técnica
Director: Diniz Borges
Editorial Board: Linda carvalho-Cooley; Eugénia Fernandes, Emiliana Silva and Micahel DeMattos
Advisory Board: Onésimo Almeida, Duarte Silva, Teresa Martins Marques, Renato Alvim, Debbie Ávla, Manuel Costa Fontes, Vamberto Freitas, Irene M. F. Balyer and Lélia Pereira Nunes
Designer: Humberto Ventura - www.illustratetheweb.com
director
This issue of filaments is a solemn tribute to the irreplaceable Anthony Barcellos, a towering figure in contemporary Portuguese-American literature, who departed from us on June 27, 2024. His absence has not only left a profound void in Azorean-American writing, but also a palpable sense of loss in our hearts. The lossof Anthony Barcellos is not just a loss, its a deep and profound grief that we all share. Those of us who were fortunate enough to share moments with him, as I did,are deeply grieved. We mourn the loss of a dear friend.
In this issue, we highlight some of Anthonys most profound texts, from an insightful interview by the poet Millicent Borges Accardi to a compelling piece by the translator Katharine Baker to a thought-provoking essay by the literary critic Vamberto Freitas. We also present two poignant poems by RoseAngelina Baptista and Sam Pereira and some of Anthonys own texts. For an author of his caliber, the best tribute is always to immerse ourselves in their work.
As I have already said, I had the pleasure of meeting and spending time with Anthony Barcellos, who, this summer, 2024, would have been interviewed by our oral history program for a documentary that will be released in 2025 about creativity in the Portuguese-American community along the 99 Corridor of the Central Valley –we will use excerpts from an earlier
interview I did with him for another project, for I had the pleasure of interviewing him for a television program I had for 30 years, The Portuguese in the Valley on KNXT-Channel 49 in Fresno. Anthony Barcellos was also the writer of the year, chosen by the students of the SOPAS (Society of PortugueseAmericanStudents)studentassociationof TulareHighSchoolswhenthisassociation heldthepubliceventintheTulareUnions large auditorium, MVPA (Most Valuable Portuguese-Americans). His influenceon thecommunityandstudentsissignificant; itsasourceofinspirationandmotivation forallofus.
AnthonyBarcellosinfecteduswithhisjoy, positiveenergy,loveofthearts,dedication to teaching, magnificent writing, and link to his Azorean ancestry and experiences beyondthearchipelago.Hewastheauthor oftheexcellentnovel LandofMilkand Money, which is being translated into Portuguese. He is represented in several anthologies and left us the manuscript of a second novel in the possession of his brother,ourfriendTomBarcellos.
We hope to print a special edition of Filamentos duringPortugueseEmigrant Weekinthespringof2025. Itwillinclude theseandothertextsdedicatedtoAnthony and excerpts from his work. PBBI-Fresno State extends our heartfelt condolences to his entire family: his sister Mary and his brothers Tom and Eric, numerous nephews, nieces, and hisbeautiful and amazing mom,Mary Barcellos.
As the poet Sam Pereira wrote on social media: atéàfesta,DearAnthony.
Linktointerview: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=vr4hBHxE7G8
Esta edição de filamentos homenageia uma das vozes mais conhecidas na literatura contemporânea luso-americana, Anthony Barcellos, que infelizmente nos deixou a 27 de junho de 2024. A escrita açoramericana ficou muito mais pobre. E quem teve o privilégio de conviver com ele, como felizmente tive, ficamos profundamente tristes. Perdemos um grande amigo.
Nesta edição destacamos alguns textos sobre Anthony, desde uma excelenteentrevista da poeta Millicent Borges Accardi, a um texto da tradutora Katharine Baker, a um magnífico ensaio do crítico literário Vamberto Freitas. Contamos com dois poemas: RoseAngelina Baptista e Sam Pereira, assim como alguns textos do próprio Anthony, porque a melhor forma de se prestar homenagem a um autor será sempre, lendo a sua obra.
Como já o disse, tive o prazer de conhecer e de conviver com Anthony Barcellos, que neste verão de 2024 seria entrevistado pelo nosso programa de histórias orais para um documentário que será lançando em 2025 sobre a criatividade na comunidade do Vale de São Joaquim. Tive o prazer de o entrevistar para um programa de televisão que tive durante 30 anos, Os Portugueses No Vale (excertos do qual contamos usar no documentário).
Anthony Barcellos foi ainda o escritor do ano, escolhido pelos alunos da associação estudantil SOPAS (Society of Portuguese-American Students) das escolas secundárias de Tulare, quando esta associação fazia o evento público no grande auditório da Tulare Union, MVPA (Most Valuable Portuguese-Americans).
sua magnifica escrita e o seu elo à sua ascendência açoriana e às vivências açorianas além-arquipélago. Foi autor do excelente romance Land of Milk and Money, o qual está em vias de ser traduzido para português, e ainda bem. Está representado em várias antologias, e deixou-nos o manuscrito de um segundo romance que está na posse do seu irmão, onosso amigo Tom Barcellos.
Na primavera de 2025, na semana do emigranteportuguês,contamosteruma edição especial dos filamentos,a qual será impressa, e na qual teremos estes e outros textos dedicados ao Anthony e outrosexcertosdasuaobra.
Enviamos os nossos pêsames a toda a família, De uma forma muito especial à sua estimada mãe, Mary Barcellos
Como escreveu o poeta Sam Pereira nas redessocais: atéàfesta,CaroAnthony.
Anthony Barcellos contagiava-nos com a sua alegria, a sua energia positiva, o seu amor às artes, a sua dedicação ao ensino, a
Vamberto Freitas
“Parecia-lhe um pouco estranho estar a atravessar aquele pátio da herdade. Paul tinha caminhado inúmeras vezes por este mesmo corredor entre a casa dos pais e a dos avós, mas agora começava a sentir-se um pouco como um estrangeiro.”
Anthony Barcellos, Land of Milk and Money
O título deste meu texto tem a sua estranha razão de ser. Quando atravessei a América de carro rumo a Boston e depois aos Açores, a minha matrícula californiana levantava cada vez mais curiosidade à maneira que se afastava das suas origens. Numa estação de serviço, já na costa leste, um indivíduo não resistiu, depois de a olhar com visível admiração: So you’re coming from God’s country!/ Então vens do país de Deus! Não estaria eu então inteiramente de acordo, mas isso teria a ver com o meu estado de espírito na mudança radical que fazia da Califórnia no regresso definitivo à minha terra natal – negação temporária do pai para melhor amar a mãe? Poderia ser, mas com a passagem do tempo aproximo-me cada vez mais à opinião do meu desconhecido interlocutor. Os paradoxos são assim: a minha aversão ao capitalismo que por aquelas bandas tinha sido levado às últimas consequências não anulava de modo nenhum o sentido de liberdade (uma coisa é precisamente a que leva à outra, gritar-me-iam de novo os neoconservadores, como se eu estivesse ainda disposto a ouvi-los, que os seus
estilos de vida e as suas paisagens, que vão do deserto à fantasmagórica costa que as serpenteia, entre o exuberante verde das montanhas e o azul cristal do mar, o estado de norte a sul. Tudo isto tem agora a ver com a minha leitura do romance de Anthony Barcellos, Land of Milk and Money, uma magnífica e extensa tirada artística à chegada ao Novo Mundo, de mãos vazias, e depois ao triunfo e queda de gente açoriana que, sem falar uma palavra de inglês ou entender a cultura muito própria onde se havia metido, construíram ao longo de todo o vasto Vale de São Joaquim alguns dos mais sólidos impérios agrícolas, que a terceira geração, já quase inteiramente americanizada, se encarregaria de refazer, pela vontade de usufruir de outros modos de vida, tudo o que os velhos imigrantes lhes tinham dado literalmente de mão beijada. Land of Milk and Money (ojogo de palavras tem a ver, como sabem, com a bíblica expressão Land of Milk and Honey, a terra prometida) tem essa qualidade dos grandes romances: na fluência das suas múltiplas linguagens e vozes, contém em si a ironia e o humor com que se olha para o mundo dos outros, que também é o do protagonista, aqui de nome Paul Francisco, este que tudo admira e castiga numa narrativa que nos transporta a fins do século dezanove até 2006. Assim, a história de uma família transfigura-se na história de todo um povo diaspórico, e especificamente californiano – o nosso.
Land of Milk and Money está estruturado em vários tempos, quase como num diário redigido à posteriori por meses e anos, o leitor recuando e avançando na narrativa enquanto decorre em tribunal – a trama principal do romance –a disputa de um testamento entre as famílias Francisco e Salazar. Após a morte da matriarca açoriana Teresa Maria Francisco (nascida e emigrada, tal como
oseu falecido marido Paulo Cândido, da freguesia terceirense de São Bartolomeu) está tudo em causa, desde terras a vacas leiteiras às respetivas alfaias. Não será necessário repetir em detalhe que não se trata de um romance sobre isso tudo,. antes é um retrato universal da ganância e amores fingidos, quase, uma vez mais, uma retomada bíblica dos mais velhos temas humanos, irmãos contra irmãos, clã contra clã: nada como as partilhas de propriedade e dinheiro para manifestar todo o nosso veneno, inveja e, uma vez mais, a ganância que comanda o mundo de negócios e prosperidade. Este é um primeiro romance que mais parece o da maturidade escritural do seu autor: em cada breve frase meramente descritiva sobressai o interiorismo de cada personagem, praticamente todas elas aqui açorianas ou descendentes, permitindo ao leitor assimilá-las e recordá-las, nunca mais as esquecendo, e esperando já de cada uma delas certas reações aos acontecimentos que vão decorrendo na Justiça e no dia a dia.
O quotidiano da vida numa dessas leitarias: filhos e netos que se dedicam com bravura gostosa às suas ritualísticas tarefas, em que um trator no cultivo ou colheita vira brinquedo nas suas mãos, mulheres que raramente negam aos seus homens toda e qualquer colaboração (estamos aquém do feminismo, que tudo mudaria mais tarde, mas no lado de fora destas fazendas, apelidados pelos que aqui pululam, mesmo os já lá nascidos, de “americanos”), advogados também da nossa descendência que de tudo isto percebem, e alguns colegas anglo-americanos que simplesmente abanam a cabeça ante a estranheza de herdeiros e a génese heróica da sua riqueza. Por outro lado, o narrador em terceira pessoa, vai aludindo a mais mundo nas redondezas, não deixando.
que esqueçamos que esta estória está perfeitamente inserida na terra que os imigrantes criaram e desenvolveram como resultado de políticas longínquas, como o New Deal de Roosevelt. Toda a ambiguidade da postura da nossa gente na sua outra pátria, quase uma hiperprotegida bolha socioeconómica rodeada de gente desconhecida por todos os lados, é extraída destes outros pormenores fulminantemente expressos. Steinbeck, que primeiro do que todos ficcionou a dinâmica da ruralidade mecanizada da Califórnia, não desdenharia, muito pelo contrário, desta narrativa de Anthony
Barcellos – provavelmente viria nela o seguimento por outras palavras e formas do que ele próprio tinha fundado na literatura daquelas proveniências. O desfecho testamentário em tribunal, como todo o processo, é verdadeiramente hilariante, e Land of Milk and Money encerra com uma gargalhada que tudo significa: a continuidade e a inevitável rotura do nosso passado e presente, ficando o resto em aberto, a família agora dividida entre os que “ficam” e o sinal dado pelo protagonista Paul, que tudo abandona, e torna-se professor universitário.
