Mixed Race Studies

School Hygiene and Eugenics: The Role of Physical Education in Regeneration “The Brazilian Race”

Revista HISTEDBR On-Line
Number 35 (September 2009)
pages 19-28
ISSN: 1676-2584

Karl M. Lorenz, Associate Professor, Director Teacher Certification Programs
Sacred Heart University, Fairfield, Connecticut

From 1870 to 1930, physicians, writers, anthropologists and educators discussed the relationship between education and the less-privileged segments of the Brazilian population. Among ideas circulating in the late nineteenth century were precepts of School Hygiene, such as physical exercise could promote personal health and, in a broader sense, the total development of the child. In discussions of eugenic themes in the early decades of the twentieth century, Physical Education was further promoted as a corrective measure for the negative effects of miscegenation; that is, the physical, intellectual and moral debilities of the poor and non-white segments of the Brazilian population. This paper examines the nature and effects of the school discipline Physical Education on the less-favored children of Brazil by first introducing its role in School Hygiene and then by focusing on its extended role from the eugenic perspective. In this latter discussion, the racial ideas of Fernando de Azevedo regarding the regenerating effect of Physical Education on the “Brazilian Race” are explored.

During the period known as the First Republic (1889-1930), different segments of Brazilian society sought to define the “Brazilian race.” Their efforts originated from a larger concern about the most efficacious ways to politically and socially modernize the country and create a new model of society. Increasing urbanization, industrialization, abolition, and an expanding school-going populace were important factors that shaped discussions on economic and social issues in the waning years of the Empire (1822-1889) and the first years of the Republic.

The question that perplexed those struggling with these issues was how could a country endowed with vast national resources like Brazil experience such a slow pace of economic and social development? As expected of such a broad question, numerous explanations were offered. Among these, and one that was prominent in influential intellectual circles, was the racial constitution of the Brazilian people. Race, it was argued, was the key determinant of social progress and national development (VECHIA & LORENZ, 2009, p. 58).

The identification of race as a factor in social progress and national development is not surprising given that since the mid 1800s the Brazilians were familiar with racial theories circulating in Europe. The theories first gained prominence with the studies of the British scientist Francis Galton (1822-1911) and the publication of his 1865 article Hereditary Talent and Character and his 1869 book Hereditary Genius. Galton meticulously recorded the physical characteristics of humans and concluded that a large number of physical, mental and moral traits were inherited and that progress could be achieved by the conscious selection and transmission of a population’s hereditary endowments to future generations. Galton coined the word “eugenics” in 1883 in his Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development to denote the science of the biological improvement of humankind. The eugenics doctrine encouraged the reproduction of superior individuals and races while discouraging the reproduction of those that were inferior…

…Eugenic Discourse in Brazil

In the second half of the nineteenth century racial ideas circulated in Brazil and fixed the notion for many Brazilian intellectuals that the great challenge of nationhood resided in its people. Count Gobineau’s influential text promoting the racial theory of the superiority of the “Aryan race,” Essai sur l’inégalité des races humaines (1854), was one of the first works known to the Brazilian elite. His ideas supported the thesis that the Brazilian race was primarily comprised of the poor and non-white segments of the population and that these were responsible for the social misery of the country and the slow pace of national progress. Other social and scientific texts by Buckle, Kidd, le Bon, Lapouge, and social Darwinists held up Brazil as a prime example of the “degenerative” effects produced by “promiscuous racial miscegenation.” Brazilians found themselves receptive to these writings, especially those that espoused the apparent inequality of races in terms of a hierarchy constituted of “evolved” and “primitive” typologies. Theories of Negro inferiority, mulatto degeneration, tropical decay and their effects at inhibiting progress were accepted by many of the political and social elite (STEPAN, 1990, p. 114).

Questions about the origin and nature of the Brazilian Race were explored in the national literature, often in publications that voiced eugenic themes and employed eugenic terminology. Sílvio Romero, in his 1888 masterpiece Historia da literatura brasileira, discussed the mixing of the white, Indian and Negro peoples in Brazil, estimated a timeframe for the general whitening of the Brazilian people, and even advocated European immigration to hasten the “whitenening” and “homogenizing” process (ROMERO, 1906, p.123). Euclides da Cunha, in his novel Os Sertões, tells of the 1896 rebellion in Canudos, in the backlands of the northeastern tropical state of Bahia. He reflects on its causes and identifies the prejudicial effects of racial mixing on the behavior of the rebellious mestiço sertenejos (mestizos of the backlands) as one of a constellation of causes. The Bahian physician and ethnographer Nina Rodrigues, in Mestiçagem, Degenerescência e Crime (1899), defended the idea of the inferiority of the mestizo and the Negro and suggested they be subjected to their own penal codes. Towards the end of nineteenth century the historian Joaquim Maria de Lacerda decried the “black race” as “much less civilized and intelligent than other races”, and prior to 1930, the novelist Afrânio Peixoto asserted that mestizos were the problematic offspring of the mixing of superior and inferior races.

Most revealing was the racial view of the Brazilian writer Monteiro Lobato (1882-1948) who describes his disagreement with four inhabitants of the sertão (backlands of Brazil) in a letter to his friend Godofredo Rangel. The letter, which was published in the Journal of São Paulo in 1914, collectively referred to these “four lice” as a fictional and symbolic figure named Jeca Tatu—or “Jeca the backwoods hog” (the armadillo)—thus creating one of the best known literary characters of Brazilian culture. Jeca represents the typical country hick—a poor, ignorant, unpleasant and disease-ridden caboclo (an individual of mixed European and native Indian blood). Monteiro writes of his indignation with the apathy and indolence of the sertenejos, who because of miscegenation were a “veritable plague on the earth.” Even though later Lobato revised his thinking and attributed the decadence of the hybrid Jeca Tatu to his poor economic conditions, the image of the degenerate mestizo became deeply etched in the minds of Brazilians (VECHIA; LORENZ, 2009, p. 61-62)…

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Talking About Brazil with Lilia Schwarcz

The New York Review of Books
2010-08-17

Robert Darnton, Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor of History
Harvard University

On a recent trip to Brazil, I struck up a conversation with Lilia Moritz Schwarcz, one of Brazil’s finest historians and anthropologists. The talk turned to the two subjects she has studied most—racism and national identity.
 
