Regional Oral History Office University of California The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California
An Oral History with Orlando Pascoa
Interviews conducted by Don Warrin
and Deolinda Adao in 2006
Copyright © 2010 by The Regents of the University of California
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Since 1954 the Regional Oral History Office has been interviewing leading participants in or well-placed witnesses to major events in the development of Northern California, the West, and the nation. Oral History is a method of collecting historical information through tape-recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. The tape recording is transcribed, lightly edited for continuity and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewee. The corrected manuscript is bound with photographs and illustrative materials and placed in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and in other research collections for scholarly use. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account, offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is reflective, partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable.
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All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement between The Regents of the University of California and Orlando Pascoa, dated November 14, 2006. The manuscript is thereby made available for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. Excerpts up to 1000 words from this interview may be quoted for publication without seeking permission as long as the use is non-commercial and properly cited.
Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to The Bancroft Library, Head of Public Services, Mail Code 6000, University of California, Berkeley, 94720-6000, and should follow instructions available online at http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/ROHO/collections/cite.html
It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows:
Orlando Pascoa, “An Oral History” conducted by Don Warrin in 2006, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2010.
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Introduction – Orlando Pascoa
In October of 2006 Deolinda Adao and I traveled to Mountain View, Calif., to interview Orlando Pascoa, who had immigrated from northern Portugal over sixty years before. He was assisted in the interview at times by Mrs. Pascoa, a Portuguese American from California. Mr. Pascoa is best known as a musician and leader of the Pascoa Brothers band, very active in the Portuguese community for half a century. Besides relating interesting moments of his life history, Pascoa spent considerable time telling the story of his band and its interactions with the Portuguese community. He told, as well, an interesting tale of leaving Portugal and flying to the U.S. in 1945. Because the war was still going on, the flight was by way of Senegal and Liberia, before the plane headed off to Brazil. In mid-ocean, he recalled, the passengers began to jump up and down and kiss each other. It took him a moment to realize that the pilot had just announced the German surrender. After stops in Trinidad and Puerto Rico, they finally reached their destination in New York. From there his story of traveling by train across the country to California without knowing a word of English is a tale related more than once by immigrants from Portugal.
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Interview #1a: 10-14-2006 Begin Audio File 1a 10-14-2006.mp3
01a-00:00:01 Warrin: OK, so our camera is rolling, and we’re here in Mountain View at the home of
Mr. and Mrs. Pascoa and we’re speaking with Orlando Pascoa.
01a-00:00:40 Pascoa: With Orlando Pascoa.
01a-00:00:40 Warrin: And—could you give me your full name, your complete name?
01a-00:00:45 Pascoa: Well, era Orlando Pascoa, não, Orlando dos Santos Pascoa, mas como era
muito grande para escrever [Well, it was Orlando Pascoa—no, Orlando dos Santos Pascoa, but as it was too long to write}…
01a-00:00:53 Warrin: In English.
01a-00:00:54 Mrs. Pascoa: Use English. Just say, Orlando Pascoa, it makes it easier.
01a-00:00:57 Pascoa: Oh, it was too long, Orlando dos Santos Pascoa, so when I take my citizenship
papers, I take off the Santos. It was Orlando Pascoa. It’s not—more easy to—when I sign and, you know.
01a-00:01:16 Warrin: Right, I understand. And when were you born?
01a-00:01:20 Pascoa: Na [in] Gafanha d’Aquém—oh, when I born? Dez de agosto, Dez de agosto.
01a-00:01:31 Warrin: August 10, yeah.
01a-00:01:32 Pascoa: Mil nove—Mil novecentos e vinte e cinco [1925].
01a-00:01:43 Warrin: And where were you born exactly?
01a-00:01:47 Pascoa: I was born in Gafanha d’Aquém, Ílhavo, Portugal.
01a-00:01:53 Warrin: OK, and your parents, were they natives of Ílhavo?
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01a-00:02:03 Pascoa: Uh, yes. My father, he was from Gafanha, and my mother was from Vale de
Ílhavo. Pertence a Ílhavo também [it belongs to Ílhavo also].
01a-00:02:13 Warrin: OK. And what did your father do for a living?
01a-00:02:19 Pascoa: Uh, they come to America. I was seventeen months old and they work on a
ranch in Ryde, California, and he was a cook. He got a gangs, people working, and he always, he’s a pretty good cook, and then he was cooking for and he spent almost all his life over there in Ryde.
01a-00:02:48 Warrin: In Ryde.
01a-00:02:48 Pascoa: California.
01a-00:02:49 Warrin: So he was an immigrant, your father was an immigrant also.
01a-00:02:52 Pascoa: Uh, yes.
01a-00:02:55 Warrin: And your mother—did your mother work? What did she do?
01a-00:03:01 Pascoa: Uh, no, we had a little—in Portugal, we have little pieces of land and we
produce our food. We got corn for the year, we got beans, we got vegetables, and we got a cow, you know, to give us some milk, and you know, we produce our food and we live fine—because—we got food for the whole year ‘round.
01a-00:03:29 Warrin: Now, you were born in Portugal and at seventeen months old you came to the
United States with your parents?
01a-00:03:37 Pascoa: No.
01a-00:03:37 Warrin: Oh.
01a-00:03:38 Pascoa: No, no, I stay there.
01a-00:03:39 Warrin: You stayed there.
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01a-00:03:40 Pascoa: Stay there until I was nineteen.
01a-00:03:42 Warrin: ‘Till you were nineteen. So who did you live with?
01a-00:03:45 Pascoa: My mother.
01a-00:03:46 Warrin: Your mother.
01a-00:03:47 Pascoa: And my brothers, but my brothers emigrated too, to Brazil, and from Brazil
they come to America and when I come, my brother John and Manuel was there and I come to America to see, I mean to visit.
01a-00:04:04 Warrin: So your father came by himself.
01a-00:04:07 Pascoa: By himself.
01a-00:04:07 Warrin: Did he go back at some point?
01a-00:04:10 Pascoa: No. Since he left I never see my father until I was nineteen.
01a-00:04:15 Warrin: And—when you were nineteen.
01a-00:04:17 Pascoa: I was nineteen years old.
01a-00:04:18 Warrin: And how was that when you saw your father for the first time, almost.
01a-00:04:22 Pascoa: Well, I— those days we come on a quota, numbers.
01a-00:04:31 Warrin: Yeah.
01a-00:04:32 Pascoa: Immigration. And I wait in Portugal nine months until my number came. It
was a little tough because we have to have the permit from the army and the army permit, it ends in 1944 and I come in 1945, the year I was going to go to the army. But, the agent, he was a good agent, I don’t know what he did. I went to Lisbon to go to the airplane to come over and there was two guards asked for the papers and to me, you’re not asking for the papers. I don’t know what he did, maybe give them a little tip. So, [laughs] I went in an airplane, I
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was seated, and nobody came. So the steward closed the doors, because I wasn’t sure we was going to come to America, because of, you know. .. so the motor started running, the plane went off, I looked down, I saw the City of Lisbon, I hit my head, says I’m dreaming, I’m going to America, so I come by myself. Nobody came to talk to, I went by myself. So the airplane goes about three hours and went down, it went down. It was Africa, Dakar, but I don’t know about it.
01a-00:06:27 Warrin: They were going in the wrong direction.
01a-00:06:29 Pascoa: I thought, this is America? I don’t see nobody white, it was all black. So,
that’s OK, but when I came, a lady, [Manuel] Barroca’s mother, gave me two linguiças, to give them to the son. So I put the linguiças in my little suitcase, you know. So I stay in Dakar about another two or three hours and took off again. Another two hours, they stop in Liberia, Africa, too. So I don’t know where I’m going, but keep going. I was always the last one to get out of the plane because I was afraid it was going to take off and leave me behind [laughs]. So from Liberia, we’re going again, alright. Way in the middle of the ocean, everybody starts jumping in the plane. I don’t know what’s going on, was jumping up and down on the plane, and come to my mind, maybe he want to put the plane down, but that’s the ocean down there. No, it was the German surrender and the pilot announced that the Germans just surrendered and everybody on the plane jumped and jumped and kissed each other.
01a-00:08:00 Mrs. Pascoa: The war ended.
01a-00:07:59 Warrin: The end of World War II [many voices speaking at the same time].
01a-00:08:03 Pascoa: — World War II. So we come to Natal, Brazil, north Brazil. When the plane
went down, it was like a Carnaval! Everybody was—well, I was nineteen I was there—I joined the crowd right away. But they take me to a hotel because I have the hotel paid by the company, the plane company. So anyway, it was pretty nice. So from Natal we take off, we stop at the equator, boy, it was hot, the equator, [laughs], it was hot! So anyway, but, the other ones go, you know, the ones on the plane that I know, you know, I don’t talk to, but I know, I do what they do. I’m doing alright. And [from] Natal comes to Trinidad—Trinidad we stay another two, three hours…
01a-00:08:59 Mrs. Pascoa: —get to New York.
01a-00:09:00 Pascoa: And take off to Puerto Rico. Take off to Puerto Rico, we stay about a couple
of hours and we take off to New York. So we got to New York.
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01a-00:09:15 Warrin: That was a very long round trip to get to New York.
01a-00:09:18 Pascoa: Round—yes, that because the wartime the Germans submarines was in the
Atlantic and they shoot down the American planes, so we have to go to Africa and south and [from] Africa went to Brazil and we come all the way through Central America, you know until we got—the last was Puerto Rico and New York. When I got to New York and—I was tired, and I got my suitcase and the guy, the steward bring me out, because the plane is, you know, it’s the end of the ticket, so he put me out in the street by myself. I put my suitcase against the wall on the sidewalk and I sit down and I was almost asleep, and—
01a-00:10:13 Warrin: Did you speak English?
01a-00:10:17 Pascoa: [laughs]
01a-00:10:19 Mrs. Pascoa: No.
01a-00:10:19 Pascoa: No, not too good. And they tap on my shoulder. It was the stewardess from
the flight. She saw me, she went around, and then she picked up my suitcase, put it in a taxi and take me to the hotel. OK. They take me to the hotel over there I was feeling comfortable in the sofas anyway. So, they gave me a room on the hotel, but you know I couldn’t speak even one word in English.
[End of fragment Interview 1a]
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Interview #1: 11-1-2006 Begin Audio File 1 11-1-2006.mp3
01-00:00:00 Warrin: So here we are for the second session with Orlando Pascoa and because we
had problems recording we ended with you in New York City. The steward had just given you a room and you were on your way to California, so if you could continue from there.
01-00:00:23 Pascoa: Yeah. Uh, well, the steward told me and he got, he grabbed my suitcase and
put it in a taxi and took me to a hotel. So I went to the hotel, I stayed over there on the front and I stayed there for about fifteen minutes and there comes the director, or there comes a man, and they told me to put my hands up, so I put my hands up, went to my pocket inside and take my papers. It was a, you know, he was asking for something; but I couldn’t speak, so he says…, and I have thirty dollars, take a little bit of the money and they give me…, put the rest in my pocket and took me to a room, took me to the room, so I stay on the room. And I was, no one come, or I don’t know how to come out of the room, I just stay there and I got the two linguiças, was supposed to be for Barroca but then so I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t ask for food, I ate the linguiça and drank water for two days, three days. So finally the man comes again and he grabbed my suitcase, and there was a telegram at my parents in Oakland and they send money back for the, for the train. So he bought me the ticket and he put me on a train on the way to California. So we come on the train, but you’re supposed to change trains on Chicago and I was on a train anyway, you’re sitting over there, it takes, I think, one day and night, or two days, something like that. He took me out of the train because he…
01-00:02:33 Warrin: The conductor.
01-00:02:33 Pascoa: You know I couldn’t get out of the train because I didn’t know where to go.