O narrador omnisciente elege Paulo Francisco, o neto mais criativamente rebelde dos fundadores da herdade em causa, para que seja ele os olhos e ouvidos de todo o clã, dada a sua acutilância
de observador e sabedoria-outra. É com ele que vamos sendo apresentados às famílias em disputa, e a todo o seu percurso histórico. Paul é como que o dissidente entre tudo e todos. Opta desde a infância pelos livros e pela solidão, levando-o eventualmente a uma carreira longedassuasorigens.
A uma avó das ilhas que o queria padre católico, ele resiste sempre, sem nunca negar o amor e a admiração que cultiva por estes pioneiros que um dia chegaram aos vastos e ricos espaços no interior do Central Valley californiano. Olha com saudadeparaoseupassado,maspertence já a outra América, tendo partido de uma infância em que o português aprendido emcasadosavóseraaindaasuaprimeira língua quando começa na escola primária de nome Pleasant Hill (“Hill” é o nome fIctício no romance) Elementary School. Um dia destes explico porque menciono com todas as letras esta escola nos arredores da cidade que ainda respira nostalgia dos anos 40-50, Porterville. Como um dia explicarei como e quando eu conheci um autor de nome Anthony Barcellos, doutorado em matemática, professor universitário no estado da suanascença, ex-assessor político e técnico nos corredores do poder em Sacramento, autor ainda de outros livros sobre cálculo e“mistérios”damatemática.
Land Of Milk And Money (2012) recenseei de imediato a sua grande ficção. Até hoje. O seu falecimento a 27 de Junho deste ano, por doença súbita, levou-me às lágrimas e despertou-me toda as memórias de uma criança perdida num país estranho e sem saber uma única palavra na língua inglesa. Tom, um dos seus irmãos, e Mary, a sua irmã, dizem-me que ele nunca me tinha esquecido. Choro a sua partida aos 73 anos de idade. We shall be together, Anthony, one of these days or years. Your great novel will be translated into Portuguese and published here in the Azores. It will be my lasting tribute to you.
Anthony Barcellos, Land of Milk and Money, Dartmouth, Massachusetts, Tagus Press, University Press of New England, 2012.
As traduções aqui são da minha responsabilidade
Anthony Barcellos foi o meu primeiro e grande amigo quando aos 13 anos de idade cheguei com a minha família a Porterville, no Vale de São Joaquim, na Califórnia. Foi ele que me deu a mão em apoiototal,desde saberemqueautocarroamarelo teria de ir para a Pleasant View Elementary School, rodeada de campos e fazendas ou vacarias por todos lados. Durante décadasosnossosdestinosforam outros. Quando ele publica o romance
Katharine F. Baker
1979-81: Fellowship as legislative aide to StateSenatorAlbertRodda
1981-87: StafferonStateTreasurer Jesse Unruh’sFinanceCommission
1987-2024: Mathematics professor, AmericanRiverCollege
1992: Published Calculus and Analytic Geometry,w/ShermanStein
Like the sisal-fiber treehouse in his family’s backyard acanthus tree – which in the Preface to his novel Land of Milk and Money (p. xiii) Anthony Barcellos recounted having fashioned in childhood from the family dairy farm’s leftover haybale twine that he salvaged and wove – I am opening this tribute with a basic framework of his biography, then filling it in with illustrative vignettes, some even in hisownwords.
1951: FirstchildofMaryBorgesBarcellos andAntónioRochaBarcellos
1956: Began school, switched from speakingPortuguesetoEnglish
1969: Graduated with honors, Porterville HighSchool
1971: A.A., Porterville College, Scholar of theYear
1973: B.S. in Mathematics, California InstituteofTechnology(Caltech)
1974: M.S. in Mathematics, California StateUniversity-Fresno
1974: Began Ph.D., University of California-Davis
1978: AAAS science reporting intern, AlbuquerqueJournal
1996: Voted Instructor of the Year by AmericanRiverCollegestudents
2005: Ph.D. in Mathematics Education, UniversityofCalifornia-Davis
2009: August, drafted novel Dear Dairy in20days
2012: Novel published as Land of MilkandMoney
2014: Received American River College’s PatronsChairAward
2015: Published A Stroll Through Calculus
2024: Died June 27 of complications followingastroke
Anthony Barcellos and I met virtually in 2010, after I found a Google Cached listing of Álamo Oliveira’s novel I No Longer Like Chocolates (which I had co-translated) on his anonymous blog’s “What I’m reading” list. When I saw that Katherine Vaz’s latest short story collection was among the three other books featured, it prompted me to prowl the site further to see if, like Vaz and me, the blogger had any Azorean ancestry. I was also intrigued by the blogger’s mention of having authored a family history-inspired roman à clef
that was currently under consideration by a publisher. Scarcely an hour after I sent an email to the blog’s email address introducing myself, I received a warm reply that read in part:
Oliveira’s novel was not a cheery reading experience, the author capturing as he did the regrets and disappointments of a man’s long and bitter life. There are people like that in my own family. It was fascinating, though, to recognize the locale and to nod my head at the snatches of Americanized Portuguese vocabulary. As a translator, you have clearly eclipsed my meager abilities in the language of our mutual heritage, even though it is a language I have heard from birth. Congratulations
My mystery blogger identified himself as Anthony Barcellos, a Mathematics professoratAmericanRiverCollege[ARC] in Sacramento, who was originally from a dairyfarminTulareCounty(whereagood deal of I No Longer Like Chocolates is set). I would later learn that he had at times served as department chair, a member of the academic senate, and chair of major college committees at ARC. Besides the draft of his novel, he had written math textbooks, as well as articles on computer technology. Earlier, he had interviewed several renowned mathematicians, and his 1984 “The Fractal Geometry of Mandelbrot” was honored with two prestigiousexpositorywritingawards.
In addition to his long, distinguished academic career, and his work in journalism and state government, Tony was in later years a freelance classical music reporter for the Sacramento Bee newspaper. The facts that I was of halfAzorean ancestry with deep roots in California, had been a Music major with
a Math minor in college, and that my husband was an academic would prove to be only the first few in a series of coincidences.
I mentioned my work translating the novel Sorriso por Dentro da Noite by Azorean scholar and author Adelaide Freitas, who with her husband Vamberto was a friend of Tulare’s Diniz Borges. An astonished Tony replied, “Vamberto and I were 8th graders together at Pleasant View Elementary [in Porterville]. He had a minimum of English at the time and Mr. Snow, the 8th grade teacher, sat him next to me so that I could serve as translator. The world is indeed a small place.”
EarlyoninourcorrespondenceImentioned my work translating the novel Sorrisopor Dentro da Noite by Azorean scholar and author Adelaide Freitas, who with her husband Vamberto was a friend of Tulare’s Diniz Borges. An astonished Tony replied, “Vamberto and I were 8th graders together at Pleasant View Elementary [in Porterville]. He had a minimum of English at the time and Mr. Snow, the 8th grade teacher, sat him next to me so that I could serve as translator. The world is indeed a small place.”
Tonyaddedthataftertheschoolyearended he heard no further of Vamberto – until I reportedthathehadreturnedtotheAzores decades later to teach at its university, and was a prominent literary scholar. I provided Tony with Vamberto’s email address, and he got in touch. No doubt
Mr.Snowwould be gratified to know that both students grew up to become successful in academia and literature, and that after so many miles and decades they had reconnected. Some of the Barcelloses had long urged Tony to compile a book of treasured family tales, so in twenty days flat in summer of 2009 he tapped out a first draft, framing it as a novel instead of nonfiction, however. In his 2010 holiday form letter to family andfriends,hedescribeditas:
...a multi-generational story involving an immigrant family from the Azores as they build up a dairy farm in Tulare county. Does that sound familiar? Writers are encouraged to “write what you know,” so my novel tells a bunch of family stories in fictionalized form. Family members and friends will recognize some of the incidents, but I was not an omniscient observer who could write a “true story” version. Therefore I made up names and episodes to try to create a coherent and entertaining tale.
In the synopsis he later wrote for the novel’s website, Tony elaborated:
Land of Milk and Money is the story of the Francisco family, Portuguese immigrantsfromtheAzoreswhosettle onadairyfarminCalifornia’sCentral Valley. Their plans to eventually return to the Old Country fall by the wayside as their success grows and their American lives take root. The legacy of one generation becomes a point of contention as the members of the next generation begin to compete to inherit and control their heritage, which includes herds of cattle and tractsoffarmland.
the family’s matriarch, sets off a string of battles (both personal and legal) between brothers, spouses, in-laws, and cousins. A courtroom confrontation over Teresa’s will is at center stage as the contending factions discover that the old lady had plans of her own for securing her legacy.
In response to an inquiry from a distant cousin of mine about the characters’ names, Tony explained that he “chose Francisco as the family name in part to avoid more common names. But it was alsoawaytomemorializemygrandfather, the model for Chico, whose firstname was Francisco. Also, Peter Francisco is recordedinhistoryasagreatPortugueseAmerican patriot in the time of the RevolutionaryWar.Really."
The publisher considering the novel, then titled Dear Dairy – a pun on the expression “Dear Diary” – was Tagus Press. Tony was pleased with the English professor Tagus assigned to edit his manuscript, Richard Larschan of the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, and in an email to me praised their collaboration, which ultimately resulted in Land of Milk and Money. Tony said that Dr. Larschan “gave me several suggestions, most of which I accepted. I clearly had leeway on interpreting his recommendations, which he was good enough to supply with reasons – instead of just issuing orders on what I should do. I never felt like I was being bullied or gettingarbitraryinstructions.”
The death of Teresa Francisco,
One chapter Dr. Larschan asked Tony to cut, as it failed to advance the novel’s central plot, was “The Voyage to Brazil,” the account of a great-great-grandfather whointhe1860stookhisfamilyfromthe Azores “to seek his fortune, and proved his mettle during an emergency at sea.”
It was later included in Writers of the Portuguese Diaspora in the United States andCanada
Once the novel’s manuscript was completed, Tony and I began what would become a custom of often reviewing each other’s major writings; I spotted a few typos still lurking in the novel’s page proofs. He in turn was always eagle-eyed in pursuit of my errors, for which I was grateful, given my mediocre typing. He would also offer insightful observations aboutmyearlydrafts.
Land of Milk and Money was published in 2012. Tagus Press’s Dr. Frank Sousa arranged for Tony to fly to Massachusetts in late March 2013 for presentations of the novel – and since his arrival coincided with the day my husband John and I were returning from the Azores, the three of us planned to meet for dinner that evening. As Tony was wont to say, what could go wrong? Well, he was scheduled to arrive hours before us, so after John and I checked in at the hotel, I asked to call Tony’s room – except he had not checked inyet;theclerkletmeleaveamessage.
Poor Tony! He had gotten up at the uncivilized hour of 3 a.m. – too early even for the dairy farm boy he originally had been – in order to drive to the Sacramento airport to catch the first leg of his journey, a 6 a.m. non-stop to Chicago. However, when the co-pilot did not appear the airline had to locate a back-up, making passengers wait hours until one flew in from Chicago. Once he landed, they finally proceeded, but the airline had to put Tony on a later flight to Boston. Tony reached the hotel around 9 PM ET, tired and hungry; so were we, albeit due only to jet-lag. We met at the hotel’s less costly eatery for a late supper and a couple hours ofconversation,whichwecouldnothave
imagined then being the only time we would ever meet in person.
