Soon after, she began sewing for a factory in Boston, where she worked for 12 years until health problems allowed her to start receiving government disability.

The Language Barrier

In her first years here, Lopes says, she felt lonely and isolated by her inability to communicate.

There was not even an interpreter in the hospital to help her, Lopes says. When she needed an operation, she says, the Cambridge City Hospital gave her a Spanish-speaking and a Chinese doctor, hoping that together they might be able to make sense of her Portuguese.

But a few years after her arrival, Lopes says, events in Portugal caused a significant number of Portuguese immigrants to start coming to Cambridge.

Lopes's friend Senhorinha Pires came to Cambridge 25 years ago to escape an active volcano on the Azorian island of Faial.

"Because of the volcano, the American government was receptive to allowing us to come here without documentation," Pires remembers.

Lopes and Pires met through MAPS. Pires is quieter, but the two women seem to have a comfortable friendship based on shared experience.