So they see I’ve got some money, so here comes this lady and they grab my suitcase and I thought that she wants to steal my suitcase, I grab, I hang onto the suitcase, so you know, they get me on a cab, I went to go and they changed the train to come to California, South[ern] Pacific. So there comes a train, another two days and two nights and I got to 16 [16th Street] in Oakland, the last stop of the train and I couldn’t get out of the train. So the guy pulled me out of the train, but when I got out of the train got a taxi right in the front, so I gave the address to the taxi driver, he grabbed my little suitcase and put it on the taxi and took me to North Oakland. So into North Oakland I went to a house or estoa [store] it happens Barroca the owner and I asked him, “You know what, if Mr. Pascoa lives over there?” He says, “The white house over there.” So I grab my suitcase, I knock the door, and there comes this man, say, “É aqui que mora o Senhor João Pascoa?” [Does Mr. João Pascoa live here?]
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01-00:04:07 Mrs. Pascoa: You have to do it in English.
01-00:04:08 Pascoa: Yeah, but he is waiting for a son, he’s gonna come from Portugal and he was
waiting for the son, but “Come on in.” So I went in. So I talked to him for about three or four minutes then I tell him. I say, “Well, the son, you’ve got to waiting for the California, that’s me.” I got here first and then [laughs]. So you know, we were talking, and then my brother comes, when he saw me kind of because I was a little kid when he left me, was bigger than him. So he kind of, shook him up. He says, “How’d you get there, I was waiting at the Santa Fe.” “Well, I don’t know, don’t ask me, because I don’t know anything, I’m here.” So someday you know, it was all right. And—about a week later I got a letter to…, because I go down and register for the army, because it was still war over there at that time with Japan. And the other week comes a letter to go to inspection in San Francisco.
01-00:05:19 Warrin: And they—after a week they already knew that you were here.
01-00:05:24 Pascoa: Yeah, because as soon as I got here, the next day I registered for the army. So,
you know, so I was nineteen, so it was just like that I went to San Francisco. I passed, and comes another, 1-A, OK, 1-A. So it comes this Truman letter, “Greetings—you go to United States Army.” OK. So I went to Oakland, but I don’t know how to go. So I got the letter, I saw this police car coming, I told him to stop, he stopped. I give him the letter, he reads, he hug me and he patted on the back and took me in the car and put me in a bus… to go to the army. So I went on the bus, see all the guys over there on the bus, what did they do, I do the same. And…
01-00:06:30 Mrs. Pascoa: [laughs] You’re on camera drinking water.
01-00:06:32 Pascoa: I went to Camp Beale, North Sacramento. All the guys got out of the bus, I
got out of the bus. They went to the—to get the beds and the clothes. I went with them. Everything was all right. So the sergeant said, here on the form so you can go to breakfast the next day. I sleep there all night. So when they go, march, Sergeant said, “Left turn!” Everybody, left, but I don’t know what he was talking about, I went straight. So I did that twice and he was mad, well, I was laughing, I don’t know what he’s talking about, I don’t know anything about it, so I was laughing. So he pull me out, take me to the commander. The commander started talking to me, still just, I was laughing, so finally, bring this Mexican guy, he was speaking Spanish. So he ask me, “How long you be in America?” “Half a month.” And I see the commander shake his head and he went to his pocket and took a dollar, he gave me a dollar. Well, OK. So he tells something to the sergeant. The sergeant grabbed my suitcase and put me on a jeep and I go for about two hours, two hours and a half, I say, “Where I
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am going?” And next I look, I was home! North Oakland. He says, “Oh, that’s all right.” So he shakes my hand, says goodbye. Shakes my hand, I look at him, says “Well, it was a fast trip,” so that’s OK. So I started, I got a job on Paraffin [Paint Co., later Pabco] at Emeryville, so I’m still working and I start someday anyway and I save to go to a hall, the Flor da Mocidade was a Portuguese Hall close by, so we’ve got some functions to go, so I go over there and I see the one guy playing bandolim [mandolin], two guys playing guitar and dancing the chamarrita and I said, well, kind of interesting anyway, it’s all right. But I think, well, I used to play in Portugal on a band again—
01-00:09:00 Warrin: What did you play, what instrument did you play in Portugal?
01-00:09:05 Pascoa: Clarinet. It was a clarinet. I like play saxophone, but there was no money for
saxophones, so clarinet was, I play almost about three years. So I know pretty well those songs you play on the clarinet, you know, so I went to a picnic, Crow Canyon, the Continental and I started playing “Tiro-liro,” and the guy was, the guy says, “You like to sing with me”? [singing] “Tiro-liro-liro, cá embaixo está o tiro-liro-lo, xum, xum, xum,” so this guy, he likes so much he says, “Play that again, and I’ll give you ten dollars.” So I play again but I don’t want ten dollars.
01-00:09:48 Warrin: Ten dollars was a lot of money in those days.
01-00:09:50 Pascoa: In those days. I say, one guy says, “OK,” he got the ten dollars, he say, “Take
it, take it.” So I take it, put it in my pocket, it’s all right. I play two or three times more anyway and the next day I went to get clothes for work so I took the ten dollars. I went buy out to a store and they got a Portuguese girl there, so she sold me—I wanted shoes, pants, shirts, underwear, all that from ten dollars and there’s still one dollar left. The bill was nine dollars, so I wrote a letter to my mother, saying, “Mama, I play one year in Portugal in a band for a pair of shoes. One year and I still had to put in my pocket cinco [five] escudos to finish to paying Miguel de Avila.” That’s the shoes I bring to America, you see. So, that’s good, I’m on the right place. [laughs] So I work anyways, started, I just put a little band, you know like, you saw that little band that started playing, but the people like them so much I went to Tulare. Pisca Pisca had a program there—he got a fiesta there for the program.
01-00:11:23 Warrin: Could you explain what Pisca Pisca [is].
01-00:11:26 Mrs. Pascoa: Oh, that was o nome do homem, [the name of the man], Santos.
01-00:11:28 Pascoa: Yeah, Santos.
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01-00:11:30 Warrin: It was a person.
01-00:11:33 Pascoa: We would call him Pisca Pisca, but it would not be his name it was—Santos
Pisca Pisca, you know.
01-00:11:40 Warrin: That was his nickname.
01-00:11:41 Mrs. Pascoa: Yeah.
01-00:11:41 Pascoa: So anyway, and I looked around, I was on television. Casey arranged, I think,
one hour on television—Portuguese, the first television in Portuguese here in California. [Mrs. Pascoa speaking in background] So I started playing the “Tiro-liro”: “Ó Rosa arredonda a saia, a regaça, pum pum,” oh, yeah, people over there, it was cold, you got to get a [laughs], he says, “Jeez, I never seen nothing like this,” you know, so he come there, you know, I got a name all over, then started playing at the fiestas from San Diego to Arcata. Almost every town I played they got fiestas anyway, and you got to hire me a year ahead of time, otherwise it gets too much. I did OK, anyhow.
01-00:12:35 Warrin: Did you, did you have another job by this time or did you just—
01-00:12:39 Pascoa: No, I got a job in Paraffin five days a week.
01-00:12:43 Mrs. Pascoa: Half-time.
01-00:12:44 Pascoa: So if I’ll go farther, and I come home, get up on Sunday, four or five o’clock
in the morning, I just change clothes and go to work. I never lose a day of work. [chuckles]
01-00:12:54 Warrin: So you worked five days a week and then you had all of these…
01-00:12:57 Pascoa: You have the band for Saturdays and Sundays.
01-00:12:59 Warrin: … All these gigs from Arcata down to San Diego.
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01-00:13:04 Pascoa: Yeah, well, San Diego, I take a day off, you know, when I go farther I could
not reach the—Sunday at home, so I had to take a day off. You know those days, take a day off, but not too many.
01-00:13:19 Warrin: How did you get to San Diego?
01-00:13:21 Pascoa: We go in our own cars.
01-00:13:24 Warrin: You drove.
01-00:13:24 Pascoa: Own cars, yes, because it was ten hours, eleven hours, anyway. So—I was in
America, that’s where I want to be, so it’s nothing. I could do anything.
01-00:13:36 Warrin: So by this time you had a band.
01-00:13:39 Pascoa: I had a band.
01-00:13:40 Warrin: And it was your band.
01-00:13:42 Pascoa: It was my band.
01-00:13:43 Warrin: And who were the other members?
01-00:13:45 Pascoa: Oh, yeah, it was started with my brothers. Os Tres Irmãos Pascoas [the three
Pascoa brothers]. And from that one, John, he got a store and he couldn’t play anymore, so I had to replace him, see? It was the Pascoa Brothers, they used to call it.
01-00:14:04 Warrin: That was the name of the band?
01-00:14:05 Pascoa: The Pascoa Brothers. And the one who put that was Arzinha, who had
Castelos Romanticos program on the radio. She started announcing it was like the Pascoa Brothers, the band was the Pascoa Brothers, she’s the one who put the name.
01-00:14:22 Warrin: I see. And did you play on her radio?
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01-00:14:27 Pascoa: Yeah, I play on the radio, and I play on television, it was [laughs]. Anyway,
but you know, I did all right. I did all right. But you gotta work. See this—the dream, the American, if you use your head, there’s no other country in the world like it. I can tell you because I went through. I know. We from there, we work hard, we don’t got—you know, we don’t got—but when you see some money coming in, it’s not gonna help easy. Because you don’t want to go back to what you was living like before.
01-00:15:05 Warrin: Right.
01-00:15:07 Pascoa: So, [laughs] one time, but I can’t go in a bank because I don’t know how to
talk to anyone, so what I did, I got socks and I put the money in the socks, and I count in my head because I got so much, put the money in the socks, I put underneath my bed. I got a room over there in the house, the lady… And I rent a room, where I was staying, just a little room. One day, [laughs] I lost count how much I had, says, hey, I don’t know how much I have now, wait a minute. I get all the socks put them on top of the bed and I start putting, counting the money, I fill up the bed with money, close to two thousand dollars!
01-00:15:54 Warrin: Wow!
01-00:15:55 Pascoa: And who’s coming to the room? Barroca. Only he sees me laying down
because I lay down on the top, he says, “Boy, I never seen nothing like this.” [laughs] And he comes in, he starts, “Ha! He’s crazy, he’s crazy!!”
“No, you’re crazy, I’m not crazy, this is mine and I know exactly how much I got here now.” [laughs]
01-00:16:20 Warrin: So he saw all that money—and who is Barroca?
01-00:16:23 Mrs. Pascoa: Manuel Barroca.
01-00:16:25 Pascoa: Manuel Barroca.
01-00:16:25 Warrin: OK.
01-00:16:27 Pascoa: Yeah, Manuel Barroca.
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01-00:16:27 Warrin: Yes.
01-00:16:28 Pascoa: Because we know each other since we’re teenagers back home. He’s the
same… He’s from Ílhavo anyway.
01-00:16:37 Warrin: Right.
01-00:16:38 Pascoa: So—first time I work until one day I says, “Oh, I want to be an American.”
That was my dream, is to be an American. So I’m an American, I take my citizenship papers and everything was just fine.
01-00:16:56 Warrin: Did—after you had this money in the socks—did you just put it back under
the bed? Or did you finally put it in a bank?
01-00:17:03 Pascoa: Finally I asked my sister-in-law to go with me to the bank [in] San Pablo, and
we put ‘em on the bank, because I was afraid some rats come to take it away! [laughter]
01-00:17:17 Warrin: That’s right. And the money that you accumulated—did you invest it in
something at some point?
01-00:17:32 Pascoa: Yes.
01-00:17:32 Mrs. Pascoa: Here. Right here.
