Tropical Brazucas: Brazilians in South Florida and the Imaginary of National Identity
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TROPICAL BRAZUCAS: BRAZILIANS IN SOUTH FLORIDA AND THE IMAGINARY OF NATIONAL IDENTITY By ROSANA DOMINGUES RESENDE A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2009 1 © 2009 Rosana Resende 2 To Paulinho Wherever life takes you, may your dreams find fertile ground, for this I know: you may not always be where you belong, but you always belong to where you are. Mamãe te ama! 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In the course of my academic career, I have come realize that producing a dissertation and raising a child are quite similar endeavors. The time and dedication required, the lack of sleep, the self-doubt and uncertainty, interspersed with moments of absolute authority and clarity of thought that occasionally blow up in my face, the steep learning curve… Most clearly, I have learned that neither endeavor is successful without the constant aid and support of others. I take this chance to clarify that I consider only my achievements to be shared by those who have supported me along the way; mistakes, on the other hand, are entirely my own. When push comes to shove, I know that I ultimately neglected great advice as often as I took it. So to those whose warnings and suggestions went unheeded, I offer this mea culpa: I should have listened, you gave great advice, and I promise to be less defensive the next time. There’s always the book… I must begin these acknowledgments in earnest by thanking first and foremost the people who shared their stories with me, the Brazilians of South Florida. For those of you whom I had previously known superficially, I know that this became a turning point in our relationship. Others had no such previous connection, yet nevertheless opened up their homes and hearts (and time in their busy South Florida lives) to share, over cafezinho and pão-de-queijo, their stories, their dreams, and their struggles. You encouraged me to tell your stories. Together we mourned our saudade of Brazil and vented frustrations South Florida life and its inhabitants. You allowed me to cry with you, laugh with you, dance with you, watch Globo with you, celebrate with you. I count many of you as friends to this day. You taught me that despite all the changes that migration engenders, good old-fashioned Brazilian hospitality and simpatia remain enduring traits of our community. Obrigada! In the same vein, I here acknowledge someone else who left her mark on my fieldwork: Valéria Barbosa de Magalhães: obrigada colega, amiga, e parceira. 4 My dissertation would not have been possible without the orientation, support, and patience (lots of patience, with occasional doses of impatience, to be exact!) of my committee. Dr. Maxine Margolis, my chair and pioneer in studying Brazilians abroad—I would not have come to University of Florida were it not for you. Thank you for taking me on and for never giving up entirely on me. Dr. Milagros Peña, thank you for being there from the very beginning and for all of your positive encouragement over the years. Your direct approach is one I respect and emulate, especially as it is backed by such solid scholarship. Drs. Jeffrey Needell and Maria Stoilkova, thanks for agreeing to serve on my committee as it morphed over the years. I had needed you as members to fulfill a bureaucratic requirement, but I was blessed with caring, diligent readers whose comments only made this work stronger, and I am certain you will see your mark in subsequent publications. I must also thank here Michael Heckenberger and Manuel Vasquez for all of the time and effort you put into the earlier stages of this dissertation. And Mike, I also thank you in advance for the work that you will put into the latter stages as this work gets published. There have been other professors who have left their indelible mark on my scholarship and whom I also thank here. Anne Hocutt and Beth Harry, at the University of Miami, for encouraging me to pursue a Ph.D. in anthropology. Steve Butterman, also at UM, who always treated me as a legitimate scholar and Brazilianist until I began to believe it so. At University of Florida, I have had access to exceptional faculty. Kesha Fikes, Joe Feagin, and Tony Oliver- Smith: I remain in awe of your scholarship and your accessibility. I know this dissertation is better as a result of your seminars and our conversations; Tony, I am particularly pleased to still have access to you here in Gainesville, and hope you can squeeze me and Antonio in for an occasional coffee break. 5 Beyond the academic component, I must thank others who have been an integral part of my life at UF. Pat King and Karen Jones, from the anthro office—I have always thanked you for all that you do and could not leave you out here! So many times I would have been lost without you, and you never left me out in the cold. As busy as you are, you always had time to listen and, occasionally, pull strings to make the wheels spin once more. Who knows where I’d be without you. Probably not here. Not yet, anyway. Thank you, thank you, thank you! And thanks to Ken Sassaman for being a terrific department chair, for your open door policy, your accessibility and easy manner, and for prodding me along in your own way. I’m glad I finished this on your beat. Graduate school can be a lonely and alienating experience. Luckily, I never experienced that. I have made friendships here that will last a lifetime, for which I am grateful. From my closest circle of friends to the extended cohorts, my life has been forever enriched by their presence. So thank you, first off, Ali, for beginning with me, and finishing with me, and going through it all with me. Mari, you came a little late (typical), but the brujas is and will always be a three-way coven. La família—I love you like blood. Renzo—haces mucha falta! Meus amigos brasileiros, que saudade eu vou sentir dos nos cafés que viravam almoços…e as vezes jantares. Valeu a pena passer tantos anos em Gainesville pra ver a comunidade de Gators Brazucas crescerem e aparecerem. Amei poder presenciar essa invasão brasileira, e viver os “forró years” de Gatorlandia. A mis amigos latinos, gracias por no dejar que mi español se muriera saliendo de Miami, y por vivir, tan lindamente, el sueño Bolivariano conmigo, como lo hicismos y seguramente lo seguiremos haciendo. Estoy consciente que nuestra existencia acá ha sido medio surreal, pero no por eso vale menos. Mis amigos Mexicanos, principalmente las madres y mis compadres, Luis y Velia, les agradezco por aceptarme a mi y a mi hijo como parte de uds. And to all of those who would hang around us in hope of absorbing our Latin American cool (okay, 6 maybe bringin’ on some coolness yourselves)… thanks for proving that intellectuals do not have to be boring. It is a testament to the power of real human connection that I have so many friends whose dissertation topics I am unaware of—we have always had other things to talk about! On the other hand, it has been incredibly rewarding to have dear friends who have cared about this dissertation, pushing me forward, supporting me in ways both intellectual and pragmatic, and keeping me on task. At the very beginning I was blessed to make part of an incredible cohort of newbie Anthro students—some have finished and moved on. Others have simply moved on. But many have matched my pace and I’ve been so lucky to have you still here to share the journey, like Rose and Mussa to name but two. It was great to bump into you and remember that I was not the only one still left. Thank you also to Amanda and Jennifer for all of your feedback (and Dawn, too, way back in the day!) Ermitte and Debra, my co-advisees and fellow Miamian migration scholars—what can I say? So nice to have people who speak your language! And thank you Yolanda and Marco, Cynthia, and Alicia, for opening up your homes as places of refuge so I could retreat with my books and my laptop for days at a time in the final stages of this dissertation. This work would not have been done otherwise. A very special thank-you to the friends who crossed the bridge into motherhood with me. Yole, Tracy, Tita, and Christine—it has been so important to have mommy friends who knew me before I was a mommy, who know the challenges of balancing academia with parenting (oh, okay, and a social life, too) and who can have serious debates in the midst of countless kiddie interruptions without missing a beat. Well, maybe we missed a couple of beats, but one day we’ll finish those sentences… No one else can truly get me the same way. I love having you—and your children—in my life. Having Paulo, of course, brought me into contact with other scholar parents whom I had not known previously—to the parents of Amelia, C-Max, and Willa, thank 7 you for showing me how it’s done! I know we all feel lucky that we like each other and our kids like each other (most of the time…) but I still can’t help feeling that I’m the one who got the most from this relationship! All this mommy talk brings me to my own family.