North of the border

Step onto Concord Street in Framingham, and you might feel you've been dropped into the heart of Brazil.

Merchants display the country's green, yellow, and blue flag in nearly every other storefront. The voice of Caetano Veloso, a popular crooner in that country, emanates from cars that roll by.

You can walk for blocks and not hear a word of English, while savoring the smells of barbecued beef, chicken, and pork swirling from restaurants.

Lining the streets are Brazilian hair salons, sports stores, video rental stores, accountants, realtors, and even jewelers who specialize in gold imported from that country.

''Basically, we have everything we need from Brazil here in Framingham," said Edson Marinho, 48, who moved to town with his wife and baby daughter 20 years ago.

Immigrants from Brazil have made their mark here -- so much so that they've created a little Brazil in the center of town.

But some in the community are worried that they're being targeted by immigration authorities. And the community has drawn flak from some longtime residents who object to the changes in their town.

In their homeland, a leading newspaper in Sao Paulo, O Estado de Sao Paulo, has dubbed the town ''the capital of Brazuca" -- essentially, the capital of Brazilian America.

(A Brazuca is the term for a Brazilian who has immigrated to the United States.)

''I visited Framingham in January, and I felt like I was in Brazil," said Maxine L. Margolis, an anthropology professor at the University of Florida who has studied Brazilian immigration to Framingham and New York City.

The 2000 US Census documented 212,428 Brazilian natives in the United States, with 36,669 living in Massachusetts.

But academics and analysts said those numbers might well be low, because some immigrants may not have understood the Census form and some undocumented immigrants were reluctant to be counted.

Fausto Mendes da Rocha, founder and director of the Allston-based Brazilian Immigrant Center, a workers' rights group, estimated there are roughly 1.3 million Brazilians living in the United States, with 230,000 in Massachusetts.

He also estimated that there are 13,000 in Framingham alone, based on church memberships, the number of Brazilian businesses and their clients, and telephone and e-mail inquiries received by his center.

If that number is correct and nearly 20 percent of the city's 67,000 residents hail from Brazil, Margolis said, in terms of percentage, Framingham is the most Brazilian town in the United States.

Alan P. Marcus, a geographer at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, conducted a study last year of the town's new arrivals. He found that the population is relatively young and the majority come from the state of Minas Gerais, in the southern part of the country.

Sixty-four percent of those studied claimed to have legal status in the United States, but Marcus acknowledged that figure was unrealistically high.

For his part, da Rocha estimated that as many as 70 percent of the Brazilian immigrants in the state may be undocumented.

Stroll through the town and it's easy to see why the local newspaper once referred to it as ''downtown Brazil."

Restaurants such as Terra Brasilis downtown, Ipanema on Route 9, and the Barriga Cheia on Hollis Street, translated as the ''full belly," serve up dishes such as chicken ximxim, a chicken stew with shrimp, and feijoada, a pork mix that includes pig's tail, ears, feet, sausage, and bacon.

At the Gol Supermarket on Waverly Street, immigrants can buy many of the things they would find in a supermarket back home, including the deep-cleaning detergent Omo and Kan Kanechomn hair coloring, which promises hair that is ''mas brillo y suavidad" or ''shinier and softer."

''We're a little piece of Brazil," said store manager Tallita Araujo, 23. ''These are things that make people feel comfortable."

Police Chief Steven B. Carl said his department has worked hard to cope with the influx of newcomers. The department has three Portuguese-speaking officers, and it recruited the Brazilian American Association to help disseminate important safety messages.

The Framingham Public Library boasts that it has the only public library website in the country with the majority of its pages translated into Portuguese. The library owns more than 1,000 books in Portuguese and offers several popular Brazilian newspapers and magazines.

The library regularly schedules events for Portuguese speakers. One of the most popular, the library director said, is a bilingual story hour for toddlers who crowd in to listen to staff members read from popular children's books such as ''Banho sem Chuva," a book about the travels of a grimy young monkey and a wise flamingo who scour the jungle in search of a waterfall so the monkey can take a shower before the big jungle party.

''The way we look at it is: Immigrants are highly motivated to learn English," said Tom Gilchrist, the library director. ''But we want to have enough resources in people's own languages so that people feel welcome here and, if they choose to read in their own language, they have the opportunity to do that."

