Immigration and São Paulo
São Paulo is a city built on immigrants; largely due to new arrivals, São Paulo’s population grew a hundred-fold in 75 years to make it the country’s second-largest city by 1950. Besides sheer numbers, the mass influx of people had a tremendous impact on the character of the city, breaking up the existing social stratification and removing economic and political power from the traditional elite groups at a much earlier stage than in other Brazilian cities.
Although there had been attempts at introducing Prussian share-croppers in the 1840s, mass immigration didn’t begin until the late 1870s. Initially, conditions were appalling upon arrival; many immigrants succumbed to malaria or yellow fever while waiting in Santos to be transferred inland, where they were to work on the coffee plantations. In response to criticisms, the government opened the Hospedaria dos Imigrantes in 1887, a hostel in the eastern suburb of Brás, now converted to a museum (see São Bento).
Immigration to São Paulo is most closely associated with the Italians, who constituted 46 percent of all arrivals between 1887 and 1930. In general, soon after arriving in Brazil they would be transported to a plantation, but most slipped away within a year to seek employment in the city or to continue on south to Argentina. The rapidly expanding factories in the districts of Brás, Moóca and Belém, east of the city centre, were desperately short of labour, and well into the twentieth century the population of these bairros was largely Italian. But it is Bela Vista (or, in popular parlance, Bixiga ) where the Italian influence has been most enduring, as catalogued in the Museu Memória do Bixiga. Originally home to freed slaves, Bela Vista had by the early 1900s established itself as São Paulo’s “Little Italy”. As immigration from Italy began to slow in the late 1890s, arrivals from other countries increased. From 1901 to 1930 Spaniards (especially Galicians) made up 22 percent, and Portuguese 23 percent, of immigrants, but their language allowed them to assimilate very quickly. Only Tatuapé developed into a largely Portuguese bairro.
The first 830 Japanese immigrants arrived in 1908 in Santos, from where they were sent on to the coffee plantations. By the mid-1950s a quarter of a million Japanese had emigrated to Brazil, most of them settling in São Paulo state. Unlike other nationalities, the rate of return migration among them has always been small: many chose to remain in agriculture, often as market gardeners, at the end of their contract. The city’s large Japanese community is centred on Liberdade, a bairro just south of the Praça da Sé and home to the excellent Museu da Imigração Japonesa.
São Paulo’s Arab community is also substantial. Arabs started arriving in the early twentieth century from Syria and Lebanon and, because they originally travelled on Turkish passports, are still commonly referred to as turcos. Typically starting out as itinerant traders, the community was soon associated with small shops, and many Arabs become extremely successful in business. Numerous boutiques in the city’s wealthy bairros are Arab-owned, but it’s in the streets around Rua 25 de Março, north of Praça da Sé, that the community is concentrated.
The Jewish community has prospered in São Paulo, too. Mainly of East European origin, many of the city’s Jews started out as roaming pedlars before settling in Bom Retiro, a bairro near Luz train station. As they became richer, they moved to the suburbs to the south of the city, in particular to Higienópolis, but some of the businesses in the streets around Rua Correia de Melo are still Jewish-owned and there’s a synagogue in the area. As the Jews moved out, Greeks started moving in during the 1960s, followed in larger numbers by Koreans. The area has long been known as a centre of the rag trade and in the Korean-owned sweatshops the latest immigrant arrivals – Bolivians and Chinese – are employed, often illegally and amid appalling work conditions.
The São Paulo Bienal
The São Paulo Bienal (w www.bienalsaopaulo.globo.com) has been held in the Parque do Ibirapuera every two years since 1951. It’s widely considered to be the most important exhibition of contemporary visual art in Latin America and is only rivalled in the world by the similar event held in Venice. Each country sponsors work by its most influential contemporary artists, while a select few artists (living or dead) are also chosen by the Bienal’s curators. At best, the Bienal can be an exhilarating venue to see important retrospectives and experience a wealth of innovative art, but at worst it can be little more than an embarrassing – or amusing – showing of fourth-rate global art. The Bienal is now held in October and November in even-numbered years.
Around São Paulo
What only a few years ago were clearly identifiable small towns or villages are today part of Greater São Paulo. Despite the traffic, however, escaping from the city centre is surprisingly easy, and there are even some points on the coast that can make for good excursions (see Santos).
Paranapiacaba
For most of its history, communications from São Paulo to the outside world were slow and difficult. In 1856 the British-owned São Paulo Railway Company was awarded the concession to operate a rail line between Santos and Jundaí, 70km north of São Paulo city, in what was then a developing coffee-growing region. The 139-kilometre line was completed in 1867, remaining under British control until 1947. Overcoming the near-vertical incline of the Serra do Mar that separates the interior of the state from the coast, the line was an engineering miracle and is gradually being restored.
Paranapiacaba, 40km southeast of São Paulo and the last station before the rack railway plunges down the coastal escarpment, was the administrative and engineering centre for the rail line and at one time home to four thousand workers, many of them British. Neatly laid out in the 1890s in a grid pattern, the village has remained largely unchanged over the years. All that remains of the original train station is the clock tower, said to be a replica of London’s Big Ben, but the workers’ cottages, locomotive sheds (which house old British-built carriages and steam engines) and funicular cable station are in an excellent state of preservation; some are even open to the public. On a hilltop overlooking the village you’ll find the wooden Victorian-style Castelinho; once the residence of the chief engineer, today the building houses the Centro Preservação da História de Paranapiacaba, which displays old maps and photographs of the rail line’s early years.
You don’t have to be a railway buff to appreciate Paranapiacaba, however. The village is set amidst one of the best preserved areas of Mata Atlântica in the country and most visitors use it as a starting place for fairly serious hikes into the thickly forested Parque Estadual da Serra do Mar, notable for its amazing orchids and bromeliads. Employing a guide is strongly advised as trails are unmarked, often very narrow and generally hard going, and poisonous snakes are common. There’s an office of the association of licensed guides as you enter the settlement from the station; expect to pay around R$60 for a day and bring food, drink and sturdy footwear. The weather in this region is particularly unreliable but, as a general rule, if it’s cloudy in São Paulo you can count on there being rain in Paranapiacaba.
Getting to Paranapiacaba is easy. Take a train from São Paulo’s Luz station to Rio Grande da Serra (every 15min; 45min; R$2.50), where, if you’re lucky, there’ll be a connecting service continuing the two stops to Paranapiacaba. If there’s no train, take a bus from outside the station (R$2.40), or a taxi (about R$15). Most visitors return to São Paulo the same day, but guides can point you towards villagers who charge around R$25 per person for simple bed-and-breakfast accommodation.
Avoiding trouble in São Paulo
Assaults and robberies are favourite topics of conversation amongst paulistanos, with the city’s crime statistics consistently higher than those of Rio. Nevertheless, by using a little common sense you’re unlikely to encounter problems. With such a mixture of people in São Paulo, you’re far less likely to be assumed to be a foreigner than in most parts of Brazil, and therefore won’t make such an obvious target for pickpockets and other petty thieves.
At night, pay particular attention around the central red-light district of Luz, location of the city’s main train stations and – though not as bad – around Praça da República. Also take care late at night in Bixiga (also known as Bela Vista), or if you venture into Praça Roosevelt. Always carry at least some money in an immediately accessible place so that, if you are accosted by a mugger, you can quickly hand something over before he starts getting angry or panicky. If in any doubt at all about visiting an area you don’t know, don’t hesitate to take a taxi.