01-00:17:33 Pascoa: Yes, I bought this house. My down payment. And I got this house for thirteen
thousand dollars. And the thirteen thousand dollars, anyway, and I have to pay, I don’t know, it was 2% interest. The payment was eighty dollars a month for the payment.
01-00:17:54 Warrin: But that…
01-00:17:55 Pascoa: And I was afraid, you know, if something happens, I have to get that eighty
dollars to pay! [chuckles] But nothing—everything went fine, smooth.
01-00:18:03 Warrin: So, but you didn’t buy this house until after you were married?
01-00:18:06 Pascoa: Yeah. I bought it after I was married.
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01-00:18:11 Warrin: So could you talk a little bit about meeting your wife?
01-00:18:18 Pascoa: [pause]
01-00:18:20 Warrin: About meeting your wife?
01-00:18:22 Pascoa: Oh! I was playing, of course. And everybody is going to the dances. So since
I’m playing, I see everybody. I like to dance too. So I say, “You guys play the next number, I’ll go down.” OK. They play. So I call her up to dance and she says, “No.” OK. You don’t come this time, come the next time. So I try her again when she came. And she came and she never go out again. [laughter]
01-00:19:06 Warrin: I see.
01-00:19:06 Mrs. Pascoa: That’s where we met
01-00:19:06 Warrin: Was she living in Oakley at the time?
01-00:19:08 Pascoa: No. I was living in Oakland, but, she, she went to Oakley to the dance.
01-00:19:20 Mrs. Pascoa: No, she [sic] said, “Where did I live.”
01-00:19:22 Warrin: Well, where was your future wife living at that time? Was she living near
Oakley?
01-00:19:30 Pascoa: No, she was living—it was Palo Alto. She was living in Palo Alto.
01-00:19:36 Warrin: So that was a long…
01-00:19:37 Pascoa: Because her father, her father got a dairy, you know, over there in Mountain
View. And she living in Palo Alto anyways.
01-00:19:44 Warrin: I see. So that was a long way to go.
01-00:19:46 Pascoa: That was, yeah, I was working at Paraffin, was too far to go Palo Alto every
day to Paraffin to Emeryville. But those days—you went two cars on a road, that’s all, there was no traffic at all, because I come in the morning, you know,
14
at about six o’clock in the morning and there’s nobody on the road, 101 anyway, at that time it was, I don’t know, Bayshore—the Bayshore.
01-00:20:12 Warrin: Right. So you met your wife and when did you see her again?
01-00:20:17 Pascoa: Well, the thing goes, you know, and where I go play, don’t worry, she’ll be
there [laughs]. When I play, she was there.
01-00:20:29 Warrin: Do you suspect she might have gone to Oakley because she knew you were
there?
01-00:20:32 Pascoa: [laughs]
01-00:20:34 Mrs. Pascoa: No.
01-00:20:37 Warrin: She says no.
01-00:20:37 Mrs. Pascoa: That’s where I met him.
01-00:20:38 Warrin: The—could you talk a little bit of —how, oh, so, when did you get married?
01-00:20:45 Pascoa: Uh, 1947. I was here two years and I got married, because, you know, well, I
think this is the right place to make your living. I might as well go to work and since I couldn’t go to the restaurant to eat, to cook, and do all that, which was too much—I said, “Eh, let’s get married.” I was 22 years old, it was about the right time anyway.
01-00:21:15 Mrs. Pascoa: “Let’s get married, hey, hey.”
01-00:21:19 Warrin: So, did you move immediately into this house?
01-00:21:22 Pascoa: No, not this house. In Palo Alto. Her mother.
01-00:21:27 Warrin: You lived in Palo Alto.
01-00:21:28 Pascoa: Her mother… her father had a dairy and he was living over there on the dairy,
see, so he got the house over there, so I went over there, stayed over there about three years.
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01-00:21:38 Warrin: With the family?
01-00:21:40 Pascoa: Until I bought this house and I move over here.
01-00:21:44 Warrin: What kind of a dairy did he have? How large was it?
01-00:21:49 Pascoa: Well, at the time it was about 120 cows. It was a pretty good size dairy. It was
a big dairy.
01-00:21:56 Warrin: And what is there now where the dairy used to be.
01-00:22:00 Pascoa: Over there on the Shoreline—and you got a—you know the place they got a
theater now. It was that one.
01-00:22:12 Warrin: Yes, Shoreline Amphitheater.
01-00:22:13 Pascoa: Yes, yes.
01-00:22:15 Warrin: So does the family sell it at—obviously the family sold at some point, sold the
dairy, sold the land.
01-00:22:22 Pascoa: Sold the dairy, she had a, he had it leased from the ranch.
01-00:22:22 Mrs. Pascoa: He had a lease. They sold the dairy.
01-00:22:31 Pascoa: Finally he got sick and then he dies, so they sell the cows, you know, and the
lease to somebody anyway.
01-00:22:38 Warrin: I see, I see.
01-00:22:40 Mrs. Pascoa: That, well, he went to Palo Alto and then we came here. He went back to the
house.
01-00:22:47 Warrin: Uh, [pause] could you tell me how you got your job at Paraffin?
01-00:22:57 Pascoa: My brother was working there and a friend of mine also was working there,
and he talked to the boss to get me the job.
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01-00:23:08 Warrin: And how soon after you left your experience with the army did you start
working there?
01-00:23:13 Pascoa: Well, on the army I only stay two days. I might call it three. When the—I got
the job over there already, so I went back to work and stay over there until I got married and it was too far to travel back and forth every day, so I got a job on the Redwood City on Five Points in Progress Lumber Company, because I work on a lumber yard in Portugal for two or three weeks, and not too long, anyway, but, I stayed over there eighteen years.
01-00:23:47 Warrin: And what did you do?
01-00:23:49 Pascoa: I was a mill man, I was making special molds—set up machines, and stuff
like, you know, as a house going up you need some molding, you cut a little piece of the old molding and they gave it to me so I make it nice and to match the molding that exists in the house. Yeah, they had a lot of work at that time. Everything was wood. Now with everything is aluminum, all the nails and the cabinets, all that was disappearing anyway.
01-00:24:21 Warrin: Did you enjoy that work?
01-00:24:23 Pascoa: What?
01-00:24:24 Warrin: [louder] Did you enjoy that work.
01-00:24:26 Pascoa: Yes. I stayed there eighteen years.
01-00:24:27 Warrin: And did you retire then? Or, you were still too young—
01-00:24:32 Pascoa: No, no.
01-00:24:32 Warrin: You were still young.
01-00:24:34 Pascoa: Finally the owner sold the land for a million dollars. And he went over there,
he says, “Well, I got a million dollars for the land here, I don’t need you guys anymore.”
01-00:24:47 Mrs. Pascoa: He closed.
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01-00:24:48 Pascoa: So he closed the place, see, so from there I went to another place, you know,
different places. I went to Menlo Park.
01-00:25:01 Mrs. Pascoa: Peninsula.
01-00:25:01 Pascoa: A mill they got over there and I went to Redwood City, to another place and
the last one was Sequoia Mill. Over there at Redwood City and I work over there for about seventeen years and I retire, and I retire, yes.
01-00:25:18 Warrin: And then you retired from there. Did you, during this time, did you work with
other Portuguese?
01-00:25:25 Pascoa: Oh, yeah, it was most—I had to because, again, you have to, in Redwood City
where I was from they got a Portuguese from Santa Clara who was the boss. So you know, I got no problem because he was talking to me in Portuguese anyway telling me what to do and this and you know—I did all right. Until, you know, you learn a little bit—so we went to that place—
01-00:25:48 Mrs. Pascoa: And you went to trade school.
01-00:25:50 Pascoa: I did OK.
01-00:25:52 Warrin: You went to trade school, could you discuss that?
01-00:25:55 Mrs. Pascoa: Yes, he went to school.
01-00:25:56 Pascoa: OK.
01-00:25:56 Mrs. Pascoa: Remember you went to school to learn about…
01-00:25:58 Warrin: You went to school for while.
01-00:26:00 Pascoa: Oh, I went to school to learn—
01-00:26:00 Mrs. Pascoa: The carpenter school.
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01-00:26:03 Pascoa: Yeah, I went to school. But those days in school, I don’t know why I didn’t—
one of the guys over there was learning with a teacher, they got an argument, they got in a fight. I say, I not going to a school to see fight. I wanted to learn, so I quit. I said we will manage somehow. Anyway, sometimes you say one thing, I answer completely differently anyway… [referring to the interviewers’ questions]
01-00:26:31 Mrs. Pascoa: But then he learned on the job.
01-00:26:31 Pascoa: But OK, I’m an American, I’m going to try to see…
01-00:26:34 Mrs. Pascoa: But then you learned on the job, too.
01-00:26:36 Pascoa: You learn on the job, yeah.
01-00:26:37 Warrin: Of course.
01-00:26:37 Pascoa: You stay over there eighteen years, you know, after eighteen years speaking a
little bit in English anyway.
01-00:26:44 Warrin: Uh, how did you progress in learning English? Where did you, did you ever
study, or did you just learn [Mrs. Pascoa is chuckling] from using English? Did you ever take a class in English?
01-00:26:58 Pascoa: A class—no. I took a test [Mrs. Pascoa is whispering] in San Francisco. But it
happens, the superintendent of the place I was working for Progress Lumber, he likes me because I work, see. So, he’d rather lay off a man who talks and keep me, because you know I do, as a matter of fact, I went to a, but I don’t know about it, a job, it was to make the, and another guy, make the same thing, but we don’t know nothing about it, and one of the bosses split, he gonna lay off one, split half for me and half for this guy, who finished first, he keep the job. But I don’t know, but happens I finish first, way ahead of the other guy anyway. So one of the bosses saw the time I spent with all that work, got rid of the other guy and when some guys bid a job low, they put my name on, so he don’t pay too much money on labor, see.
01-00:28:17 Warrin: Because you worked faster.
01-00:28:19 Pascoa: I worked faster, so anyway, I did all right.
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01-00:28:23 Warrin: The—how did you keep in contact with your family, with your mother, for
instance?
01-00:28:32 Pascoa: My mother was living in Portugal, but towards the end—
01-00:28:39 Mrs. Pascoa: Did you write to her?
01-00:28:42 Pascoa: Well, I start writing and we sent for her. She came over there, she live—
01-00:28:48 Warrin: How old was she when she came over?
01-00:28:50 Pascoa: Sixty-six or sixty-seven, sometime. But when you get a little older, she had a
daughter buried over there and she says I want to be buried with my daughter.
01-00:29:01 Warrin: And how old was she when she went back?
01-00:29:04 Pascoa: Uh, she was eighty..
01-00:29:08 Mrs. Pascoa: Eighty-five, eighty-five.
01-00:29:10 Warrin: Eighty-five?
01-00:29:11 Pascoa: About eighty-five, yeah.
01-00:29:11 Mrs. Pascoa: She died at eighty-six.
01-00:29:13 Warrin: And so she went back and died soon afterward.
01-00:29:17 Pascoa: She back and died, yeah.
01-00:29:19 Warrin: Yeah. And your father—
01-00:29:22 Pascoa: Well, my father—he never went back. He stayed over here until he died. He
was living in North Oakland when he died, he got a…
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01-00:29:30 Mrs. Pascoa: He died before her.
01-00:29:31 Pascoa: He got a stroke.
01-00:29:32 Warrin: I see.
01-00:29:33 Pascoa: He was seventy-two.
01-00:29:35 Adao: Maybe you could talk a little bit more about the North Oakland neighborhood
and…
01-00:29:42 Mrs. Pascoa: What it was like, North Oakland.
01-00:29:43 Adao: What was it like, more or less where was that neighborhood in North
Oakland?
