Up until now, the study of Spanish speaking Central and South
America has greatly outpaced consideration of Portuguese-
speaking Brazil in American campuses. Brazil remained a
stereotyped enigma being defined by Carmen Miranda and Pelé.
But gradually a more meaningful image of the country is emerging.

Phillip Wagner

 

The explosive growth of Latino populations in North America is contributing to the progressive establishment and evolution of university programs examining Latin American history, culture and society. Some major universities, such as the University of Texas at Austin and the University of New Mexico presaged this movement in response to a regionally Latino rich demography.

Having so long ago founded ambitious Latin American studies programs, they now reap the benefits of established credibility and mature curricula. An increasing general emphasis on international study, triggered by globalization, global security concerns and the emergence of powerful regional free trade zones is also helping to bring Latin America to light.

The prestigious University of Denver Graduate School for International Studies (GSIS), which recently supplemented its offerings with a Homeland Security Certificate program, is a good example.

Up until now, the study of Spanish speaking Central and South America has greatly outpaced consideration of Portuguese-speaking Brazil. The closer proximity of Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean Basin makes it easier for the disenfranchised of those regions to relocate here. Annual waves of Spanish speaking migrant workers and illegal immigrants have helped to alter demographic realities in the 21^st century United States.

Brazil, it could be argued, remained a stereotyped enigma as North Americans continued to define it in terms associated with Carmen Miranda, Carnaval, the Amazonian rain forest, bossa nova, and Pelé. But gradually a more meaningful image of Brazil is emerging. An episode of the 1995 Wall Street Week produced by Public Broadcasting System (PBS) television series Emerging Powers substantially redressed the Brazilian caricature.

Opening Doors

Sometimes groundbreaking, often scholarly, written works began to lift the veil on Brazil throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Jonathan Kandell's narrative Passage Through El Dorado was not specific to Brazil, but included new insights on the lawlessness and exploitation of Brazilian hinterlands. Paul Conrad Philip Kottak's Assault on Paradise chronicled the transformation of the sleepy coastal fishing village of Arembepe north of the city of Salvador in Bahia.

Rambali's critically acclaimed epic travelogue In the Cities and the Jungles of Brazil led readers through the convoluted maze of Brazilian urban and rural cultures, while Joseph Page's highly regarded Brazilians became an ultimate guide to understanding Brazil and the people who live there.

Wall Street Week's PBS production may have provided the critical mass to suggest that we were beginning to take notice of Brazil. Narrated by popular Brazilian journalist Pedro Bial, it introduced viewers to the enchanting music of Marisa Monte, the significance of African cultural influences and Lula's conversion to a free market economy.

It showcased Brazil's love affair with the automobile, the innovative leadership of Jaime Lerner in Curitiba, the architecture of Oscar Niemeyer, and the dominance of media giant Globo. And it opened a window on the explosive growth of Brazilian enterprise in even the most unlikely of places by showcasing the sale of Avon cosmetics in the Amazon rainforest.

Racial Inequality

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Brazil was also quietly gaining attention on college campuses in the U.S. Midwest. While author Conrad Philip Kottak was teaching anthropology at the University of Michigan, Father Theodore Hesburgh was establishing a legacy that would facilitate a deepening awareness of Brazil at the University of Notre Dame. He founded there the Kellogg Center for International Studies in 1983, and, in 1986, the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.

As president of Notre Dame from 1952 to 1987, Father Hesburgh emphasized pursuit of justice, something that has been notably lacking throughout much of Brazilian history. Father Hesburgh was a charter member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, created in 1957, which-finally—opened doors of opportunity for people of color in the United States.

He became chairman of the commission in 1969, but was asked by President Nixon to step down as chairman in 1972 for having the courage to criticize the Administration's civil rights record. "If you want peace," Father Hesburgh has said, "work for justice."

In a recent interview, in his office, Father Hesburgh confided to me his continuing dismay over racial inequality in Brazil. "It's always been a kind of scandal to me," he said. "I've been in some of the high circles in Brazil and they always brag about … equality. `Everybody is equal' (they say), and `nobody lords it over anybody else'. I say `yes, but if you go to the country club you don't see a black face'. In fact, if you go to a university you rarely see a black face. You have a little more chance there, but not all that much. Go to the Chamber of Commerce and you don't see a single black face. Go to a cultural center and you don't see a black face. About the only place you see black faces are playing soccer on the beach."

