DeBarros wanted something different for his family. So in 1980, the 32-year-old and his bride, Adelaida, left their home country for Provincetown, where he became a fisherman.
Nearly 40 years, two sons, and two grandchildren later, DeBarros is retiring from his job as a custodian at Seashore Point Wellness & Rehabilitation, which hosted a celebration for him on Friday, Oct. 11.
Now 71, DeBarros never got the chance to learn much English, and yet the patients at Seashore Point always bond with him, said Rolando Peres, a maintenance worker at Seashore Point and DeBarros’s close friend.
“Jose is very, very polite,” Peres said. “His English is not really good, but everyone in the wellness center loves him. Sometimes, people like me, we are so busy we don’t spend much time with the residents, but Jose does. Believe me, everyone is going to miss him.”
The DeBarroses sat for an interview with the Independent soon after last Friday’s celebration. Adelaida said that when she and Jose came to the U.S they spoke no English. For her, that was the hardest part about making a new life here.
For Jose, it was the fishing. He had worked in construction in Portugal, and here he soon discovered fishing was not for him. The fishermen were fine company, he said, but the cold, the seasickness, and the frightening conditions got to him.
Still, he worked on the water for 14 years on the Carla B, the Silver Mink, and other vessels.
He also worked as a prep cook at Napi’s and Pepe’s, he said. In 2002, he joined his wife, a certified nursing assistant, working at what was then the town-owned Cape End Manor.
In contrast to Seashore Point, the Cape End Manor was a no-frills nursing home with four patients to a room, and one bathroom for eight residents, Adelaida recalled.
DeBarros worked in the kitchen before switching to house cleaning. When his wife left Seashore Point after 22 years due to back problems, DeBarros stayed. The Manor was sold to the nonprofit Deaconess Abundant Life Communities. It is now in the process of being sold again to a private company, Pointe Group Care.
“The Manor was more homey,” Adelaida said.
The couple lives in a spotless yellow ranch house on Aunt Sukey’s Way in Provincetown. In a town once dominated by Portuguese immigrants, now there are very few first-generation families here, said Adelaida.
Partly this has to do with the steep decline of the fishing industry in Provincetown, which drew the Portuguese for generations. It also has to do with U.S. immigration policy.
When the DeBarroses left Ponte de Lima, a town in northern Portugal near the Spanish border, it took one year for them to earn green cards and, soon after that, citizenship, Adelaida said.
Their friend Rolando Peres, who is 50, came to the U.S. from Portugal after years visiting his father, who had immigrated in 1986. Rolando lived here part-time for years and moved full-time five years ago. Peres said he waited 11 years to get a green card.
Now, with immigration policies tightening, Peres believes his own son, still a citizen of Portugal, will probably wait 20 years for a green card.
Peres visits Portugal every year in December, and each time “it is hard to come back,” he said, because of being separated from family.
Thinking about Portugal, he said, “The food is unbelievable, and the weather is unbelievable. But the salaries are not enough to live on.” The average person, he said, makes 600 euros, about $700, a month. “I have different plans for my future,” he said.
Peres is no stranger to hard work. After working 6 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. at Seashore Point, he does tile work and pressure washing jobs.
“I don’t like days off,” he said. “I want to see the time go fast.”
DeBarros, he says, has a similar work ethic.
“He’s 71 years old and I know people who are 50 who cannot work as fast as him,” Peres said.
Of all the residents and staff at Seashore Point, Peres may be the one who will miss DeBarros the most.
“I go to work 20 to 25 minutes early every day to talk to him,” Peres said. “He makes the coffee and we talk about soccer, Portugal, everything.”