01-00:29:48 Pascoa: North Oakland when I got here from Portugal it was beautiful. So Portuguese
over there. It was almost all Portuguese over there. Even on the front yard you got feijões [beans], you’ve got couves [kale], you’ve got everything nice and clean. It was beautiful.
01-00:30:03 Warrin: What were the streets there?
01-00:30:05 Pascoa: The streets, I remember the street was all right, the houses—
01-00:30:07 Warrin: What are the names of the streets right there?
01-00:30:10 Pascoa: Oh, it was 32, Thirty-fourth Street, 32, and one—San Pablo—
01-00:30:20 Mrs. Pascoa: Helen. Helen.
01-00:30:23 Pascoa: San Pablo and Adelaide. [someone says “Adelaide” in background.]
01-00:30:31 Mrs. Pascoa: And Louise, and Louise and Helen.
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01-00:30:32 Pascoa: Some other names over there in North Oakland anyway.
01-00:30:35 Warrin: Uh—
01-00:30:35 Adao: Do you remember the name of the street where your father lived?
01-00:30:38 Mrs. Pascoa: Louise, oh—he lived on Helen didn’t he?
01-00:30:42 Pascoa: Hmm?
01-00:30:43 Mrs. Pascoa: Where your father lived? He lived on Helen.
01-00:30:45 Pascoa: Yeah, he was living with John, living with John—
01-00:30:47 Mrs. Pascoa: Yeah, well that was on…
01-00:30:47 Pascoa: They were with John and my mother came and I arranged a house to live
together, you know, because you know, you don’t see them for years and years anyway, so, they live together in the casa de [home of] Vicente Santos, it was a…
01-00:31:04 Mrs. Pascoa: It was on Helen, wasn’t it? Helen.
01-00:31:09 Pascoa: The train come from San Francisco through there.
01-00:31:14 Adao: And do you remember what street—your brother had a store there in North
Oakland.
01-00:31:18 Pascoa: Thirty-four.
01-00:31:19 Mrs. Pascoa: On 34th Street.
01-00:31:18 Pascoa: Thirty-four, thirty four.
01-00:31:20 Deolinda?: How long did he keep that store? Do you remember?
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01-00:31:24 Pascoa: Oh, thirty-five, thirty-six years.
01-00:31:27 Warrin: What was his name?
01-00:31:29 Mrs. Pascoa: John.
01-00:31:30 Warrin: Your brother’s name?
01-00:31:32 Pascoa: John.
01-00:31:33 Warrin: John. And what was the name of the store?
01-00:31:36 Pascoa: Pascoa’s Groceries. Pascoa’s Groceries. He stay there and the thing started
getting a little bad, a little bad, a little bad, you know. One time he got an armed robbery, and he was lucky because the guy, the one he grabbed it, he told him, “Hey, take everything you want but leave me alone.” He took him on the back, when he was down on the floor, he shot him. Shot my brother on the back and my brother pretended he was dead, but he wasn’t dead, you know, pretended he was dead, so when he no heard anything, he hollered for his, uh, for his wife, and she called up the ambulance and then the police and they took him. And he was lucky he did not die.
01-00:32:38 Warrin: He was very lucky, but he lived.
01-00:32:43 Pascoa: He lived, yeah.
01-00:32:41 Warrin: And did he close the store then?
01-00:32:43 Pascoa: And after that he never go back to the store anymore.
01-00:32:47 Warrin: No?
01-00:32:48 Pascoa: He sold it and…
01-00:32:52 Warrin: What did your other brothers do?
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01-00:32:56 Pascoa: He worked as longshoreman, a longshore, until he died, he was a
longshoreman.
01-00:33:02 Warrin: And what was his name?
01-00:33:03 Pascoa: Manuel.
01-00:33:04 Warrin: Manuel.
01-00:33:07 Pascoa: Yeah. [clock begins chiming]
01-00:33:13 Warrin: So, the other day when you were talking you talked about meeting your father
for the first time.
01-00:33:25 Pascoa: Oh, yeah.
01-00:33:26 Warrin: And you just told us—
01-00:33:28 Pascoa: That’s, yeah, yeah.
01-00:33:27 Warrin: … today about arriving at the house and they didn’t know who you were until
your brother recognized you.
01-00:33:35 Pascoa: So I told them…
01-00:33:37 Warrin: But you also talked about seeing your father for the first time in nineteen
years.
01-00:33:47 Pascoa: Well, we just talk about the things was happening in Portugal, and about my
mother, and about my sisters over there, and my brother came, you know, we started talking, and then OK, it’s all right, it’s OK. And stay over there and then for how many years living with John until one time…
01-00:34:10 Mrs. Pascoa: Until your mother came.
01-00:34:11 Pascoa: John bought a house, he moved to the house, and over there he got the stroke
and he died.
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01-00:34:18 Warrin: Did your sisters come here? Or did they stay over…
01-00:34:22 Pascoa: They come to visit.
01-00:34:24 Warrin: Just to visit.
01-00:34:26 Pascoa: The two sisters I have over there they came up for a visit and they went back
because they got the house and the husbands over there, anyhow, see, and the daughters.
01-00:34:34 Warrin: So do you have brothers or sisters who are still living?
01-00:34:37 Pascoa: No. I’m the only one left.
01-00:34:40 Warrin: Because you were the youngest?
01-00:34:42 Pascoa: The youngest.
01-00:34:42 Warrin: You were the youngest.
01-00:34:43 Pascoa: The youngest, yes.
01-00:34:50 Warrin: Could you—talk to us a little bit more about the Pascoa Brothers and your
experience over the years with your band. How many years did you have this band?
01-00:34:59 Pascoa: It was, uh, fifty.
01-00:35:00 Warrin: Fifty years.
01-00:35:02 Pascoa: Fifty years. I played for the convention of Luso-American fifty years. I skip
about one or two times because I went to Portugal, but I played for Luso-American, I started in 1946, playing on the Continental Convention and they merged together, I still play until…
01-00:35:23 Mrs. Pascoa: 1988.
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01-00:35:25 Pascoa: It was ‘88. It was about ’88. A long time.
01-00:35:30 Warrin: And for how long was the band called Pascoa Brothers?
01-00:35:37 Pascoa: Well, I never changed the name as long as I—my brothers already not
playing, but it’s still the same under the Pascoas, still the same name anyway, the Pascoa Brothers anyway.
01-00:35:49 Mrs. Pascoa: Your son, your son was working.
01-00:35:50 Pascoa: Yeah, I got different guys like you see on the pictures, anyhow, you got the
first ones, you know, the first it was—but the other ones are, and my son, my son, you know he started playing, you know, and he plays in the school band, high school, then he played with me, anyhow. So he got—he’s still playing once in a while, but it’s not…
01-00:36:17 Warrin: He does?
01-00:36:17 Pascoa: Not too many times, anyway.
01-00:36:19 Warrin: Could you talk a little bit about your family? How many children did…
01-00:36:23 Pascoa: Was it eight?
Mrs. Pascoa: Yes.
01-00:36:28 Pascoa: The family, oh, my family.
01-00:36:30 Warrin: Your family, yes, your, uh.
01-00:36:31 Pascoa: Oh, my family, it’s two—my Lynette and David. Lynette went to San Jose
State. She graduated from San Jose State and David went to Chico and he graduates to Chico.
01-00:36:47 Mrs. Pascoa: In Sacramento.
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01-00:36:48 Pascoa: So now they got jobs, and they married, except my daughter. My daughter
never got married, anyway, but that’s all right. She lives next to the street, on the next…
01-00:36:57 Warrin: She just walked by.
01-00:36:58 Pascoa: Yeah.
01-00:36:59 Warrin: And so both, both your children graduated from college.
01-00:37:04 Pascoa: Yes, graduated from college.
01-00:37:07 Warrin: And where does your son live? Where does your son live?
01-00:37:13 Pascoa: Uh, Roseville.
01-00:37:15 Warrin: In Roseville.
01-00:37:16 Pascoa: In Roseville. And my daughter lives over the next street.
01-00:37:19 Warrin: I see.
01-00:37:20 Pascoa: Anyway. Well, you know, you got my mother’s, my mother-in-law’s house.
She passed away, so I go to the house, I don’t like to do apartments, you know, it’s too much stuff going on anyway, so I put her over there. Stay there, anyway. Now I know she’s got a house to stay for the rest of her life.
01-00:37:39 Warrin: That’s good.
01-00:37:40 Pascoa: Anyway, and the other one bought a house and he got this house anyway.
Each one got a house.
01-00:37:47 Warrin: How many grandchildren do you have?
01-00:37:49 Pascoa: Two. Two grandchildren, yeah.
01-00:37:54 Warrin: How old are they?
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01-00:37:55 Pascoa: One is sixteen and the other one is fourteen. Teenagers. Teenagers, yes.
01-00:38:05 Adao: And the band, you said that you played, but you did more than play in the
band, did you not?
01-00:38:12 Mrs. Pascoa: You sang.
01-00:38:12 Pascoa: Yeah, I did, I played more than—yeah, I was playing in the band and I was
working.
01-00:38:19 Adao: And in the band what else did you do? Did you also sing?
01-00:38:22 Pascoa: Oh, yeah, I was singing, yeah, I was the singer.
01-00:38:26 Adao: How would you say—
01-00:38:27 Pascoa: I don’t forget. I was the singer.
01-00:38:28 Adao: Could you tell us what differences or how you, how do you see the Portuguese
community that you know, in the festas, has it changed anything? How is it? How do you see that in the fifty years you were—you were one of the, the first—
01-00:38:44 Pascoa: Oh, they changed, they changed, the music changed a lot. See, now years ago,
the musicians, the band, there was no loudspeakers and all that, you only got it for the singer. I had a microphone, but now, the music improves so that in one way, you don’t even need musicians to play, you just fix the record, whatever you want to put on the record.
01-00:39:16 Mrs. Pascoa: Tapes.
01-00:39:17 Pascoa: And they put on the machine, press the button, and you got the music there.
That’s what the band is going to do. They’ve got already everything on the tape and so they pick up the tapes, a waltz and this and that, and put it over there and just take one, one finished, they can put another one, there’s nothing to—over there we’ve got to read the music to play, you’ve got to, you know, get the music, you’ve got the music and you get the guys to play and the guys had to play—a lot of times the guys couldn’t read the music, and I’ve got to
28
pay them, if they play a note. [laughs] But I went all right, anyway, that was OK.
01-00:40:00 Warrin: I’d like to take a short break and show you some photos that you loaned us
and if you could talk a little bit about them. [pause] So, we’re fortunate to have a series of photographs that you have saved over the years and I would appreciate if you could tell us a little bit, use, tell us who’s in the photos and give us a story of what was going on with your band at that time. Here’s the first one, which I understand is from 1945.
[Photo 1: 1945 at Flor da Mocidade, North Oakland. Drums, Manuel Angeja; clarinet, Orlando Pascoa; mandolin, Manuel Pascoa; maracas, João Pascoa.]
01-00:40:47 Mrs. Pascoa: Explica quem [explain who].
01-00:40:49 Warrin: So if you could tell us who the, who the people are.
01-00:40:51 Pascoa: Oh, it’s my two brothers, Manuel Angeja playing the drums, and me playing
the clarinet.
01-00:41:01 Warrin: And where were you at that time?
01-00:41:04 Pascoa: In Oakland.
01-00:41:05 Warrin: In Oakland. And what was the occasion, do you remember?
01-00:41:09 Pascoa: North Oakland.
01-00:41:09 Warrin: Was there a festa of some sort?
01-00:41:13 Pascoa: Flor da Mocidade, Flor da Mocidade, North Oakland. That’s where we
started.
01-00:41:18 Warrin: And could you explain what the Flor da Mocidade was?
