Immigrant? The Situation in Portugal
If you consider yourself of a certain class or financial rank — you distain the word immigrant and declare yourself an ‘expat.’
But let’s get to the issue of immigration and the tightening of borders for the working class. I’ve immigrated to Portugal from the U.S., not because I obtained a special visa because I have wealth, a retirement fund, or I’m a mover-and-a- shaker with a nomad visa.
I came to Portugal in August 2020 under the usual tourist visa with a letter from Coimbra University with my enrollment for an intensive Portuguese language course.
After the three week course, I came to Lisbon, and began researching ways I could possibly stay in the country. I found a wonderful program: the manifestação de interesse. This initiative was explained to me by a very patient SEF (is now AIMA, Portugal’s immigration and asylum department) service worker.
An applicant needs to gather necessary personal documents from their home country and apply for necessary Portuguese accounts in Portugal, such as, Social Security and the Finance.
After I completing this list of tasks, I electronically submitted my manifestação de interesse, my expression of interest for residency. The wonderful part of obtaining residency this way is that I was able to look for work and get settled in Lisbon. After the acceptance of my application, I was legally able to continue my stay in Portugal until my immigration appointment. I couldn’t leave the country during this process, but then why would I want to? I had sold everything I could in Boston to fund my one-way ticket to Portugal and my living expenses for the next year in Lisbon.
I felt akin to my great-grandparents who immigrated from Poland, Sweden, and Ireland during the turn of the century to the U.S. They were working class, and I’m sure like me they wanted a change and a better life.
Yes, my life here is better than in Boston. My life back in the States was consistently choking me with the competition, the all-about-money and making-it attitude, and the general lack of community. I have no desire to be a fast paced go-getter.
I like taking my time. My work is a passion — I'm an artist, a writer, and a caretaker of dogs. The money I need to live is a necessity — it’s neither my life blood or my reason for choosing my professions.
I loved being Portugal long before the fashion. My move was years overdue, because I could never understand how I was going to move without money or a lot of money. This is how capitalism wears down the average person. In the States if you’re poor or working class then there must be something morally wrong with you. I was never with the “program.” Yet being outside the norm of corporate money-driven mindset, did limit my ideas of what I could do.
Here, in Portugal and am more aligned with the community and art world here than I ever was in Massachusetts. This is my land of freedom.
In 2022, almost two years after submitting my manifestação de interesse, I had my interview with immigration for residency. By this time I had created a terrific community of friends in my neighborhood, a nice little apartment, and relatively steady freelance work as a journalist and photographer. After a tense hour answering questions, filling out forms, and paying the fee, I was granted a permit for two years residency. I had done it!
Portugal’s program had allowed me to immigrate here, because they gave me time, not because I was rich, had a corporate job, or passive income. My income has always been and will always be ACTIVE.
Sadly, on June 4th 2024 at the stroke of midnight the manifestação de interesse program ended. The Portuguese government official António Leitão Amaro stated that there needed to be more balance with the process and also wanted to attract immigrants with “qualifications.” I think he means the right qualifications, from the right countries, who have bigger bank accounts.
Once again, to my distress, the world is closing out the working class. People are trying their best and if they are immigrating there’s a reason. Not everyone can achieve this popular cookie-cutter, mainstream, money-centric wealth and some of us don’t fucking want it. You can keep your pop-culture greenwashed Telsa, make more to spend more, running to nowhere life. It’s not a style — that life is actually an environmental and a community disaster.
I came to Portugal for a life where I could simply live. I’ve been lucky. Last week my residency permit renewed for another three years. But there are so many people, who are now without the chance for a life here because they don’t meet a ridiculous classist ideology.