I first visited Brazil in 1989, when hyperinflation had nearly paralyzed the economy, favelas erupted in shoot-outs, and Lula, a hero of the union movement but still unsure of himself as a politician, was undertaking his first campaign for the presidency. I found it all fascinating and frightening. On my second trip, a few years later, I met Lilia and her husband, Luiz Schwarcz, who was beginning to build the company he had founded, Companhia das Letras, into one of the finest publishing houses in Latin America. They treated me to a day so packed with Braziliana that I remember it as one of the happiest experiences of my life: in the morning a stroll with their children through São Paulo’s main park, where families of all shades of color were picnicking and playing in dazzling sunlight; lunch, a tour of Brazilian specialties undreamt of in my culinary philosophy (but no pig’s ears or tails, it not being feijoada day); an international soccer match (Brazil beat Venezuela, and the stands exploded with joy); then countless caipirinhas and a cabaret-concert by Caetano Veloso at his most lyrical and politically provocative…

Since then I have never stopped marveling at the energy and originality of Brazilian culture. But I don’t pretend to understand it, all the more so as it is constantly changing, and I can’t speak Portuguese. I can only ask questions in English and strain to grasp the answers. Has the myth of Brazil as a “sleeping giant” turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy? “He has awoken,” people say today. The economy is booming, health services expanding, literacy improving. There are also prophecies of doom, because Brazil’s economic history looks like cycles of boom and bust imposed on centuries of slavery and pauperization. Still, Lula is completing a second and final term as president. Whatever Brazilians may think of his newly assertive foreign policy, which includes cultivating friendly relations with Iran (most of them don’t seem to be interested in it), they generally agree that he has managed the economy well and has done a great deal to improve the lot of the poor. Lula’s term will end in October, and he has thrown his support behind Dilma Rousseff, his former chief of staff, whose chances of winning are much bolstered by Lula’s own popularity. The first debate of the new presidential campaign, which took place on August 5, was a dignified affair—an indication, I was told, that democracy is healthy and the days of military coups are over. Now foreigners are asking new questions about the character of this new great power. I directed some of the FAQs at Lilia…

…RD: Yes, like many New Yorkers, I have moments of fear when I get off the subway at the wrong station or wander too far from 125th Street. But when I visit Brazil, I like to think I am in a country that is coping successfully with its history of racism. Could Brazil evolve into a multi-nuanced mestizo society like the one imagined by the Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre?
 
LMS: Let me first ask you Bob, do you think of Obama as a “black President”? I am asking this question, because in Brazil the definition of color depends on the context, the moment and the temperament of the person who asks the question and responds to it.
 
RD: Ask any American, ask Obama himself, the answer will certainly be that he is black. In the US, despite the many varieties of skin color, we do not have a multi-nuanced notion of race. You are black or you are white or you are something not closely linked to color such as Chinese, Hispanic.
 
LMS: In Brazil, you are what you describe yourself to be. Officially we have five different colors—black, white, yellow, indigenous, and pardo (meaning “brown,” “brownish,” or “gray-brown”), but in reality, as research has demonstrated, we have more than 130 colors. Brazilians like to describe their spectrum of colors as a rainbow and we also think that color is a flexible way of categorizing people. For several years, I have been studying a soccer game called “Pretos X Brancos” (Blacks against whites), which takes place in a favela of São Paulo, called Heliópolis. In theory, it pits eleven white players against eleven black players. But, every year they change colors like they change socks or shirts—one year a player will choose to play for one team, the next year for the other, with the explanation that, “I feel more black,” or “I feel more white.” Also, in Brazil, if a person gets rich, he gets whiter. I recently talked with a dentist in Minas Gerais. As he is becoming old, his hair has turned white, and he is very well recognized in his little town. He started smoking cigars, joined the local Rotary Club, and said to me: “When I was black my life was really difficult.” So one can see how being white even nowadays is a powerful symbol. Here we have two sides of the same picture: on the one hand, identity is flexible; on the other hand, whiteness is ultimately what some people aspire to. But one aspect is common, the idea that you can manipulate your color and race…

Read the entire interview here.

The Spectacle of the Races: Scientists, Institutions, and the Race Question in Brazil, 1870-1930

Hill and Wang (an imprint of MacMillan)
September 1999
224 pages
5 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches
ISBN: 978-0-8090-8789-1, ISBN10: 0-8090-8789-8

Lilia Moritz Schwarcz, Professor of Sociology
University of São Paulo, Brazil

Translated by Leland Guyer, Professor of Hispanic Studies
Macalester University, St. Paul, Minnesota

A provocative analysis of racial identity and nationhood.

“We are a half-breed country . . . We are half-breeds, if not in our blood, then at least in our souls.” With these words, the literary critic Silvio Romero summed up the impression of Brazil a century ago as a “festival of colors.” The spectacle of a mixed-race society in a world that prized racial purity was horrifying to European travelers as well as to Brazil’s intellectuals, who were soon crying out for “one hope, one solution: the whitening of the population within one century.”

But however attractive European notions of racial superiority might have been to Brazil’s elite, they were not easily adapted into the Brazilian context. In The Spectacle of the Races, Lilia Moritz Schwarcz, a leading cultural anthropologist and historian, shows how Brazil’s philosophers, politicians, and scientists gratefully accepted social Darwinist ideas about innate differences among the races yet could not condemn the miscegenation that had so long been an essential feature of Brazilian society-and was at the very heart of a new state-building project as the country modernized. Schwarcz shows how the work of these “men of science” became crucial to the development and survival of Brazil’s basic national structures, affecting the country’s destiny in ways that still apply today, when race remains the basis of Brazil’s self-image.

Who Is Black in Brazil? A Timely or a False Question in Brazilian Race Relations in the Era of Affirmative Action?

