Race and Ethnic Identity Formation in Brazil and the United States: Three Case Studies
2010; Volume: 29; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2327-9648
Autores Tópico(s)Caribbean history, culture, and politics
ResumoWho are we? Which group do we belong to? As a number of studies have shown, the answers to those questions are far from simple, as they are negotiated and renegotiated in the course of individual and group lives. For instance, Barth formulated the oft-cited idea that ethnic groups persist in part because they establish and maintain boundaries. Blu (200, 204-05), in her study of the Lumbee Indians of North Carolina, and Foner (36), in her comparative account of Jamaican migrants in London and New York, noted that ethnic identity is relative, and the concepts, actions, and expectations springing from it do change, not only because of the social environment in which they occur, but also because individuals and groups in the same ethnic category approach the problem of ethnic identity with their own cultural assumptions and behavior, which can also change.Here, I apply those ideas to three case studies: 1) an ethnography of the Veneravel Irmandade de Santo Elesbao e Santa Hfigenia, a Catholic brotherhood located in downtown Rio de Janeiro, which I undertook in 1980-81, a time when ethnic studies were incipient in Brazil; 2) a study of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith (ADL), based on secondary sources and interviews with ADL members, which I conducted in 1986-87; and 3) a case study of a sample of the first university quota students to have graduated from the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro-UERJ, whom I interviewed in 2006-07.In my ethnography of the Irmandade, I attempted to analyze it as an ethnic group. My interest grew when I noted that the black religious brotherhoods in Brazil, besides having played an important role during slavery as an institution for the welfare and manumission of slaves, were founded by the various ethnicities or African nations that had been taken to Brazil. Neither the ecclesiastic authorities, nor the government, nor the very members of the brotherhoods admitted ethnic mixture among their members. In the early 1980s, that is, almost a whole century after the abolition of slavery in Brazil, a time when many believed in the existence of a generic Brazilian black, I found it curious that the criteria of ethnic separation and distinction appeared in the discourse of some brothers with whom I had come into contact.My study of the ADL concerned the changing social and historical context that allowed for the appearance of a new meaning of Israel for that organization. Founded in the early twentieth century, the ADL went from being a national organization aimed at fighting anti-semitism in the United States to adopting an image of US Jewry as part of a world Jewish peoplehood. To wit, in 1948, when Israel was founded, the ADL did not see a necessary relation between attitudes toward Israel and attitudes toward US Jews. In the 1950s, however, especially after the Suez War in 1956, the ADL began to link anti-Israel attitudes to anti-semitism in the United States. Finally, since the 1960s, and notably since the 1967 Six-Day War, the ADL has seen Israel as a major commitment and a focus of Jewish unity.My research on the UERJ quota students revealed that, although several candidates took their racial identity into account when opting for quotas, that was not automatic: just as not all of those who saw themselves as black or brown opted for the racial quotas, not all of those who opted for the racial quotas necessarily saw themselves as black or brown. Instead, there emerged four categories of racial identity among the interviewees: black (negro), brown (pardo), unsure (incerto), and white (branco).The Venerable Brotherhood of Saint Elesbao and Saint Efigenia, or an Attempt to Understand the Ethnic Question in BrazilCatholic brotherhoods are a type of religious organization that existed in Portugal and were brought to Brazil during Colonial times. Already in the sixteenth century, references were made to the Brotherhood of Our Lady of Support in Olinda, in the state of Pernambuco (Rodrigues; Scarano). …
Referência(s)