A Brazilian journalist living in Portugal for two years reported she was the victim of xenophobia last week at a gas station in Oeiras.
“I’m Brazilian with great pride, Brazilian citizen. I’ve been living in Portugal for two years and had never experienced an open case of xenophobia before, only those situations where you doubt whether it was xenophobia or just rudeness,” Lorena Gurgel stated in a video posted on her social media.
The “unacceptable” incident occurred on the morning of June 11 when a man told her to return to her country and accused Brazilians of coming to Portugal to cause trouble.
“I suffered a completely unacceptable xenophobic act. A man yelled at me, told me to go back, all those classic things. Told me to ‘go back to my land’. Said we only come here to make a mess,” she recounted.
In the video, Lorena Gurgel expressed concerns over the “victory of the far-right” in the country after Chega secured second place in the legislative elections. For the journalist, the far-right is something that has been “growing” in Europe and a “wave that has now washed ashore” in Portugal.
“What they don’t understand is if we go back to our land, they will have no one here. Who works in the supermarket? Who cuts their hair in the salon? Who provides skilled labor in the technology sector that comes here to work, whether in a Portuguese company or other European firms?” she questioned.
According to the journalist, this is the “case” of her husband, who received a “job offer in the technology sector” which led the family to move to Portugal. “We live here for Portugal – me, my husband, and my son – to settle down, start a new life. We didn’t come for help. We pay taxes. We, in fact, are supporting this country. This country wouldn’t exist without immigrants,” she asserted, adding that Portugal “is in crisis” and the “youth have left,” resulting in an “aging population.”
The Brazilian portal G1 reported the incident occurred when Lorena Gurgel was fueling her car and noticed the hose was too far from the tank entrance. As she tried to pull the hose, she accidentally knocked another one down.
“Before I could manage it and put the pump back in place, a man about five meters away in front of me, near the convenience store entrance, started yelling at me: ‘What are you doing? Are you crazy? You’re messing everything up. You’re doing everything wrong. You Brazilians only come here to mess things up. I live nearby and see you making a mess all the time,'” the journalist said, cited by G1.
An employee of the establishment intervened, resolving the situation by asking the man to step inside while assisting the Brazilian woman with refueling her vehicle.