01-00:41:22 Pascoa: Yeah, almost every week there was a card party—
01-00:41:25 Mrs. Pascoa: Holy Ghost.
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01-00:41:27 Pascoa: And after card party, coffee and dance, and I play for it.
01-00:41:31 Warrin: So the Flor da Mocidade was a sociedade [society] of some sort—was a
sociedade?
01-00:41:38 Mrs. Pascoa: Holy Ghost.
01-00:41:39 Pascoa: Yeah, the Holy Ghost, yeah.
01-00:41:41 Warrin: I see.
01-00:41:42 Pascoa: That’s how it was called.
01-00:41:45 Warrin: And how often did they have celebrations?
01-00:41:48 Pascoa: Once a year.
01-00:41:49 Warrin: Once a year.
01-00:41:50 Pascoa: Once a year, yes, once a year, but—
01-00:41:53 Warrin: Was this soon after you started your band?
01-00:41:56 Pascoa: I started the band, yes.
01-00:41:58 Warrin: Is that the year you started?
01-00:42:01 Pascoa: In ’45.
01-00:42:03 Warrin: In ’45.
01-00:42:04 Pascoa: Yes.
01-00:42:05 Warrin: And how much would you get paid, how much would you get paid for…
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01-00:42:10 Pascoa: [chuckling] Pay was—first I started with ten dollars a person that played, then
it was about fifty, one, two, three, four—forty dollars, thirty dollars to pay the band.
01-00:42:27 Warrin: But that was good extra money at the time.
01-00:42:30 Pascoa: Oh yes, oh yes.
01-00:42:32 Warrin: How much would you, when you were working at Paraffin, how much would
you make a day there?
01-00:42:42 Pascoa: I was making seventy-two cents and a half an hour.
01-00:42:44 Warrin: So you weren’t making ten dollars a day.
01-00:42:48 Pascoa: No. My check it was thirty-three dollars, two weeks. It was two weeks, it was
thirty-three dollars.
01-00:43:00 Warrin: So you made less than seventy dollars a month, but that wasn’t…
01-00:43:03 Pascoa: Well, it was, it was good—.
01-00:43:06 Warrin: It was adequate.
01-00:43:08 Pascoa: Yeah, it was good money, those days everything was, you know, different.
01-00:43:12 Warrin: Yeah.
01-00:43:12 Pascoa: It was different.
[Photo 2: Flor da Mocidade Hall, 1946. Sax, Orlando Pascoa; maracas, John Pascoa; mandolin, Manuel Pascoa; guitar, Dorothy Pegas; drum, Manuel Angeja.]
01-00:43:18 Warrin: Here’s a second photo. If you could tell us a little something about that. I see
there are more people.
31
01-00:43:29 Pascoa: Over there, I added one more, this girl over there. She was playing guitar, so I
think, put the girl, put a girl in the band too, anyhow, so we got the same, I’ve got my brothers, Manuel Angeja and Dorothy Pegas.
01-00:43:49 Warrin: Dorothy Pegas?
01-00:43:50 Pascoa: That was her name.
01-00:43:52 Warrin: Was she Portuguese American?
01-00:43:54 Pascoa: She was American.
01-00:43:55 Warrin: And she played the guitar?
01-00:43:57 Pascoa: She played guitar, yes.
01-00:43:59 Warrin: Was that a pioneering thing at the time to have a young woman in the band?
In a band?
01-00:44:09 Pascoa: No. But I just… well, she started playing, I was playing one time and she
started playing and I kind of liked it, you know, she started playing with us.
01-00:44:18 Warrin: Did other Portuguese bands have women playing in them?
01-00:44:24 Pascoa: No, no, this was the first one—she played with us, she played in our
Portuguese band, yeah; but she had already, you know, passed away, anyhow, she don’t exist anymore.
01-00:44:34 Warrin: How long did she play with you?
01-00:44:37 Pascoa: Oh, about two or three years. I’m not exactly—I think it was about two or
three years she was playing with us.
01-00:44:43 Warrin: Do you have an idea where this was taken, this photo?
32
01-00:44:47 Pascoa: It was in—na [in the] Flor da Mocidade but they’ve got a, back on the stage it
was decorated for something, anyway, but that’s all we… In the Flor da Mocidade we took that picture.
01-00:45:04 Warrin: Do you know about what year that was?
01-00:45:06 Pascoa: 1946.
01-00:45:08 Warrin: So that’s when she started playing.
01-00:45:12 Pascoa: Yeah, I was playing in ’45, that one was about in ’46.
01-00:45:17 Mrs. Pascoa: That’s the same year.
[Photo 3 Same as photo 2.]
01-00:45:20 Warrin: Here’s a third photo. If you could tell us a little bit about that and when that
took place.
01-00:45:30 Pascoa: Well, it was, no—it’s the same, the same people, but, it’s the same you see,
you can see it was the same stage and the other one, North Oakland—
01-00:45:44 Warrin: I see.
01-00:45:46 Pascoa: In the Flor da Mocidade. We were at the same stage. Take that one.
01-00:45:50 Mrs. Pascoa: It could have been a wedding.
[Photo 4 1960s—Trumpet, Bill Gracia; 1st sax, Art Gutierres; 2nd sax, Orland Pascoa; accordion, Bob Sousa.]
01-00:45:54 Warrin: And, here’s one more. It looks like at a different decade, perhaps.
01-00:46:05 Pascoa: Oh, this I added already a different one, you know—got the accordion, and
got a one more saxophone and me, and we had a trumpet and a drummer.
01-00:46:18 Mrs. Pascoa: Os nomes [the names].
33
01-00:46:19 Warrin: Are any of your brothers there now?
01-00:46:22 Pascoa: No.
01-00:46:24 Warrin: No, your brothers had all left by that time.
01-00:46:26 Pascoa: Yeah, at that time, yeah.
01-00:46:28 Warrin: Why did your brothers leave the band?
01-00:46:30 Pascoa: Who?
01-00:46:32 Warrin: Why did your brothers leave the band, why did they stop playing in the band?
01-00:46:40 Pascoa: Uh, well, [pause] I don’t know.
01-00:46:43 Mrs. Pascoa: John had a store.
01-00:46:43 Pascoa: They got tired of playing. One he went playing in an Italian band anyhow, so
you know, this was way after.
01-00:46:50 Warrin: And about what year was this, do you know?
01-00:46:54 Pascoa: I think—
01-00:47:03 Warrin: 1960s, maybe?
01-00:47:04 Pascoa: Fifties.
01-00:47:07 Warrin: And can you name the people there?
01-00:47:10 Pascoa: Yeah, it was Bill Gracia, Art Guterres, me, and Bob Sousa. See, sometimes
the people, you know, try to cut some out so you cannot pay that much money, see.
01-00:47:27 Warrin: So you only had four people, so…
34
01-00:47:29 Pascoa: Well, sometimes they says well, see if they can do it cheap as you can,
anyway. It was all for benefits anyhow, you know, one of benefits, I heard sometimes—I’d charge them, not even charge anyway, pay the guys, but me, it’s, ah. It’s a benefit, anyway.
01-00:47:47 Warrin: What’s the smallest group that you ever had?
01-00:47:52 Pascoa: Uh, the smallest group, what’s—you got one over there—the brothers, four, it
was four people.
01-00:48:03 Warrin: Four people.
01-00:48:03 Pascoa: Four people, yes. Quartet if you want to call it. [chuckles].
[Photo 5 Cabrilho Club, New Year’s Eve, 1949-50, at Druids Temple, Page St., San Francisco. 1st sax, Américo Carlos; 2nd sax, Orlando Pascoa; accordion, Bud Cabral; drums, Fernando Figueira; guitar, Dorothy Pegas; mandolin, Manuel Pascoa.]
01-00:48:16 Warrin: Now, if you could explain that occasion. It looks kind of formal.
01-00:48:20 Pascoa: Uh, it was New Year’s Eve on Page Street, San Francisco, Druid’s Temple
Hall, New Year’s Eve, Portuguese Passagem do Ano [New Year’s Eve celebration].
01-00:48:36 Warrin: OK. And who sponsored that?
01-00:48:40 Pascoa: Uh, some people—I don’t know, I forgot who sponsored.
01-00:48:46 Mrs. Pascoa: Cabrilho.
01-00:48:49 Pascoa: Cabrilho, eh? Order of Cabrilho.
01-00:48:51 Warrin: Cabrilho Club.
01-00:48:51 Pascoa: Yeah, Cabrilho Club.
35
01-00:48:54 Warrin: And could you again tell us the people in the band? You have a female singer
there.
01-00:49:02 Pascoa: Uh—
01-00:49:06 Mrs. Pascoa: It’s Dorothy.
01-00:49:08 Pascoa: The guy on the drum.
01-00:49:12 Mrs. Pascoa: The names.
01-00:49:13 Pascoa: I don’t understand the question.
01-00:49:15 Mrs. Pascoa: The names.
01-00:49:15 Warrin: The names of the…
01-00:49:17 Pascoa: Oh, the names of the people? My brother Manuel, Dorothy Pegas, Fernando
Figueira, Bob Sousa, myself, Américo Carlos. That’s one, two, three, four, five, six. Six, well, it was New Year’s Eve and they want more people, you know, more sounds better.
01-00:49:41 Warrin: So Dorothy sang.
01-00:49:43 Pascoa: Yeah, this, well, then, I was doing the singing. I always do the singing on the
band, anyway.
01-00:49:51 Warrin: You did the singing?
[Photo 6 1960s. Trumpet, Manuel Gutierrez; drums, Leroy Pegas; 1st sax, Américo Carlos; 2nd sax, Orlando Pascoa; accordion, Gene Ivaldi; bass, Manuel Pascoa.]
01-00:50:06 Pascoa: Yes, and see well, so now you gotta, well, during the time, you know, you
change. This, can’t get hold of; that one, can’t go, so, but the name is—Gene Ivaldi, myself, my brother, Américo Carlos, Leroy Pegas, and Manuel Gutierrez, a Spanish trumpet player.
36
01-00:50:26 Warrin: So you had a Spanish—Spanish or Mexican?
01-00:50:31 Pascoa: Yeah, we got one of, this [one] is Spanish and this [one] is Italian on
accordion.
01-00:50:37 Warrin: I see. So you were opening up your band at this point to some other ethnicities
and…
01-00:50:46 Pascoa: Yeah. They come and they play, you know.
01-00:50:47 Warrin: And like your brother started playing with an Italian band. Did you find over
the years that you started meeting people from other ethnic groups and socializing more than when you first arrived?
01-00:51:06 Pascoa: Oh, yes. A lot of people know me, but I know it’s impossible—what’s fun is,
people I play for the weddings, and when they see me come up the first thing they say is, “You played for my wedding.” “Oh, that’s nice. “Played for my wedding.” “OK.” “Then you remember it?” So I says, “Yeah, I remember,” but I can’t remember the name of the person, see. So I go with them, all right, you know, but every place—“Oh, you played for my wedding,” “You played for my wedding.” Yes, I did.”
01-00:51:42 Warrin: And did you play for weddings of people that were not Portuguese or
Portuguese American?
01-00:51:50 Pascoa: No, most were Portuguese. I think one or two it was American. But these were
Portuguese. She was Portuguese, or the boy is Portuguese, you know.
[Photo 7 1960s, photo by Art Vargas. Drums, Leroy Pegas; trumpet, Bill Pacheco; sax, Orlando Pascoa; accordion, Bob Sousa.]
01-00:52:10 Warrin: Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about that, that’s still your band?
01-00:52:18 Pascoa: Yeah. That’s—the time passes, anyway, you change, one guy comes back,
you get another substitutes in, and we got Bob Sousa and me, Bill Pacheco, he was Portuguese, my brother, and Leroy Pegas.
