-
5. “Doing America”: Big Cities and Small
- University of Wisconsin Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
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...