, I was called to serve the equivalent of a stake mission with a Brazilian companion, Jose Bueno.  Attending all the Church meetings, I soon became accepted into the Church social network and spent many evenings and weekends visiting members.  My church activities helped me to contain my homesickness and my loneliness.  My landlady, Dona Olga, was amazed at the diverse peoples--French, Italian, Australian, German, Swiss, Portuguese, Spanish, Syrian, Lebanese, and Japanese--who came to visit me.

     One of my best friends was a German boy who had fought in the German army during World War II.  He had served in the same sections of Alsace in which I had served.  We could have been fighting each other.  Another companion was a young Brazilian who had fought in the Brazilian division in Italy.

   Amurchan Sacuy, later called Alexander Sacuy, a Tcherkess from the Caucasus mountains in Russia, became a special friend.  He had rather a tragic history.  During the 1920s the Communists came through his village killing most of the men, including his father and uncles.  His mother moved with her children to Karkov and found employment in a flour mill.  The mother, changing her name and concealing her identity, managed to enroll her children in the public schools.  Amurchan did extremely well and went on to more advanced training in Moscow.  When the Germans invaded Russia, the college students were drafted into the Russian army and thrown into combat with but rudimentary training.  He was captured and sent to a German prisoner of war camp, where conditions were extremely bad.  A Turkish commission visited the camp and secured the release of all Moslem prisoners of war.  Although he knew nothing of the Moslem religion, he was defined as a Moslem by the Turks and Germans because of his ethnic identity.  The Germans put him to work in defense plants near Berlin.  Learning German quickly, he managed to improve his conditions of life.  Realizing with the sharp increase of bombings around Berlin that Germany would be defeated, he slipped away and headed west, hiding out during the day and traveling only at night.  He encountered the Americans near the Rhine and turned himself in as an escaped prisoner of war.  The Americans used him as a driver and interpreter.  The officer employing him advised him one day that all Russian prisoners of war and refugees were to be turned over to the Russian troops.  He again went underground, protected to some degree by American friends.  When the American madness came to an end, he entered a refugee camp and, unable because of his past to come to the United States, managed to migrate to Brazil.  He found employment with the IBM Company in Sao Paulo, Brazil.  He was eager to learn English in the hopes that someday he might migrate to the United States.

Through Amurchan Ruth and I came to know the Russian colony in Sao Paulo quite well.  It was divided into two major groups.  The oldest grouping was composed of Russians who had come to Brazil before, during, and right after World War I.  The majority of these were industrial workers; some Communists.  The other, more numerous, element contained Russians of diverse ethnic backgrounds who had come to Brazil after World War II.  As a rule, these people were better educated and were more apt to hold white collar and professional positions.  Almost to a man they were strongly anti-Communist.  The Russian children soon acculturated to Brazil, learned Portuguese, participated in Brazilian society, but also remained active in the Russian community.

     With Amurchan Sacuy, I visited numerous Russian families.  Never have I known people who ate and drank so much.  They could not understand my refusal to drink.  I quite enjoyed the closeness, the boisterousness, friendship, and the intellectuality of the Russian people.  I spent many a night discussing politics, philosophy, international affairs, the United States, Russia, and many other themes until late the following morning.  Then I staggered back to my home so filled with food and soft drinks that my stomach ached.  Most of their parties ended with music and dancing.  Trying my luck at Cossack dancing, I caused considerable merriment by falling flat on my face.  I almost wound up making a study of the Russians and still regret not having done so.  The Russians were among my favorite people in Sao Paulo.

     During my first few months in Sao Paulo I was faced with a serious problem.  Upon my arrival in the city I found that a Brazilian sociologist, Florestan Fernandez, was interested in the Syrians and Lebanese and resented the coming of an American graduate student to invade his claim. On April 12, 1951, I managed to visit Florestan at the University of Sao Paulo.  Within two months we became close friends.  When Ruth came down, she with her magical ability to make friends, charmed Florestan and his wife.  He graciously removed his objections to my study.

