Language is by far the greatest handicap facing the Portuguese in Cambridge. For Costa, who had had previous exposure to English, language was the first and major barrier he encountered. For others--the majority of Portuguese immigrants in Cambridge who have had no prior exposure to English--the problem is even more compelling.

Absence of a working knowledge of the language hinders the establishment of relationships with the rest of the city, complicates legal and medical problems, and isolates the Portuguese within their own community in Cambridge.

For school-age children, the language barrier can be traumatic. Before the Cambridge School Department launched its bilingual English-Portuguese program, progress in education for Portuguese children hinged solely on a knowledge of English. Often their education was arrested completely until they learned English. Consequently, frustration became a built-in component of American education for the Portuguese. It was a significant contributor to the high drop out rate among Portuguese at the high school level.

Madalena Barboza, now a senior at UMass-Boston, originally came to Cambridge with her family 13 years ago. At that time she was nine years old and did not speak English. "We spoke Portuguese at home and when I got here there was no bilingual program," Barboza recalls. "I was nine years old but I was put in first grade with six-year-olds because I couldn't speak the language. I caught up finally, but I'm still a year behind." One of her sisters quit school altogether.

Today the bilingual education program has eased the transition into the mainstream of English education for the Portuguese immigrant children, but there is still a high drop out rate among Cambridge's high-school-age Portuguese, as they quit school to help out their families economically.

Although language is easily the most staggering problem for the Portuguese, housing has to run a strong second. Forced to work at low-paying maintenance or factory jobs because of a lack of basic skills, it is not surprising that, initially at least, the Portuguese immigrants move into the city's lower-rent and less-habitable neighborhoods. With few economic or social options, the Portuguese have no choice but to live in overcrowded, over-priced and illrepaired facilities. According to a 1972 study by the Cambridge Office of Planning and Development, almost 10 per cent of the Portuguese in Cambridge live in homes with a population density higher than 1.5 persons per room, compared to 1.6 per cent for the city as a whole.

The experiences of Vivaldo Meneses, a welder and iron craftsman who came to Cambridge five years ago, illustrate the housing problems the Portuguese immigrants face in Cambridge. "We paid a lot of money in rent for a junk house when we first came here," Meneses recalls. "The landlord wanted to sell the house so he didn't want to do anything to it. I paid $110 a month and there was no good electricity or heat in the apartment. When I repaired the house myself, the landlord charged more rent. He said the taxes went up. Most of the Portuguese people do that--fix up their apartments--and then the landlords go higher with the rent."

Maurino Costa also experienced typical problems with housing accommodations. "We lived on Columbia Street in a very bad apartment," Costa recalls. "Because no one would rent to family with four children, I had no choice but to live there. The apartment had three rooms including the kitchen. In one room we had four beds. My wife and I slept in the other room.

"We had to fix the apartment ourselves--the painting, the papering, everything. After we did, the landlord raised the rent. I asked myself, Is this the price we must pay for wanting to live clean and in good conditions?" Costa says.

Faced with living conditions such as these, it is not surprising that one of the primary goals of the Portuguese is the purchase of a home of their own. As soon as possible, Portuguese families begin saving money to move away from the squalid living conditions they are forced to endure in neighborhoods like East Cambridge.

"The dream of all our people is to have their own house," Meneses says. "We all had houses in Portugal and when we came here we lost everything. Coming here you have to start a new life--it's like being born all over again. The one bit of advice I would give to people who come to this country is this: Get your own house. It is better to put the money you pay in rent into something of your own."

The third major problem facing the Portuguese in Cambridge is employment. Since most of the workers who arrive in this country from the Azores are unskilled and shackled by the language problem, they are forced into low-paying jobs and subjected to exploitation. Anxious to make a fresh start, and ignorant of their rights under labour laws, the Portuguese are willing to work long hours for substandard wages.

Ruben Cabral, acting executive director of COPA, estimates that the Portuguese supply 80 per cent of the cheap labor in Cambridge. Often, the Portuguese work in jobs far below their capabilities.

"Sometimes they have good jobs at home, but when they come here they have to take lower jobs," Meneses points out. "The people who speak English get the better jobs. People who don't, have to take the lower ones."

Language difficulties, unfamiliarity with worker rights in the United States, and an unwillingness to rock the boat, have all led to the exploitation of eager Portuguese workers.