The Incredible Flavio
My interview was conducted via zoom and has a family relation to a fellow colleague here at James Madison University. The interviewee introduced himself as Flavio Olivera and migrated to the United States from Portugal from a young age. With prior knowledge of his Portuguese background, I based my questions around his home country and engaged in a very unique and knowledge filled conversation. The interview was conducted in an organized fashion and Flavio was very eager to share his story.
Prior to the interview I had feelings of nervousness as I had never spoken to this individual and I wasn’t sure how smooth the interaction was going to be. Flavio had to major concerns about how the meeting would be conducted or what would happen with the information which provided me with reassurance. He was very happy to tell me about himself, the struggles he went through as an immigrant child, and the way he was raised. As we got into the flow of conversation, the anxiety started to settle and I learned this he was actually a very easy-going person and also easy to get along with.
The interview began with some basic questions such as, “Where are you from and when did you move to the United States?” Flavio is from Portugal and moved to the United States when he was only in grade school. Having no knowledge of what he was going to experience, Flavio and his household moved to New Jersey following his fathers efforts to start a new life for their family. His father worked a job that required a lot of travel and often was away from home for long periods of time leaving Flavio, his older sister, and his mom to fend for themselves while he was away. Prior to their migration, Flavio lived in a two story house on a large piece of land in a rural part of Portugal. He was used to the small town feeling and everyone being very acquainted with their neighbors. He mentioned that the school he attended was very structured compared to the educational system he experienced here in America.
I made a lot of personal connections to some of the things he was describing at this point in the interview and began to really settle into the conversation. I grew up in a small town as well in a rural area of Virginia, so I began to build on the question of education by asking things such as “What was the hardest part of moving to a school in a whole different country?” He began to explain that his father had been away in America for four years organizing everything for his family’s arrival and at that point he did not speak any English at all. When he moved he was enrolled in public school and had to learn how to speak the English language. He mentioned that this was the hardest part of moving and involved a lot of learning how to live in a place that was completely foreign. Flavio’s nationality and inability to properly speak the language resulted in a lot of bullying and exclusion which led to special education efforts for himself and other migrants his age.
Being that he experienced these hardships at such a young age, he is happy that he learned how to adapt to the changes that come with starting a new life. He says that his older sister had it a little bit worse because when they moved she was enrolled into the local high school. Having to experience these things as a young adult rather than a child made me connect their experience to a lot of the other stories we have viewed in the lesson on Immigrant Harrisonburg. With efforts to become more inclusive, Harrisonburg Public School incorporated interpretation services in school board meetings. Efforts for inclusion such as this most likely provided Flavio’s family with reassurance and support so that they would be able to adapt and overcome.
Flavio made his way through public school and graduated in the 1990’s, following this he joined the military. He served as a Marine Police Officer for around a year and then sought employment in the automotive industry. It was at this point that he really started to develop himself as a person and acquire a good paying job. He worked to sustain himself and eventually decided to achieve higher education. After receiving an associates degree, he wanted to pursue a career in Marine Biology that would pay him well. Through good connections he was able to get accepted into a position at a local marine lab but declined the offer because he was already making more money with his job as an automotive mechanic.
Finding himself in a good spot, Flavio settled down and started a family. He has a wife and a son that is now 3 years old. He speaks on behalf of his family when saying that he doesn’t wish his son to have to experience any of the hardships that he went through as an immigrant child. I feel that this parenting technique is often used by second generation immigrants such as Flavio. He expressed in the interview that he wishes his child to develop his own thoughts on their family situation but to also be educated and appreciate how fortunate they are. Flavio stays in touch with his family overseas and continues to exercise Portuguese traditions within their household.
From the lecture theme “Integration”, I can draw multiple connections relating to assimilation and keeping in touch with their roots. Just as Flavio started a family in New Jersey, other migrant families often embrace their culture while slowly becoming more Americanized. The longer Flavio was in the United States, the more assimilated he became with societal norms and better educated on what it truly means to be American.
I asked Flavio about his profession and if he had any experiences or troubles at work that related to his cultural background. Without hesitation, he replies with multiple examples of mistreatment upon some of his coworkers. He says it’s never himself being targeted by any stereotypes or mistreatment but it often happens to the people that work in custodial positions. I was informed that most of these positions are held by migrants and they are not paid as well as the rest of the employees at the company. Flavio has a deep personal connection with this behavior and vocalized about how upsetting and biased people can be in the workplace. “They do the jobs that higher ups don’t want to do”, were the words he used to describe how important these positions are.