     Florestan himself has an interesting history.  Coming from a poor family, he worked in a bar close to the university.  Members of the faculty of the Social Sciences patronized the bar.  Florestan, listening to their conversation, made perceptive comments that impressed them.  Realizing his talent, the faculty members assisted him to attend and to graduate from the University of Sao Paulo.  He had a very large family, lived in a modest house and taught sociology at the University of Sao Paulo.  A fine teacher and magnificent researcher, he carried out a number of excellent studies of Paulista society.

     Through Florestan I met many of the faculty of the social sciences such as Azevedo, Baldus, Sergio Buarque de Holandia, and others.  These men, representing the older generation of Brazilian scientists, were deeply imbued with French cultural values.  Many of them had studied in French universities and almost all of them spoke French.  Somewhat contemptuous of the United States, they resented the decline of the French language and of French culture in Brazil.  They were persuaded that American influence was responsible for many of Brazil's cultural and educational problems and were anti-American.  Although they criticized me sharply for not knowing French, they were friendly and assisted me in my research endeavors.

    Just as Florestan Fernandes graciously permitted a foreigner to undertake a study which he was interested, another problem arose.  Dr. T. Lynn Smith constantly urged me to use my grant to travel throughout Brazil.  He felt that becoming acquainted with Brazil was, in reality, more important than my study.  He, therefore, almost commanded me to make a survey of the Syrians and Lebanese throughout Brazil.  On the other hand, Dr. Emilio Willems and Donald Pierson felt that such a study would lack depth and urged me to focus on the community in the city of Sao Paulo, the largest and most important Syrian and Lebanese grouping in the country.  As Willems was chairman of my committee and I lacked the funds to do much traveling, I decided to remain in the city of Sao Paulo.  Dr. Smith never seemed to forgive me and my choice.  He seemed to have washed his hands of me, doing little to further my career from that moment on.

     In spite of my ever-increasing involvement with my studies at the Escola Livre and with the church, I missed my wife greatly.  Recovering from child- birth, she enrolled at the University of Utah.  She enjoyed her studies and started taking music lessons again, but she wanted to come to Brazil and I was eager for her to come.  But where to find the money to pay for her expensive air passage to Brazil was a problem.  I was living modestly from the Cordell Hull Scholarship and the G.I. Gill, but would the money be enough for both of us?

     As I was worrying and praying about my economic problems, I was introduced to an enterprising Lebanese by the name of Cesar Yazigi who, having studied in the United States, opened an English language school.  After a brief conversation, he invited me to teach for him for 100 cruzeiros a lesson.  Soon I had so many students--businessmen, government employees, and university students--anxious to go to the United States that my later afternoons and evenings were fully occupied.  I saved every penny of my earnings.  Utilizing the influence of some Brazilian friends, I received permission from the National Bank of Brazil to buy Ruth a round trip ticket in Brazil.  The ticket, which would have cost me over $1,000 in the States, cost me only $400 in Brazil. So I bought her a ticket and made arrangements for her to come to Brazil.

    Ruth left Salt Lake City shortly after witnessing the marriage of her sister Ann to Everett Call.  After rather a venturesome flight, she arrived in Sao Paulo on July 3, 1950, with a tourist visa good for only three months.  On the day that she was to arrive, I went out to the airport with Irving and Leve Haas.  Brother Haas was a Sears Roebuck executive in Sao Paulo.  We waited through one flight after another from Rio de Janeiro without encountering Ruth.  Somewhat worried, I went home with Irving Haas for lunch and then drove back out to the airport to find Ruth unperturbedly going through customs.  How glad I was to see her!  Leaving the airport, we drove to Sears Roebuck to pick up a mattress that I had bought on credit.  On the way to our room we were stopped by a streetcar accident.  A man had lost his footing on a running board that circled the two open sides of the streetcar, fallen under the wheels, and was decapitated, his head rolling down the street.  This was Ruth's introduction to Brazil.

