Women entrepreneurs: Portuguese immigrants in Sao Paulo

This paper presents the trajectory of Portuguese female immigrants who came to the city of São Paulo in the last two decades of 20th century and records their surviving strategies, initially looking for work and subsequently as entrepreneurs in their own business: restaurants, travel agency, fado singer, and others. Its primary aim is to identify, from their narratives, the entrepreneurship level of these women and the capital stock equity of their ownership, use, and from which they could be able to develop over four decades living in this huge metropolis. In this context, it is also sought the way social networks supporting their arrival were accessed during their period adapting to the city and on performing their business ventures. The analytical and interpretative path from the face to face interviews with these Portuguese immigrants allow us to conclude that capital stock is an extremely relevant resource to entrepreneurship, which they know exactly how to deal and apply on access and development of social networks and also on empowerment inherent to Luso-Brazilian cultural dialog.