AN IMMIGRANT STORY

 My name is Victor Vieira, and I was only eight when my family and I left Portugal where I came from. After the War there was nothing left for us, only poverty and the shadows of death every where. In a cold early morning of 1946 we travelled by ship from Portugal to Argentina, a strange and totally unknown country for us, but safer. My father told us that it would be tough for us to re-build all our lives but it would be worthy.

 Once we arrive here in Argentina my father started to work in a greengrocery market that let us stay there at night because we did not have a place to stay. We all stayed together until I decided to look for a job and help my family. I was a little boy then, but I was very clever and selfconfident and I knew I could get a job and so I did. My first job was in a factory in Avellaneda, where I had to organise some boxes. It was not much but it helped me to feel useful and help my family too. As nobody understood my language I had to communicate by body language. It was helpful at first, actuallly, but I was forced to learn Spanish because I needed it desperatly.

 So little by little I built my life here in a generous country and almost forgot everything about Portugal. It was not easy but it was not impopssible either. I am in my seventies now and my whole story is here in Argentina.