Charles Reis Felix
Overview
Charles Reis Felix was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts
New Bedford, Massachusetts
New Bedford is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States, located south of Boston, southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, and about east of Fall River. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 95,072, making it the sixth-largest city in Massachusetts...
, one of four children of Portuguese
Portuguese people
The Portuguese are a nation and ethnic group native to the country of Portugal, in the west of the Iberian peninsula of south-west Europe. Their language is Portuguese, and Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion....
immigrant parents. Felix's name on his birth certificate is the Portuguese "Carlos," but as a child he was referred to as "Charley." Felix grew up during the lean years of the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
and graduated from New Bedford High School in 1941.
Quotations
Thank God for the mind. It's the only place where we have freedom of speech.
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Chance dictates everything.
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He is gone now. His shop is gone. Weld Square is gone.His life has been wiped clean off the board.But I wake in the night and I see his face and I hear his voice.
Prologue
"The Portuguese are the unknown people. We are lost in this vast country. Nobody knows we are here. To be Portuguese in America is to be a stone dropped in the middle of the ocean. It sinks beneath the waves and vanishes without a trace."
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