Examples like this can be directly tied to our class discussions on migrant agricultural labor. Throughout the semester we have seen many examples, such as NAPA Valley, where migrant workers are hired as a cheap source of labor but also complete the hardest jobs. If these positions weren’t held by migrants the entire industry would be in shambles and the same thing can be applied to the automotive industry. I think of large corporations that rely on migrant labor to stay afloat act as one big game of JENGA. Each layer of blocks represents a hierarchy within the company but each one relies on the support from the layer beneath it and without the very bottom layer there is no support throughout the entire operation.
Like most Americans, Flavio has hobbies and interests that keep his morale and social standings in a good place. During the interview I asked some questions relating to his personal interests such as; “Do you follow any American sports?” He mentions that in Portugal, Soccer is a lot more followed than here in America. I thought this was particularly interesting because I grew up playing soccer from the age of five. There is a love for sports like soccer in some overseas countries that is unparalleled to the support they receive in the United States. Having something like professional soccer to keep up with provides a connection to memories of early childhood and represents a piece of home. He brought this love and other aspects of his upbringing to the United States with him and uses them as a way to occupy his time as well as a way to stay true to himself.
I touched on religion and food during the interview and Flavio had unique responses to both topics. When questioned about religion he stated that himself and his family have always been Catholic. I asked if this was a driving factor for leaving their home country and was informed that they were religious but it is not why they left. According to Flavio, New Jersey was once a location where many Portuguese immigrants settled and that is why his parents decided to settle on the east coast. The availability of Catholic Churches was plentiful and he continues to be a believer to this day.
When I asked about American food compared to the Portuguese dishes he grew up with I learned a good amount about how different things were from Flavio as a child. One of the first mentions was that there are no pre-prepared meals at the markets in his hometown and that most of the meals they made were all from scratch using basic ingredients. After arriving here he was amazed to see pre-portioned and prepared meals that only had to be reheated. This was something he had to get used to but never lost the ability to prepare Portuguese dishes. With the combination of American and Portuguese meals in his household, his family eats a variety of food and occasionally still prepares meals from family recipes that have been passed down from Portuguese family members. Often these meals are prepared for Holidays and special occasions.
Our conversation shifted into Holidays and the types of celebrations that his family participates in and I was surprised to learn that there wasn’t much difference. Being that Portugal is a primarily Christian nation, they celebrate most of the same Holidays as Americans. Flavio mentioned that the only Holiday that had any major difference in his hometown was Halloween. In the celebration of Halloween, each neighbor would bring a single dish to a desired location where they would burn a tree trunk and feast as a community. I proceeded to tell him that this sounds like a great experience and I wouldn’t mind participating in this type of celebration on a regular basis. The celebration he described reminded me of my own family’s version of a Thanksgiving Day celebration.
Overall, I’d say Flavio was very fortunate and appreciative of the struggles he went through. I can tell that being from a different nation does not define who he is as a person, rather he embraces his background and loves to tell his story. He was able to create a beautiful life for himself and his family both and seems to be a very joyful person. The words, advice and examples he has set for others is very meaningful. I wish success upon any other people who may be struggling to attain citizenship or make a life for themselves in this great country and would use Flavio’s story as excellent example of perseverance.
[00:00:00] Stephen Hall: Okay, so, I’m Stephen Hall, and here with us is
[00:00:09] Flavio Olivera: Flavio Oliveira.
[00:00:10] Stephen Hall: Alrighty. Well, it’s great to meet you. Um, so I’ve got a couple questions I’m gonna ask you. Um, and, uh, none of these are gonna be too personal, um, strictly for the purpose of this study, and we look forward to getting to know you a little bit better.
And, uh, just to start off, um, where are you from, and when did you come here? To the United States. Uh, I’m from
[00:00:34] Flavio Olivera: Portugal and I came here December, 1989.
[00:00:39] Stephen Hall: December, 1989. Okay. And how old are you now?
[00:00:43] Flavio Olivera: I am 41 years old now.
[00:00:45] Stephen Hall: Okay. Alright. Well let’s hear your story. Did, um, did you have parents that, uh, forced you to come here or was it a voluntary thing?
How did it all happen?
[00:00:55] Flavio Olivera: Uh, well, my dad actually came before us all. He came here about four years prior, um, to start the legal proceedings, as you could say. Um, and we came, I would say about four, four and a half years after he came here. Me, my mom, my sister.
[00:01:14] Stephen Hall: What was that time like in that, that four years that were you, you all were still overseas and he was here?