01-00:52:33 Warrin: And Leroy, is that Dorothy’s brother?
37
01-00:52:36 Pascoa: My brother plays bass.
01-00:52:41 Warrin: Is Leroy Pegas, was that Dorothy’s relative?
01-00:52:46 Pascoa: No, it was—Leroy Pegas and Dorothy. Leroy got a brother married Dorothy,
see so, it would be brother-in-law?
01-00:52:59 Warrin: Yes.
01-00:53:00 Pascoa: Brother-in-law.
01-00:53:01 Warrin: And about what year was that, do you have an idea?
01-00:53:03 Pascoa: Uh, it was on the ‘50s, ‘50s or early ‘60s, I think, exactly, I’d say towards the
ends of the 1950s, late ‘59, something like that.
[Photo 8 Luso-American Convention, mid 1960s. Photo by Palwick N. Althiset. Trumpet, Bill Gracia; drums, Mike Martinez; 1st sax, Art Guterres; 2nd sax, Orlando Pascoa; organ, Manuel Jimenez. ]
01-00:53:20 Warrin: Do you know where this was?
01-00:53:21 Pascoa: Uh, no, that one’s, no that one’s different, and I couldn’t recognize it by the,
by the—
01-00:53:38 Warrin: Now here there’s a banner in the back that says Luso-American.
01-00:53:43 Pascoa: This is on a convention, a convention of the Luso-American and I was, the
Espanhol [Spaniard], me, Guterres, and another drummer, because the other ones couldn’t make it, and Bill Gracia, trumpet. [women’s voices in background whispering, “what’s the drummer, Michael Martinez, that’s Mike Martinez.”] This is in 19—early 70s, I think, it was a Luso-American convention.
[Photo 9 Convention, 1964, “Tijuana Brass.” 1st trumpet, Bill Gracia; 2nd trumpet, Manuel Jimenez; sax, Orlando Pascoa; accordion, Bob Sousa; bass, Manuel Pascoa; drums, Américo Carlos.]
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01-00:54:04 Warrin: OK. Here we have a small snapshot, and that looks like one or two more
decades had passed.
01-00:54:33 Pascoa: Yeah, that’s my brother, Bob Sousa, myself, Leroy Peigas, Manuel Meneses,
and Bill Gourichas.
01-00:54:49 Warrin: And when was this?
01-00:54:54 Pascoa: Oh, I don’t know, it’s, I think it was in Oakland at Hall Madeirense, we
played there, Hall Madeirense, East 14th and Fruitvale, that one, I think it was.
01-00:55:18 Warrin: In the 1970s maybe? And how did your music evolve. When you first started
playing in 1945, what kind of music did you play?
01-00:55:30 Pascoa: Well, foxtrots, waltzes, viras [Portuguese dances], marches, tangos, you
know, you played the time, the standards, you know. Now you know, you don’t got nothing, got no tangos, no, but, we would play—we would play the models, I heard one song, and I liked it, I liked to write the music, and when I liked a song, we’d play it. Like, “Too Young,” and American popular songs, you know.
01-00:56:05 Warrin: So you would mix some Portuguese viras or something with some American
foxtrots.
01-00:56:11 Pascoa: Yes, foxtrots—
01-00:56:13 Warrin: And by the 1960s, how did your sound change? How did your music change?
01-00:56:21 Pascoa: We did all right. How did it in the ‘60s—
Mrs. Pascoa: It became more American.
01-00:56:28 Warrin: In the ‘60s or ‘70s, how, what did you play that was different from the 1940s?
01-00:56:36 Pascoa: Well, I played some Brazilian music, and they played some Argentinian
music, tangos anyway, comparcita and all that. And they played marches, Portuguese marches, and viras, and the “Tiro-liro,” “Ó Rosa arredonda a saia,” it was—[chuckles]
39
01-00:56:56 Warrin: You always played that, I guess.
01-00:56:57 Pascoa: All the ones that everybody knows, “Tiro-liro,” “Ó Rosa arredonda a saia,”
because when I started playing and singing it, everybody likes it, yeah.
01-00:57:05 Warrin: So, your pictures went up to the 1970s. I was wondering—in the 1980s and
‘90s, you were still playing occasionally and you still had a band, is that right?
01-00:57:17 Pascoa: No, my son was taking care of the band.
01-00:57:20 Adao: Don, hold on, we are out of tape. We have—we’re almost out of tape, so we
need to stop.
Begin Audio File 2 11 1-2006.mp3
02-00:00:00 Warrin: Uh, did you do any recordings? Did you—
02-00:00:08 Pascoa: Yes. I got a tape, but it wasn’t make on the studio. When I play the tape of the
band. See, sometimes, you know, when you go in the studio and the guys know, you know, are better. But they played it, but it’s not like if you go into the studio.
02-00:00:34 Warrin: You never played in the studio.
02-00:00:37 Pascoa: Yes.
02-00:00:38 Warrin: But did you ever, did you put out a record?
02-00:00:43 Pascoa: A tape, yeah, I got it here—
02-00:00:44 Warrin: A tape, a cassette tape. About what year was that?
02-00:00:49 Pascoa: Uh—
02-00:00:55 Warrin: 1960s maybe?
02-00:00:57 Pascoa: Sixty-seven, ’68, something like that.
40
02-00:01:02 Mrs. Pascoa: No, no.
02-00:01:04 Pascoa: Or seventies.
02-00:01:05 Mrs. Pascoa: David was playing in the ‘70s.
02-00:01:04 Pascoa: To tell you the truth, I forgot the time we make that tape.
02-00:01:10 Mrs. Pascoa: Late ‘70s.
02-00:01:11 Warrin: And what was the name of the, what was the title of the tape?
02-00:01:16 Pascoa: Uh, you got one there. Yeah, we got tapes, anyway.
02-00:01:34 Warrin: Did you sell many of those tapes?
02-00:01:38 Pascoa: First I, you know, I give ‘em away! [chuckling]
02-00:01:42 Warrin: You gave them away.
02-00:01:44 Pascoa: Gave some away, some we sell in the, you know, I was on the convention you
know, a lot of people ask me for the tapes. They still asking for the tapes and like that. Uh, I got one, the master one, you know, my boy could make more if somebody wants one badly, but I not even charge anything. There’s very few left.
02-00:02:10 Warrin: How long did your son play with you?
02-00:02:13 Pascoa: He started playing with me, pretended to play, he was about five years old,
about five years old. And he stayed until, until he got married. Twenty-two, it was, and every time because, you know, first he was playing in the parades.
02-00:02:39 Mrs. Pascoa: He was fourteen when he started.
02-00:02:45 Warrin: How long did he actually play in your band.
41
02-00:02:54 Pascoa: Uh, I think he was married already when he, or he was not married when he,
no, he was already married on the, when he quit to play, when he changed—well, he started— started bringing some musicians from the school, these play in the jazz band of the school with him, you know, so—
02-00:03:15 Warrin: In the high school?
02-00:03:16 Pascoa: In the high school, yes. So I told him, hey you better take over, because I’m
getting kind of… eu sinto usado [I feel worn out].
02-00:03:27 Warrin: Did he actually have his own band for a while? Or did he just play when you
did?
02-00:03:33 Pascoa: Yeah, he had his band, but he got so much work, you know, that time that he
played he works a lot. See, he works at school with the kids. He’s got volleyball, he plays baseball, and he coaches, he’s involved with the school kids, see—we not even got time to go fishing [chuckling].
02-00:04:00 Warrin: But he did, he did for a while. But he did have his band for a while.
02-00:04:06 Pascoa: Uh, yeah, he’s still playing once in a while if somebody ask him to, he’ll call
up the guys and they get together and they play it, but a steady band like I have, no. Just play casual.
02-00:04:20 Warrin: You talk about fishing. What do you like to do for recreation?
02-00:04:27 Mrs. Pascoa: Fish.
02-00:04:28 Warrin: Fish?
02-00:04:29 Pascoa: Well, fish, I used to hunt a lot and fish and go to those fiestas and eat sopas
[soup served at Portuguese festas] and talk to friends, you know. I still—I went to one dinner in Sacramento on a Saturday and then on Sunday in San Jose, you know, you keep it going until you can’t.
02-00:04:57 Warrin: And you were in Los Banos just this past weekend?
42
02-00:05:00 Pascoa: That, yeah. I was in Los Banos, yes, yes. On the day we always got something
going on in the Luso. I like the Luso because I belong to Luso. I’m probably one of the oldest. I joined in 1945, soon as I got here from Portugal with Angeja. You have to go to a doctor to join the society, you’ve got to take a physical examination.
02-00:05:27 Warrin: Really?
02-00:05:28 Pascoa: So I went to it and I joined.
02-00:05:31 Warrin: Why would you have to take a physical?
02-00:05:33 Pascoa: And I quit one time, I don’t like it anyway. [rustling papers and background
noise]
02-00:05:37 Warrin: Why would you have to take a…, why would you have to have a physical to
join the…?
02-00:05:45 Pascoa: See if you all right. Because you know when you joined, you take a policy of
five thousand dollars or so and you go, and they want to make sure you’re going to last long.
02-00:05:56 Warrin: Right, because, because these societies functioned as insurance companies.
02-00:06:04 Pascoa: Life insurance company, yes, same thing.
02-00:06:08 Warrin: Right. Oh, OK.
02-00:06:08 Pascoa: Like insurance companies.
02-00:06:10 Warrin: Yeah, I know I joined the UPEC but they never made me take a physical.
02-00:06:13 Mrs. Pascoa: But they used to.
02-00:06:15 Warrin: They used to. Is that right?
02-00:06:17 Mrs. Pascoa: You had to have one.
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02-00:06:19 Warrin: So, this is your recordando and—
02-00:06:27 Mrs. Pascoa: It’s called “remembrance.”
02-00:06:29 Warrin: Remembering. Orlando Pascoa with his conjunto, with his group. And how
many songs do you have on here? This is the master, it looks like.
02-00:06:55 Pascoa: It’s the master, yeah. I don’t know how many songs we got there anyway.
02-00:07:01 Warrin: What year did you record this?
02-00:07:04 Mrs. Pascoa: Good question. Seventies probably.
02-00:07:09 Warrin: In the 1970s?
02-00:07:11 Pascoa: Seventies, ‘80s, I think toward the end of the ‘70s.
02-00:07:16 Warrin: And it was done while you were actually playing somewhere, somebody
recorded.
02-00:07:21 Mrs. Pascoa: This was in a studio.
02-00:07:23 Warrin: That was a studio recording, oh.
02-00:07:26 Mrs. Pascoa: Not a good one, but a studio recording.
02-00:07:30 Warrin: I would enjoy getting a copy, but I’m not sure you have any more. Uh, when
you look back on, your history here is a little more unique than most people’s because of your long association with music and playing music for the community, when you look back over all those years, what effect did it have on your life?
02-00:08:01 Pascoa: Uh, the effect on my life—everyone know me. I went in Portugal, and I was
on the Ilha Terceira [island of Terceira, Azores] and there on the rua [street] I went , they say, “Ei, Pascoa,” I go to another road, “Hey, Pascoa, you are here, what are you doing over here?” The ones, they over there for vacation, they go to the fiestas over there and then I’d play, so, you know, it’s easy to know me.
44
02-00:08:33 Mrs. Pascoa: He knew a lot of people.
02-00:08:34 Warrin: So people recognized you—
02-00:08:36 Pascoa: Oh, yeah.
02-00:08:37 Warrin: —not only here, but in the Azores.
02-00:08:38 Pascoa: Na Ilha Terceira.
02-00:08:40 Warrin: In the Azores, and you’re not even—
02-00:08:41 Pascoa: In the Azores.
02-00:08:42 Warrin: —from the Azores.
