Rabo de Peixe_en
Seen through urban eyes, everything in Rabo de Peixe looks strange: the way people dress, talk, walk around, even the way they look. “They’re always saying we’re poor, does it look poor here?” Poverty depends a lot on the eyes of the observer. And yes, at first sight, we saw poverty. But can there be a better antidote to a tainted gaze than approaching people, looking them in the eye, talking to them?
It didn’t take us long to see the children we had seen as feral as children playing freely, who didn’t worry about tearing their clothes, captivated by “that pretty fish jumping up over there”. For us to learn that the men sat relaxing against the wall were called Inácio, António, Leonardo, Aurélio… fishermen with weathered faces and hands, signs of the hard work of those who, if the tides allowed, would go out to sea at five in the morning to only return in the small hours of the following day.
For women’s expressions to change from a look of distrust to smiles as they proudly described their traditions and why Rabo de Peixe might be “the best place anyone could live”.
Their visceral repulsion of being labelled “poor things” doesn’t deny that life is hard, nor that there are families who need help—they live on an island, work opportunities are scarce and wages are low. But when the statistics throw them to the bottom of the pile, the inhabitants of Rabo de Peixe bristle. And they scorn two groups in particular: politicians on the mainland who have never come to speak to them for more than five minutes and journalists who paint them as “wild animals”.
75%
Civil parish with the highest level of abstention in the 2024 parliamentary elections.
Source: Secretariat General Ministry of the Interior
8799
Number of inhabitants in Rabo de Peixe, the most populous parish on the Autonomous Region of the Azores.
Source: Census 2021
“They’re always saying we’re poor, but do you see poverty here? We work hard here, but life is better than it used to be: I like to see the local fisherman well dressed, with good trainers… For the young everything is harder, my children only have a house because I gave them land. I lived through 25 April, I know what it is to live under a dictatorship, so I always vote. I don’t think all politicians are the same, but I don’t like that it’s always the same faces. Being a member of parliament for life should be banned, being a politician isn’t a profession.”
Asked to remain anonymous, 69 years old
25%
With a quarter of the inhabitants under 20, the population is younger than the national average (18%).
Source: Census 2021
“I never voted, I don’t like it. Politicians change, you see new ones and it’s all the same, they don’t do anything. If someone better appeared, who supported fishermen and the workers, I might go and vote.”
Inácio, 20 years old, fisherman and skipper
“I didn’t vote because I don’t think it changes anything. The Socialist Party or Social Democratic Party have been in power for years and people’s lives haven’t got better. Income support here is a problem in Rabo de Peixe, do you think it’s good for those who don’t work to receive more than those who do? It annoys me to see people doing nothing. I’m not about to take to the streets about it, but I do earn what I have.”
Gabi, 40 years old, hairdresser
44%
The percentage of inhabitants who completed obligatory schooling is in line with the median for parishes across the country (47%), but far from the parish with the highest percentage of residents who completed year 12 (18 years), which is Avenidas Novas, in Lisbon (87%).
Source: Census 2021
“When I married, I lived with my mother-in-law for four years. Then we bought our own house, but we didn’t have enough money to pay the loan and I had to work. I even asked for income support but they didn’t give me anything. I have what I have because I work, I’ve been working at the Carreiro Sousa sausage factory for 21 years. Politicians don’t do anything. Going to vote wouldn’t make my life any better, so I don’t go.”
Idalta, 47 years, factory worker
8%
In Portugal, the parish of Rabo de Peixe has the ninth highest percentage of inhabitants on income support—489 people of a total 6,280 residents over the age of 18. Monforte da Beira in Castelo Branco is the parish with the highest number of people who receive the benefit (20%).
Source: Census 2021
“I have my own boat and I go out to sea on my own. Fishermen can only earn enough to scrape by—the fish are in charge, not people. Politicians make promises, but once they’re elected, they say they have no money. I won’t vote for those people anymore! The poor pay taxes, and they’re the ones who keep the country going.”
Pedro, 47 years old, fisherman
17%
550 people work in agriculture and fishing. This is six times higher than the national average.
Source: Census 2021
“When there wasn’t anything else to feed my eight children, I’d heat a litre of milk with a tin of tuna. Today life is much better in Rabo de Peixe. The Government gave me my house. The parish mayor really encourages us to vote, but I haven’t recently. Here one of the big problems is that boat owners receive the fishing subsidies and don’t give anything to the fishermen, who are the ones who risk their lives at sea.”
Cidália, 67 years old, retired
“I only voted twice in my life, and both times for the parish council. I’ve known the mayor since I played football in the Rabo de Peixe Sports Club, he’s not a bad person. I never vote in other elections, I don’t even know who the politicians are. What’s the point of those enormous billboards? They just block the view… Waste my time going to vote? No way! Nothing changes. For example, our wages went up, but prices did too, what are we left with after taxes?”
Mauro, 36 years old, café employee
“Of course it’s an important issue, but at school, when we have students suffering domestic violence, with drug problems, our priority isn’t telling them how important it is to vote. Here there are families with problems, like in other regions—it is not because the school is in Rabo de Peixe, but because it’s one of the biggest in the region. It’s a big town, so you really feel life’s problems. But we produce lots of doctors, lots of engineers, lawyers, and teachers too. Students in the town use school to climb the social ladder.”
Artur, 44 years old, teacher
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