Located between the Tietê and Tamanduateí rivers, close to Estação da Luz and right in the center of São Paulo, the Bom Retiro neighborhood brings together a wide variety of shops, cultural centers, religious institutions and restaurants, but its main brand is clothing . The history of the neighborhood dates back to 1880, when the coffee baron, Joaquim Egídio de Sousa Aranha, who had a property in the region, called Chácara do Bom Retiro, decided to divide the farm into lots for the construction of houses for industrial workers. This occurred shortly after the inauguration of a train line that passed through the region and connected the cities of Jundiaí and Santos, passing through the capital of São Paulo. Route that was often used by immigrants, who disembarked at the Port of Santos. “Bom Retiro is a neighborhood that, since the end of the 19th century, has received successive flows of foreigners arriving in São Paulo. It is not the only neighborhood, but it has some particularities: firstly, because of its location, which is central, close to Estação da Luz. It has also had an important economic activity since the 1920s, with the trade and clothing industry beginning to be structured. And it offers, in addition to working conditions, housing conditions for those arriving in São Paulo”, explained Sarah Feldman, professor at the Institute of Architecture and Urbanism of the University of São Paulo (USP) on the São Carlos campus. A former resident of the neighborhood, she helped gather information for the documentary O Bom Retiro É o Mundo, by André Klotzel. “Bom Retiro has this garment trade activity, which remains today with Koreans, and it offers a form of rented housing. It has always been – and continues to be – a neighborhood that concentrates tenements, which is a rental housing solution, in precarious conditions, but it is an alternative housing on the outskirts, close to jobs and public facilities. This is a housing alternative for the low-income population and for those arriving in São Paulo”, added Sarah. The first to arrive in the neighborhood and who turned it into a working-class village were the English. “Already in the construction of the railroad, the English engineers occupied the farms because, before the urbanization, there was constituted by farms. Then there is a succession of foreign groups: the Portuguese, the Italians, the Spanish, the Jews, the Greeks, the Yugoslavs, the Koreans. And then comes the cycle of Latin American, African and Bolivian immigrants,” said Sarah. That’s why one of the main characteristics of this neighborhood is its multiculturalism. “These groups settle in the neighborhood maintaining work and housing relationships. And just walk around the neighborhood to see this diversity. All this diversity of the population of Bom Retiro is marked in the territory”, said Sarah. Koreans From the 1960s, Koreans began to come to Brazil. The first group of immigrants to officially arrive in Brazilian territory came in 1963, exactly 60 years ago, in a type of immigration that professor and sociologist Margareth Rogante calls family. “You [coreanos] older ones told that they came with the family. I think 90% of them came at the recommendation of relatives who were already here and came with the whole family”, she said, in an interview with Agência Brasil. “The Koreans came with their families, with the intention of settling down. And they settled and grew and are here. [no Brasil]”, added the sociologist, who a few years ago developed the study Korean Immigration: the Process of Settlement and Social Ascension of Immigrants and Descendants from the Bom Retiro District. According to her, these immigrants arrived in the country initially with a proposal to go to the interior, to work in the countryside. “They bought land, in principle, for food production in the rural area, but the projects did not work out and they ended up returning to the city. The mass of this immigration came between the 60s, 70s and 80s. And then they started to settle in the central neighborhoods”, she said. And that’s how the Koreans started to mainly occupy the neighborhood of Bom Retiro. “Bom Retiro had characteristics that were essential for the choice because they [coreanos] they already came with the craft of sewing, the community already had this knowledge. So it was an easier area to work in, although very difficult. They met in associations and in churches and had to give each other a lot of support. A very important characteristic is that a part of them [desses imigrantes coreanos] he declared that he came with little money but, through these consortia, people got together and the leaders delivered the consortium according to the family’s needs and already indicated: ‘look, there’s no pressure button, can you enter this branch?’ So they were grouping and organizing themselves in this way. That’s why Bom Retiro was chosen. Everyone who came already had more or less an indication of the neighborhood”, explained Margareth. Korean fair in Bom Retiro takes place on Saturdays and brings together the Korean community. Photo Paulo Pinto/Agência Brasil Doctor Hee Jeung Hong, who developed a study called Immigration and Aging in São Paulo: Profile of a Group of Korean Elderly People, also found that most Koreans who arrived in Brazil preferred to live in Bom Retiro “ for the ease of relationships, access to restaurants and typical culinary products”. At the time, Bom Retiro was mainly known as a Jewish neighborhood. “The Jews installed a whole productive chain linked to the clothing industry and trade. From the 1920s until the mid-1940s, Jews were more present in these