[00:01:21] Flavio Olivera: Um, yeah, the time actually, actually, because my dad was not always home, he, we were in places like Venezuela, Brazil, he traveled all over. So it was just normal for us that he wasn’t there, so it was nothing difficult, like transition wise.
[00:01:41] Stephen Hall: Okay. Alright. And, um, so you said he traveled for work. What does he do?
[00:01:48] Flavio Olivera: Correct. Yeah. Um, he, uh, my grandfather at the time owned a couple of butcher shop businesses, uh, back in Brazil, where he was originally from. Um, so my dad would manage those and would manage the exporting and importing of the meat per se. And so that’s why he wasn’t around a lot. Okay.
[00:02:07] Stephen Hall: And, uh, how did he met your mom in Portugal?
[00:02:12] Flavio Olivera: Correct. Yeah. They were both born and raised in Portugal.
[00:02:16] Stephen Hall: What made him want to come to the US?
[00:02:20] Flavio Olivera: Um, well, at that time it was better opportunity. Better opportunity. That’s, that was the dream for everybody. It was better opportunity.
[00:02:27] Stephen Hall: Okay. Kind of like the American dream.
[00:02:30] Flavio Olivera: Um, would and not like it is today, like back in the day.
[00:02:36] Stephen Hall: Right. Okay. And, uh, I guess money had a lot to do with it then, huh?
[00:02:41] Flavio Olivera: Uh, back, well back then, yeah. Basically because back then you could take a a dollar back then and go to my country and, and, and have a lunch with a dollar. So yeah, it, it was a big difference.
[00:02:52] Stephen Hall: Okay. Big difference. Okay. Alright. Cool, cool, cool.
So when you, you said you were nine years old when you came over?
[00:02:59] Flavio Olivera: Yeah, I was, I was like eight and a half, almost nine.
[00:03:02] Stephen Hall: Okay. Alright. And, um, do you remember what it was like, like when you first arrived?
[00:03:08] Flavio Olivera: That was horrible. Horrible. Horrible. It sucked. You didn’t like it? I basically started school here in the third grade.
So I didn’t do the whole kindergarten and everything because I was too old for that. But I got pushed back a little bit because of the fact that I didn’t know how to speak English. But I remember my first day at school, I went to school, I pissed on the, I pissed at school. Like literally my first day, I pissed on the chair and everything.
So nervous. It was scary, like, I didn’t know anything.
[00:03:37] Stephen Hall: So it was a lot to get used to then, huh?
[00:03:40] Flavio Olivera: It was! The language barrier was the hardest part. It was understanding what people were telling you, and you didn’t understand anything. You just looked at them weird, like, Okay, you talk weird, but
[00:03:52] Stephen Hall: okay, I gotcha.
So I guess, at that age, did you know any English prior?
[00:04:00] Flavio Olivera: Zero. Zilch. Not a one.
[00:04:02] Stephen Hall: Okay. And did you have any siblings that came with you, or was it just mom, dad,
[00:04:08] Flavio Olivera: and And my sister. My sister is eight, uh, six years older than me. Okay. So, her transition was actually probably a little bit harder because she went into high school.
[00:04:19] Stephen Hall: Oh, wow. Okay. And you all had never been here before that? Nope. Never. Okay. Wow. So it’s like entering a whole new world.
[00:04:31] Flavio Olivera: Pretty much. That’s what it was. That’s what it was.
[00:04:33] Stephen Hall: , was there anything that, that like stood out as being like the toughest thing to like overcome or adapt to just like going into, I’m assuming it was public school.
[00:04:45] Flavio Olivera: Oh, right. Yeah, I went into public school. Okay. Um, so the structure, I would say the structure was the hardest thing to accommodate to. Um, because so when I started school here, you know, everything was marking periods. You go to first period, second period, third period, have lunch, then go back and finish 4th period.
Um, back home school is more structured. You were like in one single classroom for most of the day until recess and lunch. And then you go back to the same classroom. It was more of a smaller type situation. It wasn’t as extensive as it is here.
[00:05:26] Stephen Hall: Okay, I got you. So yeah, the structure of the structure of the school.
Um, and do you still have family overseas?
[00:05:38] Flavio Olivera: Pretty much all my family is overseas except for my mother and my father and my sister. Other than that, everybody’s overseas.
[00:05:44] Stephen Hall: How often do you go back?
[00:05:47] Flavio Olivera: Um, up until I got married, I used to try to go back every other year. Um, and I, I consistently kept at, uh, since I got married, we went back, um, like a couple months after we got married and we haven’t been back.
So it’s been about two, three, my son’s about to be four. So it’s going to actually be four years since I got back to Portugal.
