Nubia Goncalves of Latham, a native of Brazil and the founder and CEO of Pink Cleaning Services, is seen Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024, in Colonie.
Nubia Goncalves, founder and CEO of Pink Cleaning Services, poses with one of her business's vehicles on March 26, 2024, in Latham.
Nubia Goncalves of Latham, center, stands with employees of her business, Pink Cleaning Services, on March 26, 2024 in Latham.
Nubia Goncalves, CEO of Pink Cleaning Services, poses with her cleaning service's fleet of vehicles on March 26 in Latham.
“I came from Brazil, a very tropical country, and people normally ask me, ‘What are you doing in upstate New York? ’” Nubia Goncalves said with a laugh. “I say, ‘I love it — I just love it.’ ”
The Capital Region is where Goncalves first settled in the U.S., and she liked it so much here she stayed — though that wasn’t the way she had planned it.
“My brother used to live here, in Schenectady, so I came to live with him,” the Latham resident said. “My plan was, I will stay with him for a while, and then I’ll move to the city. … I am a big-city girl — I mean, I am a small-town girl, but I always liked the big-city life.”
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Goncalves was born in a village in Goiás, a state in central Brazil. And although New York City beckoned, the friendly people and quieter life upstate charmed her.
Home: Latham
Place of origin: Goiás, Brazil
Time in U.S.: 18 years
This story is part of New Americans, a series of profiles of immigrants in the Capital Region.
“I couldn’t say ‘Hi’ when I first got here. I couldn’t say anything. (But) everyone treated me so well,” she said. That made the Capital Region look like a good place to put down roots, and maybe start a business one day.
“I love the people around here,” she said. “It’s so calm. And, you know, I fell in love.”
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But make no mistake: Though Goncalves found upstate to be welcoming, life here wasn’t easy. To come to America, she left her three children — then ages 2, 4 and 6 — in the care of their father and other relatives. She didn’t see them again for three years.
“We leave our families, we leave our life, our language, our food, our community in Brazil, our everything,” she said. “And almost everyone who is here (as a newly arrived immigrant) is a very poor family — you know, they come because they have to; they come after a better life, for them and for their family.”
But Goncalves downplayed her sacrifice. “I know people who are 20 years without seeing their family, their kids, their mom — and that’s very hard,” she said.
“I always thought, ‘I made the decision to go, I can make the decision to get back.’ When I decide something, I feel like I have no reason to complain about it, because I made my own decision,” she said.
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When she first got here, as an undocumented immigrant, Goncalves worked multiple jobs cleaning supermarkets, hospitals and other facilities at night. These were 18-hour days, seven-day weeks.
A few years in, an acquaintance who cleaned houses in Saratoga Springs became pregnant, and she asked Goncalves to take on a few of her clients for the weeks before and after her due date.
The clients praised Goncalves’ attention to detail, and she liked the work better than cleaning commercial properties. She set out to find her own clients and start a housecleaning business.
“I think it doesn’t matter what you do, you have to give 110 percent,” Goncalves said. “You have to be good at what you’re doing, you have to love what you do. You have to like it. Or if you don’t, does it make sense to do it? So everything that I do, I give all of me.”
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Finding clients was a very slow process: “People don’t call you (when) they don’t know you. How can they trust someone in their house that they don’t know?”
When she went to her first interview with a potential client, she brought along a friend of her brother’s as a translator.
“And I learned how to say ‘hundred,’ ” she remembered. “I was going to charge $100 for the cleaning. … So I learned ‘hundred dollars,’ I learned ‘cabinets’ … and ‘start,’ for ‘When can we start your services?’ … And I get the job.”
Goncalves learned more English as she went, writing down words to look up later, and doubling down on her work to make up for her limited communication. “I had to be good on cleaning,” she said. “I had to be the best one because I couldn’t talk to them. Since I couldn’t speak, I had to do something very good to get their attention.”
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Her business, Pink Cleaning Services of Latham, is going strong these days. She has other immigrants working for her and a fleet of pink vehicles to drive out to the day’s job sites.
After about three years in the U.S., Goncalves got her green card. The first thing she did was go back to Brazil to see her children. In 2013, they joined her here; and today, one of her sons is going into the Navy.
Goncalves said she wanted to tell people thinking of coming to the U.S. that they should make sure their expectations match reality. Too many people back home, she says, talk about moving here as if “it’s going to be easy.”
“They think they’re going to make money very easy and fast. They don’t have to work,” she said. " … They just want to get some benefits from government.”
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To anyone who’s thinking of coming here with that attitude, she has a message: “Wake up and go to work. … If you come with the mind that it’s going to be easy, just don’t come.”
It’s an attitude she worries reflects badly on other migrants. “People like that — people who don’t work hard, who don’t prioritize doing a good job and building relationships — hurt the credibility of other immigrants.”
For those willing to work hard, though, America is unparalleled, Goncalves says.
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“I just love this country. I just love it,” she said. “And I can see the opportunity that this country can give us.”
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