Latin American Perspectives
Volume 33, Number 4 (July 2006)
pages 30-48
DOI: 10.1177/0094582X06290122

Sales Augusto dos Santos
University of Brasília

Translated by Obianuju C. Anya

At the end of 2001 the question of race became part of the Brazilian national agenda under the pressure of black social movements for the establishment of quotas for admission of Afro-Brazilians to public universities. There was already strong resistance to this proposal. One of the principal arguments against this kind of affirmative action was and continues to be that Brazilian racial boundaries are not as rigid as those of the United States—that, given its substantial miscegenation, it is impossible to know who is black. The myth of racial democracy seriously limits realistic discussion of racism and racial identity because it prevents the identification of dysfunctional race relations. The question is not who is black but what sort of society Brazilians want to build.

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The myth of racial democracy and national identity in Brazil

The New School, New York, New York
February 2006
195 pages
Publication Number: AAT 3239941
ISBN: 9780542943904

Leone Campos de Sousa

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science of the New School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

In the 1930s and 40s, both government and academics popularized the notion that several centuries of miscegenation had rendered Brazilian society uniquely free from racial prejudice and discrimination, a society in which citizens of all ‘races’ and ethnicities lived in harmony and had equal access to societal advantages. Since the 1950s, however, social scientists and black activists have insistently denounced the Brazilian myth of racial democracy as disingenuous for occluding racial inequalities. Indeed, statistics-oriented studies have largely documented the discrepancy in levels of socioeconomic conditions between whites and nonwhites in Brazil.

More recently, scholars of race have claimed the myth of racial democracy is in truth part of a deliberate ‘racial policy’ designed by white elites and enforced by the State to subjugate blacks and perpetuate white domination. They are committed to demystify the myth of racial democracy and enhance the racial consciousness of the ‘non-white’ population, who could thus politically defeat ‘racial hegemony.’ Even the Brazilian State, which has traditionally cultivated the myth of racial democracy, now rejects the idea that ‘race is not an issue in Brazil.  The last two administrations have implemented racial quotas to increase the access of ‘racial minorities’ to public universities and jobs in the public sector.

These efforts notwithstanding, it is a fact that the large majority of blacks and mixed-race people in Brazil have not been inclined to cultivate a strong racial identity. In fact, evidence shows that most Brazilians, regardless of ‘race,’ remain convinced that their society is blessed with relatively harmonious racial relations and oppose the ‘racialization’ of society explicitly proposed by this solution. Moreover, public opinion has fiercely rejected race-based affirmative action measures.

To make sense of Brazilians’ die-hard belief in the idea of racial democracy, I reconstruct the trajectory of this concept in the light of some theories of nationalism, especially Liah Greenfeld’s. I demonstrate that this myth was crucial to Brazilian national identity, and its long-lasting significance attests to the power of nationalism in Brazil.

Table of Contents

• Chapter 1: Introduction
  • I. Race and Nationality in Brazil
  • II. Theoretical Framework
  • III. The Relevance of The Topic and Further Research
  • IV. Methodology and Sources
  • V. Structure of The Dissertation
• Chapter 2: Constructing An Identity: Nation-Building and Race in Brazil
  • I. Early Nationalism in Brazil
  • II. In Search of A “European” Identity
  • III. Miscegenation As “Whitening”
  • IV. The Rise of “Aggressive” Nationalism
  • V. Getúlio Vargas and The Triumph Of Brazilian Nationalism
  • VI. Gilberto Freyre And The Myth of Racial Democracy
  • VII. Conclusion
• Chapter 3: Deconstructing The Myth of Racial Democracy
  • I. From Fact to Myth
  • II. Challenging The Myth of Racial Democracy
  • III. The Myth Survives
  • IV. Conclusion
• Chapter 4: The Myth of racial Democracy As National Identity: Three Alternative Explanations
  • I. Race And Nationality By Thomas Skidmore
  • II. Anthony Marx’s Making Race And Nation
  • III. Race Vs. Nation: Hanchard’s Orpheus and Power
  • IV. Conclusion
• Chapter 5: The Myth Persists: Brazilians reaction to Affirmative Action Policies
  • I. The Increasing Influence of The Black Movement
  • II. The Controversy About Affirmative Action Policies in Brazil
  • III. Conclusion
• Chapter 6: Conclusion
  • I. Theories Of Nationalism And The Myth Of Racial Democracy
  • II. Alternative Explanations: A Critique
  • III. Globalization Then And Now: The Case of Brazil
• Bibliography

Introduction

This dissertation focuses on the role of the myth of racial democracy in the formation of Brazilian national identity. It discusses why the idea that Brazil’s multiethnic population lives in racial harmony has persisted despite centuries of slavery, as well as evidence of deeply ingrained racial prejudice against blacks, Indians, and the mixed-race people. This study argues that the myth of racial democracy, elaborated by Brazilian intellectuals in the first half of the last century, draws its strength from the fact that it was able to offer an answer to society’s apprehensions and misgivings about the large colored population in Brazil. Brazilian intellectuals resented popular European theories about the existence of a link between underdevelopment and racial composition, and responded by interpreting in a positive light what had been traditionally seen as the country’s Achilles’ heel: miscegenation. Racial mixture became the very basis of the concept of racial democracy that has since been crucial in the formation of Brazilian national identity.

Race and National Identity in Brazil

Until recently, both the Brazilian population and intelligentsia conceived of their society as relatively free of racial prejudice and discrimination, a society in which citizens of all “races” and ethnicities lived in harmony with similar access to societal advantages. It was also assumed that this laudable trait of Brazilian society reflected the widespread process of mestiçagem (miscegenation) that has taken place in that country since the colonial era. Although the celebration of mestiçagem as a distinct feature of Brazil can be traced to the mid-nineteenth century, it was in the 1930s that the discourse on Brazil as a “racial democracy” was accepted as a credible depiction of social reality by the cultivated elites and incorporated into popular jargon.

The racism-free image of Brazilian society gained recognition after the publication of Casa-Grande & Senzala in 1934, written by Gilberto Freyre, a young Brazilian social scientist recently graduated from Columbia University. Freyre sought to uncover the fundamental characteristics of Brazil’s society and culture. Although the main thesis of his book refers to the role of the colonial patriarchal family as the foundation of Brazilian society, Casa-Grande & Senzala also celebrates Brazil as a “hybrid civilization”—the product of a blending of Africans, Indians, and Europeans (primarily Portuguese).

