Introduction

Over a year ago, I kept a blog called Brasilianista Aspirante. I stopped writing in it because I was becoming too ill to successfully be the upbeat graduate student specializing in Brazilian history and culture, and I did not want to discuss my illness or other personal difficulties to all and sundry. Self-pity is unflattering, after all.

I am no longer in graduate school — although I want very much to return, God willing, when my health is better and I have more money. I have been on SSI for the past several months, living (resignedly but for the most part calmly) with my mother and my younger brother, a musician who plays the McCartney role in a Beatles tribute band.

One way that I am maintaining my Lusophone (Portuguese-speaking) connection is by attending Portuguese Masses at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, a Catholic parish in Ontario, California. (By the way, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton is one of my all-time favorite saints, so that is another factor in the parish's favor.) Ontario is some 20 miles away from home and I have no car, but St. Elizabeth Ann Seton is the closer of the two Los Angeles-area Catholic parishes with Portuguese Masses. Considering that there is a sizable Brazilian community in Palms, Culver City and other parts of the Westside of LA — not to mention the several Brazilian Protestant parishes with Portuguese services — I am surprised that the only two LA-area Catholic parishes with Portuguese Masses are in Artesia and Ontario, where immigrants from the Azores settled in the early 20th century and became dairy farmers. Ah well — I suppose Cardinal Mahony has other things to think about than the spiritual welfare of Brazilian immigrants....