[00:06:07] Stephen Hall: Okay. I gotcha. Uh, and so you have children.
[00:06:11] Flavio Olivera: Yes, I have my three and a half year old, um, disaster, disaster wannabe that, uh, that is killing my house. Yes, I have a three and a half year old boy.
[00:06:22] Stephen Hall: Okay. All right. Cool, cool, cool. And, um, um, so you’re in Jersey, you’re in New Jersey. What made you want to go there? Or was that where, was that where your father came when, when you were younger?
[00:06:38] Flavio Olivera: So Jersey has a couple of pockets of Portuguese immigrants. Okay. So this is kind of like, um, especially early nineties, there was a couple of big towns in New Jersey that were literally like the whole town was just a population of Portuguese people.
So it kind of back home. It’s signaled like that’s where you should go to stay close to knit people where you kind of know each other.
[00:07:03] Stephen Hall: Okay, so it’s kind of got like a little historical aspect to it too then. And is that still, is that still something that’s seen a lot like today or is that kind of
[00:07:13] Flavio Olivera: Brazilians took over.
Brazilians took over so yeah, no. Now and most of, at this day and age most people are migrating back instead of migrating here.
[00:07:23] Stephen Hall: You think that’s got anything to do with political reasons or just
[00:07:28] Flavio Olivera: I think it more of inconsistencies. I wouldn’t say political because like everybody wants to talk political but for the normal person, politics doesn’t really affect the normal single person.
So it’s really is just inconsistencies in the way things are run. And now that the dollar is less than the euro. It kinda, it, it’s like a, a 50 50 shot of money-wise, it’s a 50 50 shot. Okay,
[00:08:02] Stephen Hall: got you. So, um, some of these questions are kind of goofy now that we’ve, we’ve learned a little bit about you and where you’re coming from.
Um, you have children, you have a wife, uh, you live in New Jersey, um, and you do visit back from time to time. Um. What do you do for a living?
[00:08:25] Flavio Olivera: I actually am in the car business. I’m a parts manager.
[00:08:28] Stephen Hall: Okay, you’re a parts manager. Gotcha. And how’d you get into that?
[00:08:32] Flavio Olivera: So, I went Here’s the thing, I went to the military here.
Um, I blew out my knee in the military, so I came out of the military. I went back to school. Got my associates in, uh, criminal, um, an associate What the hell do they call it? Adding some type of biology. And I pursued marine biology in Rutgers. But I needed a job, so I started in the car business. And after I got my degree from Rutgers, I realized I wasn’t going to make as much as the car business, so I stayed in the car business.
[00:09:11] Stephen Hall: Okay, and so did you just go into sales, kind of like an entry level thing when you got the job?
[00:09:16] Flavio Olivera: I went into the parts side of it. I went to the fixed op side of it. I, I, I couldn’t do sales. I don’t want to sell people fake stuff. So I couldn’t do sales.
[00:09:24] Stephen Hall: Okay. So that’s a great way to look at it. Okay. Um, and are you still with that same company or have you moved since then?
[00:09:34] Flavio Olivera: I have moved around a couple. It’s hard. I would love to say it’s easy to stay in the same company for that many years. Uh, but generally, especially when you’re management, it, it sucks because in the car business, when you’re a manager, if the owner wakes up and farts the wrong way, you could lose your job.
[00:09:53] Stephen Hall: Oh no. Okay. Oh no. Yeah. Okay. Well.
[00:09:58] Flavio Olivera: It kind of, it kind of changes, but I, I did nine years in one job. I did five years into my last company and I just started this recent company about two months ago.
[00:10:09] Stephen Hall: Okay. Okay. Cool. Well, I mean, I take it that you’re, you’re making a pretty decent living, given that you’ve done the same thing for a good long time.
Um, and have you ever run into any barriers being like, your nationality and like, what you do, like your work or like, in a social life? Like, have you ever run into anything that, that really like, made you think like, wow, I’m really not from here or like, anything of that nature?
[00:10:39] Flavio Olivera: Actually, it’s sad to say, but in this business, I ran to it in a couple of times.
Um, just because of not in more of the aspect of how I think about things rather than my personal thing. Because in our business, we do certain aspects of the business. The car business has a lot of immigrant workers, and it kind of For me, at least it’s changed my perspective on that type of situation because I remember coming to this country.
I remember how my parents were working for nothing just to try to make a living. And then when people talk about these immigrants, I kind of have to sit back because I would let my emotions get involved in situations just because I was one and I know what they’re going through. So it’s hard because like You don’t want to be that person to just call out people for what they say.