The country he describes is not a racial paradise. He recognizes the structural disadvantages that blacks and mestiços (mixed-race) faced both in slavery and in their attempts toward social mobility after freedom, topic he further developed later in Sobrados e Mucambos. Freyre claims that racial miscegenation and cultural amalgamation in Brazil has not only created a new type of society but also founded the basis of a unique variety of ethnic and social democracy. According to him, the relative tolerance and communicability between the races engendered in the casa grandes (the masters’ mansions in the colonial era made modern race relations in Brazil less antagonistic than in any other country. Even though he never used the expression “racial democracy” in his Casa-Grande & Senzala, the author did suggest that:

Perhaps nowhere else is the meeting, intercommunication, and harmonious fusion of diverse or, even antagonistic cultural traditions occurring in so liberal a way as it is in Brazil… the Brazilian regime cannot be accused of rigidity or of a lack of vertical mobility, and in a number of social directions it is one of the most democratic, flexible, and plastic regimes to be found anywhere.

Some empirical facts seemed indeed to corroborate the discourse about the virtues of racial relations in Brazil. As a multiracial country, with a long history of slavery, the country has never witnessed, as in the United States or South Africa, relevant civil rights or racial-based movements. Racial discrimination had been declared illegal since the inauguration of the Republic in 1889. Brazil’s system of racial classification employs a color system—dividing Brazilians into whites, blacks, pardos, and yellows – which is perceived as a mere objective description of reality, as opposed to categories that evoke clear-cut racial or ethnic descent such as “Afro” or “Native” Brazilians…

…By the late 1970’s, the image of Brazil as a racial democracy came under fierce attack by many scholars and black activists who have claimed that it is in reality a veiled form of racism, part of a deliberate policy created by the Brazilian “white elites,” and enforced by the State, to subjugate blacks and mixed-raced peoples. This has been especially suggested by a new generation of scholars of race influenced by American scholarship on racial relations as well as by Abdias Nascimento. As Peter Fry has noted, for these authors. Brazil no longer represents a superior alternative but rather “an archaic and obscurantist system of race relations that must give way to the ‘reality’ of clearly defined races.”…

Purchase the dissertation here.

Kept In, Kept out : The Formation of Racial Identity in Brazil, 1930-1937

Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
November 1996
95 pages

Veronica Armstrong

Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Latin American Studies Program

This thesis examines the roles of historian Gilberto Freyre and the Sao Paulo black press in the formation of racial identity in Brazil. In Casa Grande e Senzala, published in 1933, Freyre presented a hypothesis of Brazilian national identity based on positive interpretations of slavery and miscegenation. His emphasis on racial harmony met with the approval of Getúlio Vargas, a president intent on the unification of Brazilian society. With Vargas’ backing, racial democracy became Brazilian national identity. Supporters included the black press which welcomed an idea that brought blacks into definitions of Brazilianness. Yet, blacks were embracing an interpretation of Brazilian identity that would replace a growing black racial awareness. Reasons for the undermining of black racial consciousness and the enshrining of racial democracy as Brazilian national identity emerge in an overview of shifts occurring during the first decades of the twentieth century. The forces of mass immigration, negative evaluations of Brazil by scientific racism, and the nation-building politics of Vargas affected the elite minority and the poverty-stricken majority of Brazilians, but in differing ways. For while economic stability and national pride were the goals of the former, research suggests that survival was the paramount aim of the latter. Addressing the needs of both groups, the adoption of racial democracy as national ideology in the late 1930s maintained elite privilege, defused the potential of racial unrest, and promised social mobility to the masses.

Benefits to the largely-black masses, however, had strings attached. Social mobility depended on their acting “white” and becoming “white” through miscegenation. In the face of desperate poverty, blacks had few options and assimilation seemed a way to move beyond their low socio-economic status. Furthermore, contrasts with American segregation convinced black writers that battling discrimination had to be secondary to the economic survival of their community. The thesis concludes by seeking to explain the paradox of a society characterised by many foreigners and most Brazilians as a racial paradise from the 1930s to the 1970s even though Brazilian reality evinces gross inequality between the small Europeanised elite and the large black and mixed-race underclass.

Table of Contents

• Approval
• Abstract.
• Acknowledgments.
• Preface.
• Introduction kept in, kept out:the question of brazilianness and black solidarity 1930-1937
  • The March for national identity
  • Brazilianness vs. Blackness
• Chapter 1. Ideology and Identity
  • The dawning of a new era of national thought
  • A historic moment
  • Whitening
  • A New Era
• Chapter 2. Race
  • Miscegenation and Racial Terminology
  • Racial Democracy: Theory and Revision
• Chapter 3. The Making of a Cultural Hero
  • Freyre: the child and the man
  • Freyre s “Old Social Order”
  • Ciasa Grande e Senzala
  • Freyre, the Intellectual
  • Freyre, Father of National Identity.
• Chapter 4. The Politics of Identity
  • The Black Press in Brazil
  • The Meaning of Language
  • From the mulato to the black press
  • The Black Press: an alternative path
  • Assimilation vs. segregation
  • A Frente Negra
• Chapter 5. Only we, the negros of Brazil, know what it is to feel colour prejudice
  • A Voz da Raza
  • Conclusion: We are Brazilian
  • Intellectuals and Ideology
  • Searching for identity
• Epilogue
• Bibliography

List of Figures

• figure 1: Roquete Pinto’s prediction of the racial make up of Brazilian populations based on official statistics 1872-1890
• figure 2: System of values within the miscegenation process

Read the entire dissertation here.