02-00:08:44 Pascoa: No, I’m from mainland. I’m from the same place, zona, which was, the family
they were [from] Ílhavo.
02-00:08:50 Warrin: It’s interesting that most of the Portuguese, the great majority of the
Portuguese in California came from either the Azores or Madeira and Cabo Verde, but Ílhavo is an exception and there is quite a community of Ílhavenses and people from Ílhavo, Aveiro, that area and nowhere else in Portugal that I’m aware of. Do you know the origin of why from this small region they came here?
02-00:09:33 Pascoa: A lot of them like my father they’d go see if they could stretch the life, you
know, get some money, to have some money. In Portugal there were hard days during the war, and during the depression over here. And those days you had a quota and you get your papers, you got a number. When your number comes, you get your visa on the passport, see, on those days it was kind of arcane because when my father was there and I was a minor, nineteen, and then my brothers were here, so I came. But it wasn’t easy to come over here.
02-00:10:15 Warrin: Was your father, when you came over was your father already an American
citizen?
45
02-00:10:21 Pascoa: Those days there was no immigration. You come, everybody wants to come to
America and during the 1918, you know, before the war. My father come over here and they have nobody over. He came and a lot of ones came anyway.
02-00:10:37 Warrin: Did he take out citizenship papers?
02-00:10:40 Pascoa: No, he never did.
02-00:10:41 Warrin: He never did. What about you?
02-00:10:42 Pascoa: Oh, yeah, I got my citizenship, I told you, “I want to be an American!” So I’m
an American.
02-00:10:47 Warrin: Right, officially an American. And what year did you, how long after you got
here did you become a citizen?
02-00:10:55 Pascoa: Uh, I was here two years, two-and-a-half years or three years when I take my
citizenship.
02-00:11:03 Warrin: Your intention of citizenship.
02-00:11:04 Pascoa: My citizenship.
02-00:11:06 Warrin: And can you explain that process? What did you do to become a citizen?
02-00:11:12 Pascoa: Well, in those days, if you’re not a citizen you don’t get a job on the city.
02-00:11:21 Mrs. Pascoa: How did you get?
02-00:11:22 Pascoa: And like this, a citizen you can work anyplace, see.
02-00:11:30 Warrin: So, how did you go about becoming a citizen?
02-00:11:36 Mrs. Pascoa: How did you become a citizen?
46
02-00:11:38 Pascoa: Well, I was married, and I think had already got a daughter. No it was before
that, you know, I was married anyway, and she’s an American.
02-00:11:52 Mrs. Pascoa: Married to an American citizen.
02-00:11:53 Pascoa: So, you know, that was more easy.
02-00:11:56 Warrin: So did, that did make it easier for you?
02-00:11:59 Pascoa: Oh, yes, much easier to take it.
02-00:12:01 Warrin: Did they require you to know some English?
02-00:12:05 Pascoa: Yes, the judge make me, a few words I don’t answer right, but I got a woman
to speak for me, from North Oakland, a lady, and they say, if they call you to go in the army, would you go? And I says, “Yes, I already been on the army.” [chuckles] But you got no record, don’t got no discharge, you see.
02-00:12:31 Mrs. Pascoa: He had to go to court.
02-00:12:33 Pascoa: So, what they find out, that I really did go to the army but I couldn’t speak, so
that’s the reason they don’t keep me there anyhow.
02-00:12:44 Warrin: Did you end up with some sort of discharge from the army?
02-00:12:48 Pascoa: Yeah, but you got there papers, any papers from the army? You got ‘em here?
02-00:12:57 Mrs. Pascoa: Discharge. I don’t know. They’re at the bank.
02-00:13:00 Warrin: So you were, so you are a veteran of World War II after two days in the army!
[laughter] That’s quite an achievement.
02-00:13:10 Mrs. Pascoa: Yeah, he was, for ten days.
02-00:13:11 Pascoa: See, I was, I was working when the Japanese surrendered and the following
week I went in the army and they discharged all of the troops, so that’s why the guy over there says, “I don’t need this many.”
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02-00:13:31 Mrs. Pascoa: The war had ended.
02-00:13:33 Pascoa: So we don’t need this many, I’m discharge everybody, so that’s the reason I
think. Then I don’t know what the reason was.
02-00:13:39 Mrs. Pascoa: The war was over.
02-00:13:40 Warrin: If it had been a couple of weeks before—
02-00:13:42 Mrs. Pascoa: The war was over.
02-00:13:43 Warrin: —it might not have been so easy.
02-00:13:44 Pascoa: Yeah. Just on the right time, it was discharging everybody, the Japanese
surrendered, they was discharging everybody.
02-00:13:50 Mrs. Pascoa: The war was over.
02-00:13:52 Warrin: Yeah. There’s one more photo I wanted to look at and this is, it says Cabrillo
and we know it’s in San Francisco, and I’d like you to talk about the, first of all, are you in the photo?
02-00:14:13 Pascoa: Uh.
02-00:14:14 Warrin: Are you in this photo?
02-00:14:16 Pascoa: First one.
02-00:14:17 Warrin: That’s you there?
02-00:14:18 Pascoa: In the command of the boat on the proa [bow]. [laughter]
02-00:14:21 Warrin: There’s a lot of good looking young women here.
02-00:14:25 Pascoa: [laughs]
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02-00:14:27 Warrin: Could you explain a little bit what, how that came about?
02-00:14:31 Pascoa: Well, see, I think Cabrillo got invitation from the Columbus parade.
02-00:14:38 Mrs. Pascoa: Day parade.
02-00:14:40 Pascoa: And as it happens I was on the meeting when somebody—Reis, I think—
brought it up, that what we were supposed to do.
02-00:14:50 Warrin: Uh, Manuel Reis.
02-00:14:52 Pascoa: Reis, so I told him, you know, to João Cabrillo, he was the first white man
here in California, again a boat, and I described more or less the boat to the guys in San Francisco and they make the boat, and they got the girls and the boys and they were singing a song, playing and singing Portuguese on the boat on the parade, Market Street on San Francisco.
02-00:15:24 Warrin: And this is 1948, Columbus Day parade.
02-00:15:30 Pascoa: ’48, yeah.
02-00:15:33 Warrin: The, you had said in conversation before that you and your wife had visited
Cabrillo’s home in Portugal, his birthplace?
02-00:15:46 Pascoa: Yeah.
02-00:15:45 Warrin: Could you describe that?
02-00:15:48 Pascoa: Yeah, well, talk about Cabrillo, uh, that’s to see his house.
02-00:16:00 Warrin: Yes.
02-00:15:59 Pascoa: See we talk about Cabrillo, says we’ve got a club in California, Cabrillo,
you’d like to see his house? We say, “Oh, yeah.” So my nephew is the driver, he says, go to Lapela.
02-00:16:18 Mrs. Pascoa: Lapela.
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02-00:16:19 Pascoa: So we went to Lapela on the Gerês, we went to Gerês. We went to Lapela and
we saw the house, but that’s the funniest thing I ever see. The people, it was a little aldeia.
02-00:16:35 Mrs. Pascoa: Village.
02-00:16:35 Pascoa: The people it was a—the house, the windows was of stone like a “V.” You
pull it inside, you’ve got to hold the see, the windows of the houses, on the wall you pull out there was a little hole, so we were talking, you know, got a little close and a little, we were talking, and I looked to one side and I saw this, just a face, on the wall. I looked to the other side there’s another face. I notice he was there, you know, people inside you see who was there talking. And see on the other side, was a dog, the face of a dog. So I was going, one of the guys asked, “Oh senhor, como é que se chama aquele sujeito que está ali?” [Oh sir, what’s the name of that person over there?] And the guy answered, “It’s the best pastor do lugar.”
02-00:17:33 Warrin: The best shepherd in the place.
02-00:17:35 Pascoa: A good shepherd. [laughs]
02-00:17:37 Warrin: The dog.
02-00:17:38 Pascoa: But it was funny, you see, you look to the wall, the wall of stones, and you see
who was there, and you look over there, and see who was there [laughs]. You know, I never see before.
02-00:17:53 Mrs. Pascoa: [in background] I have those pictures somewhere.
02-00:17:55 Pascoa: Yeah. That’s when we went to see it. Yeah, I like to see the, that, because you
know, they talking about Cabrillo.
02-00:18:03 Warrin: Of course.
[Pause]
02-00:18:19 Adao: Well, I wanted you to see if you could talk a little bit more about the bands in
the early years when you first started the bands, yours was the first organized Portuguese band. There were a couple of people who would play, but yours was the real, first Portuguese band.
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02-00:18:39 Pascoa: Right.
02-00:18:39 Adao: What, as the years went by, who else started to play, how was it? How was it
other—when bands formed, how did that—now we have a lot of bands. How did we get from that to here, more or less, but especially in the early years?
02-00:18:55 Pascoa: Well, one, when we formed the band it was “want to play with me?” And see,
I don’t charge too much money to the people because of Benefits [Benefit Societies], Espírito Santo [Holy Ghost], so you know, the pay was, I couldn’t pay them all what they wanted on the money out of my pocket, so I divide the money equally, see, this is how much I got for the job, we had so much each one So they no like it. Amerigo wants more money, so he form his band, but he don’t last too long.
Adao: And when was this, what year? It was in the fifties already?
02-00:19:37 Pascoa: Uh, ‘60s, ‘70s.
02-00:19:40 : So basically during the ‘50s, yours was the only band.
02-00:19:43 Pascoa: The only band. It was the ‘50s, yes. And the ‘60s, for a long time it was the
only band. And after then, someone started Orquestra Lisboa. It was the guy was playing for me but he want a better pay, so he form a little band, but he lasted about a year or not even that. Later, a month later, come up from the Azores a band chamados [called ] Os Ibéricos. Os Ibéricos, they stay for about three, four years and there was a lot of people from the Azores over here, so they got friends, they can get jobs, they created a pretty good band with Anisete Batista.
02-00:20:29 Adao: Zé Almino. Was it Zé Almino and Cidália Maria?
02-00:20:34 Pascoa: It was, yes, but you know, they always got into little arguments and they got
disorganized anyhow. But I’m the one that could hold it, because I know a lot of people, if one didn’t come, I call someone else, I keep going, see?
Adao: OK. The other thing—
02-00:20:53 Warrin: What about—just to stay on the topic for a minute of music, what about the
fado singers? The people who sang fado and played—
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02-00:21:09 Pascoa: Oh, with the guitars—
02-00:21:10 Warrin: —with the classical guitar.
02-00:21:10 Pascoa: Well, they had a guitar, Leonel Medeiros, guitar, and Jorge Rocha plays good
guitar and they have Anisete Batista was playing good guitar. You’ve got good musicians.
02-00:21:28 Warrin: And when did this start?
02-00:21:29 Pascoa: Uh, they started early ‘80s, early ‘80s. But you know, if someone got married,
they vanish too, and anyway, the one who last longer was maybe because I know a lot of musicians, and if one misses, I call up, I just make a phone call and comes another musician, he know the songs anyway, he knows how to play, so I keep going, see? But it got, Ibéricos it was a good band, O Castelo de Lisboa, do [of] Américo, it was pretty good but, they get a job on a night club, so his musicians go to a nightclub and they start alone. He don’t got musicians to replace them so he ends up with us. So, I went to—to David takes care of them, David takes care of them, they change, because you know, they want more rock and the American music. I play more Portuguese, you know. If you want some American songs, I used to play American songs, but better with guitars, you know, come up with guitar style a little louder, so, you know, they stay long, young people like that. You know, the world changed anyhow. The music changed too.
02-00:23:00 Warrin: When rock music came in, I imagine the Beatles and so forth, all that
changed.
