Anthropology student's dissertation topic piques interest of officials in the islands, Lisbon
Imagine yourself having come to the United States as a child. As a young adult you fall in with the wrong crowd and begin selling drugs. You are arrested, convicted, then deported.
You are sent back alone to a land you never remember seeing, to speak a language you do not understand, to start life anew.
It has happened to more than 300 Portuguese immigrants - mainly men - deported from North America to the Azores for a felony conviction, said Miguel Moniz, a Brown graduate student in anthropology.
The stories of the deportees and the effect of their sentences on communities both here and abroad is the subject of the dissertation Moniz is researching: "Strangers in Two Lands."
The deportation of resident aliens convicted of a felony only began happening in large numbers a few years ago after anti-terrorist legislation was created in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing, said Moniz. Before that, deportation was considered only for repeat offenders of extreme crimes. (A resident alien is someone who has a green card, can work and pay taxes, but has not yet taken the test to become a citizen.)
Although a relatively new occurrence, the situation already has been felt here in southern New England, which has one of the nation's largest Portuguese communities that is now losing sons, brothers and fathers, said Moniz.
And it is having another effect in the Azores, a group of islands near Portugal, from where most Portuguese immigrants to this country originated and to where the deportees are returning.
"There is a huge awareness of deportees there," said Moniz. "It seems to be changing the impression of the United States and Canada as a golden place because now the countries are `sending us criminals.'" The majority of deportations are ordered for drug-related crimes, according to Moniz.
Moniz first learned of the situation during a visit to family in the Azores a few years ago. He noticed a man walking down a street with a towel dangling around his neck and a baseball bat slung across his shoulders, yet it was the middle of the day and most people were working. Upon Moniz' questioning, the walker was immediately identified as a "DP," the slang for the deportees.
Most of the deportees first immigrated to North America as youths - at least a third before the age of 6 - and many did not realize they were not citizens and vulnerable to deportation, said Moniz.
In the best cases deportees get jobs, own businesses and start families in the new country. In the worst cases, they make contacts with other deportees whom they knew in prison and continue to commit crimes.
"It is a really tense situation," said Onesimo Almeida, professor of Portuguese and Brazilian studies and one of Moniz' advisers on the dissertation. "These are very peaceful islands and the deportees are seen as the people that are going to change that."
Because the situation is relatively new, Moniz is one of the first to study the effect of deportation on the Azorean community, said Almeida. Already it appears that officials in the Azores will be interested in Moniz' findings. The Luso-American Development Foundation of Lisbon has asked for results, which are expected to convey a better understanding of the deportees' situation.
"Everyone is convinced that something should be done in this area and this should be studied," said Almeida.
The Portuguese government is trying to establish programs to deal with the problems that deportees face in their new country. There is language training, instruction on how to shop, boarding in half-way houses, and job-finding services, said Moniz. The Portuguese government has also begun to send instructors into North American prisons to teach the language to those awaiting deportation.
Part of Moniz' research will be interviews with prisoners in New England who are awaiting deportation, as well as with prosecution and defense lawyers involved in the hearings conducted by the federal Immigration and Naturalization Service.
Later, he plans to spend time in the Azores interviewing deportees.
For Moniz, who was born in the United States and grew up in Falmouth, Mass., within a community of Portuguese Americans, the research is something he can easily identify with.
The deportees are divided between two countries and two identities. Sometimes growing up as a Portuguese American made him feel like he did not belong to either country as well, he said.
"I have a closeness of life experience they can relate to ... of course I can go back," said Moniz.