Who are the Blacks? The Question of Racial Classification in Brazilian Affirmative Action Policies in Higher Education

Cahiers de la Recherche sur l’Éducation et les Savoirs
Number 7 (October 2008)
18 pages

Luisa Farah Schwartzman, Assistant Professor in Sociology
University of Toronto

Debates about racial classification and its agreement with the uses of “race” and “color” in everyday life have been central to the discussion about affirmative action in Brazil. Using quantitative and qualitative data regarding the relationship between socio-economic status and racial identification in Brazilian universities, this paper investigates how particular kinds of policies may have different impact in terms of which particular “kinds” of individuals are benefited. I argue that both the labels that are used and the socio-economic limits that are imposed may have significant and not always intuitive consequences for which individuals are admitted, and for how contestable their eligibility will become. The label negro, when used as the sole criterion for admissions, may be too restrictive and exclude “deserving” non-whites from these policies. On the other hand, because potential non-whites from higher socio-economic classes are more likely to come from “multi-racial” families, the absence of a socio-economic criterion may lead to a substantial number of candidates who may feel that they can lay claims to a wide range of racial labels, not all of which may be acceptable to policy designers and scrutinizers concerned with restricting eligibility for quotas to “deserving” candidates.

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Performative Aspects of Brazilian Music as a Means of Creating Identity in Rio de Janeiro

Universität Wien
October 2008
215 pages

Adriana Ribeiro-Mayer

In Rio de Janeiro’s multi-ethnic society with its colonial and slave-based past creating a common identity is a major problem. Standard Portuguese, as opposed to spoken “Brazilian”, is remote to many Brazilians. Therefore, music and dance, the Carnival events and Baile Funk, substitute for language-based common performances. They have become extraordinarily big events based on a “sincretized” rhythm, on the body and mostly Afro-Brazilian body movements.

With the help of “participant observation” and “ero-epic conversation” I tried to participate as closely as possible in numerous events and describe them in performance protocols. These I analyzed according to the concepts of performance theory.

Richard Schechner’s emphasis on deep structures (such as the escola rehearsals) and rules; Victor Turners shift from play to ritual; Nicholas Cook’s “process-“ rather than “product-character” of performances and the musical work, e.g. a samba-enredo, as giving performers something to perform; Erika Fischer-Lichte’s emphasis on co-presence, interaction and feed-back as well as the body and its expressions; and finally Johan Huizinga’s prediction of a shift in social play, trough rules, competition and the audience to more seriousness. All these concepts of performance theory both proved useful tools, and at the same time were put to an interesting re-evaluation when applied to these mostly Afro-Brazilian events.

Rio’s Carnival’s counter-world has to fulfill so important and different needs in a divided society that it split to be able to present opportunities for spontaneous play of the individual, e.g. in the street blocos and the Intendente Magalhães parades, and to present a choreographed show of unity and common identity, in the main sambodrome parades. Baile Funk has so far catered for the first needs, i.e. entertainment and individual expression, as it has not involved all layers of carioca society through city-wide events.

Table of Contents

• 1. Introduction
• 2. Rio de Janeiro Society and the African Influence
  • 2.1 The African Population in Brazil
  • 2.2 The African Population in Rio de Janeiro
  • 2.3 Abolition of Slavery
  • 2.4 African Cultural Heritage
• 3. Identity in a mixed Society
  • 3.1 The Situation of Afro-Brazilians today
  • 3.2 Affirmative Action? Quotas for “Black” Students
• 4. Concepts of Performance
• 5. The Method of “Participant Observation” and “Ero-Epic Conversation”
  • 5.1 Questions of Presentation
  • 5.2 Research Trips
• 6. Hypothesis
• 7. Carnival and Samba in Rio
  • 7.1 Origins of Samba and Carnival in Rio
    • 7.1.1 Samba
    • 7.1.2 Carnival
  • 7.2 The Escolas de samba
    • 7.2.1 Origins and Evolution of the Escolas de Samba
    • 7.2.2 The Special Group Escolas de Samba
    • 7.2.3 Case study “Madureira”
    • 7.2.3.1 Escolas de Samba from Madureira
    • 7.2.4 Preparation of the Parades
    • 7.2.4.1 Cidade do Samba – Samba City
    • 7.2.5 The Sambodrome
    • 7.2.6 The Competition “The Best Escola de Samba of the Year”
  • 7.3 Performative Aspects of Samba and the Escolas’ Parades
    • 7.3.1 Dramaturgy of the Parades
    • 7.3.1.1 Example: Sequence of the 2008 Portela parade
    • 7.3.1.2 Performance Protocol of the Escolas’ parade
      • 7.3.1.2.1 Preparation Events
      • 7.3.1.2.2 Rehearsals in the Quadras
      • 7.3.1.2.3 Street Rehearsals
      • 7.3.1.2.4 Portela Rehearsal in the Sambodrome
      • 7.3.1.2.5 Group A parade – Formation and Dissolution
  • 7.4 Social and Economic Aspects of the Escolas de Samba for Rio
• 8. Funk Carioca
  • 8.1 Origins
  • 8.2 Funk Carioca music
    • 8.2.1 Charme
    • 8.2.2 Proibidão
    • 8.2.3 Erotic funk
  • 8.3 Performative Aspects of Baile Funk
    • 8.3.1 The Dramaturgy of Baile Funk
    • 8.3.2 Performance Protocol Baile Funk
      • 8.3.2.1 Baile Funk in a Suburb
      • 8.3.2.2 Baile Funk in Rio downtown
  • 8.4 The Rio Hip Hop Movement
  • 8.5 Baile Funk vs. Samba Parades and Rehearsals
  • 8.6 The Social and Economic Aspects of Baile Funk
• 9. Interpretation
  • 9.1 Performance Theory applied to Samba and Funk Performances
    • 9.1.1 The Parade of Império Serrano in the Sambodrome
    • 9.1.2 Rehearsals
    • 9.1.3 Traditional parades on Intendente Magalhaes Avenue
    • 9.1.4 Baile Funk
  • 9.2 Samba and Funk’s Contribution to Rio’s Cultural Identity
  • 9.3 Examples of Samba-Enredo and Funk Carioca Lyrics
    • 9.3.1 “Bum, Bum, Paticumbum” – Samba-enredo
    • 9.3.2 “Guerreiros da Paz” – Funk Carioca
• 10. Conclusions
• 11. Zusammenfassung
• 12. Resumo
• 13. Bibliography
• 14. Glossary
• 15. Abstract in English
• 16. Abstract auf Deutsch
• Appendix

Read the entire dissertation here.