The next morning Dr. Sousa picked Tony up for what would be the first of some two dozen presentations over the next year. In his December holiday letter, Tony recounted part of his visit:
[My] UMass-Lowell appearance would coincide with its inaugural event for the new Saab-Pedroso Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture, and my talk was being packaged as the keynote address. An overflow crowd of nearly two hundred people listened to me recount anecdotes concerning my family’s Azorean immigrant heritage and applauded readings from Land of Milk and Money. (Good thing stage fright is foreign to me.) The audience included two university chancellors, an elected state representative, the Bostonbased consul general for Portugal, and three Barcellos cousins I had never met before.
Tony’s successful book presentations led to a growing demand for him as a speaker at other Luso-American gatherings around northern and central California as well. As areaderataKaleSoupfortheSoulliterary event in San Jose in 2014, he met my friend Helen Cunha Kerner, a discerning and voracious bibliophile – and was floored when she admitted to having been so engrossed in Land of Milk and Money that she read it in just two days. After their meeting, she sent us both photos she had snapped of him there. This summer, upon learning that Tony had died, Helen reminded me of the saying, “There is no agefordeath.”
One tradition of book-publishing is the back-cover blurb, so Land of Milk and Money features no less than four
– by Gerald Haslam (of ⅛ Portuguese ancestry), author of The Great Central Valley; John Lescroart, author of The Hunter; University of San Francisco professor and author of Move Over, Scopes and The Gunnysack Castle Julian Silva; and Sacramento Bee book reviewer emeritus Max Norris – plus tongue-incheek advice from Tony’s sister Mary, referring to his thinly fictionalized family stories:“I’mafraidyou’regoingtogetinto alotoftrouble.”
So I was grateful when years later Tony consentedtoprovidetheback-coverblurb for the translation I led of Smiling in the Darkness (originally Sorriso por Dentro daNoite):
Many people of Portuguese descent take pride in claiming that the word saudade is untranslatable. In reality, we come close with a melding of bittersweet nostalgia, bone-deep longing, and an endless yearning for what one can never have again – or indeed may never have had. Adelaide Freitas dipped her pen in saudade to tell of family separation and bonds that never loosen. In her authentic Azorean voice, she recounts the immigrant experience and centrifugal impulses that force people apart in spiteoftheirdesperationtoclingto one another. In their sensitive rendering, the translators have captured the nuances of Freitas’s novel Smiling in the Darkness, with special care for those who have her native language intheirheritage andheartfelt saudade foritsloss. Tony had another impact on this novel: when my first co-translator was unable to continue due to health issues, Tony recommended Dr. Reinaldo F. Silva, an American-educated professor at
the University of Aveiro in Portugal, whom he had met online through Dr. Silva’s scholarly literary treatises on the authenticity and significance of Land of Milk and Money. Although Tony never met Reinaldo, John and I eventually did at a conference on the island of Santa Maria in the Azores, and we have remained in touch ever since.
Smiling in the Darkness had the random misfortune to be scheduled for publication in 2020, when the onset of the Covid pandemic precluded in-person presentations. Tagus Press instead held a virtual book launch via Zoom featuring, besides Tony, speakers Mário Pereira of Tagus’s Bellis Azorica series (under whose aegis the translation was published) and Azor-American author Katherine Vaz, with Diniz Borges (who had drawn the novel to my attention) as moderator. In his 2020 holiday letter Tony recalled how “Diniz accurately introduced Katherine Vaz as ‘widely published.’ When it came to my turn, I noted that I was ‘narrowly published.’”
A reality of 21st-century book publishing is the need for an electronic media presence promoting the work. In early 2006 a computer scientist friend helped me design and launch a website in support of I No Longer Like Chocolates. Likewise, an old friend of Tony’s from their Sacramento PC Users Group years helped launch a “teaser page” on November 24, 2011, for the upcoming Land of Milk and Money website; he had already created possible covers for Tony’s originally proposed Dear Dairy in 2010.
In his 2011 holiday letter, Tony reported that “the book has a dedicated website, created by Eric Butow of the Butow Communications Group, and a Facebook page.” Butow also coined
the novel’s unofficial subtitle, “Drama! Scheming! Cows!” Tony later noted that besides maintaining the website, Butow provided “some of the promotional selfcongratulatory prose that successful authors are supposed to have on their sites.” He continues updating the site, and later created one for Tony’s next book. Butow recounted the genesis of website’s “whimsicaltheme”:
site even though the technology behind it is badly outdated after twelve years. I updated the website so it reflects Tony’s death and removes all ability to connect with him via e-mail, but the future of the website is uncertain at this time as there won’t be any author appearances or other major updates until the Portuguese translation is released [in a couple of years].
A reality of 21st-century book publishing is the need for an electronic media presence promoting the work. In early 2006 a computer scientist friend helped me design and launch a website in support of I
No Longer Like Chocolates. Likewise, an old friend of Tony’s from their Sacramento PC Users Group years helped launch a “teaser page” on November 24, 2011, for the upcoming Land of Milk and Money website; he had already created possible covers for Tony’s originally proposed Dear Dairyin2010.
In his 2011 holiday letter, Tony reported that “the book has a dedicated website, created by Eric Butow of the Butow Communications Group, and a Facebook page.” Butow also coined the novel’s unofficial subtitle, “Drama! Scheming! Cows!” Tony later noted that besides maintaining the website, Butow provided “some of the promotional selfcongratulatory prose that successful authors are supposed to have on their sites.” He continues updating the site, and later created one for Tony’s next book. Butow recounted the genesis of thr website’s “whimsicaltheme”:
Weagreedthatthebrightcolorscheme invited people to read more about the novel and connect with Tony. It seems to have been a hit and Tony never asked me to update the design of the
Tony took impish delight in Amazon reader comments he deemed absurd. Among his favorites were two about Azor-American books, plus a third that I discovered:
*“I picked up [Land of Milk and Money] because I was interested in Portuguese dairy farming in California [...] I was hoping to learn more about dairy farming...”
*“[Alfred Lewis’ novel 60 Acres and a Barn, about immigrants from Flores who had already settled around Fresno] was OK but I thought it would reflect more on someone coming to this country and adapting to America.”
*“I enjoyed [I No Longer Like Chocolates] very much, although it bothered me somewhat that the author is a resident of the Azores.”
Of course, the internet occasionally giveth rather than taketh away. It was only while conducting research for this article online that I discovered Tony’s writing cited twice for exemplary word usage by the Merriam-Webster dictionary online, so I have no idea whether he was aware of them.
*How to Use abreast in a Sentence: “Check the church’s website to stay abreast of developments.”
–Anthony Barcellos, sacbee, 8 June 2018
*HowtoUse warhorse inaSentence
“The warhorses are coming to town and vonOeyenisreadyforthem.”
– Anthony Barcellos, sacbee, 18 Jan. 2018.
Vamberto Freitas reviewed Landof Milk and Money for the São Miguel newspaper Açoriano Oriental. Although Tony spoke Portuguese as a preschooler, he had not yet learned to read it, so at his request I quickly translated the review (with my Portuguese professor’s help) for him to read, then post on the novel’s website as “California, or God’s Country”: ..JohnSteinbeck,thefirsttofictionalize the dynamism of California’s mechanized countryside, would not have disdained this narrative by Anthony Barcellos; quite to the contrary, he would likely have regarded it as the sequel, with additional words and formulations, to what he had himself established in literature from those same sources... [This is] another great novel of the highly consequential and successful Azorean saga in North America. We ought not wait for the translation of this or other narratives of Portuguese descendants. Behold the great trilogy of Azor-Californian modern life: The Gunnysack Castle by Julian Silva, Saudade by Katherine Vaz – and now, Land of Milk and Money by Anthony Barcellos (Freitas,V.,2015.
In summer 2013 I gave a talk titled “Drama! Scheming! Cows!” at a conference in Indianapolis, comparing and contrasting the novels I No Longer Like Chocolates and Land of Milk and Money, as both are set in Tulare county among multigenerational dairying families from Terceira. Among my topics were different ways that Álamo Oliveira and Tony used figuresof speech and
wordplay. Tony excelled at imagery – be it vivid, snarky, punny, or poignant – so I selected as many of my favorites as could fit on one slide (my emphases are in CAPS]:
*[Mom] Carmina was accustomed to being HER HUSBAND’S REMOTE CONTROL FOR THE REFRIGERATOR and it never occurred to her to resent it. She fished out a cold bottle of Lucky Lager and carried it to the table. (p. 47)
*Teresa Francisco was performing the VOCATIONAL TRIAGE among her grandchildren that Portuguese grandmothers normally practiced. With TEN grandsons among the Francisco and Salazar families thus far, Teresa was looking for the one who might be sacrificed as A TITHE TO THE CHURCH. (p. 67)
*The shadowed peaks of the Sierra Nevada SERRATED the eastern horizon. (p. 68)
*[Grandmother] said that the men would go shopping for a bridal gown. They’d mail the dress back to their parents in the Azores and ask their folks to FILL THE DRESS AND SEND IT BACK.
(p. 119)
*[Cousin Elvino] tolerated Biddy because his [widowed] father was fond of her, but he resented her interference. She rattled about clumsily in the MOM-SHAPED HOLE in their lives. (p. 129)
*The Eighty-Five’s clutch popped, its gears grabbed, THE WORLD JERKED, and the engine roared into life. (p. 186)
My “Drama! Scheming! Cows!” talk inspired me to prepare a Portuguese language version for a conference in the Azores in April 2014 that I No Longer Like Chocolates author Álamo Oliveira wouldbeattending.MyfriendsBettyBispo andJonasWaxman,whohadmetTonyat his San Francisco book presentation in 2013, were already planning a vacation in the Azores then, so joined us at my talk; its Portuguese title was “Drama! Intrigas! Vacas!”
The answer-and-question trivia quiz show Jeopardy! was one of Tony’s and my shared guilty pleasures. Since each episode is televised three hours earlier where I live in the eastern U.S., imagine my dilemma when the April 14, 2017, Final Jeopardy! clue read, “A 2010 study of this country is subtitled ‘Inside the Land of Milk and Money’” – and no, it evidently was not a plant by Tony’s agent (more about him later). The minute the show ended I fired offan email to Tony shouting “DO NOT MISS TONIGHT’S FINAL JEOPARDY! CLUE,” promising “No spoilers here! Hint: I missed it.” After the show aired in Sacramento, Tony replied that he “also got a note from [his novel editor] Richard Larschan. It gave me a good laugh. I’ll have to check to see ifIgotmoretrafficonthe[book’s]website becausepeopleGoogledthephrase.”
Although I have never signed up for the Jeopardy! written test, Tony did (polymath that he was, he would doubtless have aced most categories, except sports). However, he admitted “I didn’t take the online screening test despite seeing the pitch for the professors tournament. It was several years ago when they were doing regional eventsthatIpassedtheinitialwrittentest, but I had to skip the next round because [of a scheduling conflict].” How I would have enjoyed seeing Tony on the Alex
Trebek Stage informing Ken, “I’d like to make it a true Daily Double." In the show’s December 2021 professors’ tournament, the fifteen contestants included ARC History professor Dr. Edward Hashima, who finished second only to future Jeopardy! Master Sam Buttrey. Tony exulted overhiscolleague’ssuccess:
I’ve known Edward for years. He’s the only contestant to qualify from a two-year college. All of the other contenders are from four-year colleges or universities. We’re pretty proud of him. [...] Having the community college professor come in second among the fifteen contestants was still pretty satisfying. He’ll be lionized on campus.