But in some aspects, you got to take the emotion out of it and realize that your words might also hurt some people. So prospectively in me, no, but in the situations around me, yeah, it kind of, it’s interesting how I see things being an immigrant versus someone who isn’t.
[00:11:53] Stephen Hall: So a lot of, a lot of the other immigrant workers that are in the business, are they kind of what?
What, like, department are they in? What kind of things are they doing for the company?
[00:12:02] Flavio Olivera: Well, they’re in your basic departments that most people that aren’t immigrants don’t want to get jobs in, which is janitorial, um, the cleaning of the cars, the detailing of cars, stuff like that.
[00:12:14] Stephen Hall: You know, this is, this is definitely a, uh, a thing that should be touched on.
Um, do you feel that there’s a lot of, like, ethnic stereotypes or racial stereotypes that are, like, That you come, like, across on a regular basis. Cause I know you said that you don’t want your I mean, you don’t want to let your emotions get the best of you when you hear this type of thing. Is that the type of thing that would trigger those emotions?
[00:12:40] Flavio Olivera: Yeah, pretty much. So, racial wise, not so much, but ethnic wise, there is. It’s like you got these people that complain about immigrants taking jobs and, you know, they’re taking our jobs. But then, you look at the situation and they’re doing the jobs that nobody else wants to do.
[00:12:58] Stephen Hall: Exactly. Backbone of the economy.
[00:13:02] Flavio Olivera: Exactly, you know. And then, you know, that’s where the flip side is, you can put the, the People taking your jobs, but then you also don’t want to be out there doing those jobs. So now you can’t have it both ways, you either got to do the jobs, or stop complaining about the person, the person doing the job.
[00:13:20] Stephen Hall: Yeah, it’s, yep, yep.
[00:13:23] Flavio Olivera: People are paid, they’re paid peanuts, they are paid peanuts. Because most of them are illegal to have papers, so they’re paid nothing.
[00:13:32] Stephen Hall: And there’s really not much say that they, you know, have or can do about it, is there?
[00:13:39] Flavio Olivera: No, there, there really isn’t, you know, because at the end, and it’s unfortunate because they’re, they’re doing the work that, like you said, that the people that complain about it don’t want to do.
[00:13:49] Stephen Hall: Yeah. Gotcha. Okay. Well that’s a great way to look at it. And, um, yeah, I mean, I guess for the sake of, you know, you keeping your job and things like that, I guess it is good to kinda hold back some of the things you have to say, which that, that’s true in most aspects of like. You know, whether you’re in public, or, you know, board meetings, or anything like that, but, um, It’s actually kind of sad.
It’s kind of sad that you can’t voice these things without being judged for it. Especially coming from, coming from a background like yours, it’s, you know, you feel for these people, and, uh, You know, you know what they’re going through, because you experience the same thing.
[00:14:31] Flavio Olivera: You gotta look at it too. The last, like, five to six years, well, I’d say like five to ten years, The country’s really been starting to get divided between the red and blue, whether you’re a Republican, Democrat.
So, you know, and even in job aspects is you gotta be very careful on how you word certain things, because then you get judged based on that. Oh, Oh, you’re talking like Democrats, Democrats, this, or you’re talking like Republicans. And at the end of the day, the six half dozen, the other, they’re not going to affect my job.
Whoever in office is not going to affect my job. You know,
[00:15:08] Stephen Hall: everybody wants to make money.
[00:15:10] Flavio Olivera: Yeah. Everybody wants to make money. If you, if you’re willing to work, you’re going to make money. And the problem is, is people are willing to work and do the labor that nobody wants to do. And yet you have people that complain about the fact that they’re doing that labor for minimum, minimum labor, minimum money, right?
[00:15:30] Stephen Hall: Okay. Well, Um, we’ve got a couple other, we can, we can kind of switch gears here. Um, what, uh, what religion were you and your family? Well, what’s the, what’s the, the main religion, um, being like where you came from first?
[00:15:50] Flavio Olivera: Catholic. 99 percent of people are Catholic and we remained that when we came here.
[00:15:57] Stephen Hall: Okay.
All right. When was that like a driving factor for wanting to come here? Just like,
[00:16:05] Flavio Olivera: No, no, it wasn’t. It wasn’t a driving factor. Um, we are not like, um, I would say the, the church crazy people. Um, we are just normal, normal Catholic people. You know, we had, we attended church when it was possible and you know, when what isn’t, it isn’t, you know, We’re not all like crazy Jesus look love this and that you know, just normal people.
