Where I Am From

http://flickriver.com/photos/vitor107/sets/72057594114511711/

      I was born in a small village in Castelo Branco, Portugal. From what my mother tells me, we lived upstairs from nuns who raised chickens in the back yard. Every morning they would bring her two eggs, one for my mom and one for me. My mother had told me that these nuns had loved me with every fiber of their body. I know very little about this part of my life or where and who my father was because at the age of 2 years old my mother took me from him and we immigrated to Detroit, MI.

      Growing up in Detroit was a hard lifestyle. I was constantly getting into fights with every minority because I went around saying I was African. See my mother was born in Africa and since as far back as I can remember, she told me I was black just like her. I believed her throughout all the abuse I took from classmates I should have considered friends, but no one cared about the immigrant who was clearly confused with his ethnic background. I spoke the native tongue of my mother’s birthplace and with everyone that was part of my family.

       My mother choose to move to Detroit because her brother owned a extremely large manufacturing plant here, so her plan was to work there for him and this would give her a good jump start on her new life here with me. Time went on and by the age of 12, I had wanted to work with my uncle. Seeing his nice house, good clothing, and luxurious car made me want things I did not need. I worked in that plant for about 30 minutes before I realized that machines were a beautiful thing. I read about every manual and every machine to be able to run them all. By the age of 16, I ran everything, could fix anything, and eventually tore every machine from piece to piece to learn how and what way they worked. It was also in this year I learned that the way that machines worked was due in part to a trade called engineering. I knew from the second I learned this that this would be my life goal...to become an engineer. After I graduated college I packed up, said my last goodbyes to Detroit and left to go pursue this dream.

link to more pictures of Castelo Branco