I have just finished reading "Dark Stones" by Dias de Melo. I am currently reading "Home is an Island by Alfred Lewis and both of these books have given me more understanding of what life was like for those that lived in the Azore Islands at the time my grandparents (and before their time) came to the USA. Because I lived in their home and listened to the stores told about their life before they immigrated, I thought I had a pretty clear picture of what that life was like. In 1989, I visited the continent where my grandfather was born and the village where was born where they received electricity in 1980. I saw things I had no idea existed; and, things were more "modern" than when my grandfather lived there. Although Terceira is more updated (I think the airbase has made for that change), from my first trip to Porto Judeu where my grandmother was born in 1999 and subsequent visits until 2009, I still saw bread being baked in what looked like a fireplace behind a house and stayed in hotels that had no heat in the rooms. In the winter of 2003, I thought I would freeze. The temperature was about what we have here in Hayward; however, with no heat in the room, tile floors, and cement walls, I truly got a feel for what my ancestors felt in their little villages with few things we take for granted. These 2 books have given me a sense of what the poor had to put up with. I got the feeling that if one person had 2 trees in a certain orchard, they felt superior to someone who had no trees. If a child learned to read, he was looked upon as someone who was "showing off;" and, there have always been bullies who taunted those who tried to better themselves. Celeste, Hayward, CA Celeste Perry [email protected]
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