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76 5 “Doing Amer­ ica” Big Cit­ ies and Small It has noth­ ing to do with green. It’s rose color, like a new born child. . . . It’s like a very rosy child when it’s born. The green card gives you a sense of free pas­ sage. . . . A lot of peo­ ple [in the ­ United ­ States le­ gally] don’t know this, that it means a free road just like when a traf­ fic light turns green it’s okay for you to go ahead. Bra­ zil­ ian im­ mi­ grant in Bos­ ton (quoted in Sales 1998a, 15) This chap­ ter looks at the spe­ cific lo­ ca­ tions of bra­ zu­ cas in North Amer­ ica. “Bra­ zuca” is a slang term for “Bra­ zil­ ian,” but it has come to have the more spe­ cific mean­ ing of Bra­ zil­ ians liv­ ing ­ abroad, es­ pe­ cially those who have im­ mi­ grated to the ­ United ­ States. At any given mo­ ment, ap­ prox­ i­ mately three mil­ lion Bra­ zil­ ians are ­ abroad; half are liv­ ing over­ seas, and the other half are travel­ ing for busi­ ness or pleas­ ure. “Few for the world, but a lot for Bra­ zil,” ­ opined the Bra­ zil­ ian de­ mog­ ra­ pher José Magno de Car­ valho (quoted in Bet­ ing 1997, 54). This is a large num­ ber in­ deed, but it rep­ re­ sents only some 1.5 per­ cent of ­ Brazil’s 2012 pop­ u­ la­ tion of ­ nearly 200 mil­ lion. The ­ United ­ States, Japan, and Par­ a­ guay ac­ count for about 70 per­ cent of Bra­ zil­ ians liv­ ing out­ side Bra­ zil, with most of the re­ main­ der in Can­ ada, Por­ tu­ gal, Italy, Spain, ­ France, Swit­ zer­ land, and En­ gland. There are also small Bra­ zil­ ian com­ mu­ nities in other South ­ American and Eu­ ro­ pean coun­ tries, as well as in Aus­ tra­ lia and New Zea­ land (Go­ mide 2009;­ Assumpção 1997b). Hard data on the num­ ber of Bra­ zil­ ians in any given coun­ try ex­ cept Japan are dif­ fi­ cult to come by. As we know, count­ ing peo­ ple liv­ ing in a coun­ try il­ le­ gally is dif­ fi­ cult at best, so of­ fi­ cial sta­ tis­ tics on the num­ ber of Bra­ zil­ ians in any par­ tic­ u­ lar lo­ cale are nec­ es­ sar­ ily sus­ pect. Per­ haps the most “Doing America”: Big Cities and Small 77 strik­ ing ­ contrasts in this re­ gard are ­ between of­ fi­ cial U.S. govern­ ment data and the pop­ u­ la­ tion es­ ti­ mates of Bra­ zil­ ian con­ su­ lates in the ­ United ­ States pro­ vided by Itam­ ar­ aty, ­ Brazil’s Min­ is­ try of ­ Foreign Af­ fairs. It is worth com­ par­ ing ­ counts of Bra­ zil­ ians in the 2011 ­ American Com­ mu­ nity Sur­ vey (ACS) to ­ Itamaraty’s 2011 es­ ti­ mates of Bra­ zil­ ians liv­ ing in var­ i­ ous con­ su­ lar dis­ tricts in the ­ United ­ States (table 4). Com­ par­ a­ tive Cen­ suses: The ­ United ­ States and Bra­ zil Clearly the units meas­ ured by Itam­ ar­ aty and the ACS are not co­ ter­ mi­ nous, be­ cause con­ su­ lar dis­ tricts often en­ com­ pass more than one city. ­ Brazil’s New York con­ su­ lar dis­ trict, for ex­ am­ ple, spans the ­ greater met­ ro­ pol­ i­ tan area and in­ cludes New­ ark, New Jer­ sey, a site of sig­ nif­i­ cant Bra­ zil­ ian set­ tle­ ment. Nev­ er­ the­ less, the dif­ fer­ ences in these sta­ tis­ tics are strik­ ing. One way of put­ ting these fig­ ures in per­ spec­ tive is as fol­ lows: ac­ cord­ ing to data from Table 4 Comparative censuses: The United States and Brazil 2011 American Community Survey 2011 Itamaraty State/ (state) (consular district) Consular District Number Number New York 63,489 300,000 Massachusetts 65,719 355,000 Florida 66,213 300,000 California 30,433 123,000 Georgia 7,677 80,000 Texas 11,865 50,000 Washington, DC 20,298 26,000 Illinois 3,795 40,000 Connecticut 13,771 60,000 Total 280,080 1,334,000 Sources: American Community Survey 2011; Ministério das Relações Exteriores 2011. Notes: The figure...

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