You can often tell whether an ethnic enclave is thriving by counting the number of blank stares you receive when you speak English. In the Ironbound, where the Lisbon newspapers are delivered to the Tucha gift shop even before they reach some parts of Portugal, where the bars are packed on Sunday afternoons with people watching the satellite feed of their beloved Benfica soccer team, it is easy to get by with only Portuguese. Some residents have lived here for 20 years understanding just enough English to navigate the Division of Motor Vehicles.

"This is Portugal," said Isabel Fernandes, 39, who runs Socafe, which caters to the local taste for espresso, selling Portuguese coffees and espresso machines at its shop on Ferry Street, the neighborhood's main thoroughfare. "You can walk into any store and find a little bit of Portugal. Most Americans find themselves in a foreign land down here."

The Ironbound, which is about 20 to 30 minutes by train or car from Manhattan, got its name because it is enclosed by railroad tracks and major roadways. Those barriers have tended to isolate the area from the rest of Newark, which is predominantly black and Hispanic and has struggled to revitalize itself since the riots of the late 1960's.

There are few overt tensions between the Ironbound and the rest of the city, yet there is also little amity. Coutinho's bakery, an institution in the Ironbound, sells ornaments for the top of its wedding cakes that have black brides and grooms as well as white ones, but on a typical afternoon there are not many black people on the streets or in the stores.

Autumn is a time of renewal here. The many residents who have gone to Portugal during the summer to see family have returned. The aisles are clogged again at Seabra's, the sprawling Portuguese supermarket on Lafayette Street where the butchers often buff their sausages with cloth and one of the best sellers is Luso mineral water from Lisbon. The local councilman, Henry Martinez, begins to receive more complaints about double-parking, a chronic problem now in an area that has not experienced such commercial bustle in decades.