How did the newcomers find their way to the town? The most common theory is that after World War II, Americans were lured to the city of Governador Valadares, which is in the state of Minas Gerais, in search of iron, gold, and silver. According to Marcus, some of those mineral hunters lived in Framingham, and when they returned home they brought Brazilians with them, starting a chain of migration that continues to this day.

''One family came and set up shop, and they helped a family member, be it a cousin, daughter, and so forth," Marcus said.

The migration eventually transformed both communities.

American dollars flooded into Governador Valadares. The downtown saw money-transfer and communications stores spring up. Buildings were named Edificio Marlborough and Edificio Framingham, according to Joel Millman, who wrote about the migration to Framingham in his book ''The Other Americans: How Immigrants Renew Our Country, Our Economy and Our Values."

Meanwhile, businesses began popping up in Framingham's downtown with the bright-colored flags signaling a business owned by or friendly to immigrants.

Any questions about the Brazilian influence on the town were dispelled in 1994, when that country won the World Cup soccer tournament and thousands flooded downtown to celebrate.

Analysts say it's not unusual for immigrants from one country to concentrate in specific US cities, as Brazilians from Governador Valadores have in Framingham.

William Apgar, a Harvard senior scholar who teaches on immigration at the school's Joint Center for Housing Studies, pointed to the clustering of Ecuadorans in Los Angeles, Vietnamese shrimp fishermen on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, and Russian Jews in the Newton area as examples.

''Fitchburg was once known to have more Finns than Americans," he said, referring to another Massachusetts community that welcomed an earlier wave of immigrants. ''The general explanation, of course, is that people move to where they have a support network."

The changes in town have not been unanimously welcomed. A small yet vocal group of critics contends that undocumented immigrants are draining town resources, particularly those of the schools and the Police Department.

Jim Rizoli, 52, a Town Meeting member who recently won 10 percent of the vote in an unsuccessful bid for a selectman's seat, has argued that the town is ignoring an obvious illegal immigration problem.

''I'm just trying to defend the country," Rizoli said. ''If this doesn't stop, Framingham is going to be a Third World country in five years."

The Brazilian community has cried foul after a number of arrests of undocumented immigrants around the state last month. But federal authorities say they aren't targeting any groups, they're targeting ''illegal activity."

Chief Carl said the newcomers haven't caused a crime wave.

Critics ''want to make you believe it's a full-time job arresting Brazilians," Carl said. ''Do Brazilians commit crimes? Yes. But we arrest more white people than Brazilians in Framingham, without a doubt."

In fact, Carl said, the immigration has had a positive effect. Two decades ago, he said, about the only people walking the streets downtown were prostitutes and drug dealers. Police patrolled in pairs because it was too dangerous to walk the streets alone.

Now, he said, Brazilian businesses have revitalized the area and there is less crime.

At Barriga Cheia on a recent weekday noon, the mandioca soup was steaming hot and Fabricio Paula, 24, of Acton, was relishing a bowl. ''It tastes just like in Brazil," he said.

At Monex, a small sports apparel and clothing boutique across from the town hall, the green-and-yellow jerseys of soccer stars Ronaldo and Ronaldinho were on sale.

Lucio Mascena, 31, of Framingham, the owner of nearby Brazilian Pizza, said the lunchtime crowd pales in comparison with that on weekend nights.

As many as 150 teenagers can be found then, crowding in and around the shop, where they can enjoy the popular X-Tudo sandwich, a massive hamburger-like sandwich made up of beef, bacon, ham, cheese, eggs, corn, lettuce, and tomato. ''It's like a bar or nightclub on weekends," he said.

Community leaders said that the next step is for immigrants to attain political influence.

Ilma Paixao, president of the Brazilian American Association, who has lived in town for nearly two decades and raised two children here, said that immigrants must get more involved.

''The Brazilian community is very large and very successful, but we need some direction," Paixao said. ''We need more organization and a better voice. If we don't do that, we cannot advocate for their rights."

Edson Marinho, who owns the Casa de Carnes meat market on Howard Street, and his daughter Elisa, 20, who helps him run the store, agreed with Paixao that the community needs to be more of a political force. They said that the complaints by critics -- that immigrants want a free ride -- are unfortunate and misguided.

Elisa, who is expecting a baby in June, said most Brazilian families are like her own. They simply want to live in a peaceful place where they can work and raise their families.

''I am a taxpayer," said Edson Marinho. ''Today, some people don't want us here. But this is the USA, and most Americans have immigrant roots."

Franco Ordoñez can be reached at fordonez@globe.com.