     Ruth's coming made a great difference in my life.  The Syrians and Lebanese were quite suspicious of me, thinking that I might be an Israeli spy.  As Ruth had an ability to put Brazilians, Syrians, Lebanese, Americans, and European immigrants at ease, the barriers of suspiciousness and hostility fell away.  She smoothly and efficiently picked up enough Portuguese to communicate with the Brazilians and often served as an interpreter to American women who had lived in Brazil for many years.  Although we struggled to survive financially, her coming increased the amount of data that I was able to secure.

     Ruth soon became an important member of the Sao Paulo branch.  A fine musician, she became the branch pianist, founded and directed a branch choir, and accompanied all those who sang at church meetings.  The Brazilian members loved her for her music, her willingness to accompany, and her ability to become part of them.  Ruth organized and directed a choir of missionaries that put on several concerts in the city of Sao Paulo.  She served as a companion to many lady missionaries, such as Sisters Horton and Crane.  Scarcely a night passed without a groups of missionaries and young members visiting our apartment to talk, play games, and to savor Ruth's fine cooking.  Homesick Elders came to talk over their problems with her.  Our hospitality almost sank our financial ship, but we thoroughly enjoyed it.  Ruth became a full-fledged partner in my research endeavors.  With Ruth present it was much easier to secure the full cooperation of Brazilian public employees, heads of government bureaus, and of Syrians and Lebanese.

     Besides our participation in the two worlds of the Church and the Escola Livre, we became part of the Syrian and Lebanese community.  A Palestinian Arab refugee by the name of Khalil Abud became a good friend.  When the war first broke out, Khalil was a student at the University of London in England.  Born in Nazareth, he tried to rejoin his family after the war, but the Israelis refused to let him enter.  So, he came to Sao Paulo to join his uncles.  Unable to adjust to Brazil, homesick and restless, he migrated to Syria just before we returned to the United States.  But, while in Sao Paulo, he did all that he could to assist us.  He introduced us to all his relatives and friends as well as to many other members of the Syrian and Lebanese collectivity.  Our friendship changed my attitudes toward Israel.  I had been a blind Israeli partisan, but my contacts with Khalil and other Palestinians modified my attitudes.

Ruth and I frequently entertained visitors from the United States.  Just before she arrived I had the pleasure of showing Dr. Ariel S. Ballif, my former professor and B.Y.U. athletic director, around Sao Paulo.  He had come to Brazil with the Brigham Young University basketball team, brought to Brazil by a prominent Lebanese athletic club in Sao Paulo.  Shortly after Ruth arrived, Drs. Carlson and Brunscombe from Vanderbilt paid us a visit.  Dr. Brunscombe noted our financial penury and secured an increase in my stipend.  Dr. Carlson hired me for $30 to buy Brazilian books for the Vanderbilt library.  Receiving lists of wanted books, I put the lists up to bid among the Paulista bookstores.  Booksellers who received the bids gave me permission to select a certain quantity of free books from their stocks.  Although troubled in conscience I did manage to build up a modest library in Brazilian books that otherwise I would never have been able to do.  Dr. Willems also visited us briefly, along with others whose names escape me.

     By teaching English, buying books, and doing favors for visiting Americans, I managed to supplement our G.I. Bill and scholarship stipends for us to survive--but it was always a struggle and several times I was forced to write to my father for assistance, which he always gave me without a question.  Ruth and I found it somewhat romantic to live in semi-poverty in a foreign country, but our hearts went out to our numerous Brazilian friends who were forced to incredible lengths to support their families in a country torn by inflation and a harsh class system.  Many of them, holding two or three jobs, worked terribly long hours.  Brazil is a magnificent country for people with money, but it is a tragic country for the poor.

