Familiar flag

The Rev. Estacio Portela notes the new workers and businesses as he makes his way along Union Street in Rockland. The auto-body shop may be owned by a Lebanese man, but it is run by Brazilians. And at Mike's Pizzeria, most of the delivery boys come from Brazil. Just blocks away, Alfa & Omega Hair Salon has a Brazilian flag in its window, a reflection of the owner's heritage.

"So, how many businesses?" the reverend asks rhetorically. Many, he says, and the number keeps growing. Portelo says he's seen countless Brazilian-run companies expand in the past four years he's lived here, and he's noticed the same is true in adjoining towns.

So strong is the influx that Catholic and Baptist pastors are holding services in Portuguese to accommodate the newcomers.

Brazilians leaving the city life of Boston or moving north from Cape Cod to find jobs and cheaper housing are settling throughout the area, from Stoughton to Weymouth and Marshfield. They're opening markets in Abington and churches in Rockland, and joining the trades that fuel the region's construction boom.

"The community is getting rooted in the country," said Josimar Salum, executive director of the Brazilian Ministers Network, a new group that aims to unite the growing number of Brazilian ministers and residents across the state.

Immigrant-rights groups like to call the Brazilian population the "invisible minority that everyone sees," because even though US Census figures give them bragging rights as the latest and largest immigration wave, the population still is said to be under-estimated.

Census surveys from 2005 show that the number of Brazilian-born people living in the state has nearly tripled since 2000, from 30,000 to 84,836. Yet immigrant-rights groups say the number is far greater -- perhaps more like 200,000 -- based on data from the Brazilian Consulate General in Boston from 2003 and records of passport renewals. One group uses Department of Public Health records to show that the number of babies born to Brazilian mothers is the fastest growing among ethnic groups.

More than any other form of record-keeping, the groups use as their guide the membership count in churches, such as the International Baptist Church of Portela's in Rockland.

"We're seeing a lot of Brazilians in the area, more churches, more businesses," said Fausto Mendes da Rocha, executive director of the Brazilian Immigrant Center in Allston.

"Especially in the South Shore," he said. "It's a community growing faster than other areas."

He lives in Randolph and attends church in Abington, where a growing Brazilian population has opened new businesses and assumed management of old ones.

"They're in this country here to work, to enjoy the dream of being here, so they adapted," said Robert E. Wing, chairman of the Abington Board of Selectmen.

"They've become part of the community and adapted just fine. They're not any different. They're neighbors."

At one shopping plaza on Route 18, a Brazilian church is adjacent to a martial arts studio that teaches Brazilian jiujitsu and capoeira, the Brazilian form of dance fighting. At the center of the plaza, the Terra Nossa supermarket offers the area's largest supply of Brazilian-imported goods.

The market is in a typical suburban strip mall, but the green and yellow flags posted on its windows send a signal that the place is Brazilian.

"I tried to find a place for Brazilians everywhere," said Joao Jardim, the owner of Terra Nossa. He opened the market more than two years ago, after his success with a similar market in Brockton.

In Abington, he's found a central location for a scattered immigrant group that, not long ago, had to go to Boston to find the Brazilian soda known as Guaraná Antartica, or Minas Frescal, an imported cheese.

Jardim compared the area's influx of Brazilians to the immigration wave that hit Framingham two decades ago, making the Brazilian population in that city one of the largest in the country.

Many South Shore area residents are becoming familiar with the goods and services that come with Brazilian culture. Bill Smith of Abington visited Terra Nossa recently to explore the goods and foods offered there.

"It was just to see what it was like, to try something new," said Smith, who asked his neighbor, Silvio Mato, a Brazilian, to translate the Portuguese writing on the products. "I'll be going back there. I like different types of food, and diversity."

Portela likes the mandioca flour for cakes and bread. It does the same thing wheat can do, only it tastes better, he said.

Does he miss his homeland? "We don't miss the country that much," he said. "We still feel connected in many ways."

He immigrated here four years ago after he found in an earlier visit to see his sister in Rockland that there were few churches to serve the needs of his people -- not only Brazilians, but people who speak only Portuguese.

Churches like Portela's that cater to immigrants do more than serve as a place of worship.

They're networking centers, where people can meet others who find themselves in a new land with little family and few friends. Most of the Brazilians living here are young couples with children.

"These people really need a connection," Portela said. "This kind of ministry is different."

He's benefited just as much as anyone, having found a sense of purpose when he, himself, arrived.

The reverend is still getting accustomed to life here. Although his English is good, he studies daily, keeping a notebook of words he memorizes.

On a recent day they included "ratify," "flaw," and "liability." Later, he struggled to say "bureaucracy."

He is proficient enough to put himself on a list of translators in case of an emergency in the area.

He stops at businesses throughout town, inviting residents to church functions he's planned. Sometimes there are movies or music classes.

He's found new friends who are auto mechanics, or who work in construction or landscaping. Recently, a new member of his church told Portela of how he just opened his own restoration company, Express Clean, after years laboring in the business.

"He said, 'Pastor, can you pray for me?' " Portela said. And he will.

Milton J. Valencia can be reached at Valencia@globe.com.