Brazil’s new racial reality: Insights for the U.S.?

Race-Talk
The Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity
2011-07-19

Cheryl Staats, Research Assistant

Brazil has been a long-standing place of interest for many scholars due to its fluid racial categorization that focuses on phenotype rather than hypodescent.  With the release of Brazil’s 2010 census data, the newly-minted “minority-majority” country only further piques the interest of many in the U.S. as our country quickly approaches its own “racial tipping point” in approximately 2042.  What insights can the U.S. gain from Brazil and its experiences with this demographic transition thus far?  While the two countries possess similar yet distinct racial histories, some possible parallels are worth considering.
 
Non-white birth rates outpacing those of white women is one of the key factors in the U.S. demographic transition, as twelve states and the District of Columbia already have white populations below 50% among children under age five.  Seven additional states are poised to also attain a “minority majority” designation among children within the next decade.
 
Similar to the U.S., one of the drivers behind the numeric rise of nonwhites in Brazil has been the rise of the non-white birth rate.  Moreover, experts also cite an increased willingness of Brazilians to self-identify as black or pardo, a Brazilian term akin to mestizo or mixed race.  Among the reasons attributed to this include: a period of economic growth that is helping to dispel associations between poverty and skin color; increased presence of blacks in high-profile positions, including the appointment of a black judge to Brazil’s Supreme Court and the country’s first black actor in a leading telenovela role; and a sense of hope that is permeating the country…

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Race and Making America in Brazil: How Brazilian Return Migrants Negotiate Race in the US and Brazil

University of Michigan
2011
314 pages

Tiffany Denise Joseph

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Sociology) in The University of Michigan

This dissertation explores how US immigration influenced the racial conceptions of Brazilian returnees, individuals who immigrated to the US and subsequently returned to Brazil. Since Brazil was once regarded as a multi-racial utopia and represents a very distinct social environment when compared to the US, the dissertation objective was to learn how returnees adapted to the US racial system and if they “brought back” US racial ideals to Brazil upon returning. I conducted semi-structured retrospective interviews with 49 Brazilian returnees in Governador Valadares, Brazil, the country‘s largest immigrant-sending city to the US to explore how these individuals perceived and navigated racial classification and relations in Brazil and the US before, during, and after the US migration. To more effectively isolate the influence of immigration for returnees, I also interviewed a comparison group of 24 non-migrants.

Findings suggest that returnees relied on a transnational racial optic to navigate the US racial system as immigrants and to readapt to the Brazilian racial system after returning to Brazil. I use the term “transnational racial optic” to demonstrate how migration transformed returnees‘ observations, interpretations, and understandings of race in Brazil and the US. Returnees felt the US racial system was characterized by more rigid racial classification, overt forms of racism, and pervasive interracial social and residential segregation compared to Brazil. The US migration also influenced returnees‘ perceptions of racial stratification in both societies, particularly with regard to the socio-economic positions and behaviors of US and Brazilian blacks.

After the US migration, most returnees were not conscious of how their racial classifications or perceptions changed, although the results indicate shifts in their racial and skin tone classifications over the course of the migration. Furthermore, returnees felt that they did not remit US racial ideals to Brazil after returning. While both returnees and non-migrants thought racism existed in Brazil, returnees, after having lived in the US, were more cognizant of the structural manifestations of racism than non-migrants. This suggests that returnees‘ observations of race in the US influenced their perceptions of race in Brazil post-migration, which is indicative of the transnational racial optic.

Table of Contents

• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Appendices
• Abstract
• Chapter 1 Introduction
• Chapter 2 Background and Theoretical Framework
• Chapter 3 Methodology
• Chapter 4 Examining Brazilian Return Migrants‘ Personal Conceptions about Race in the United States
• Chapter 5 Examining Brazilian Return Migrants‘ Societal Conceptions about Race in the US
• Chapter 6 The Return: Brazilian Return Migrants‘ Post-Migration Conceptions of Racial Classification in Brazil
• Chapter 7 Contemporary Life in GV: Conceptions of Race among Return Migrants and Non-Migrants
• Chapter 8 Conclusion
• Appendices
• Bibliography

List of Figures

• Figure 1: Returnees‘ Race in Brazil Pre-Migration (Brazil Census)
• Figure 2: Returnees‘ Race in US (US Census)
• Figure 3: Returnees‘ Average Skin Tone Classifications during Migration Process
• Figure 4: Non-Migrants‘ Racial Classifications (Brazil Census)
• Figure 5: Returnees’ Racial Classifications at Time of Interview
• Figure 6: Coding Schema for Returnees’ and Non-Migrants’ Brazilian Racial Conceptions
• Figure 7: Coding Schema of Returnees‘ US Racial Conceptions

List of Tables

• Table 1: Demographics of Return and Non-Migrants
• Table 2: Immigration Demographics for Return Migrants
• Table 3: Topics in Interview Protocols
• Table 4: How Participants Racially Classified Interviewer
• Table 5: Importance of Race before Immigrating
• Table 6: Importance of Race in US
• Table 7: Importance of Race before Immigrating vs US
• Table 8: Brazilian Racial Classifications
• Table 9: Open-Ended Racial Classifications in US
• Table 10: Self-Ascribed vs. External Racial Classification in US
• Table 11: Factors Influencing Open-Ended Racial Classification
• Table 12: Experiences of Discrimination by Racial Classification
• Table 13: Defining Race- Return Migrants vs Non-Migrants
• Table 14: Factors Influencing Return Migrants and Non-Migrants
• Table 15: Returnees’ Skin Tone Classifications at Each Retrospective Migration Stage
• Table 16: Racial Classification in the US vs Racial Classification
• Table 17: Pre-Migration Racial Classification vs Racial Classification
• Table 18: Self-Ascribed Racial Classification-Return Migrants vs. Non-Migrants
• Table 19: Importance of Classifications
• Table 20: Return Migrants‘ Skin Tone Classifications across Racial Categories
• Table 21: Returnees’ Perceptions of Racial Democracy
• Table 22: Manifestations of Racism
• Table 23: Return Migrants’ Demographic Info (Returnees 1-24)
• Table 24: Return Migrants’ Demographic Info (Returnees 25-49)
• Table 25: Non-Migrants‘ Demographic Info

List of Appendices

• Appendix 1 Demographic Information
• Appendix 2 Coding Schema
• Appendix 3 Interview Protocol for Return Migrants-English Version
• Appendix 4 Interview Protocol for Non-Migrants-English Version
• Appendix 5 Interview Protocol for Return Migrants-Portuguese Version
• Appendix 6 Interview Protocol for Non-Migrants- Portuguese Version

Chapter 1: Introduction

I filled it out [Census form]. Yes, they asked [for my racial classification] and I put white because I wasn‘t Hispanic or Latino. [The form] had Hispanic, white, black, there wasn‘t an option for me specifically. Even though in Brazil, I considered myself white, there [in the US] for them [the Americans] I am not white because white there is blue eyes and blonde hair.

