Coordinates: 23°42′00″S 46°33′00″W / 23.7°S 46.55°W / -23.7; -46.55 São Bernardo do Campo (Portuguese pronunciation: [sɐ̃w beʁˈnaʁdu du ˈkãpu]) is a municipality in the state of São Paulo, in southern Metropolitan São Paulo and São Paulo microregion. The municipality's total area is 408.45 km ² and a population estimated at 1 July 2009, according to the IBGE, was 810,979 inhabitants, which results in a population density of 1,962.5 inhabitants / km ².

The city was founded by João Ramalho in 1553 and was known as Vila de Santo André da Borda do Campo de Piratininga, soon transferred to another nearby place, safer from hostile tribes. It is, however, historically perceived as the first Brazilian settlement built away from the sea. The original settlement was then resettled as São Bernardo, became a parish in 1812 and became a municipality in 1890. In 1938, it became a part of the Santo André district only to be separated again in 1945.

The area where São Bernardo do Campo, Santo André, São Caetano do Sul, and Diadema are located was once a farm owned by Benedictine monks, who owned enslaved Africans. By the second half of the 19th century, European immigrants started to come to the area, mainly from Italy. Italians settled in cottages in the rural area of São Bernardo do Campo that were called colônias. By the beginning of the 20th century, Japanese immigrants arrived, most of them going to the neighborhood called Cooperativa.

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José Alencar Gomes da Silva (Portuguese pronunciation: [ʒuˈzɛ ɐlẽˈkaʁ ˈɡõmiz dɐ ˈsiwvɐ]; 17 October 1931 – 29 March 2011), also known as José Alencar, the Strong, was a Brazilian businessman and politician, and the Vice President of Brazil from 2003 to 2010. In business since a young age, Alencar was a self-made multimillionaire, as the chief executive of Coteminas, after working as travelling salesman and in failed food wholesale start-ups. He turned his family's small clothes factory and retail store into a leading textile manufacturer in his country, producing goods for traditional brands in its portfolio, such as Artex, Santista and Calfat, and vying for dominance of the global market after a merger with South Carolina-based Springs Industries. In the 1990s, Alencar groomed his son to succeed him at the company, and opted to enter politics in his home state, Minas Gerais.

Alencar had a business-oriented political platform, advocating market liberalization and deregulation of production. His expensive political campaigns received hefty funds from Coteminas. After a failed run in 1994 for governor of Minas Gerais, he won the election for the Senate of Brazil, representing his home state, in 1998. In 2002, Alencar was invited by the left-wing Worker's Party to run for Vice President, on the same ticket as Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The alliance between the leftist union leader and Alencar, an experienced entrepreneur, proved successful. They won the presidential elections in 2002 and were re-elected in 2006. Over the years, Lula da Silva and Alencar developed a close and affectionate friendship. Diagnosed with cancer of the stomach and kidney in 1997, Alencar succumbed to the disease in 2011.