[Ed] seriously kicked butt. The items were not particularly easy. I got over half of them correct, but the last time I bothered to keep track I was getting closer to two-thirds. By the way, I got one of the answers on College Sports correct: the one about Heisman.
The apex of my proofreading career thus far has been checking the page proofs for Tony’s math course book – which in the spirit of surrealist René Magritte he vehemently denied was a textbook (“Ceci n’est pas un manuel scolaire”?) – A Stroll ThroughCalculus:AGuidefortheMerely Curious (or, A ∫troll Through Calculus, as the cover is slyly typeset). Tony chose a less common approach of opening with integrals rather than derivatives; John’s and my respective freshman Calculus with Analytic Geometry courses started withderivatives,andanunscientificemail surveyofoldfriendsyieldedonlytwowho weretaughtintegralsfirst.
The elegance of this approach lies in its simplicity, starting with the formula for the area of a triangle, A = ½ b h (half of the product of the triangle’s base and height, a formula I was taught in seventh grade). After using it to start showing how to calculate the area under equations plotted on a graph with x and y axes, the book then lures readers down the primrose path to derivatives, and before they realize what has hit them, to ageneralsurveyofCalculus.
Although I had not taken Calculus for a half century, while checking the pages I was amazed at how quickly the subject matter returned to me thanks to Tony’s lucid prose and graphics, so I could read for comprehension as well as typographical errors. Lucky thing, too, because I realized one proof late in the book had been placed under the wrong theorem. Tony was relieved to be able to correct the situation, as it prevented a whopper of a typo for the erratum list, always a bane of first editionmathbooks.
them to write an essay in each of his math courses, which he firmly believed helped them view mathematics from a wider perspective, and to be able to express it.
Tony wrote not only his own books but also reviews of others – notably Alvin Ray Graves’s California’s Portuguese Politicians: A Century of Legislative Service, which Tony’s own government experience rendered him especially qualified to assess. Two of his last reviews were of Tony Goulart’s comprehensive history Portuguese Bands of California, 18982023 (2023), and the translation of Joel Neto’s novella Jénifer – or a French Princess (2024). (Full disclosure: I copy-edited Goulart’s book and was co-translator on Jénifer, although Tony would surely have reviewed both volumes even if I had not been connected with them).
After pandemic restrictions were implemented, Tony initially taught his college courses via Zoom. And not being one to let the grass grow beneath his feet, he also took the College of the Sequoias’ online Portuguese 001 course from Diniz Borges, noting that it was “my first formal education in my first language. Most of my classmates had some family connections with Portuguese, but little speaking experience. If only COS also offered 002 in an online format!”
Once Tagus Press issued Tony’s Land of Milk and Money in e-book format, the pandemic necessitated its launch to be held on a webinar instead of in person; it was hosted by Fresno State’s Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute [PBBI]. Since I am a tech Luddite lacking Zoom capability or inclination, Emanuel Melo, a colleague in Toronto, graciously consented to read my presentation (Baker, 2021a), based on part of my 2013 “Drama! Scheming! Cows!” talk.
Tony believed ardently in the intersection of writing and mathematics. Although some of his students bridled, he required
Later, when PBBI hosted a webinar for the seventh international conference of A Voz dos Avós [The Voice of Grandparents], chaired by Dr. Manuela Marujo (Emerita, University
of Toronto), Tony narrated my talk “From Soup to Nuts: How a Family Recipe Drove Me Crazy Searching for My Azorean Roots” for me (Baker, 2021b).
When renowned Brazilian author Jorge Amado died in 2001, my Portuguese professor at the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Bobby J. Chamberlain, told me that while a graduate student at UCLA he had conducted doctoral research in Brazil (thanks to a Fulbright Scholarship), untangling Amado’s literary characters, who were apparently complicated mélanges; he even interviewed Amado for clarification. While it is common for fiction writers to mix-and-match characters’ traits – Álamo Oliveira did so to some extent in I No Longer Like Chocolates –Tony revealed that future scholars of Land of Milk and Money should face no such obstacle, because:
Mom kept a simple list of correspondingnames.Shedidn’t,tomy recollection, annotate it with specific traits, although the traits helped to confirmher identifications:[Cousin] Jojo was the family daredevil... Mom could simply have worked down the family tree printed in the book and attached ‘true’ names to each of the characterssimplyfromtheirsupposed birthyearsandpositionsinthechart
ForreaderscravingmoreoftheFrancisco family saga, there may someday be a second novel – not a sequel (or a pipe?), Tony emphasized, but a parallel work cast as the chronological autobiography of his alter ego – from Paul’s earliest toddler memories until he embarks upon his career as a Math professor in his mid30s following forays into journalism and government.
that he had signed with an “agent [who] wants me to inject more California ‘color’ into my new novel, and is planning to hawkittosomeNew York publishers. He also thinks the movie rights to Land of Milk and Money are marketable.” Tony and the agent later parted ways, although I hope for comic relief’s sake that a thinly veiled version of him shows up in notes Tony might have left as grist for the fiction mill. In any event, he revised and expanded the second novel’s manuscript a number of times during the 2010s, but ultimately any publication decisions about it will presumably fall to hisestate’sexecutor.
In his 2017 holiday letter, Tony offered a possiblecoverblurbforthissecondnovel: A square peg in a family fashioned to fit into traditional round holes, Paul Francisco has to figure out what to do with his life. He grows up in a bubble of Portuguese-speaking Azorean culture in California’s great Central Valley, where the default career involves cows and farming and raising the next generation of agrarians. The one readily accepted alternative is the seminary, a vocation to which no one could possibly object, while fulfilling his grandmother’s fondest dream; but that escape route has its own problems. What is a square peg to do?
Tony reported in his 2015 holiday letter
Tony also contemplated another non-textbook textbook, A Stroll Through Algebra – although I urged him to consider A Stroll Through Statistics instead, given the widespread woeful state of critical thinking skills and general public innumeracy in interpreting data nowadays. He demurred on grounds he had not taught probability and statistics fordecades.
As a fellow opera buff,I am reminded of a likely apocryphal vignette about the première of Puccini’s last opera, Turandot, conducted by Arturo Toscanini. At his death in 1924, Puccini had completed all but the end of the last act, for which he left behind musical sketches. After much controversy, a version finished by another composer debuted in 1926 –duringwhich Toscanini is said to have stopped the performance at the spot in the score where Puccini’s portion of the opera ended, announcing to the audience that here was where the Maestrohadlaiddownhispen.
WhenTony’ssisterorganizedacelebration of their parents’ 70th wedding anniversary in Tipton in January 2020, Tony arranged for an Apostolic Blessing from Pope Francis I. It would be Tony’s last family visit for a long time. When his father died that November, Tony missed the funeral due to the pandemic; vaccines were still under development then, so exposure to the disease at a gathering was too great a risk for him to take. Even after he was vaccinated, he remained concerned about the perils of spreading thevirustoothers.
The last holiday visit Tony made to Porterville was in December 2023, when he saw his widowed mother, all three siblings, and other relatives. His final
day-trip was on May 26, 2024, for the Tiptonfesta;hesentmeaphotoofhimself with his mother and sister – just twelve days before he would be stricken. Tony is survived by his mother Mary, sister Mary Chancellor (Gary), brothers Tom (Felomena) and Eric, many nieces, nephews,andinnumerablefriends.
After retirement from teaching in 2025, Tony was planning to devote more time to writing. He was also excited by news that Vamberto Freitas was arranging for a Portuguese translation of Land of Milk and Money; Professor António Ladeira of the University of Texas-Austin has been chosen, and his translation will introduce Tony’s depiction of Azorean immigrant farm life in California to a wider readership Although Tony was not an avid long-distance traveler, the translation might have afforded him the opportunity to visit his family’s ancestral AzoresonaPortuguesebooktour.
One of the ways Tony arranged for his memory to live on was by endowing scholarships at Porterville College (in memory of calculus professor Clyde Wilcoxon), and at his graduate school alma maters California State UniversityFresnoandUniversityofCalifornia-Davis.
Sad losses: The biggest transition in the family is impossible to fathom by those who have never been through it. The only thing that the rest of us can do is express our helpless sympathies to my Uncle Joe and Aunt Ruth on Mom’s side of the family, who lost two of their children in 2011. Amazingly (and unfairly), my cousins both died of cancer within days of each other. The loss of JoAnn and her brother Larry hit my uncle and aunt impossibly hard. I cannot imagine what the experience was like and hopeyouneversharetheirtragedyor anythinglikeit.
Tony wrote this tribute in his 2011 holiday letter. Coming from a large, close-knit family, he was no stranger to sorrow when loved ones died. In his own case, as Paul Francisco might have observed, his death has left a Tony-shaped hole in his family’s lives – and in all of ours.
Author’s note: Small portions of this article appeared in different form in the July 15, 2024, issue of the Portuguese Tribune. The author gratefully acknowledges the assistance of John J. Baker, Eric Butow and Vamberto Freitas in preparing this manuscript.
Baker, K.F. & Chamberlain, B.J. (2014, Apr. 26). “Drama! Intrigas! Vacas! Comparação de Famílias Multigeracionais de Leiteiros do Século XX, Imigrantes da Ilha Terceira ao Condade de Tulare na Califórnia, nos Romances Land of Milk and Money de Anthony Barcellos & Já Não Gosto de Chocolates de Álamo Oliveira.” Porto Formoso, São Miguel, Azores: Associaçao Internacional dos Colóquios da Lusofonia, pp. 4-6.
https://revistas.lusofonias.net/ suplemento%2028%20alamo%20 oliveira%20II.pdf
Baker, K.F. (2021a, Mar. 23). “Launching the e-book version of Land of Milk and Money, published by Tagus PressSymposium-PBBI.” Fresno, CA.: Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute, California State University-Fresno, 23 Mar 2021. Read by moderator Diniz Borges. Guests Anthony Barcellos & Gene Weisskopf.
https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=TUsT5p81tu4(0:00-17:35) https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=Y5iCVRHgyCU
me crazy searching for my Azorean roots.” Fresno, CA.: Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute, Fresno State University. 7th International Encontro, A Voz dos Avós, 16 Nov 2021.ReadbyAnthonyBarcellos. https://sites.google.com/view/ voiceofgrandparents-conference/speakers www.youtube.com/ watch?v=Qsx4vB54TNY (0:00-23:00)
Baker, K.F. (2024, Jul. 15. “Anthony Barcellos: April 4, 1951 – June 27, 2024. MathProfessor,AuthoroftheLuso-American Novel Land of Milk and Money.” Modesto, CA.:PortugueseTribune,p.21. https://www.portuguesetribune. com/articles/anthony-barcellosapril-4-1951-june-27-2024
Barcellos, A. (2012. Land of Milk and Money.Dartmouth,MA:TagusPress.
Barcellos, A. (2014, Mar. 31. “The Portuguese in Politics” (review of A.R. Graves’ California’s Portuguese Politicians: A Century of Legislative Service). Azores, Portugal:BlogueComunidades. https://acores.rtp.pt/comunidades/ the-portuguese-in-politics-anthonybarcellos
Barcellos, A. (2015a. A Stroll Through Calculus: A Guide for the Merely Curious SolanaBeach,CA.:Cognella,Inc
Barcellos, A. (2015b). “TheVoyagetoBrazil.” In Writers of the Portuguese Diaspora in the United States and Canada: An Anthology, ed. L. Gonçalves & T.C. Matos. Roosevelt, NJ.:BoavistaPress.
Barcellos, A. (2018, Aug. 21. “PortugueseAmerican Literature” (interview). Os Portugueses No Vale, com Diniz Borges. KNXT-TV49/38.