–Renata, white woman, 46 years, New York

Because when they [Americans] look at you, they know, they know that you‘re not American. (quirks) I don‘t know how they know, but…if you speak English [with a foreign-sounding accent] like in America, they know you are not American. I don‘t know why.

-Amanda, white woman, 33 years, Massachusetts

Increasing immigration to the United States in the last fifty years has had a significant impact on the population’s racial and ethnic diversity. Although the US historically has been predominantly white and black, the 2000 US Census revealed a population that has become increasingly racially nonwhite since the majority of recent immigrants have come from Latin America, Asia, and the Caribbean.2 While these immigrants bring with them hopes for a brighter future, they also come with conceptions of race from their countries of origin, which are not easily shed and may influence their perceptions of and incorporation into US society. In the US, race is a primary mode of social organization and the social construction of race has created widespread social inequality between whites and people of color since the nation’s inception (Feagin 2000; Omi and Winant 1994). Feagin (2000) argues that the black-white racial binary is the foundation of US race relations and is the ruler by which other racial and immigrant groups are measured. Therefore, immigrants who come to the US enter a racially polarized social context.

The quotes at the beginning of this chapter provide recollections of how Brazilian return migrants, or Brazilians who immigrated to the US and subsequently returned to Brazil, negotiated race while living in the US as immigrants.3 The ideas captured in Renata and Amanda’s quotes suggest a reconfiguration in the US of self-ascribed racial classification that differed from their racial self-classifications in Brazil, as well as recognition of how “Americans” identify foreign others.

While race is a strong structuring factor for US residents, race and racial classification in immigrants’ countries of origin may be very different from those in the US, which means immigrants must learn how to negotiate race in their new context. According to Landale and Oropesa (2002):

“Not only must migrants adapt to change in their status from majority group member to minority group member; they also face pressure to redefine themselves in terms of the black-white dichotomy that delineates race relations in the U.S.” (pg. 234).

Such a process of redefinition may be challenging for immigrants who never before have classified themselves using rigid racial terms, particularly for those who come from Latin America, which has a history of more socially-accepted racial mixing that has resulted in populations with a diverse range of physical racial markers, such as skin tone and hair texture (Landale and Oropesa 2002; Roth 2006; Duany 2002; Itzigsohn et. al 2005). Brazil, once considered a racial utopia compared to the US because of its perceived harmonic interracial relations, is such a country. Whereas one’s ancestry and physical features are generally the basis for classification into a single specific racial group in the US, such characteristics may signify different racial classifications in Brazil and other Latin American countries. Renata’s quote clearly demonstrates how her physical features are considered white in Brazil although she is considered nonwhite in the US. Thus, Renata and other Latin American immigrants come to the US with a different understanding of race and must adjust to existing racial classifications and race relations upon arrival. As Latinos are currently the largest ethno-racial minority in the US and do not easily fit into the historical black-white racial binary, it is important to explore how immigrants from Latin American countries, more specifically Brazil, adapt to race in the US.

Brazil is the Latin American country of interest in this study for three reasons. First, there have been various comparative studies of race in the United States and Brazil that have explored the unique racial characteristics of these countries (Degler 1986; Marx 1998; Telles 2004; Bailey 2009). Brazil and the US are two of the largest countries in the Americas and share a history of European colonization, Indigenous conquest, and African enslavement. Yet, the social construction of race has unfolded very differently in each context, motivating studies that explored how the racist US differed from Brazil’s multi-racial paradise.4 Second, as the largest slave-holding societies in the Americas, Brazil and the US have large African-descended populations. The majority of African slaves imported to the Americas were sent to Brazil. Even after the abolition of the Atlantic Slave Trade, African slaves were still illegally imported to Brazil, which was last country in the Americas to abolish slavery in 1888. Thus, Brazil’s African-descended population is significantly larger than its US counterpart (Telles 2004). In fact, it has been argued that Brazil has the world’s second largest-African descended population after Africa (Telles 2004; Martes 2007). Finally, this research is also motivated by the increase in Brazilian immigration to the US in the last thirty years. Brazil’s economic recession in the 1980s with its high unemployment and inflation rates encouraged significant emigration for employment purposes to the US, Canada, and Japan (Goza 1999; Margolis 1994; Takenaka 2000). Since that time, Brazilians have migrated to the US in large numbers, yet there had been very little research examining their experiences until the mid-1990s.

Given the plethora of comparative race research on Brazil and the US and the growth of Brazilian immigrant communities in the US, a study exploring how Brazilian immigrants come to understand race in the US is warranted. The primary goal of this dissertation is to comparatively explore the social constructions of race in Brazil and the US through the observations, perceptions, and experiences of individuals who have lived in each country for an extended period of time. While other comparative studies have relied on survey and historical data to understand how race and racism “work” on a macro-level in each society, I examine how individuals make sense of and negotiate race in both countries at the personal level. Because Brazilian immigrants are one of the most recent immigrant groups to the US and extensive return migration has been documented among this group, Brazilian return migrants are the ideal group for such a study. As individuals who were racially socialized in Brazil, they entered the US with a different perception of race and encountered a racial system that relied on more rigidly defined racial categories and groups and appeared to be more overtly racist than Brazil.

