Class Reflection from December 2009 on a Brazilian Literature and Race Course

During this semester, I believe I have learned a lot of useful and fascinating information about Brazilian history, culture, literature, and race relations. Through various articles dealing with the aforementioned topics and a series of novels with the common theme of race in Brazilian society, I discovered a once latent appreciation for the largest nation in Latin America and its people. Initially, I expected the class to only cover Brazilian literature, but to my surprise, most of the material read in the course was historical and sociological analyses of race and ethnicity in Brazil. Being someone who appreciates researching the Afro-Atlantic Diaspora and its myriad cultures, these books made the course more enjoyable. Naturally, the ideas conveyed in those readings left an indelible mark on my mind that determined what I learned in the course.

Perhaps the most significant idea covered in the course, the ambiguity of racial identity in Brazil versus the biracial system in the United States stands out as a constant theme in the course. Gilberto Freyre, Thomas Skidmore, and nearly every other article address the issue, because of its stark contrast to American race relations. Some studies even demonstrate the fallacy of the mulatto escape hatch, inextricably linked to the multiracial character of Brazilian race relations. One study, using data from a survey, shows that nearly half of black respondents did not self-identify as blacks, but the rest of the article proves that regardless of racial identification, blacks and mulattoes are nearly equal in terms of their statistical inferiority to whites in many markers of status.  Therefore, blacks and mulattoes should be subsumed in a single nonwhite category in studies of race. This single nonwhite category for people of African descent in Brazil contradicts notions of mulatto success in Brazilian society, and probably Latin America as a whole. As for the literature relevant to this idea, racial consciousness appears in Jubiaba and Carolina de Jesus’ diary, which abound in references. For example, the light-skinned mulatto who insults de Jesus for being a resident of the slum, and the significance of Candomble and other African-derived traditions and customs such as samba illustrates its role in uniting Afro-Brazilians regardless of racial self-identification. 

In addition to the nuanced nature of multiracial Brazilian race relations, another significant theme in the readings is the creation of Brazilian national literature and identity, a concern always connected with racist discourse of the 19th and 20th centuries. White elites’ fear of being associated with “inferior races” like Africans and indigenous peoples, led to many merely copying European styles and neglecting the African and Amerindian contributions to Brazilian culture. Attempts to rectify this situation include the Indigenist literary movement, exemplified by Jose de Alencar’s Iracema, and the Cannibalist movement that began with Oswald de Andrade’s Cannibal Manifesto. While Alencar focused on the Amerindian past, antropophagia encouraged taking the best of foreign cultures and mixing them with the diverse origins of Brazilian culture to make a unique Brazilian aesthetic. Of course, the whitening ideal also influenced the development of Brazilian identity and is omnipresent in the books read in the course. The hordes of European immigrants who came to southeastern Brazil and measures taken by the Brazilian government to attract white immigrants also shows the influence of scientific racism and positivism on white elites’ perception of the country.

In spite of being a literature class, the main themes of the course are more relevant to the various non-literary historical and social studies. The two universal themes that I learned the most from include the black-brown division of Afro-Brazilians and endeavors to cultivate Brazilian national identity. Both are nuanced themes in the readings which enhance one’s understanding of the novels. Due to my interest in African Diaspora cultures throughout the Americas, this class was enlightening in terms of opening my eyes to the theories, problems, and goals of scholars who specialize in the field. Furthermore, the class introduced Brazilian literature, various literary movements and styles utilized by writers, aspects of Afro-Brazilian culture, music and religion. Consequently, I have ineffably gained a lot from this course.