Baker, K.F. (2021b, Nov. 16). “From soup to nuts: How a family recipe drove
https://www.y outube.com/ watch?v=vr4hBHxE7G8&t=2s
Barcellos, A. (2023, Nov. 12. Review of Portuguese Bands of California, 18982023,byT.Goulart. h ttps://www.facebook.com/ anthony.barcellos
Barcellos, A. (2024, Feb.. “Who is the Fairest of Them All? A Reflection on Jénifer, or a French Princess, a novella by Joel Neto.” In Filamentos: Arts and Letters in the Azorean Diaspora 8. Fresno, CA.: Bruma Press & Letras LavadasEdições,pp.33-35.
Borges, D. (2020, Nov. 10. “E-Launch of Smiling in the Darkness.” Authors of the Portuguese/Azorean Diaspora. Fresno, CA.: Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute, California State UniversityFresno. With Katherine Vaz, Anthony Barcellos,EmanuelMelo&MárioPereira. https://www.y outube.com/ watch?v=4zJIaF6pqwc.
Chrystello, C. (2024, Jul. 4. “Land Of Milk And Money vai ser traduzido para Português.” Lomba da Maia, São Miguel, Azores:BlogueLusofonias. https://blog.lusofonias.net/ land-of-milk-and-money-vai-sertraduzido-para-portugues
Freitas, A. (2020. Smiling in the Darkness, trans. K.F. Baker, B.J. Chamberlain, R.F. Silva & E. Melo. Dartmouth,MA.:TagusPress.
Freitas, V. (2015). “California, or God’s Country,” trans. K.F. Baker & B.J. Chamberlain. http://www. l a ndofmil kandmoney .com/ VambertoFreitasReviewLMM-2 012-english.pdf
Jeopardy! (2017, Apr 14). “Final Jeopardy!Round.” https://j-archive.com/showgame. php?game_id=5609
Jeopardy! (2021, Dec. 6-17. “2021 ProfessorsTournament.” https://www.jeopardy .com/ track/2021/professors-tournament Legacy(2024,July21.AnthonyBarcellos Obituary.Porterville,CA.: The Porterville Recorder. https://www.legacy.com/us/ obituaries/recorderonl ine/ name/anthony-barcellosobituary?id=55653597
Merriam-Webster (2019. The MerriamWebster Dictionary. Springfield,MA.: Merriam-Webster,Inc. https://www.merriam-webster. com/sentences/abreast https://www.merriam-webster. com/sentences/warhorse
Oliveira, A. (2006. I No Longer Like Chocolates,trans.D.Borges&K.F.Baker. San Jose, CA.: Portuguese Heritage PublicationsofCalifornia.
RenéMagritteOrg.(n.d.).“TheTreachery of Images, 1929 by Rene Magritte” (‘Ceci n’estpasunepipe’). https://www.renemagritte.org/ the-treachery-of-images.jsp
Silva, J. (2014, Nov. 16. Review of Land of Milk and Money. Azores: Blogue Comunidades. https://acores.rtp.pt/ comunidades/review-by-juliansilva-of-land-of-milk-and-moneyanthony-barcellos
By RoseAngelina Baptista
I Never Said Adeus is a poem in English and Portuguese by poet RoseAngelina Baptista, also the co-curator of the Alfred Lewis Bilingual Poetry Reading Series hosted by PBBI-Fresno State.
ANTHONY BARCELLOS, In memoriam
If something is logical, so, it must exist...
But the word Adeus, is not logical.
What rational preference encouraged you, to live this Sacrament of water that in exactitude is cohesion and flow,
this land of smooth and harsh geometry, this air that supports everything and moves, this heat and cold that runs on a California summer day, with no sun?
At night, when the Valley is calm and the oxen sleep kneeling, where the dawn will appear stained with wine.
You traveled this journey without ever forgetting, like someone bearing on his shoulders an image of the Holy Queen of Life,
When the archangels knocked with the nails, the cross, and the spear, the reed and the sponge; You didn’t hesitate,
In amazement and splendor at that time the Virgin of the Passion, she stood at your side, extending her hand
With what melody and luminous lyrics you joined the silence of the necessary and lucid journey taking love to your last destination?
For me, you will always wake up dreaming in a happy bailado in American fashion
this summer Festa, with the old ones playing guitar, swinging with you Alfred Lewis, Reis Felix, Julian Silva.
I never said Adeus Para Anthony Barcellos
Se uma coisa é lógica, então ela deve existir... Mas a palavra adeus, eis um léxico que não é lógico
Por isso nunca dissestes Adeus.
Que preferência racional te animou a deixar pra trás, em franca paz, esse Sacramento, de água que na exatidão é coesão e fluxo, essa terra de geometria suave e áspera, esse ar que tudo suporta e move, esse calor e frio que corre num dia de verão da Califórnia, sem sol?
The Secure Helper of this spell In this world of mirages.
You left on the day of Our Lady of the Way!
Ausentastes de mansinho pela noite onde no Vale opasto é calmo, e os bois dormem ajoelhados ao incenso do curral.
Ondeamadrugada,tênueviráalva comoleite,essaauroramanchada devinho, quenosordenhaaolevantar.
Quedecisãonatural seguirestodaessajornadasem jamaisesqueceres, denosbrindarteucoerenteriso comoquemcarregaaosombros o andordumaimagem daSantaRainhadaVida, SortilégiodoSocorroseguro Nessemundodemiragens.
Partistes no dia de Nossa Senhora do Caminho!
Quando os arcanjos bateram a tua porta com os cravos, a cruz e lança, a cana e a esponja; Não titubeastes, rendeu-lhes teu Welcome!
De espanto e esplendor naquela hora a Virgem da Paixão pôs-te a teu lado, estendendo-te a mão.
Com que melodia e letras luminosas te unistes ao silêncio da necessária e lúcida viagem a levar ao último destino teu amor, tua única bagagem?
cadeia adiante, rola, entranceia, ao centro, mais uma vez, Saudades.
Para mim, hás de acordar sonhando num bailado alegre `a moda americana esse festival de verão, com os antigos na viola, ochamador amigo, gingando contigo Alfred Lewis, Reis Felix, Julian Silva: a roda fecha, a roda abre, os pares se quebram os pares se trocam, mulheres ao centro,
By Millicent Borges Accardi, poet
With roots in the Azores (all four grandparents and his father came from the island of Terceira), PortugueseAmerican author Anthony Barcellos grew up speaking Portuguese on his grandfather’s dairy farm in Porterville, part of California’s agricultural area in Central Valley. The author and co-author of articles (widely published in science and math journals) and nonfiction books, including A Stroll through Calculus: A Guide for the Merely Curious (2015), writer Barcellos in this book demystifies calculus by teaching that the foundational premise is about measuring things and how fast they change. Only fairly recently, Barcellos discovered a love of fiction writing when he set pen to paper to write Land of Milk and Money, a multigenerational novel about immigrants from the Azores who run a dairy farm on the West Coast. Currently, Barcellos resides in Davis, California where he enjoys the music of Mahler and Wagner and has a much-neglected piano in his dining room that he wishes he played more often. Sometimes he feels as if he has all but disappeared under stacks of books, an overflow from thirty bookcases. His varied and lively career has included a stint in state government, serving as legislative assistant to Senator Albert S Rodda, and as part of the State Finance Commission under Jesse M. Unruh, State Treasurer.
In 1987, Barcellos joined the faculty of American River College in Sacramento, wherehestillteachesmathematicstoday.
As a kid, what did you want to be whenyougrewup?
I probably would have told you that I wanted to be some kind of scientist. Kennedywaspresidentthenandthespace program was in full swing. I followed it diligently. Although I started writing stories while still in elementary school, I have no recollection of considering it as morethanahobby.
Who was your biggest inluence in childhood?
I am indebted to so many people that it’s impossible to do them justice, but I’ll offer a few highlights. It begins with my family,sincetheyindulgedmyimmersion in literature when I might have been of more immediate use in the fields of the familyfarm.
My short story (“The Book Collector”) in the anthology Untamed Dreams from Portuguese Heritage Publications pays tribute to the examples of my father and grandfather.ClydeWilcoxon,myfantastic calculus teacher at Porterville College, is asresponsibleasanyoneforinspiringme to become an instructor in his image. (I established a scholarship in his memory at PC.) Sherman Stein at UC Davis gave me my first opportunities to write instructional materials professionally and eventually made me his coauthor on Calculus and Analytic Geometry
Other professors at Davis, Henry Alder and Tom Sallee in particular, urged me to apply for the science writing fellowship that opened many exciting new options for me. Finally, Albert S. Rodda was the epitome of the gentleman scholar. I have theenviable distinctionofhavingworkedforSenator Roddainmultiplecapacities:
a legislative assistant in the State Capitol, an aide in the State Treasurer’s Office and a faculty member of the Los Rios Community College District when he was on theboardoftrustees.
Your career has been varied! Can you describe how you jumped between politics, math and literature?
My focus was always on education, but I was fortunate enough to have some extremely interesting and rewarding detours in my journey toward a teaching career. One of the most important opportunities arose when Professor Henry Alder, for whom I had worked as a teaching assistant in the math department, encouraged me to apply for a Mass Media Fellowship from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The AAAS experience in journalism was certainly a major selling point in my subsequent application for a Senate Fellowship in Sacramento, which added legislative work to my newspaper background. That started an eight-year sojourn in government work that enabled me to use my writing abilities and math training in the State Senate and State Treasurer’s Office.However, I never lost sight of my interestinmathteachingandapart-time evening job eventually resulted in a full-time position, I cheerfully tendered my resignation from state civil service and embarked on my professional teaching career. Of course, by the time I became a full-time math teacher, I had lots of experience writing for publication in newspapers,magazines,governmentreports, andtextbooks.Thatmakesitlesssurprising that I eventually produced a novel.
In what way is math similar to writing?
Math teachers like to say that mathematics is a language with its own specialized vocabulary, grammar, and syntax. A written-out mathematical result needs to have a natural, logical, step by step flow. That’s also what you’d expect in an essay. By contrast, however, in many ways math is more rigid. The pay-off is that its conclusions are more specific. A well-written argument may be persuasive, but there’s always room for a counter-argument. If a mathematical argument, however, comes to a definite conclusion, then there’s no disputing it.As I sometimes tell my students, if a correct computation produces 5 as a result, then the answer is really 5. There’s no point in saying, “Oh, but I’d really like 4 better as an answer.” That lack of ambiguity is one ofthebeautiesofmathematics.
Whatmadeyouwanttowrite Land of Milk and Money?
More than anything else, I wanted to capture my family’s story. My grandparents made heroic sacrifices to come to the U.S. in search of a better life, so the novel stands in part as a tribute to their success. The fight over their estate was dramatic enough to warrant capturing it in the form of a story, a tale worth sharing. Many people with farming backgrounds have told me that Land of Milk and Money evoked strong memories of their own families’ similar difficulties. Finally, I wanted to see if I coulddoit. Asmuchas Ilovemyteachingjob, I’m not content to dig myself into a deep rut by simply doing the same thing overandover again.Writinganovelwasmywayof tryingsomethingnew.
Your book is a brutally honest view of a family, in harmony and in disharmony. How difficult was it to skate a fine line between truth and fiction?