     Going to the mission home one day, I suddenly found myself facing my cousin, Gerald Hess.  It was a mutual surprise as neither of us had known that the other was in Sao Paulo.  Gerald, a big, engaging boy, had become quite interested in a Brazilian girl by the name of Dulce Green, the descendent of Confederates who had come to Brazil shortly after the Civil War.  Descendents of these Confederates were very prominent in medical and educational circles in Sao Paulo.  Dulce, the major support of her mother, worked very hard to keep their precarious bark afloat.  A charming, exquisite convert to the Church, she quite liked Jerry.  Unable to leave her mother and in love with Gerald, she and her mother returned to their native town of Rio Claro when Gerald, upon finishing his mission, returned to the United States.  The next time we encountered him in Utah he was engaged to and later married a girl who had been a missionary companion of Ruth in the Eastern States Mission.  The marriage did not last long.  Shortly after the divorce Gerald sent for Dulce.  They married and later had a little girl.

     With Ruth to assist me, I soon began to penetrate the Syrian and Lebanese community.  We quickly noted that the colony was articulated into numerous clubs and social organizations composed of immigrants from the same villages and towns in Syria and Lebanon.  Many of these village organizations built lavish club houses in Sao Paulo that contained olympic size swimming pools, magnificent gymnasiums and other athletic facilities, seldom used libraries, and large reception rooms and ballrooms.  These organizations not only sponsored numerous athletic leagues, but also provided financial and political assistance to their members.  They also took care of the aged, sick, and the orphans.  They competed with each other in sponsoring projects in their native communities.

    Shortly after Ruth arrived I met a Professor Safadi, a middle-aged director of a Syrian and Lebanese private school, the Colegio Oriental, just shifting to a general, middle class private school.  Upper class Syrians and Lebanese were now sending their children to more prestigious Brazilian private schools.  I enjoyed Safadi very much.  Having the entire history of the Syrian and Lebanese community at his fingertips, he became a most important key informant.  Another important informant and personal friend was Taufik Kurban, a fine writer in both Portuguese and Arabic.  Through these two men I came to know a large number of the intellectuals in the colony who were also businessmen, bankers, and professionals.  Literary prowess in either Portuguese or Arabic conferred prestige and success within the colony.  Poets and other writers were given employment by businessmen who felt honored by their presence.  I had never encountered such a fascinating mixture of keen business aptitude combined with a love for and appreciation of music, literature, and the arts as I encountered among the Syrians and Lebanese.

     Intellectual wars were intense among them.  A very important school of Arabic poetry, honored whenever Arabic was spoken, had evolved in the Brazilian colony with its own press, its publications, and its poetic standards.  Another group of Lebanese intellectuals wrote in the Lebanese dialect.  The members of this group were severely criticized by those who wrote in classical Arabic, but they persevered with publications and counterattacks.  A much smaller group composed of the sons and daughters of the above were beginning to write in Portuguese and even in English.

The Palestinians were a tragic group among the Syrians and Lebanese.  Better educated, more oriented towards the English-speaking cultures, convulsed with hatred towards Israel, England, and the United States, they found it extremely difficult to adjust to Brazil.  They would have preferred to migrate to the United States, but could not get visas.

     The Armenians were a most interesting subgrouping on the periphery of the Syrians and Lebanese.  They first came to Brazil as impoverished refugees from Turkish massacres in the Middle East after World War I.  Others entered as part of the general movement of Christian Syrians and Lebanese to Brazil.  One of the first Armenian immigrants was a showmaker.  He gave employment to other Armenian refugees, who learned to make shoes.  As they accumulated money they began to manufacture shoes also.  In time they opened large shoemaking plants and established a partial monopoly in the manufacture of shoes in Brazil as the Syrians and Lebanese had in the textile business from manufacturing to retailing, the Jews in ready made clothing and the Portuguese in the retailing of groceries.  I fell in love with the Armenians.  A proud and tragic people, they were very friendly.  Ruth and I attended Armenian parties, family assemblies, and religious observances.  At one party I met an old Armenian guerrilla fighter who, in his eighties, did a sword dance that left me breathless.  An intellectual people, they were willing to discuss intellectual and international affairs

until late in the night.  Listening to their stories, I developed a hatred and abhorrence of Turkey.

