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2. Why They Go
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16 2 Why They Go In Bra zil if you want a $50 dress, you can only buy it by pay ing on credit over twelve months. But by the time it’s paid for, the dress is worn out. But in the United States, if you want a $50 dress, you just go out and buy it for cash. Bra zil ian im mi grant in New York City (quoted in Mar go lis 1994a, 79) Bra zil ians rarely talk about “em i grat ing” or say that a friend or rel a tive “is work ing in an other coun try.” Rather, they say that “he [or she] is liv ing in an other coun try” or that a friend or rel a tive is “doing Amer ica” ( fa zendo Amér ica). For some Bra zil ian fam i lies, hav ing a rel a tive in the United States is con sid ered “chic,” a sign of status. This high lights the fact that most Bra zil ians liv ing abroad do not see them selves as im mi grants. In itially, at least, most see their stays out side Bra zil as tem po rary (Martes 2010; Mar go lis 1998). The de nial of im mi grant status may be linked to the gen eral mal aise that many Bra zil ians felt dur ing the 1980s, the first decade of em i gra tion, an era that has been la beled the “lost decade.” The mid dle class had grown in size in the 1970s dur ing the heady years of double-digit an nual eco nomic growth. But, by the 1980s, the con sump tion level of the mid dle and lower-middle classes was de clin ing as prices far out paced in come. It was a time not only of eco nomic stag na tion and hyper in fla tion but also of height ened po lit i cal ex pec ta tions that went un re al ized, a pe riod of re de mo crat iza tion and mass mo bil iza tions that de manded di rect elec tions after the long night mare of mil i tary dic tat or ship (1964–85). But the decade was marred by the scan dal sur round ing Bra zil ian pres i dent Fer nando Col lor de Mello and the utter fail ure of his plan to tame hyper in fla tion. It was a time of both pro found hope and bit ter po lit i cal and eco nomic dis ap point ment. Why They Go 17 It was within this set ting in the late 1980s and early 1990s that—for the first time in the nation’s his tory—Bra zil ians began leav ing Bra zil in sig nifi cant num bers. These im mi grant pi o neers, many from the mid dle strata of Bra zil ian so ci ety, began travel ing to the United States, Japan, Por tu gal, and a hand ful of other Eu ro pean coun tries. For some, em i gra tion served as an es cape valve from un em ploy ment and under em ploy ment, while for oth ers it was the ir re sis tible lure of higher wages paid in even me nial jobs in the United States, Japan, and other in dus tri al ized na tions that con vinced them to leave home (Klags brunn 1996). For still oth ers, em i gra tion was a re sult of frus tra tion with dead-end jobs that of fered lit tle hope of so cial mo bil ity. Aside from rel a tive eco nomic dep ri va tion, dur ing those years many middle-class Bra zil ians had feel ings of al ien a tion and stag na tion, of dis il lu sion ment with the eco nomic and po lit i cal sit u a tion in Bra zil. They de cried the lack of op por tu nities or, in the words of one re searcher, had “a sense that their cit i zen ship was being under mined” by “a level of in con gru ence between [their] as pi ra tions and the re al ity in which they lived” (Tor re san 2012, 111–12). For still oth ers, em i gra tion was an al ter...