Land of Milk and Money is full of both truth and fiction. The general outline of the plot closely follows the family’s real-life controversy and lawsuit over my grandmother’s will, but there were many reasons I chose to fictionalize the story rather than try to write it as a memoir. For one thing, I am not an omniscient observer. I was not privy to people’s personal motivations, and I was reluctant to simply speculate and impute motives to actual people. Imagine how boring it would have been to read an account generously sprinkled with “it might be” or “he could have thought,” et cætera. Therefore I changed all the names to protect both the innocent and the guilty and thus freed myself to create inner dialogues and motivations for the key players in the drama. The results are no longer guesswork or speculation. It’s fiction
How does your family feel about the book? Your sister, Mary Chancellor, explains on your web page, “I’m afraid you’re going to getintoalotoftrouble.
”I’m sure there’s some discomfort, although fiction provides a convenient shield of deniability. Most family membersappeartoberatherpleasedwith thecelebrationoftheaccomplishmentsof brave Portuguese immigrants like my grandparents.Noone,ofcourse,wantsto be identified with greedy scheming over inheritance, irresponsible behavior, or comic incompetence. But if anyone feels putonthespot,oneofmycousinshadthe perfect response, delivered with a shrug: “Don’ttheygetthatit’sastory?”
gaps in our family saga. It also gave me the freedom to skip over real-life events thatwouldhaveseemedimpossibleortoo contrivedinanovel.It’sfunnyhowreality sometimes strains credulity. When I was interviewed on Capital Public Radio in Sacramento,theinterviewerchattedwith me off-air about her favorite episodes in thebook.ShewassurprisedtolearnIhad createdthesiloincidentoutofwholecloth. She thought that had really happened.
Was there a scene that was particularly difficult to write? Because of delicate subject matter?It was presumptuous of me to write the episode on the patriarch’s death. When I think about my real-life grandfather’s diminished capacity at the end of his life, I could barely imagine how bitter an experience it must have been for a formerly vigorous, active man to be imprisoned in his paralyzed body. Nevertheless, I tried to draw on his example as I drafted an internal dialogue for the character of Chico Francisco as he struggled toward his end. Ultimately, I cannot tell if I succeeded. I can say only that I get choked up if I try to read it. For obvious reasons, I never selected it for a “KaleSoupfortheSoul”reading.
What was the hardest part of writing Land of Milk and Money?
What techniques did you use to blend together family history with family fiction?
My goal was to tell a coherent, interesting, and believable story. I used fiction to fill in the many
I dedicated the novel to the memory of my madrinha, who was the model for the character of Fatima Francisco Salazar. My entire family would probably agree that she would have prevented most of the problems that beset us when it came time to deal with the estate of her mother (my grandmother). It was a great tragedy that she died relatively young and we were denied her even temperament and her strong presence when we needed it most. I found it difficult to shape Fatima inherimageandattempttodoherjustice.
I worshiped her in life. Her portrait hangs in my library, which is certainly themostappropriatelocationforit.
With your many years in politics, what are some things we can do as Portuguese-Americans to connect and,insomecases,reconnectwith thoseinPortugal?
Portuguese-Americans have been doing quite a good job as participants in state politics, serving as inspiring models for young people with our cultural background. I’m thinking of statesmen such as Joe Gonsalves and John Vasconcellos. I can heartily recommend California’s Portuguese Politicians by Alvin Ray Graves for a compellingaccountofour historyinstategovernance. But you don’t need to be an elected official or a legislative employee to preserve the heritage and culture of our ancestors. Anyone can be active in local LusoAmerican organizations and sister-city activities. For example, the city of Tulare has a strong connection to its sister city in the Azores, Angra do Heroísmo on the island of Terceira. The result is a vibrant cultural exchange and frequent contact with visitors traveling betweenthetwocities.
Can you describe where you write?I have two writing modes. The obvious one involves sitting at a computer keyboard in the spare room. But I also write in my head. This happens constantly, whether on the commute between home and school or strolling the paths of my neighborhood. I don’t have the kind of trick memory that enables me to hold a complete paragraph in my head and transcribe it word for word when I get to the keyboard, but particular phrases and words that I like survive the transfer from gray matter to computer document.
A walkabout is always a good way to work out a plot puzzle or an expression snag.
What books would you include on a syllabus for a Portuguese-American literatureclass?
Reinaldo Silva’s Portuguese American Literatureprovidesacompactoverviewof thesubject(althoughIregrettosayitwas publishedtooearlytoincludeamentionof mynovel); OurLadyoftheArtichokes and FadoandOther Portuguese-American Stories by Katherine Vaz;shehas perfect pitch when it comes to recounting the experience of Portuguese kids growing up in an American environment; and Home Is an Island by Alfred Lewis captures the immigrant experience through the eyes of a young adult who grew to maturity in the Azores before experiencing the culture shock of a life transplanted to the United States.Of course,CharlesReisFelix,JulianSilva, and Darrell Kastin. I see that my focus appears to be memoirs and fiction.If I added some poetry, I’d definitely need to includeawriterwhoseinitialsareM.A. Wouldn’tyouagree?
Who are your favorite Portuguese and/or Portuguese-American writers?
IgreatlyenjoytheproseofKatherineVaz, CharlesReisFelix,JulianSilva,andAlfred Lewis, among others. They are mainstays of Portuguese-American literature. My Portuguese isn’t good enough to permit metoreadJoséSaramagointheoriginal, but I’ve appreciated some of his work in translation. I was bowled over by The Relic, a translation of A Relíquia by Eça de Queiroz; he wrote it 130 years ago, yet I would have believed it if someone had told me it was of recent vintage.Lewis ends a chapter in Home Is an Island with his 10-year-old Azorean protagonist
being congratulated by a representative from the Ministry of Education on the mainland. I identify with it a little. José has passed a crucial examination with flying colors, but he is then confronted with an impossible question. A question that has – as yet – no answer. What does he wanttodowithhisfuture?
“Idon’tknow,”Joséanswered. And truly, he did not know. How could he decide his own life,wheneveryonewastrying todecideitforhim?Howcould heknowwhathewanted?Priest, cowboy, teacher, poet – how could he tell what he wanted to be? Sometimes everyone seems to know what youshould do.Exceptforyou.
Iheardyouareworkingonasequel,is there something you want to add to Land of Milk and Money?
CountMeOut iscurrentlyinitsthirddraft.It contains many of the same characters as Land of Milk and Money, but is less a sequel to my first novel than a companion book. The subtitle is “The Education of a Teacher."
You speak Portuguese; when do you haveoccasiontouseit?
For many years Portuguese was my daily language.Myparentsuseditathomeand it was what I learned first. Portuguese remained the dominant household language until I was well into elementary school.Eventhen,andthroughhighschool, daily visits to my paternal grandparents next door kept the language alive. I had weekly phone conversations with my grandmotheruntilherdeath,whenIwasin mythirties.NowIhavemuchlessoccasionto use Portuguese, although I retain its udiments. I suppose you could say that
my Portuguese was fluent but limited, since I never had formal instruction in thegrammarorvocabulary.
IaskedthisofthepoetSamPereira, too:whatwasyourfirstjob?
The first time I was ever on a regular payroll was as a teaching assistant in college, working a half-time job to defray expenses and learn the ropes as a teacher. It was definitely pertinent to my career goals. Of course, growing up on a family dairy farm meant that I learned to drive tractors at an early age and had chores like feeding the cattle or running equipment in the fields. Since dairy farming never engaged my interest, I was fortunate in having a brother who was eager to step forward whenever there was work to be done. That freed up a lot of time that I used mostly for reading. Hence I ended up in academia and my brother now runs the Barcellos dairy farm. It worked out pretty well for bothofus.
Can you share an excerpt of what youareworkingonrightnow?After Dr. Richard Larschan and I got Land of Milk and Money into shape for publication, I had a lot of discarded material on my hands. We had deleted most of what Richard called “an alternative assimilation narrative” concerningthecharacterPaulFrancisco, who functioned in the novel as my alterego. We bumped him aside in favor of the main plot, the legal contest over the matriarch’s will, and I’m certain that was the right decision. However, I have taken those discarded episodes and incorporated them into a new manuscript titled Count Me Out, which is a story about turning a misfit into a useful member of society. The following briefexcerpthasPaulhighinthefamily’s
backyardtree,takinginthelandinwhich helives:
From his vantage point, Paul could look out through the shelterofthecompoundleaves oftheAilanthusandseeacross the dairy yard to the barn, the workshop nestled beside it, and his grandparents’ home.VisitingVovóandVovô was the surest way to bask in unconditional affection, but Paul was pensive and inclined to brood. Sometimes he wondered whether he did toomuchofit,butthistimehe broke into a small smile as he “thought about thinking,” as he had phrased it in his own mind.
With one hand on the tree trunk,hestoodupforabetter look across the Francisco dairy. Paul could no longer see any trace of the pickup bearinghisfatherandbrother. They had vanished amidst the checkerboard pattern of green and brown rectangles of the cultivated lands that stretched to the western horizon. Some of the fields bore the stippled corduroy pattern that indicated row crops. Others were unbroken green carpets of hay. It was still early enough in the day that the distant Coast Range Mountains were sunlit into visibility despite the persistentvalleyhazeofdust.
“Kale Soup for the Soul” gave me a new and inspiring peer group. There’s a sense in which a new writer can feel like an interloper, especially in a case like mine, coming to literature from a background in textbooks and computers and math instruction. It’s deeply gratifying to be invited to participate in “Kale Soup for the Soul.” Being accepted as a literary colleague is an unanticipated thrill. There’s also the special quality of getting to join in the celebration of one’s heritage. We even got invited to read at the Portuguese consulate in San Francisco. Whatatreatitwas!
What was or is your happiest momentwriting?
It’s a special moment when you write the final words and sit back from a completedmanuscript—evenifyouknow it’s only a first draft. There’s a deeply satisfying sense of accomplishment. In the case of Land of Milk and Money, it was particularly pleasing because the endingseemedtobeparticularlyapt.My friend Barbara Nielsen Dowell, who was retired from decades of teaching English andjournalism,readthemanuscriptand proclaimed, “The ending was as good an ending as I’ve ever read.” That made for aprettyhappymoment.
Iwashonoredtofeatureyouattwo or three of the Kale Soup for the Soulpublicreadings.
I’ve done the best I could to shed any vestiges of superstition. Rationality is my pronounced preference. However, I had a habit in my youth—obsessive behavior, really—that involved my grandparents. I insisted on taking my leave of them with “Até logo.” Only this farewell was permitted. I never said “Adeus” or used any other formula than “Até logo.” I’m sure you can immediately figure out why I preferred to say “Until later.”Eventually,ofcourse,therewasno “later,”butitwasn’tformylackoftrying.
I’mcertainthatmygrandmothernoticed thispeculiarhabitofmine.
This interview was published by the Portuguese-American Journal on August 8th, 2016. Carolina Matos is the founder andeditor.Reprintedwithpermission
Millicent Borges Accardi has been doing interviews for the PortugueseAmerican Journal for many years. These are true treasures of the Portuguese-American cultural experience and the connections between the creative arts in both sides of theAtlantic.
By Sam Pereira
For Anthony Barcellos
Oh to be able to confirm
That the square root of 2 remains
An irrational number and will
Stay so in the break rooms
Of every college math department
Filtering the next crop of rocket scientists
Through this current Inquisition
Such deviance continues
But the primary definition
For these pathological times
Has someone posting a picture
Of a boy in elementary school
I’m guessing back when one and one
Always came out two and until
That same boy took the worn reigns
Of some tired black horse in a field North of town
Pulling summer’s dry mesquite all the way
Toward calculated heaven with a flair
For songs about fire and rain
Copyright © 2024 by Sam Pereira
By John Ferrannini
February 27, 2014
Mathematics professor Anthony Barcellos was awarded the 2014 American River College Patrons Chair Award and $1,500 honorarium for faculty.
