Fall River voters approve of Trump and his tough stance on immigration

Fernando’s Place is a bar in Fall River, in the Flint neighborhood of the city. It’s a hole in the wall near the auto repair shop. Inside there is a pool table, a raffle ticket machine and televisions where regulars watch the Champions League football on weekday afternoons.

The front door overlooks the abandoned Flint Mill, which gave the area its name when textiles and clothing were produced. When asked, bar manager Lucy Oliveira could not recall how long ago the factory closed.

“Oh dear, it’s been a long time,” she said. “I don’t remember well, but at least six or seven years.”

Since the factory closed, Oliveira has lost most of its lunchtime customers, but it still serves Portuguese pork sandwiches like caçoila and bifana to a crowd of regulars. They are mostly boys from the neighborhood, some of whom work in construction jobs.

On a recent Thursday night, nearly all of Oliveira’s clients said they supported Donald Trump. Everyone had their own personal reasons, as did Emmanuel Faria Mota, the bartender known as Manny.

“That was the kind of power he has. That look,” Mota said.

Flint Mills gave the neighborhood its name, but the building has been abandoned for years. (Ben Burke/The Public's Radio) — Flint Mills gave the neighborhood its name, but the building has been abandoned for years. (Ben Burke/The Public’s Radio)

Widespread pro-Republican sentiment is relatively new to Fall River. Democrats have dominated the politics of this city for almost 70 years. The mayor, congressman and state legislators are all Democrats. When it comes to presidential elections, Fall River loses thousands of Democratic votes each election.

When John Kerry and Barack Obama ran their slates in 2004 and 2008, about three out of every four people in Fall River voted Democratic. But those numbers dropped significantly when Hillary Clinton ran against Donald Trump in 2016, and Joe Biden fared even worse in 2020, with the incumbent winning just 54% in Fall River.

Much of this shift can be explained by the fact that Fall River is a post-industrial city with a large white working class—that kind of place. Trump broke away from the Democrats in other states. Oliveira said Trump’s brand as a successful businessman works well in Fall River.

“Everybody wants to support Trump because the economy is so bad,” Oliveira said.

Fall River swung more to the right than almost any other city in Massachusetts. Only Methuen on the border with New Hampshire had a larger share of Trump voters in 2020.

To understand what’s going on in Fall River, Boston University political scientist Daniela Melo said it’s important to consider the city’s unique demographics.

“You can’t understand Massachusetts, at least our part of Massachusetts, without understanding how the Portuguese think,” said Melo, who is Portuguese herself.

Much of the Democratic Party’s current popularity among Portuguese Americans dates back to 1958, when John F. Kennedy, then a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, co-sponsored special immigration legislation. The Azores Refugee Act created a legal pathway for Portuguese families to immigrate to America after the devastating volcanic eruption on the island of Faial. Thousands of people suddenly got the right to immigrate to Fall River from the Azores, a chain of nine Portuguese islands thousands of miles away.

“We often refer to Fall River as the tenth island,” Melo said, relaying a local joke.

There’s also a similar quip about the Charles M. Braga Jr. Memorial Bridge, whose beautiful blue steel trusses stretch a mile over Mount Hope Bay as they carry Interstate 195 into Fall River. People like to joke that it’s the longest bridge in the world — because it connects Portugal to the United States.

Local residents joke that the Braga Bridge is the longest in the world, because it connects Portugal with the United States. (Nate Roberts/The Public's Radio) — Local residents joke that the Braga Bridge is the longest in the world, because it connects Portugal with the United States. (Nate Roberts/The Public’s Radio)

By the numbers, Fall River is the most Portuguese city in the country. In 2007, the Census Bureau estimated that more than half of the city’s roughly 95,000 residents were of Portuguese descent. But today this share is falling a little. Immigration from Portugal slowed after the overthrow of the country’s dictator in 1974. America has also introduced stricter immigration laws.

“It has been a very long time since there has been a noticeable influx of fresh immigrants from Portugal,” Melo said.

Melo said Fall River’s Portuguese Americans have since integrated into white American identity — like the Jews, Irish and Italians before them. Many Portuguese families are now in their second, third, or fourth generation in the United States.

While there are no hard polls on how Portuguese Americans vote, Melo said that, ironically, she sees Portuguese Americans’ traditional loyalty to the Democratic Party fading. She said the same thing happens with the community’s sense of solidarity with new immigrants.

“I think it’s primarily about being part of the fabric and already feeling integrated,” Melo said, “and potentially seeing people who come in undocumented as code breakers, violators of the values of the good American immigrant.”

Melo said there is a deep sense among Portuguese immigrants that they came to America “the right way.” Many Portuguese immigrants stayed with family when they first arrived and found work in Fall River’s textile mills. Others began to engage in construction and founded construction companies. And in their minds, Melo said, Portuguese Americans uphold traditional family values.

“It’s part of the myth of what makes us Portuguese Americans in New England,” Melo said. “We are good immigrants. So I think that ultimately affects how people think about these issues in such a polarized time that we have today, where immigration is really being politicized for electoral purposes in a negative way.”

In Fall River, many Portuguese-Americans still vote Democratic, and hardly anyone suspects that this small Massachusetts town could sway the election. But Trump’s stronghold in Fall River is another example of how the Democratic Party is struggling to connect with white, working-class voters, even in deep-blue Massachusetts.

Dulcie Maria Scott, a sociology professor at Anderson University in Indiana who has family roots in the Fall River area, said Trump’s promise to bring back the factories is appealing to many working-class men without college degrees.

“This attraction is the same for Portuguese men,” Scott said. “With the deindustrialization of America, many Portuguese lost their jobs in Fall River and throughout the area. It was a very traumatic experience for many Portuguese.”

Before the Great Depression, Fall River was one of America's textile manufacturing centers. Plants continued to close in Fall River throughout the 1990s and 2000s. (Nate Roberts/The Public's Radio) — Before the Great Depression, Fall River was one of America’s textile manufacturing centers. Plants continued to close in Fall River throughout the 1990s and 2000s. (Nate Roberts/The Public’s Radio)

Trump’s remarks about demonizing immigrants also sparked outrage in Fall River over the high cost of shelter for immigrants who arrive in Massachusetts without jobs or family members to support them. These sentiments are exacerbated by the widespread perception that Fall River is suffering from a lack of public investment.

Manny Mota, a bartender at Fernando’s Place, said that everyone in his family was a Democrat. But he said the Flint area has gotten worse since they came to America, and he’s sick of politicians promising change.

“Do you see that?” – mocked Mota. “Look at our city. Everything is broken, disgusting.”

“You have to undo the old,” Mota said. “It has to fail to start anew.”

Mota said he would vote for Trump in this election. In 2020, his views didn’t exactly align with most in Fall River, but that could change in a few days.

This story was produced by the New England News Collaborative. It was at first published from The Public’s Radio.