[00:16:29] Stephen Hall: Okay, good. Good. Good. Well, um What kind of move into some some random spontaneous questions here, um, what do you think of the food is uh, Did you have a lot of experience with like, well, I mean obviously you had to eat But like do you think American food is better or worse?
[00:16:51] Flavio Olivera: But here’s what I tell you so American food, in the beginning, was really weird.
[00:17:01] Stephen Hall: I’m sorry, you’re cutting out, you’re cutting out, say that one more time.
[00:17:05] Flavio Olivera: Alright, uh, uh, American food was like, really weird in the beginning. Because, like, we’re used to everything being homemade. So it was weird going to grocery stores and getting stuff that was already made, for us to eat. So it was kind of crazy, but we liked it.
Man, I’m a fat kid at heart, so we love food. We love food. Um, it was, it was getting used to the fact that a lot of things were able to be gotten already pre made for you. You’re not making them yourself.
[00:17:36] Stephen Hall: Is there anything that, like, Is there anything that, like, You or your family, like, Brought with you?
Like, any, like, Any kind of, like, recipes? Or, uh, Or, I guess Anything like that, like, something that you would still make?
[00:17:55] Flavio Olivera: Oh yeah, we still, we still do all the home cooking. Um, you know, we use ingredients here, but we still do all the home cooking. My mom’s got all the recipes back from Portugal. Uh, I learned quite a few that I still use to this day.
So we still do the home cooking, especially during the holidays. The holidays are big for like, home style cooking.
[00:18:12] Stephen Hall: Okay, good, good, good. That’s a great thing. Um Okay, and um, Well you mentioned that you have, You have a child, is it just one? Just one. Okay, and um, I guess, well yeah, they would have been from here too.
Um, Have they run into any, Anything since, Since birth? Did you have any problems with that?
[00:18:40] Flavio Olivera: So my son’s only three and a half so he hasn’t gotten that and plus knowing him and his behavior he’ll probably suplex somebody that gives him a problem.
But, but nah, and I’m trying to keep that away from him. You know, that was my, my boss bare ass per se. He doesn’t need to bear that. He doesn’t need to know what that was like because he was born here. He has all the privileges of any American, just like myself, but he doesn’t need to know that situation.
[00:19:15] Stephen Hall: So you would, you would keep that whole, like, like say. You would want to keep that whole experience away from, from just like something that he, like you wouldn’t want him to experience the same thing that you had to experience
[00:19:32] Flavio Olivera: Exactly. Plus you at, I feel at that point when he gets old enough to understand what that was like.
Uhhuh. , um, I’d like him to experience his situation to get his own idea of the situation. I don’t wanna give him false ideas so he can base it off of something I felt instead of going off of what he felt himself.
[00:19:49] Stephen Hall: Okay, good. Yeah, it’s a great way to develop the mind, you know, have your own opinions on things like that Okay, um Let’s move into sports.
Do you follow American sports? Is there any sports that are are more popular there than they are here that maybe you grew up watching?
[00:20:10] Flavio Olivera: Well, the number one sport in the world, soccer, is way more popular there than it is here. Here, it’s a bunch of kids running around in a field, but. But I do all the sports, I do your basketball, I do your football, I do your hockey, and that’s it.
Baseball, America’s pastime, is not a sport. Um, y’all don’t run.
[00:20:28] Stephen Hall: I can second that. I can second that. I grew up playing soccer, I played in high school. So, uh, I’m definitely on board with that. Okay. Um, if you had to pick one, what would you say you follow the most?
[00:20:40] Flavio Olivera: I hear football. Football? Okay. NFL, college football, both?
I do both. I do college football. I do NFL. I, you know, I got my fantasy teams. So I do it all. And, uh, right now I’m kicking ass first, so I gotta keep going.
[00:20:56] Stephen Hall: Okay. What do you think about JMU’s bowl game playing the Air Force? That’s going to be a good game.
[00:21:02] Flavio Olivera: That’s going to be a good game. I don’t know. I don’t know about that.
I got money on the game too, but I don’t know about that one. You think we’re going to win? I got money on JMU, so we’ll see.
[00:21:12] Stephen Hall: Cool, cool. It’s in, I want to say, Fort Worth, Texas on December 23rd. Wish I could make it. Nice day. It’s going to be a nice day. Yeah, Christmas Eve Eve. It’s going to be fun to watch.
Okay. Um, so let’s talk about like your home growing up. Um, so when you left, do you remember um, anything about like the house that you lived in or the neighborhood or the community?
[00:21:41] Flavio Olivera: Yeah, so I grew up as my wife likes to call it because she’s been there. Um, according to her, I grew up in a third world country.
