Back to Family Story outcomes, S22
by Alyssa Moreira
Dating back four generations, all of my ancestors, without exception, are from Minas Gerais. Brazil. I don’t think any of them would have guessed their future descendant would one day be living over 4000 miles away in the United States. How did my lineage go from rural Brazil to Boston, Massachusetts? I will explore this question, along with give insight regarding Minas Gerais and my connections to the sugar cane industry.
Joaquim De Faria was my suspected third great grandfather, born in Sao Domingo do Prata, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Although I know very little about him, he is as far back as I can trace my family. Because my roots in Minas go back to the 1800s, my family takes pride in being Mineros. Minas Gerais means “General Mines,” because of the fact that the state is home to thousands of mines. They are home to some of the world’s most unique gemstones and large amounts of gold, iron, and platinum. From 1700 to the mid-1800s, Minas Gerias produced about eighty percent of the world’s gold. The state is the main source of gold and diamonds even still today[1]. Additionally, Minas contains a landscape of rivers, waterfalls, and even caves. Some of my favorite views on my drive from the airport to my grandparents’ house include the great rivers and hilly landscapes. Another thing Mineros take pride in is their love of cheese or queijo. The state is even known for its queijo Minero, and exports millions of dollars worth of cheese each year. It is typical in Minas for families to gather around and enjoy cheese and coffee in the afternoon following a long day’s work, and my mom carried on this tradition in our family. Despite the fact that my parents moved to America almost 30 years ago, they are still deeply connected to their Brazilian culture.
Calling from a tiny apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Nilton Moreira, my father, proposed an idea to my mother that would change the course of their lives. Rosangela, my mother, was living in Timoteo, Minas Gerais, when she was asked to take a leap of faith and move to Massachusetts. The two had been dating long distance for over a year at the time after my father had moved to America. At only 22 years old, she found herself unsure of what to do. After the two got married while my dad waited overseas, my mother got a visa and traveled to her new home: The United States.
After my sister and I were born, my parents took us to visit Brazil when I was about 5 years old. Since then, we have visited almost every summer. I will always appreciate my parents’ efforts to bring me to their country and show me where they were raised. It has allowed me to see how different my life is from what theirs was like, and has brought me closer to my culture. Visiting each year entailed staying with my grandparents on both my maternal and paternal sides. My dad’s parents, Nelson Moreira and Maria Perpetua Da Silva, live in Timoteo, Minas Gerais. They live in a more urban area where I can enjoy a quick walk to the grocery or convenience store. My mom’s parents, however, live a very different lifestyle. Jesus Barbosa and Terezinha De Jesus, my maternal grandparents, live on a farm or rossa in Timoteo. Growing up, I was always intrigued by my grandfather’s job on the rossa. I watched him harvest crops of sugarcane and turn the plant into juice, or caldo de cana. My grandfather, Jesus, would then turn the juice into desserts and ferment it to create a rum drink called cachaça.
From the years 2020 to 2021, Minas Gerais produced 70 million metric tons of sugarcane[2]. Brazil remains the world’s largest producer of sugarcane, which many of the citizens use to make cachaça, including my grandfather. Sugarcane was domesticated in New Guinea and was brought over to Asia. Humans learned the process of converting the sugarcane into juice and even crystallizing it into sugar granules[3]. The Crusades transferred the production of sugar came from the Muslim World to Christian cultures, and Brazil has dominated the industry since Maderia introduced it in the 1500s. Soon after sugar cane began being cultivated, Brazilians began to use the crop to create cachaça.
Cachaça is a distilled spirit made from fresh sugarcane juice with five hundred years of history. Under Brazilian law, the drink is defined as having between 38-54% alcohol by volume and made from the distillation of sugarcane juice, which must be fermented less than 24 hours after the juice was pressed. Sugar may be added to the spirit in order to make cachaça dulce. This alcohol is also unfortunately tied to the history of enslaved people in Brazil. Millions of Africans were imported to Brazil from 1500 to the late 1800s with the intention of harvesting sugarcane to make cachaça. I believe that some of my own ancestors where these slaves, as my DNA Story report showed I am 19% African, with descent from Benin, Togo, Cameroon, Congo, and Western Bantu[4]. It is safe to assume that my connection to the sugarcane industry goes back to the days of slavery, and lives on through my grandfather.
The process of making cachaça is incredibly time-consuming and tedious. My grandfather begins by planting sugar cane in preparation for harvest. When the crop is ready to be gathered, he and his team of employees, or two of my great-uncles, use machetes to hand-chop each stalk. My grandfather then presses each stalk of sugarcane through a machine to make juice. He then bottles some of this juice to sell but uses the majority for cachaça-making purposes. After the juice is acquired, he filters it and adds yeast for fermentation. The fermented juice is transferred into wooden barrels where they will age for three years. When the cachaça is ready, my grandfather hand-bottles the liquid and sells his product to customers who visit the farm or customers of his bar. His bar, which is about a 15-minute drive into town, is home to regulars who rave about my grandfather’s cachaça.
Along with making cachaça, my grandfather also makes a dessert called rapadura. This delicacy is made by pressing sugar cane into juice, which is then cooked in a huge open pan. My grandparents take turns vigorously stirring the liquid until its sugar increases concentration, creating a syrup. My grandmother creates molds for the rapadura using banana leaves and wood. She used the leaves as wax paper, laying them down flat, and placing a wooden mold on top. The syrup is then poured into the molds and left to set for a day. The two package the cubes into plastic and they are sold at the bar. People even come from hours away to visit the farm and buy a few blocks of my grandfather’s rapadura. Even though I am not the biggest fan of it, my mom loves to use it to sweeten her coffee and to eat alone as a dessert.
Watching my grandfather make cachaça and rapadura every summer has made memories to last a lifetime. My cousins and I would all wait around for the fresh cane juice to be poured every morning and enjoy breakfast with the refreshing liquid. My visits to my grandfather’s farm also always entailed an extended social media and phone cleanse, as the area has no cell phone service or wifi connection. I always appreciated this time to bond with the family members I only saw once a year and enjoy getting to know more about where my parents grew up. I am so lucky to be able to experience both Brazilian and American culture, thanks to my parents who made the voyage from Minas to Massachusetts.
[1] https://braziltheguide.com/minas-gerais/
[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1120114/sugar-cane-production-brazil-state/
[3] https://www.avuacachaca.com.br/sugar-cane-varieties
[4] https://www.ancestry.com/dna/origins/7597E706-E1DC-42B6-98A1-A55B494A275C