     I needed to secure data on Syrian and Lebanese migration, social and spatial mobility, economic activities, education, investments, and area of primary and secondary settlements to write my presentation.  So, Ruth and I first mapped 25 de Marco, a street lined with Syrian and Lebanese textile stores and center of their first settlement.  Then we traced their movements up to Avenida Paulista, once the fashionable residential area of the Paulista aristocracy and now invaded by Syrian and Lebanese, Italian, and other newly rich immigrant families.  We also studied the emergence of secondary settlements such as Villa Mariana, a second and third generation Syrian and Lebanese settlement.  It was fascinating to trace the upward social mobility of this people through immigration, health, school, tax, and police records.

It required hard work to gain this type of data from government agencies.  I first worked my way through a series of business and residential almanacs from the 1860s to the 1950s, found primarily in various libraries.  Then, with letters of recommendation from the American consulate and with the assistance of a good friend, Freitas Marcondes, I tried often without success to secure data from local, state, and government agencies.  Freitas suggested that I visit the seguranza publica (public security) of the state of Sao Paulo, a combination of city and state intelligence and crime control bureau.  I did and was introduced to the director, Mr. Osvaldo Silva, a very impressive man who asked me many questions about myself, my family, my impressions of Brazil, and my research.  Finishing the questioning, he called in a subordinate who found the data requested.  Almost no Syrians and Lebanese had been involved in crime except for white collar crime.

     Several days later, a tall Brazilian police officer came to our apartment.  Ruth, alone in the apartment, was given a written request that Dr. Silva would like to see us in his office.  As Ruth's Brazilian visa had lapsed and she was in Brazil illegally, we went to see Dr. Silva with some trepidation.  Extremely friendly, he said that he had received an invitation to come to the United States and would deeply appreciate it if we could visit his family and talk English with Dr. Silva and his wife.  Not fully realizing how important a man he was, I responded affirmatively and Ruth and I enjoyed many delightful evenings talking in English about many subjects with Mr. and Mrs. Silva.  I happened to mention that we would like to see a Brazilian play.  Mr. Silva secured a pass for us.  Much to my surprise, the actors and actresses tended to play up to our box.  I found out later that we had been ushered into an expensive box reserved for public officials.

     Dr. Silva wrote a general letter of introduction for me to present to the heads of government agencies.  Presenting this letter, I found to my surprise that officials, in contrast to the past, were very amiable and eager to please.  Osvaldo frequently sent a chauffeured car to our apartment to take Ruth to and from the church when she practiced the piano and to carry me to various government agencies.  I doubted that I would have ever secured the abundance of the data that I did without his unobtrusive assistance.

     Once government, newspaper, and library resources were exhausted, I tried to burrow deeper into the Syrian and Lebanese community.  I had secured life histories of many businessmen, but at first failed to establish favorable relationships with wealthy Syrians or Lebanese.  After Ruth arrived, we became friends with Gabriel Jafet, a member of the powerful Jafet clan, and his wife. They enjoyed listening to Ruth play the piano.  The first Jafet, a well-educated man, was involved in an anti-Turkish plot in Lebanon before World War I.  To save his life he migrated to Brazil.  Well-educated and aggressive, he soon abandoned the profession of mascate, or peddler, the road traveled by so many Lebanese and Syrians, and opened one of the first Lebanese or Syrian textile stores in Sao Paulo.  Rapidly prospering he brought over members of his family and put them to work in his business.  He started to manufacture textiles.  Then, just before World War I broke out, a shipload of German dyes and chemicals he had ordered in Germany arrived in Brazil.  As the price of dyes and chemicals rose rapidly during the war, he sold the shipload at extremely high prices.  He had a large family of boys, the majority of whom became competent businessmen, as did a large number of the third generation.  The second generation, among whom was our friend Gabriel Jafet, went into diversified areas of manufacturing and then into banking.  The third generation was moving into the professions.  Although Brazilian in culture and non-Arabic speaking, the third generation was still proud of its Arabic origin and Arabic culture.