Okay. But I didn’t. So we were, we were a farmland style. Um, that’s where we lived. We lived in the farmland. Um, we had a small two story house on about 5 to 7 acres. And then my grandfather who that that was his house, we still own it today. Um, it’s still in the fit, but he also owned about another 20 acres and property all around.
So we did all the farmland like two days before I came to America as a eight year old kid. I was moving about 30 to 40 bales a day, trying to get it ready for the winter time. So yeah, I definitely remember the, a couple of days before I came here, it was, um, it was a very, like, I would say if you’d call it compared to the United States, like Southern, Southern farmland style situation, very home.
Everybody knows their neighbors Everybody knows everybody
[00:22:50] Stephen Hall: That’s that’s great. Actually because I kind of grew up in a similar similar way I mean, we didn’t grow up on a farm, but definitely a rural area And do you think that like Communities here or like nicer than communities there I mean, would you take like if you had the opportunity to take that that piece of land in that house and just Put it over here somewhere.
Would you do it?
[00:23:16] Flavio Olivera: Um, no, no. So here’s the thing. So to give you a perspective, and it’s great that I have this perspective. My wife, born and raised here in the United States, she’s never set foot outside the country until she went to Portugal with me. Um, she’s willing to relocate to Portugal. That’s how much nicer it is compared to here.
[00:23:38] Stephen Hall: Okay. Gotcha. Um,
[00:23:41] Flavio Olivera: I feel that, that It’s weird. The neighborhoods here, like I live in a very nice neighborhood. Uh, everybody is nice and everything, but it isn’t like the nineties where kids are all outside playing. Parents are outside. There’s nobody outside anymore. You know, there’s no neighborhoods anymore.
No, no block parties. No, no, everybody getting together. It’s hard even for Halloween and trick or treating. You got like five or six kids that come by. Not the soiree of like 40 to 60 kids that used to come down a neighborhood. It’s very independent nowadays.
[00:24:15] Stephen Hall: It’s kind of moving into like a technology generation.
Everybody’s got an iPad in front of their face. Exactly. It’s crazy. I think that the lifestyle that you grew up in is something that should be preserved. I don’t think kids need to I don’t think anybody under the age of probably 10 or 11 years old needs to have any sort of reliance on a piece of technology in order to entertain them or to educate them.
You know, that’s why you go to school, that’s why you socialize with your friends.
[00:24:51] Flavio Olivera: But even in schools nowadays, these kids are getting Google Chromebooks right off the bat. They, they, we’re having the books like regular books to read. We don’t get those no more. And, and people are so quick to take out cell phones for this and that.
How are you just living the moment? Yeah. It’s crazy.
[00:25:11] Stephen Hall: And so would you say that, uh, people, people like, uh, you know, the way they talk to you and just like the way they,
[00:25:26] Flavio Olivera: Um, I would say, uh, people here, once I got the hang of the language and knew how to talk the language, I got treated better than before I learned the language. So I definitely didn’t get treated good while I didn’t know the language. You know, you got the people that make fun of you because you don’t understand them and everything else.
But It, once I was able to talk English and people like, Oh, he knows English, then, then I got treated differently. But as, as far as in the beginning, I’d say I got treated better in my home country than when I got here. But that was again, a language barrier. People didn’t understand. I didn’t understand them.
So it was hard for us to communicate.
[00:26:07] Stephen Hall: So you would say that’s probably like the hardest thing that there was to adapt to when you can’t was just learning the language.
[00:26:13] Flavio Olivera: Oh yeah. A hundred percent communication. You know, at the end of the day. Buildings, roads, this, that, the third, you can all learn that, but communicating, if you don’t have that, it’s real hard.
It’s difficult.
[00:26:25] Stephen Hall: Okay, gotcha. Well, is there, uh, is there any hobbies that you enjoy?
[00:26:32] Flavio Olivera: Um, uh, I garden. Um, I garden a lot, just because of what I grew up with. I, me and my son, I teach my son how to garden, which is great. He does a lot.
What happened? I said it’s a great skill to have.
Uh, yeah, and other than that, I honestly, because I work so much, like, my hobby is, is my family.
So, if I’m not working, I’m at home with my family, either doing something with them or doing something outside with them. Just, you know, maintaining that family style orientation that I grew up with.
[00:27:07] Stephen Hall: Okay, good, good. Great thing to preserve. Um, cool, cool, cool. So, gardening. Um, and you mentioned you went to school for, um, Marine Biology.
Did you?
[00:27:22] Flavio Olivera: Yeah, that was a pretty good amount of money.