establishments, which make up the entire productive chain of the garment trade, from the sewing workshops to the graphics that printed receipts,” explained Sarah. Upon arriving in Brazil, the Koreans began to acquire this trade from the Jews. “And then it starts to be called the neighborhood of Koreans. But neither Jews nor Koreans were ever the majority of the population of Bom Retiro. It is a neighborhood always marked by mixture”, emphasized the architect and urban planner. For the sociologist, what helped Koreans to put down roots mainly in this neighborhood is the fact that they are a cosmopolitan people. “I think the biggest characteristic that the neighborhood gave to Koreans to settle there is this heterogeneity of ethnic groups. Bom Retiro has this characteristic and a strong inclination towards the clothing trade. They already came with knowledge about this craft. Another characteristic is that Koreans are very united and have proposed to work a lot. So most of them say they worked 18 to 20 hours a day and the younger ones went out to sell door to door. This work made it possible for the whole family to be included, everyone to participate: the parents cut [o tecido], most of the mothers sewed and the children sold. So, as they came with the family project, they didn’t disperse like the others, looking for jobs in other places. They ended up focusing on this branch that allowed the whole family to participate.” Korean fair in Bom Retiro takes place on Saturdays and brings together the Korean community. Photo Paulo Pinto/Agência Brasil Korea Town Although they are not the largest group living in the neighborhood today, it is the Koreans that Bom Retiro is currently best known for. There are even projects being planned that propose that the neighborhood become a Korea Town. One of these projects, for example, has already been approved by the current mayor, Ricardo Nunes, and managed to change the name of Rua Prates to Prates-Corea. Korea Town is proposed by the Consul General in the city, Insang Hwang. The idea, for example, is to install typical light fixtures around the neighborhood, add the name Korea to Tiradentes subway station and paint murals around the neighborhood. The idea is not new. In 2017, for example, the then mayor João Doria even publicized the Little Seoul proposal, which ended up not going forward. “This is a Korean project, a global project of theirs, led by the consul in Brazil. They crafted Korea Town. In Bom Retiro, they managed to turn Rua Prates into Rua Prates-Corea. And they have a proposal for Rua Três Rios. They also have a proposal to change the name of Tiradentes Station to Tiradentes-Corea Station. But I don’t think you need that. First, because it is not a Korean neighborhood. And when the names of Korean cities are added, the diversity that exists in Bom Retiro is omitted. Tiradentes Station, for example, refers to the name of the avenue, but also to the Tiradentes prison. [onde diversas pessoas foram presas e torturadas na época da ditadura militar]. This is not how you change the name of things”, criticized Sarah. Sociologist Margareth Rogante considers that the project is based on a cultural characteristic that is particular to the Korean people, of care for where they live. “I think that our elites are very prejudiced against non-whites. The Jewish community had some difficulties [no bairro], but I think the Korean faced even more. Few places, for example, offered food. Today there is a lot of it, but they faced all sorts of cultural shock: food, language, even the issue of participation in the community, care for the neighborhood. You can see that they are proposing to improve the neighborhood. He cares a lot. The Asian community in general is like that, it wants to improve everyone’s lives,” she said. “They have a proposal to put some lamps that are representative of the Korean community. And there is a lot of resistance to saying that they want to take over the neighborhood, to saying that they want to deny or make other immigrations invisible. I do not think so. I think they want to insert themselves. I think he just want to contribute. They are cosmopolitan and they are concerned about the neighborhood. They carry out massive actions there, in favor of the entire neighborhood and the entire community”, mentioned Margareth. “They are part of the community and need to be made visible, not only because we go to Bom Retiro and look at them, but also to recognize the contribution of this immigration to São Paulo and to Brazil. From an economic point of view and from a cultural point of view, I think they make every effort to insert themselves and participate in the community and make themselves feel like they belong in Brazil,” she added. The “Lights of Korea” exhibition, organized by the Korean Cultural Center in Brazil, displays the lanterns that are a traditional symbol of Korean culture and date back to the Imjin War. Photo: Elaine Cruz/Agência Brasil The architect and urban planner believes that Koreans could indeed honoring their homeland. But in other spaces such as squares or streets that are not so significant for the history of the neighborhood. “It’s okay for them to want to honor someone from Korea. There’s no problem with that. I think it’s great that they want to collaborate for the improvement of the neighborhood. But the history of lanterns in Liberdade [bairro paulistano que é frequentemente associado à imigração japonesa] has already been heavily criticized from the point of view of the heritage and memory of the city. I think that’s an outdated view,” she said.
Agência Brasil
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