Moving to Portugal — An immigrant experience of Lisbon, Part I (by Lisa Morrow & Kim Hewett)
Even before the pandemic, many people, particularly US citizens, have been looking to move somewhere that offered a better quality of life. One of the main criteria is it must be safe, and on the surface Portugal appears to be a good option. Nobody gets killed at school by rampaging gunmen, the country isn’t always at war, or threatening war, and most people aren’t openly aggressive towards people of colour. So, what’s to worry about?
The question of how we learn about the practicalities of immigrating to a new country critically depends on the scope of your enquiries. How deep do you go and how do you rate the sources you use to draw conclusions? My husband and I, both sociologists and writers, lived in Lisbon for three and a half years. We had travelled there several times before and already had a few Portuguese friends before we decided to move. We didn’t speak much Portuguese but it wasn’t our first time starting life in a new country where we didn’t speak the language. We did everything ourselves, there was no relocation agent, and we knew obtaining accommodation, dealing with bureaucracy and getting settled would require patience and a lot of energy. Even having a relocation agent doesn’t count for much, because once you’re settled, the problems don’t end there.