     Through the Jafets we met many wealthy Syrians and Lebanese who talked freely about their lives, their struggles, and their achievements.  We found that family networks through intermarriage unified the wealthy Syrians and Lebanese.  Like the first generation, the second generation born in Brazil was active in Syrian and Lebanese clubs and the third generation was being admitted into exclusive Brazilian clubs.  Their children were often educated in the United States and, although somewhat hostile because of Palestine, were Americanized.  They prided themselves on their English, their knowledge of the United States, and some were investing money there.  Probably the Syrian and Lebanese community in Brazil is the most successful and richest immigrant grouping in Brazil.  Just beginning is enter politics, contributing to all political parties and factions, deeply interested in Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine, and in spite of family and clan rivalries, deeply united against outsiders, they seemed to be able to survive any regime in Brazil.  If they had trouble, they could transfer a good portion of their assets to other countries through family and village associations.  I really liked and admired them.

Throughout the first part of 1951 we worked extremely hard at accumulating data.  Both of us were busy copying documents, interviewing Syrian and Lebanese, and visiting our numerous Russian, Brazilian, and Syrian and Lebanese friends.  We were active in the church.  Although poor, we were able to survive financially.  Life had settled into an extremely active, pleasant, and fruitful pattern.  We visited Rio de Janeiro and Sierra Negra with our American friends and fellow Mormons, Leve and Irwin Haas.  We thought seriously about staying in Brazil as our friend and fellow student, Frank Goldman, decided to do.  I was urged by many Syrian and Lebanese friends to do so and was promised lucrative employment.  Ruth and I were quite undecided.

     But then in June, 1951, we suddenly realized that Ruth's ticket would lapse unless used.  Forced to decide, we opted to return to the United States, losing our only opportunity to become rich.  We hurriedly finished up our research.  Then, as the end approached, we sold our few household possessions, boxed up our research data, sadly bid farewell to friends whom we might never see again, and caught a Pan American flight for home on July 31, 1951.  Dr. Silva had miraculously regularized Ruth's visa.  Many of our friends were at the airport to see us off.  We felt bad, leaving Sao Paulo.  It had been our home for two years.  We had made a tremendous number of friends.  I might add that before we left we assisted Amurchan Sacuy, now Alexander Sacuy, to migrate to Canada.

     From Sao Paulo we flew over the highland plateaus and coastal mountain ranges to Rio de Janeiro and then on to Belem.  Ruth and I watched the terrain below with absorbing interest.  From Belem we crossed the Guianas, stopping at every major city until we landed at San Juan, Puerto Rico.  There we were housed at the Caribe Hilton, quite a different hotel from the old Pan American guest house.  We had time to thoroughly explore the historic sections of San Juan before flying on to Miami.  From there we went by bus to Washington, D.C., stopping at Daytona Beach to see the Sea Zoo.

     Quite exhausted, we checked into a cheap hotel.  We first toured all the museums, art galleries, and historic government buildings.  Then I went by Senator Bennett's and Senator Watkin's

offices to get advice on job hunting in government agencies.  They sent me to diverse government bureaus where I filled out forms and left qualifications.  Always I was told to come back in about seven to ten days.  Much to our surprise, Ruth's sister called to let us know that Ruth's parents, her brother Donald, and sister Naomi had come east to attend the Palmyra pageant.  Ruth and I traveled to New York City and met them at the Times Square Hotel.

     The next morning Ruth and I visited my mother's sisters, Ann and Naomi; the first a social worker and alcoholic, the second a writer and librarian.  We then met Ruth's family and, leaving New York City after some sight seeing, returned to Washington, D.C., for another interview.  Very regretfully I then left Washington, D.C.  I had hoped to stay another few days to search for employment.

On our way home, we stopped at Carthage, Missouri and Nauvoo, Illinois to see the jail in which Joseph and Hyrum Smith were killed and my ancestor, Willard Richards, wounded.  We then visited abandoned Mormon homes in Nauvoo.  The visit was an emotional one for me.  I thought of all that my ancestors had suffered from mob action in Missouri and Illinois.  From Nauvoo we drove non-stop to Salt Lake City.  Upon arrival Ruth and I moved in with my parents and enjoyed the next few days visiting friends and relatives.