“It’s actually stunning because we have hundreds of faculty members, so when they single you out and give you this award it is like the biggest honor they can give you as a faculty member at American River,” Barcellos said. “Stunning is quite the right word.”
The Patrons Chair Award started in 1962 and is given to faculty members who have had an impact, not only within their own departments, but throughout the college and greater community.
Winners are nominated by a colleague and are supported by letters from faculty, former students, and other interested parties.
“This is a very strong college with strong faculty members who bend over backward to accomplish things for their colleagues and their students and the institution and the community at large, which means that you can find dozens of people that you would feel comfortable giving this award to,” he said.
time teaching, California, and Sacramento, I was a happy beneficiaryof his counsel and guidance,” Ridgway said in a letter to the Patrons. “Tony offeredunending support and encouragement while I applied for a tenured position in the math department. He volunteered to serve on my peer review team, and since then has offeredyear upon year of thoughtful,constructiveadvicethathashelped metoimprovemypedagogy.”
Barcellos is also the adviser to the Gaussian Society, a math and science club on campus. The Gaussian Society’s president, Brian J. Miller,isaformerstudentofBarcellos.
“I took Calculus III with professor Barcellos in Spring 2013. I immediately found his class to be fun, engaging and interesting,” Miller said.“I soon found that his leading traits were his kindness, generosity, and sense of humor. Professor Barcellos has a real gift for teaching mathematics and an even greater gift of meeting each student’s needs in order to help thembesuccessful.”
Barcellos will be giving some of his $1,500 honorarium to the Clyde Wilcoxon Memorial Scholarship at Porterville College. Barcellos is a Porterville graduate and Wilcoxon is his late formercalculusteacher.
Fro:https://www.arcurrent.com/ news/2014/02/27/professor-barcelloshonored-with-patrons-chair-award/
Barcellos has been at ARC since 1987, and was nominated by professor by fellow math professor Ted Ridgway.
“Being new to ARC, community college, full-
By Anthony Barcellos
Published in Writers of the Portuguese Diaspora in the United States and Canada: An Anthology, October 2015, CarloMatos&LuisGonçalves,eds.
[Among the most cherished stories in Barcellos family lore is the adventure of Francisco Barcellos, the author’s greatgreat-grandfather,whowasknownonthe island of Terceira as “Mestre Francisco.”
The apelido “Mestre” (“master” or “maestro”or“teacher”)wasinrecognition oftheman’sreputationasa“faztodo,”that is, a “does everything.” As a jack-of-alltrades and an apparent master of several, Francisco sought his fortune in Brazil. Everyone in today’s Barcellos family knows the story about the break-down at seaofthetransportvesselandhowMestre Francisco stepped into the breach and savedtheday.Thisfictionalizedaccountof the voyage to Brazil was originally penned as deep background for the novel Land of Milk and Money but did not survive the final editorial cut. An earlier version was published on RTP’s Comunidades blog through the courtesy ofDr.IreneMariaF. Blayer.]
rolling with the Atlantic’s swells. Smoke continued to pour from the steamship’s stacks, but the paddle wheels were motionless and so essentially was the Bella Flor Passengers were making the sign of the cross and some of the women begantoweep.
António Gabriel “Mestre” Francisco turned to his wife Diolinda. “Now they’ll havetolistentome,”hetoldher. Diolindasqueezedhishand.
“I pray that they will,” she said. “The children and I will go below and say the rosary.”
“Mãe!” protested ten-year-old Candido Paulo,theireldestchild.Hedidn’twantto squeeze back into their lower-deck cabin with his mother and his three siblings, buthismotherwasfirmassheherdedher broodtowardthenarrowstairsthatwould takethembelowdecks.
Antóniowentlookingforacrewmember.
The captain and the executive officerof the Bella Flor were conferring on the bridgewhenadeckhandappeared.
“Message for the captain, sir!” he said.
“Yes?”saidthecaptain.
“It’sanothermessagefromthepassenger named Francisco, sir. He’s volunteering hisservicesagain,sir.”
“‘Again’?” echoed the captain. “He’s done thisbefore?”
The shriek of splintering wood shattered the afternoon stillness. The passengers and crew of the Bella Flor felt the deck shudder momentarily under their feet beforethevesselsettledbacktoapassive
“Begging your pardon, sir,” said the executive officer.“Thispassengerclaims to be a skilled craftsman and has been putting himself forward since the initial incident. He’s an islander we picked up during our stop in the Azores. I informed him that the crew would handle the matter and thanked him for his concern.
It didn’t seem necessary to bring it to yourattention,sir.”
“OrdinarilyIwouldsayyoudidtheright
thing,NumberOne,”saidthecaptain.
“Unfortunately, however, it appears that thecrewisnothandlingthematter.”
Thecaptainturnedbacktothedeckhand.
“Please fetch this man did you say ‘Francisco’?—fetch Senhor Francisco to the bridge. I wish to confer with our soidisant skilled craftsman. Let’s see if he is what hesays. The Lord knows we need one right now. "
The crewman led António Francisco onto thebridge.“Sir!Hereis Senhor Francisco.” “Thankyou,”saidthecaptain.“Youmaygo.” He regarded his passenger, a wiry man in his mid-thirties with dark wavy hair and darkeyes.Theexecutiveofficerhadsaidthat Francisco was an Azorean, and he looked thepart.
António Francisco looked back at the captain, bemused by the uniform that sported as much elaborate tailoring as wouldsuittheadmiralofafleet.Hekepthis face.
Perhaps the outfitw asn ott hecaptain’s fault. Perhaps the shipping company that owned the Bella Flor thought to impress theirpassengerswithcomic-operauniforms fortheirseniorofficers.
“Senhor Francisco,” said the captain, “I regret to share with you the information thatourvesselisindifficulty.Sinceyouhave repeatedly volunteered to help us resolve the problem, I presume you have discerned thedifficultyforyourself.”
“Yes, capitão,” António replied. “We have been adrift for ten days now. All of us heard the noise of the accident. The same noise followed the repairs. We heard much splintering of wood, no? I think maybe you have wooden gears with many broken teeth inyourdrivetrain,yes?”
“You judge correctly, Senhor Francisco. Furthermore, ship’s stores are able to supply material sufficient for only one more repair effort. As you may appreciate, splintered wood is impossible to salvage and the next attempt must succeed. Either that, or we are adrift until good fortune miraculously brings another vessel alongside to rescue us. We are already overdue at Rio de Janeiro, but we cannot expect anyone to be actively looking for us yet.
What gives you the confidence to put yourself forward as someone who can repair our vessel?
Are you some kind of nautical engineer?”
“No, sir,” replied António, “but I know materials and machinery—especially wood. I am known on Terceira as ‘mestre’ or ‘master’ for my skills, which I am putting at your service.”
“Very well, Mestre Francisco,” said the captain. “I will have you shown to the paddle wheels, where you will have full access to their enclosure, including the gears, drive train, and the paddle wheels themselves. My executive officer will escort you. The XO will report back to me with your plans, however, before you are to do anything, which is contingent on my prior approval. Is that understood?”
António gave the captain a small bow.
“Yes, capitão. You are most generous, senhor. I will discuss matters with your executive officer and will wait for your command.”
The captain turned to his executive officer.
“Take him below, Number One.”
“Here we are, senhor,” said the executive officer of the Bella Flor. He pulled a hatch aside, admitting them into an enclosed space amidships. It was a wide compartment that opened on either side to the paddle wheel enclosures. From below came the sounds of the water lapping against the ship and the motionless paddles. The men could hear a quiet creaking as the ship rocked gently with the Atlantic’s low swells.
“We are next to the engine room,” continued the officer.“These shafts and gears can be engaged to propel the ship forward, to let the paddles idle in freewheelingmode,ortobackwaterandslow orreversetheship’smotion.ItisaBritish designthatwasadaptedandimplemented inashipyardinOportowhenthe Flor was refittedfifteen—maybesixteen—years ago.
António Francisco cast his eyes over the gears, gap-toothed with their shattered woodencogs.Asmuchashelikedwoodas a building material, António questioned the wisdom of making it the principal componentoftheship’sdrivemechanism. Steelwasusedsparinglyandeconomically to reinforce the gears. No doubt the owners of the Bella Flor had saved money, but now their cargo and their passengers would be late in making port atRio.Ifthey arrivedatall.
The executive officerwatched António closely as the islander peered through the mechanism and examined the gears from differentangles, occasionally rocking them back and forth. He waited patiently until António finished his inspection and stood up straight, turning toward the officer.
“What do you think, Mestre Francisco? Canyoufixit?”
“Of course,” said António. “I can fixit.I willgetmytools.Pleasetohaveyourmen remove the broken cogs. I will be able to use some of the fragments. Also have them bring up the wood remaining in ship’s stores and lay the pieces out for my inspection.Iwillbeginimmediately.”
“Very well,” said the executive officer. “OnceIreporttothecaptain,Iamcertain itwillbeasyousay, mestre.”
Paulo Francisco worn shoes for so many consecutive days. At his mother’s insistence, all of the children were in boots or shoes and bundled up with multiple layers of clothing. All the rest of their worldly belongings were packed in two steamer trunks in the ship’s hold.
Now at last Candido Paulo had a good excuse to set his shoes aside and employ all twenty digits in his father’s service. He sat on the deck with a length of cargo net stretched between his toes while his nimble fingers wove cord through the interstices to tighten the mesh.
Generations of Candido Paulo’s forebears had similarly worked on their fishing nets on the beaches of Portugal and its islands.
The boy was fashioning a mesh bag for his father’s use in the ship’s drive chamber. António would need something in which to hold some tools and materials while he worked. When nothing more suitable came to hand, he had set his son working on a swatch of cargo net. The boy was pleased to do it and it would serve.
His father was nearby, the remaining lumber from the ship’s stores arrayed about him. António sorted out the short wooden blocks intended for use as gear cogs and grouped them into sets for the gears that drove the ship’s paddle wheels. He also had a collection of splintered wood consisting of the remains of the shattered cogs that the crew had pried out of the shorn gears. He picked out some of the more substantial chunks and went to work with his one-handed splitting maul, reducing them to a pile of sharp-edged shims of varying lengths and thicknesses
NeverbeforeinhisyounglifehadCandido
Candido Paulo brought his handiwork over to his father. He had added the finishing touch of weaving a cord through the perimeter of the netting for use as a
drawstring.
António placed a stack of his newly created shims in the center of Candido Paulo’s tightly-woven mesh, added the maul, and pulled on the drawstring, gathering up the net into a bundle.
He fastened it to his belt with a short length of cord. The bundle dangled at his side from his waist to his knee.
“Bem feito,” he told his son. Well done. The boy beamed.
“Put your shoes back on, son. There are splinters everywhere.”
Candido Paulo sat down on the deck and reluctantly did as he was told. He brightened, however, at his father’s next words.
“Come with me. You will be my helper, yes?”
“Sim, senhor!” Yes, sir!
The cylindrical steel power shaft had been decoupled from the drive mechanism of the paddle wheels. The shaft would start turning if the engineer in the boiler room engaged the clutch, but paddle-wheel gears would remain idle while António was working on them. The wooden gears were banded with steel reinforcements, gaping holes in their circumferences showing where their broken teeth had been extracted. The whole assembly looked like a scaled-up version of a clock’s inner workings.