Furthermore, upon leaving the US, Brazilian return migrants go home with a different mindset that has been shaped by their experiences abroad. Migration between both countries facilitates comparisons between migrants’ quality of life in Brazil and the US that make it difficult to readapt to life in post-migration Brazil (Margolis 2001). Margolis (2001) argues that “some returnees become people in-between [who] are not entirely satisfied with life in either country” (pg. 243). Thus, if their mindsets are “changed” by living in the US, it is possible that US migration also facilitates a change in these individuals’ racial conceptions in Brazil after the US migration. I define racial conceptions as a set of ideas that help individuals understand how social actors, in this study Brazilian returnees, negotiate race in a particular context. In this study, I operationalize these conceptions in three ways using data from respondents’ experiences of: (1) racial classification, (2) observations, perceptions, and experiences of racism or racial discrimination, and (3) an understanding of how race functions on a societal level. For example, Brazilian return migrants in this study negotiated racial conceptions in the US through: (1) their personal, professional, and miscellaneous interactions with other Brazilians, other immigrants, and native born US citizens, and (2) their “consumption” of US culture through television, music, and newspapers.

This dissertation examines how exposure to racial systems in the United States and Brazil influences the racial conceptions of Brazilian return migrants in three contexts: (1) in Brazil before the US migration; (2) in the US as immigrants; and (3) in Brazil after the US migration. To comparatively explore race in the US and Brazil via Brazilian return migrants’ racial conceptions, I address two major questions in this study:

(1) How does immigration to the US change racial conceptions for Brazilian return migrants while they are living in the US and after returning to Brazil?

(2) Do return migrants “bring back” racial ideals from the US and if so, what impact does extensive US migration have on racial relations in returnees’communities?

To address these research questions, I rely on data obtained from semi-structured interviews with 49 Brazilian return migrants and 24 non-migrants (Brazilians who never migrated) in Governador Valadares, Brazil, a city of 250,000 residents in the South Central state of Minas Gerais. Governador Valadares (GV) has historically been Brazil’s largest immigrant-sending city to the US. Emigration to the US has so heavily influenced the local economy that the city has been famously nicknamed by Brazilians as “Governador Valadolares,” as in US dollars. About 15 percent of GV residents, also known as Valadarenses, are estimated to be living in the US and nearly 80 percent of Valadarenses have at least one relative residing in the US (CIAAT 2007; Margolis 1998). Additionally, return migration to GV after the US migration has been heavily documented (Marcus 2009; Assis and de Campos 2009; Martes 2008; Siqueira 2008; CIAAT 2007; Siqueira 2006). The prevalence of US migration has created a constant flow of people, money, and culture between GV and the US, so much so that GV and particular US cities with large numbers of migrants from GV are considered transnational social fields or:

“… set[s] of multiple interlocking networks of social relationships through which ideas, practices, and resources are unequally exchanged, organized, and transformed… [that] connect actors through direct and indirect relations across borders” (Levitt and Glick Schiller 2004, 1009).

Because the majority of migrants from GV intend to return to their native city after the US migration, they maintain social and economic ties while living in the US. Valadarenses generally immigrate to the US to work for two to five years to earn and save as much money as possible for the purpose of purchasing a home and car or starting a business upon returning from the US. This process has been referred to as “Fazer à América,” which translates in English to “making America” (Martes 2008; CIAAT 2007; Siqueira 2006). These migrants hope the US migration will facilitate upward social mobility and access to what they perceive to be a better or more “American” quality of life in GV after migration…

…Additionally, the exploration of racial conceptions for this subset of individuals who are on the move between the US and Brazil also helps me develop a more nuanced argument about race as a social construction that varies from place to place. This is particularly true for the comparison of the US and Brazil, two countries with very distinct racial histories that are now experiencing shifts in racial discourses due to changing ethnic demographics (US) and the introduction of affirmative action policies (Brazil). The increase in rates of interracial marriage, introduction of an option to classify in more than one racial category on the US census, the dismantling of race-based affirmative action policies in the US and the recent election of Barack Obama as the first black (biracial) president of the United States have spurred debates about whether the US has now become a postracial society. Furthermore, the growth of the Latino population into the country’s largest ethno-racial minority and increased immigration from Latin America have had a significant impact on US demographics.

At the same time, to address racial inequality in Brazil, some universities and companies have begun to implement racial quotas to increase the representation of Afro-Brazilians in Brazil’s higher education system, which has been very controversial. Although nonwhites constitute nearly half of the Brazilian population, whites constitute about 73 percent of university students (Telles 2004; Stubrin 2005; Bailey 2009). Due to the prevalence of racial mixing in Brazil and many white Brazilians’ acknowledgment of having black racial ancestry, the implementation of affirmative action has made it necessary to racially classify individuals (blacks) in a socially meaningful way to determine who can benefit from race-specific policies. This policy has facilitated discussions about an importation of US racial classification standards (Telles 2004; Araujo 2001; Fry and Maggie 2004; Maio and Santos 2005; Bailey 2009). Because both Brazil and the US are experiencing shifts in racial discourse as they relate to discussions of racial demographics, racial classification, and inequality, some researchers have argued that the US will undergo either a (1) “Latin-Americanization” of race in which existing racial boundaries will become more ambiguous or (2) shift from the traditional black-white racial binary to a black-nonblack binary in which existing racial boundaries will be realigned (Bonilla-Silva 2004; Skidmore 2003; Lee and Bean 2004; Yancey 2003). Other researchers suggest that the US and Brazilian racial classification systems are on “converging paths,” as each country’s racial dynamics seem to be resembling its counterpart (Daniel 2006; Bailey 2009):

It appears to be the case that racial dynamics in the United States and in Brazil are like two ships passing in the night, one showing signs of movement toward mixed-race framings and the other toward single-race identification (Bailey 2009, 8).

Thus, it is possible that just as Brazilians are moving back and forth across US and Brazilian borders, that racial ideals in each country are also being exchanged, which highlights the significance of this study in another way. If race in the US is becoming “Latin-Americanized,” it is important to understand how Latin Americans (in this study Brazilians) conceive of race in their countries of origin and in the US if researchers are to understand how the social construction of race in the US may evolve in the future…

Read the entire dissertation here.