The Globe ran a piece in today's edition about tensions in Framingham with some of the locals and their ire towards all the Brazilians making Framingham the spot for those immigrating from Samba-land. These days the Brazilians as a whole are much more conspicuous around Boston thanks to the World Cup. Green and yellow can be seen everywhere as the people from Brazil celebrate their Seleção in hopes that they bring home their record SIXTH World Cup championship. The evident size of the BR population begs the question for some - how many are here legally? The question has been discussed repeatedly for the past few months in national media, and its surely a concern here in Massachusetts.
Let's take a detour, though. Let's shelve the debate and bask in something more fun - the celebrations going on around us in the greater Boston area. Bostonist opened the paper this morning in hopes that this is what he was going to read about - the elation and fun that's being had in Somerville, Allston, Framingham and all other Brazilian communities; in the North End where the Italians cheer their kin from the "old country".
"Soccer" is definitely not the national past-time here but every four years even Americans are compelled to stop and allow themselves get sucked in, especially now. The tournament has been in full swing for the past month, but now that we've reached the round of 8 the tension and anticipation is reaching its zenith. Just look at the people crowding around tv's for upwards of an hour at Best Buy, and inside and outside bars and restaurants. As stated above, noone takes this tournament more seriously, and celebrates with more enthusiasm, than the Brazilian people. Having been down there for the duration of '94 World Cup Bostonist can say that that was the only experience to eclipse the madness and celebration that occurred after the magical Sox season of '04.
Anyone with photos of celebrations in support of any team in the greater Boston area please email Bostonist or add them to flickr with the "Bostonist" tag.
First photo courtesy of Liberoliber's "World Cup 2006" Flickr set.
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I'm from Framingham. The only people who are complaining are the xenophobic NIMBYist morons who live by the rule of "assimilate or die."
I will party with the Brazilians (I'm not Brazilian, I'm an American soccer fan, but I like their team) if/when they win on Saturday. And boy do I hope I run into those twits while I'm there.
I'm from Framingham, too. I think most town residents are pleased that the Brazillian community has completely revitalized the downtown, which was essentially abandoned when GM and other manufacturing plants closed down in the early 80s. Those two clowns in the Globe article do not represent the local sentiment by any means.
After lunch at my apartment in the North End the other day, I was walking back to work when fireworks started going off in the sky, large parades of people with the Italian flag were parading down the streets, even drums and trumpets were being played. Yep. Italy had just beaten Australia on the last play of the match.
Anybody who doesn't like that kind of atmosphere shouldn't live in a city.
I live in downtown Framingham. I went to check one celebration of Brazil's victory in the world cup last week and it wasn't so bad. Traffic was backed up but I was really expecting total chaos from what some people have reported. It's nice to see people celebrating something fun with all that's going on in the world.
I don't know if I'd say Brazillians have "completely revitalized" downtown, there's plenty of work that still needs to be done but it's not bad.