A huge propaganda was conducted by the Brazilian government in Spain, with agents that worked for it (ganchos) who went to the country in order to persuade Spaniards to immigrate to Brazil.
For the wretched Spanish peasants, the free passage by ship offered by the Brazilian government seemed a great opportunity to leave poverty.
This way, about 75% of the Spanish community in São Paulo was concentrated in the region of Araraquara and in the Northwest and in those areas the towns with most Spaniards were Tanabi, Mirassol, Nova Granada (named after the Spanish city of Granada), São José do Rio Preto and Olímpia.
In coffee plantations, he wrote that the immigrants slept on the floor and in tiny houses and also reported that the abuses in labour relations were frequent.
The newspapers remembered that Italy and Germany had already passed laws on the subject and that Portugal was trying to conduct its immigrants to other countries rather than Brazil.
[1] Other reports suggest that there was a thriving Spanish community in Brazil, particularly those who were able to leave the coffee plantations and to buy their own lands.
Immigrants of Spanish origin were among those who had a higher rate of permanent residence in Brazil, overtaken by the Japanese but above nationalities such as Portuguese, Italian or German.
This may be due to the large number of families traveling with passage paid by the Brazilian government that left their native Spain to work on coffee plantations of the state of São Paulo.
[1] Those had their passage by ship paid by the Brazilian government, emigrated in families and were taken to the coffee farms to replace the African slave manpower.
Starting in the early 20th century, most Spanish immigrants were Andalusian peasants who worked in the coffee plantations, mainly in rural areas of São Paulo State.
In this way, the vast majority of those who came to São Paulo were directly taken to the coffee farms without having the opportunity to settle rural communities as land owners, or work in urban jobs.