02-00:23:06 Pascoa: Yeah, you don’t get bands to play, you know, songs from like “New York,
New York,” or “I’m in the Mood for Love,” or [laughs]—
02-00:23:17 Warrin: Right.
02-00:23:18 Pascoa: All that, see, they don’t do, no band is, I used to play all that, all the standards,
American standards, “Earrings” and “Too Young,” you know—it changed, the music changed.
02-00:23:32 Adao: Yeah, but that’s because most of your band members played by music. You
were one of the few Portuguese bands that actually had music sheets. Most of the other bands don ’t, do not use music.
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02-00:23:49 Pascoa: By ear.
02-00:23:50 Warrin: They played by ear.
02-00:23:53 Adao: They play by ear. Many of them can’t read music, is that correct?
02-00:23:55 Pascoa: Like, Os Ibéricos they was playing by ear their music and—anyway, I play by
music because I learn music in Portugal. I play in Portugal on the bands over there, like here, see, so I got experience for that.
02-00:24:10 Warrin: What band did you play for, with in Portugal?
02-00:24:15 Pascoa: In Portugal, Música Velha de Ílhavo.
02-00:24:18 Adao: Was that a marching band?
02-00:24:20 Pascoa: Filarmónica Ilhavense.
02-00:24:22 Warrin: That was a large—
02-00:24:24 Pascoa: Oh, it was sixty people, sixty or sixty-five people. We’d play in parades, we
would play in funerals. And they played a lot of places in Portugal.
02-00:24:36 Warrin: In a funeral, what kind of music do you play?
02-00:24:39 Pascoa: Funeral march. [sings tune of Chopin’s Funeral March, Sonata No. 2 in B flat
minor] La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la.
02-00:24:48 Warrin: So you would have sixty people playing at a funeral?
02-00:24:52 Pascoa: Oh, yes. We’ve got an arrangement to play the funeral marches, yes.
02-00:24:58 Warrin: And how did you learn formal music?
02-00:25:02 Pascoa: I got a teacher who was Proçúlio Armino, a good musician. He was the leader
with the band at the time, you know, he was the leader, so, he teaches, so I can play, so I play on the band about three or four years.
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02-00:25:18 Warrin: How old were you when you started learning to read music?
02-00:25:23 Pascoa: I guess I was 18, or was it 15. Or fourteen or 15, yeah.
02-00:25:29 Adao: So was that pretty much traditional that people would go and play in the local
philharmonic band and that was also a school of music? Or did you have to pay to get music lessons.
02-00:25:42 Pascoa: I don’t understand.
02-00:25:46 Adao: Did you pay, when you were in Portugal—
02-00:25:47 Pascoa: Yeah—
02-00:25:48 Adao: And you started learning music
02-00:25:49 Pascoa: Yeah.
02-00:25:50 Adao: Did you have to pay?
02-00:25:51 Pascoa: No.
02-00:25:52 Adao: No, you joined the band—
02-00:25:54 Pascoa: Joined the band—
02-00:25:55 Adao: And then—
02-00:25:56 Pascoa: The marching band only would go only, no, you don’t pay to Armino. He
likes he teaches you. When I went over there and they saw, you know, I’ve got a good ear, and they—it was, he took the judgment you’re going to be a pretty good musician, so he taught, teaching me free, and actually the first time I go play on his band over there, he teach me. They teach to have new members to play, see.
02-00:26:30 Adao: So, now let’s go back a little bit to your move. You, when you came to the
United States, you went and lived with your father or close to your father in
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the North Oakland area and there were a lot of Portuguese there. There were stores, there were Portuguese stores?
02-00:26:51 Pascoa: Yeah.
02-00:26:52 Adao: Besides your brother’s store, were there more stores?
02-00:26:54 Pascoa: O Tio [uncle] Barroca. It was one block away. That’s only two Portuguese
stores at the time you had over there.
02-00:27:04 Adao: What about any hotels or any places that rented rooms?
02-00:27:08 Pascoa: You got a… I don’t know, was his name Rezendes or something? Anyway, he
had a little, a motel, rooms anyhow, to rent rooms, see, because we were there, we can rent a room for ten dollars a month.
02-00:27:29 Warrin: Like a boarding house?
02-00:27:30 Pascoa: And like now, we got a little kitchen, you gotta cook for yourself or go to the
restaurant, anyway. But you got Barbearia [barbershop] de Barcellos instead of the club, Portuguese club, everybody goes to the Barbearia de Barcellos.
02-00:27:49 Adao: That was a barber shop?
02-00:27:51 Pascoa: Was a barber shop.
02-00:27:52 Adao: So there was a Portuguese barber shop.
02-00:27:53 Pascoa: Oh, yeah, there was Barcellos, two brothers, o Joe e [and] o Manny, Barcellos.
02-00:27:58 Adao: And what about Portuguese restaurants? Were there Portuguese restaurants
there?
02-00:28:02 Pascoa: No.
02-00:28:03 Adao: Everybody cooked at home.
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02-00:28:04 Pascoa: No, no, at the time, not that I remember, North Oakland, there were no
Portuguese restaurants there.
02-00:28:11 Adao: And then when you got married you moved from North Oakland to—
02-00:28:15 Pascoa: To Palo Alto.
02-00:28:17 Adao: Palo Alto. Can you tell us what that community was like? Was there a
Portuguese community there?
02-00:28:23 Pascoa: No, not too many Portuguese. Just the ones working on the dairies, because
you got four or five dairies around there and the Portuguese, there was a, you know, the Azores, very few from the continent, but that’s when I got the job on the Redwood City. I lived in Palo Alto but I was going to Redwood City to work, Five Points. Yes, I worked there for eighteen years.
02-00:28:56 Adao: So a lot of those dairies in the Redwood City area were Portuguese owned or
just the workers were Portuguese?
02-00:29:02 Pascoa: Uh, working for some Portuguese. But not, no is not—happens the boss was a
Portuguese and they speak Portuguese to me, for me to work.
02-00:29:12 Adao: No, I’m asking about the dairies.
02-00:29:14 Pascoa: Oh, the dairies.
02-00:29:16 Adao: Were the owners Portuguese?
02-00:29:18 Pascoa: Owners, Portuguese, oh, yeah.
02-00:29:20 Adao: Most of the owners were Portuguese?
02-00:29:22 Pascoa: Yeah, tinha um que era italiano.
02-00:29:25 Adao: There was one Italian.
02-00:29:27 Pascoa: It was an Italian, yes, but they were mostly Portuguese, all Portuguese.
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02-00:29:32 Warrin: What towns were those dairies in?
02-00:29:37 Pascoa: The—
02-00:29:37 Warrin: What towns?
02-00:29:39 Pascoa: Mountain View.
02-00:29:40 Warrin: Just Mountain View.
02-00:29:41 Pascoa: Yeah, Mountain View, San Jose, Santa Clara. See, it used to be all orchards
through here.
02-00:29:48 Warrin: Cupertino, Sunnyvale.
02-00:29:49 Pascoa: Cupertino, yes, this area, the dairies, but the—
02-00:29:54 Warrin: So some Portuguese had dairies and some Portuguese had orchards?
02-00:29:58 Pascoa: Uh, only, orchards, only one, Madeira, had an orchard, and the other ones, a
lot of them was no, they’re not Portuguese, no, Portuguese were more for dairies, for milk the cows, see, yeah.
02-00:30:24 Warrin: Before, before we finish, do you have any other thoughts? Anything that you
would like to talk about?
02-00:30:37 Pascoa: No, well, see, in Portugal I was working, I no got no trade, not carpenter, or
anything, just work on the ranch, produce your own food. My sister and I we produce our food for the whole year. We got a big cases put corn and we got potatoes, we got a little pig, a fat little pig and they put him on salt, no refrigerators, it was salt, put him on salt. And we got sardines. My mother used to switch the cesta [basket] [of] sardines, we have our potatoes with a cesta of potatoes. We give potatoes to the fishermen and the fishermen give us the fish, sardines, so my mother used to make cases with salt, you know put salt in the sardines and more salt so they don’t spoil. They get salty, you know, that’s how we were raised. And we got to make a soup, we got the beans, we got the couves, you know, kale, to make some soup, and when there’s a fiesta, my mother might kill a chicken, [laughs] to make a little pot of chicken on the oven. But they got to be, it’s very rare, it’s more, it was, we
57
ate good, for the teeth, you go to the dentist, you show his teeth, he says, “Oh, you’re European,” because we don’t got no sugar for us. So they know, you got corn, you got, you know, natural sugar.
02-00:32:35 Warrin: So your teeth were in better condition?
02-00:32:38 Pascoa: Because of the food we ate.
02-00:32:40 Warrin: Your teeth were in better condition for having had a better diet.
02-00:32:43 Pascoa: Yes, the diet, we were raised on it.
02-00:32:47 Mrs. Pascoa: Sounds like it was not better.
02-00:32:54 Pascoa: Yes, always come out, I work almost all the way through. I got laid off and
that stuff, but we managed all right. I live comfortable, I live comfortable. Most they say, the American’s dream, yeah the American’s dream, if you don’t spend it more than you make it, but since I got here, even five dollars a month I know I put ‘em on the bank, since I got here.
02-00:33:25 Warrin: That’s good, that’s very—
02-00:33:29 Pascoa: Always, the way I was raised, always, see, I don’t want to go back to that type
of way, the way I raised.
02-00:33:38 Warrin: That’s an old immigrant way of living to…
02-00:33:45 Pascoa: All of them—
02-00:33:45 Warrin: … put your money in the bank, save your money.
02-00:33:46 Pascoa: It’s not only me. All of the ones on my age and a little younger come over
there, who go work on the longshore, they all got money, nice houses, nice cars and everything, and I don’t understand it. And all of them they don’t speak too good in English, like me, and some ones going over here—
02-00:34:04 Adao: There were a lot of men, the people who lived in Oakland, a lot of men
worked as longshoremen?
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02-00:34:11 Pascoa: Longshoremen, yeah.
02-00:34:12 Adao: Where did the women work?
02-00:34:13 Pascoa: The women?
02-00:34:17 Adao: The women, where did they work? Did the women work?
02-00:34:21 Pascoa: Well, no, you know, not as much as they do now. In those days, I mean, if you
got a longshore, you make enough to manage the house and pay the bills.
02-00:34:42 Adao: So the women didn’t work at all?
02-00:34:43 Warrin: What about the women who were single and not married? Did they work?
02-00:34:48 Pascoa: Not too many. They got the smarts. [laughs]
02-00:34:52 Mrs. Pascoa: No, but did they work, the women work in those days?
02-00:34:56 Pascoa: Some women worked in the cannery. Not too many, but they work on the
canneries.
02-00:35:02 Warrin: And there was a cannery near, in North Oakland, area right?
02-00:35:07 Pascoa: I think that in Hayward had a big one or something like that, Hayward.
02-00:35:10 Warrin: Hayward had the tomatoes, they canned tomatoes there, I know. But there
were canneries in North Oakland, I believe.
02-00:35:21 Pascoa: No, canneries in North Oakland, I don’t see any over here.
02-00:35:26 Warrin: You weren’t familiar with that.
02-00:35:27 Adao: Maybe not.
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02-00:35:28 Pascoa: Anyway, but you know they got to work on the stores, you know, the ones
like Alissal’s, when I bought that, the clothes, she was speaking Portuguese, see on the store, yeah. But, they changed a lot. North Oakland, that used to be a nice place to live, all Portuguese, everybody’s got their things neat, the houses all painted, you know, those days, but then it changed, I mean, it can’t be the same all the time.
02-00:36:07 Warrin: OK, well, thank you very much and I think we’re going to stop here—
02-00:36:10 Pascoa: It was my pleasure, you know! [chuckles]
[End of Interview]
