While immigration is peppering the news of late, it’s been near and dear to Marcelle De Sousa Alves’ heart since she arrived with her mother on the Island from Minas Gerais, Brazil, at 7 years old in 2005: “Once I got here, with all the opportunities, I knew right away that I wanted to go to school and learn English. It was really hard to learn. I cried almost every day for three years. But it was a challenge I wanted to overcome.”
Alves mastered English, and set her mind on something else at a tender age: “I wanted to be a lawyer from about 6 years old. Ever since I was little, I wanted to negotiate. I had my own strong-minded opinion, and always thought it would be a career I wanted.” Her interest soon segued into immigration law. “In eighth grade, or freshman year at the high school, I wanted to know more about my status, since we didn’t know what it was.” Alves tracked down an immigration attorney in Boston through the internet, and traveled there with her mother for an initial consultation. She recalls, “DACA [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals] didn’t exist yet when I met her. I remember asking, ‘Well, what do I need to do to get a driver’s license when I’m 16?’ I knew all my friends were going to get one. She said there wasn’t anything she could do for me. I kept calling, even though I wasn’t her client, and checking in to see if anything had changed.”
Eventually, it did. When President Obama signed the executive order for DACA in 2012, the lawyer called Alves. “She said, ‘You’re very persistent. It’s like you were onto something. DACA is everything you were asking for.’ When I went in to see her, I wanted to find a way to go to college and pursue the American Dream.” Alves was among the first to submit a DACA application. “The lawyer changed my life completely with that phone call, and I realized I wanted to have that [impact] with people like me, who came to the U.S. without knowing what the future held.”
Ever persistent, Alves finally found an immigration lawyer on the Vineyard. During Alves’ sophomore year, in 2014, Rebecca McCarthy moved to the Island, and opened up her law practice. “I went to lunch with her and told Rebecca I would work for free as an intern,” Alves recalls. McCarthy immediately took Alves under her wing. She had her observe in court, help with client intake, translate from Portuguese, file forms, and research the law: “I was learning about the process of immigration — the routes (and lack of them) it takes to become a citizen. I wanted to help the Island Brazilian community as a whole.”
Alves, a three-time Vision Fellow, worked with McCarthy as her mentor when she attended the University of Arizona. She earned her bachelor’s degree in political science, with a minor in African studies. The latter came about after she took an elective course on the African Diaspora: “My professor had lived in Brazil, and she talked about the overlap of the African Diaspora with Brazil and Afro-Brazilian history. Growing up, because of my skin tone, I was constantly asked if I was Black or Brazilian. I was fighting people who did not understand that there are all different races within Brazil.” Alves continues, “I’m also close to my grandfather in Brazil. He has African roots that he’s made me very proud of. But he didn’t have a lot of answers to my questions, for my wanting to understand how my physical traits were different from those around me. I kept taking the classes and digging deeper into Afro-Brazilian history, so that when somebody asked me, ‘Why are you so dark if you are Brazilian?’ I was able to give them the history.”
Alves is currently completing her legal studies through Purdue University’s Concord Law School. She is doing so remotely, because she has just moved to Washington, D.C., to intern with Ayuda in its immigration law department. Ayuda is a nonprofit immigrant resource center that provides legal, mental health, language, and social services. Alves is enjoying learning about the nonprofit world, hoping to open her own comprehensive immigrant clinic on the Vineyard. “It would be one place that would register you for health insurance, dental and mental health services, and trauma services. One thing that is very much overlooked beyond culture shock is the trauma some people go through to get to the U.S. Unpacking that and beginning to heal from the moment you arrive is so important. [I have heard] from many people I have spoken to, they wished they had taken care of those wounds from the start.”
Having worked in numerous law offices before, Alves finds things very different given the new administration. “Already the doors are locked, because that’s how bad the fear is. If you’re coming in, we have to know it’s really a client. They need to be safe because of the ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] raids.”
Although Alves is currently in D.C., her ties to the Vineyard are constant. “I appreciate that the Brazilian community trusts me, and wants to ask me questions. I’m making sure I’m informed about whether ICE is on the Island. I’ve become a point of contact for many people in the Brazilian community. I’m trying to reassure people, saying, ‘You’re going to see the media headline, and it will tell you what Trump is doing. You have to read the rest of the article, but you also have to maintain your sanity. Doom scrolling is not good at all for anybody.’
“We can’t control news outlets, billionaires, or politicians, but we can do activism. Not just the immigrant community, but also people who want to help them.” Alves emphasizes, “Don’t let all this fear, anger, and hate overcome the great, beautiful stories of the immigrants coming to the U.S. Don’t let the gloomy shadow steer you away from why we came, and that we are worthy.”
