Early Life
Francisco "Chico" Alves Mendes Filho was born on December 15, 1944 in the town of Seringal Santa Fé, outside of Xapuri. He was the son of a second-generation rubber tapper, Francisco Mendes, and his wife, Irâce. Chico was one of 17 siblings—only six of whom survived childhood.
At age 9, Chico began work as a rubber tapper. Schools were generally prohibited on the rubber plantations. The owners did not want the workers being able to read and do arithmetic, because they would then be likely to discover they were being exploited. Mendes did not learn to read until he was 18 years old.
Read more about this topic: Chico Mendes
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early and/or life:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“But she is early up and out,
To trim the year or strip its bones;”
—Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950)
“At birth man is offered only one choice—the choice of his death. But if this choice is governed by distaste for his own existence, his life will never have been more than meaningless.”
—Jean-Pierre Melville (1917–1973)