António shrugged off his suspenders and unbuttoned his shirt. He pulled it off and handed the shirt to Candido Paulo. He pushed the sleeves of his long-johns back to his elbows and pulled the suspenders back over his shoulders.
“Look at this, boy.”
António slapped his hand several times against the gear that would normally have engaged the power shaft. It spun freely and rapidly on its axle.
side. From his vantage point, the empty holes for the gear’s teeth began to blur together, making a darker band in the middle of the gear’s circumference. The dark band wobbled back and forth with a slow oscillation that was almost hypnotic. The boy peered at it, wondering what he was supposed to see. Then his eyes widened and he jerked his head, looking toward his father.
“It’s moving, Pai,” he said. “I mean, the holes. They wobble back and forth.” “Exactly,” said António. “It’s out of true. The wooden gears on this old tub are warped with age and use. You see them wandering—just a bit—from left to right and back again as the wheel spins. I suspectitisthesameforallofthegears.Ifthey arealloutoftrue,therewillbeatwistingofthe teethwhentheymeshandtrytoturn.Ifit’stoo much,theybreak.ThatiswhatImustrepair.”
“Howwillyoudothat, Pai?Youcan’tworkthe steelparts,canyou?”
“No, son. But I can remount the cogs and adjust them so that they are nevertheless in alignment.”
Antóniopattedthemeshbagdanglingfrom hiship.
“My tools are here. These tools and a good eye willsuffice.Gofetchthefirstsetofreplacement cogs.Wewillfixthisfirstonetogetherasatest. Then I will climb inside and see what I can do withtheothers.”
Candido Paulo was standing to one
It took almost two days. António lived among the gears for the entire time. He would unship each gear in its turn so that it revolved freely. One by one he replaced the missing cogs and spun the gear to check the alignment. Periodically he reached into his bag for a thin wooden shim. He’d place it carefully next to an errant cog and use the flatend of his maul to tap it into place. Then another spin to see if the alignment had been corrected. More tapping, if necessary. More spinning.
When the spinning wooden cogs blurred into a steady and unwavering band under his watchful eye, he’d remount the gear and move on to the next. Candido Paulo hovered nearby, fetching materials as his father requested them. Crewmen brought lanterns as the day gave way to evening.
A plank and some ropes provided a crude scaffold that enabled António to dangle in the open spaces above the water as he worked the ends of the drive train closer to the paddle wheels. Diolinda periodically appeared with a basket of provisions, which Candido Paulo would deliver to his father, who ate sparingly.
António’s body was trembling with exhaustion and his eyes were rimmed with red when he climbed out of the congeries of gears and reconnected the power shaft. Anxious crewmen were watching. The executive officer was among them.
“I am done, senhor,” said António. “Please to tell the captain.”
Candido Paulo gave his father the shirt he had discarded the day before. Instead of putting it back on, António wiped his face with it, the thick fabric rasping against his growth of beard.
They waited, sitting on the deck, looking at the power shaft from the engine room. Most of the loitering crewmen were gone, presumably reporting to their posts. A couple remained, though, their eyes on the drive mechanism.
A whistle sounded. It sounded again. A loud mechanical clash was heard from below decks. The engineer had engaged the clutch.
but Candido Paulo was holding his breath.
They heard the slapping of the paddle wheels against the water. The Bella Flor was starting to move. Candido Paulo started to breathe again.
Father and son looked at each other and smiled.
The shaft was slowly beginning to turn, applying power to the gears. The gears were moving. António appeared relaxed,
By Anthony Barcellos Davis, California
I remember when we weren’t Americans. While my siblings and I had been born in California, “os Americanos” were other people, the English-speaking population that surrounded our Azorean family. Even after I, the eldest, enrolled in school and began speaking English in addition to Portuguese, we still referred to the Englishspeaking majority as “os Americanos.”
It wasn’t until a few years later, after my Terceira-born father took out U.S. citizenship papers, that it began to feel awkward to make a distinction between ourselves and “Americanos.” Our Portuguese identities began to fade as my siblings and I progressed through school and became thoroughly assimilated into the dominant culture. We began to use English with each other—even in personal conversations away from school.
Public schools in California during the sixties became increasingly concerned with bilingual education. However, this was always understood to mean a combination of English and Spanish. We Portuguesespeaking kids were left out. We would just shrug our shoulders; it didn’t pertain to us. If anything, it puzzled us. We had learned English without formal assistance in school, so why couldn’t everyone else? In reality, matters were not that simple. Some of my cousins were held back in elementary school because they had difficulty adjusting to the English-based environment. Some bilingual assistance in class might have made a positive difference, but it did not officially exist. (And unofficial assistance ended when
I was caught whispering answers to my cousin andourteacherseparatedus.)
My Barcellos grandparents had fourteen grandchildren, all of whom were acquainted with Portuguese. My Avó, who lived into her eighties, for most of her life had all of her descendants within a thirty-mile radius of her home. (When I went away to college, I was for several years the sole exception to this rule.)
As the grandchildren married and moved— some of them out of state—the resulting greatgrandchildren tended to be monolingual. However, one of my brothers married a girl of Azorean descent and his daughters are all bilingual.They’retheexception.
My other brother married a girl who did not share his ethnic background; their children know essentially no Portuguese. The same is true of my sister’s children, who picked up very little of their mother’s original language because she could not use it with her Englishspeaking husband. I daresay my brother-inlaw actually knows more than his children, since he was immersed in our family’s Portuguese-speaking environment during his brave courtship of my sister, in the days before our grandparents passed away and English took over as our common tongue. He probably suspected that a lot of the undecipherable conversation going on about him concerned the English-only intruder in our midst (and he would have been correct). True love finds a way.
Avó lived long enough to see her first great-grandchildren. Her eldest greatgranddaughter today lives with her husband and four sons on the Barcellos dairy farm, less than a mile from her great-grandmother’s old house (now remodeled into the residence of her parents, the current owners and operators of the family dairy farm). She routinely speaks to the boys in Portuguese, imparting to them a portion of their heritage and preserving what is elsewhere being lost.
Mygrandmother nevermettheseboys,but Avó would have smiled with delight to hear her great-great-grandsons speak in her native tongue. I can hear her voice in my mind’s ear:“Credo!Beleza!”
Anthony Barcellos is professor of Mathematics and chair of his department at American River College in Sacramento, California.Hegrewuponhisgrandfather’s dairy farm, speaking Portuguese as his first language; he wishes that he retained a greater facility in it. His novel Land of Milk and Money is based on his experiences as a dairy-farm boy in Central California and is scheduled for fall 2012 publication by Tagus Press and the Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture at the UniversityofMassachusetts,Dartmouth.
By Anthony Barcellos
Debonair and diplomatic, he was one of the first people I met after joining the staff of the California State Senate. He regularly visited the office of my boss on the fifth floor of the State Capitol annex, making his rounds with the confidence of someone who knew where he was going. He did know. Joe Gonsalves was a respected Sacramento lobbyist who had already served with distinction as a member of the State Assembly. With his son Anthony frequently by his side, Gonsalves worked the Capitol on behalf of his clients and made their case to state legislators and legislative staff. As a brand-new Senate Fellow, I had neither seniority nor authority, but Gonsalves believed in treating people as peers. He was a small-d democrat as well as a big-D Democrat.
Of course, I had the added advantage of being one of the Capitol workers likely to greet his appearances with a cheery “Boa tarde, Senhor!” Gonsalves quickly discerned that I was a fellow AzoreanAmerican. (Even better, I was descended from Terceiran stock, as was he.) Watching Joe Gonsalves in action was a lesson in the value of a solid reputation for straightforward honesty and the usefulness of maintaining personal contacts. Though I was never an important factor in the work of Gonsalves at the State Capitol, I was nevertheless pleased to be recognized and greeted as a friendly acquaintance. While there were many hard-working lobbyists in the halls of the Capitol, only a very few could also be considered statesmen. Joe Gonsalves was at the top of that short list.
Thanks to the remarkable work of Alvin Ray Graves, people who were nowhere near the State Capitol in the sixties, seventies, and eightiescangetacquaintedwithJoeGonsalves and his fascinating story. Already held in high regard for The Portuguese Californians, publishedin2004by Portuguese Heritage Publications, Dr. Graves has now favored us with the release of California’s PortuguesePoliticians:ACenturyof LegislativeService
It was an ambitious undertaking. After setting the stage with a pair of chapters on Portuguese America and California’s pioneering Luso-American politicians, Graves begins his discussion of modern-era legislators of Portuguese descent with a wonderfully detailed account of the career of Joe “Landslide” Gonsalves. Then his chapter on “The Portuguese Caucus” casts a wide net that brings in Frank Vicencia (seriously considered during the McCarthy-Berman internecine battles as a compromise candidate for Speaker of the Assembly), Henry Mello, Rusty Areias, Jim Costa, and John Vasconcellos. Graves treats each politician in turn, sketching the highlights of their careers and the particular issues with which they were concerned. When he gets to John Vasconcellos, however, who served four decades in California’s State Assembly and State Senate, Graves needs to begin a new chapter. It was the only way to do justice to the legislator’s amazing career.
“Vasco” was a newly-minted attorney when he joined Governor Pat Brown’s staff. Later he was elected to the State Assembly and set a record for service as chair of the Ways and Means Committee; the adjective “powerful” was (and is) almost always attached to Ways and Means because it was the institution that doled out appropriations and produced the Assemblyversionoftheannualstatebudget.
I can share an anecdote about Vasconcellos thatIheardfrommyboss,StateSenatorAlbert Rodda, who was chair of the Senate Finance
Committee, the upper-house counterpart to Ways and Means. As a young staffer in Pat Brown’s office, Vasco was notable for his well-groomed appearance and tailored suits.
As an elected legislator, however, he grew into a rumpled bear of a man with unruly locks and an indifferent attitude toward his wardrobe. It was mostly a shift in priorities for Vasconcellos, but it was also calculated for effect. Senator Rodda recalled an occasion when he and Vasco were loitering outside a hearing room, waiting to address a meeting of the University of California’s Board of Regents on issues concerning the state budget. Shortly before entering the committee chamber, Vasco decided he was looking too tidy, so he paused to pull out a shirt-tail before he followed Rodda into the room. He was a showman as well as a politician.
Graves has his hands full in dealing with the careers of so diverse a collection of politicians. Their common Portuguese heritage does not in any way impose a common political philosophy on Graves’s subjects, as they range from old-style liberal Democrat to modern Tea-Party Republican. Since the author is interested principally in serving as a faithful reporter of our extended community’s many contributions to California’s public sector, he even-handedly avoids playing favorites and conveys the viewpoints of his subjects in their own words. Ultimately, California’s Portuguese Politicians is a celebration of Luso-American involvement in a key aspect of state life. It’s a story with deep roots and it’s a story without an ending. Graves brings us up to the modern era with profiles of the Golden State’s current Portuguese Congressmen, who celebrate their mutual heritage even as they battle on opposite sides of the
House of Representatives. Graves has skilfully penned a readable and engaging account of Luso-Americans in California’s State Assembly, State Senate, and congressional delegation. Our people are everywhere!
htt ps://acores.rt p.pt / comunidades/the-portuguese-inpolitics-anthony-barcellos/
NOTE: This review also appeared in the Yolo Cabrillo Civic Club #26 newsletter, Vol.48,No.3(March2014)]
Filamentos thanks the family for the wonderful pictures that came from the magnificent site in Anthony’s honor: http://anthonybarcellos.com/