[00:27:25] Stephen Hall: I thought that was interesting because I’m kind of in the same, in the same major. I’m Geographic Science, so. I’m at the point now where I’m starting to, uh, apply for jobs. I’m in my senior year, so I’m kind of making that transition from where I’m at into Into the real world and, uh, yeah, it’s, it’s kind of scary, but, um, you know, it’s always good to talk to somebody that has similar or had similar interests.
I mean, I’d imagine it’s still, maybe you still read up on that type of thing, even though you’re not in the business directly, you know?
[00:28:01] Flavio Olivera: Any recommendation? I can say, look, I, the problem with me is I did it when I was a little bit older and already had established bills, mortgage, card payments, that stuff.
So I did it. I was already 32 when I graduated. So, you know, you’re looking at the situation you got. I’m assuming you’re like 21 or so. Yeah. So you got 10 years before me. So you figure I went in and I was set up. I had, um, we have a, um, a marine biology station here at Sandy Hook Beach in New Jersey. And, um, my mother actually knows the head of the marine biology lab here.
So I had an in to go in there. And I interviewed me, I interviewed, they loved me, they loved my grades, they loved my scores, they loved everything that I did. The problem was, was base salary. I’m already had, I already had a mortgage, and a car payment, insurance, and all these other payments. And you’re starting me at less than what I’m already making at where I was at.
So it’s hard to transition into a job that I actually loved, um, and that I still follow religiously. Um, and I just couldn’t do it money wise, it wasn’t, it wouldn’t work for me.
[00:29:19] Stephen Hall: So if you had any advice to give to, say, um, people that might come from similar backgrounds as yourself, um, kinda like, In the same stage that I’m at kind of moving into the real world.
What would you say to those people? I
[00:29:35] Flavio Olivera: would, I would say if it’s, if it’s something that you really love and want to pursue, start now, because while you have the ability to kind of mitigate your expenses, start now, because as you get older and you start establishing yourself and you start basically developing your lifestyle.
You then have to be ready to realize that, hey, this is the, uh, the lifestyle I’m accustomed to. Now I have to make that gross to cover my lifestyle. So if you start young and start realizing what you want to do and get yourself your foot in the door of here or there and start developing yourself, you’ll develop the lifestyle basic based on what you’re making, not on what you’re going to be.
And that way it can prevent you from making any mistakes moving forward.
[00:30:25] Stephen Hall: Okay. Well, that’s great advice. Um, yeah, well, I’m kind of, kind of at the end of my road here. Uh, there might be a couple other things we can talk about. Um, I know Zoom is going to kick us off because it wanted me to upgrade it to longer meeting times or something.
I think we still have maybe another five minutes we can talk. Um, so, let’s see what else we got here. Um, we talked about the food, we talked about better opportunities, sports. Um, How about holidays? Is there any, is there any holidays that are, uh, celebrated there that maybe you don’t celebrate here?
[00:31:13] Flavio Olivera: No, all the holidays are pretty well, Turkey Day is really not celebrated there, it’s celebrated here. The, the weirdest holiday actually is Halloween. So we do a form of Halloween there, but our Halloween is more of like, uh, a traditional, like, Big outside cookout. So basically the way it works in our neighborhood is basically there’s a big cart that goes around to every house and every house donates a dish.
And then at the end, we take a big ass trunk of like a freaking 100 year old tree. We light it on fire, make a big bonfire and literally there’s a huge table and everybody just pigs out on what everybody made.
[00:31:57] Stephen Hall: That sounds like a better version of Halloween if you ask me. That sounds great.
[00:32:03] Flavio Olivera: So the whole neighborhood, each house will donate a dish that could basically feed like 30 to 40 people.
And then a cart comes around and literally collects a dish from every neighborhood, from every house. And then we light a bonfire and we basically throw a big ass party.
[00:32:20] Stephen Hall: That sounds like a great time. That sounds like a great time. That sounds like something I could do every weekend, actually.
Oh man, this is good. So, yeah, you are, uh, definitely, uh, you seem like you’ve got yourself well established. You’ve got a, a beautiful family from the sounds of it. Um, Yep, and you’re, uh, you’re kind of staying true to your roots, you know. You’re not, you’re not, you’re not putting it all behind you, and, um, You know, you said you’d still go back to visit?
Yeah, you can’t forget where you came from. Definitely cannot forget where you came from. Okay. Well. Um. It was definitely, uh, good to get to know you and, uh, hear your story and I hope others find it just as interesting as I did. Um. We’ll, uh. Yeah, we can go ahead, we can go ahead and cut it off here, and um, Thank everybody for listening.
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