"It's a sad business," said Father Hesburgh "but I don't think the Portuguese were great leaders in social justice. They were great explorers, but I think they were not what I would call good colonizers. They weren't exactly pyramids of justice. They caused a lot of suffering and they did a lot of just plain taking things out without putting things back in. The Portuguese built nothing as a great university, and didn't even have good elementary and secondary schools except for the colonists who were Portuguese."

Blue, Gold, Green

As I later wandered the campus at Notre Dame, I realized that Notre Dame's primary colors of blue, gold and green are, in reverse order, the green, gold and blue primary colors of the Brazilian flag. A bright October sun lifted my spirits, as I recalled Father Hesburgh's fondness for Brazil.

"Brazil is just a fanciful land, " Father Hesburgh had offered, "and not many people realize it. I've been end to end across it. I got aboard a ship in Peru and went out to the headwaters of the Amazon. I went down the Amazon for 25 days and down to Bahia on the coast. I've been to São Paulo and Rio many times. I once thought of getting a car in Rio and driving across the great central expanse of farmlands in Brazil right below the Amazon jungle area."

The administrative director of the Kellogg Institute for International Studies in the Hesburgh Center at Notre Dame at the time of my visit echoed Father Hesburgh's sentiments. Dr. Christopher Welna established personal ties to Brazil when he traveled there as a high school exchange student in 1971. A young Chris Welna stayed with a family "about four hours drive from Belo Horizonte in Minas Gerais." That, he indicated, was when his eyes were opened "to the rich and fascinating culture of Brazil."

Chris Welna didn't immediately follow up his exchange-student experience by focusing on Brazil, but fate determined that it would eventually happen. "I received a Masters in Public Policy at Princeton," he said. "I think I would date my interest in public policy reform to that era. After that I went to work at the Ford Foundation, and part of that time was in Brazil."

Studying the Military

In 1974, prior to Chris Welna's return to Brazil, Charles Reilly arrived from the University of Chicago to conduct research in pursuit of his doctoral thesis. Dr. Reilly later researched how public policy is made at the local level under a military regime and taught development planning at the Federal University in Pernambuco. But his introduction to Brazil was in São Paulo.

The newly married Reilly soon accepted a position with the Virginia-based Inter-American Foundation (IAF) which took him to Rio. There, he helped to facilitate funding from sources like the Ford Foundation for a wide variety of organizations undertaking constructive social engagement. Among them were one or more organizations loosely identified with the emerging Brazilian Black-Pride movement.

"The Ford Foundation was initially pretty uncomfortable with the idea of getting involved with African-Brazilian social programs" said Dr. Reilly. "They declined to provide any funding. That was before Chris Welna's arrival." Dr Reilly facilitated funding for them through the IAF "until we could establish their credibility. Chris was more receptive when he arrived, so then we were able to get Ford Foundation money."

The `Black Rio' movement was split between the kind of organizations Reilly worked with and more militant groups inspired by the Black Panthers and other radical groups in the United States. The Brazilian military regime drew no distinction. In late 1978 or early 1979 the Inter-American Foundation was forced to close down and the IAF staff was invited to leave the country.

"There was no good reason for the government to take that action," insists Dr. Reilly, although the reach of black activism did surprise him. "Through the Research Institute of People of Color," he indicated, "I was introduced to a couple of security cops in the National Congress who were activists in the black movement."

"I worked with a cluster of grass roots organizations," offered Dr. Reilly. "Among them were Olorum, led by Carlos Negreros and his wife Isaura Assiz. Another was founded by Candeia, a paraplegic composer and former policeman who brought kids in from the salt flats just outside of Rio." The same salt flats, perhaps, where popular singer Marisa Monte's family made their fortune.

Like Welna, Reilly eventually returned to Brazil for a period. In the mid 1990s he worked with the Inter-American Development Bank. Today he conducts research as a visiting fellow at the Kroc Institute, in the Hesburgh Center at Notre Dame, two floors up from Chris Welna in the Kellogg Institute.

Honoring Lula and Cardoso

The first director at Kellogg was an Argentine political scientist, Guillermo Valentine, who spent half the year at Notre Dame and the other half "teaching at a university in São Paulo," according to Dr. Welna. "Because the first directors of the (Kellogg) Institute were Latin Americans," he said, "they began to focus on Latin America. And the Institute is best known for its work on Latin America." "Most of the countries in Latin America at that time were military dictatorships" he added, "so the focus was also on questions of democracy and returning governments to civilian rule."

Not surprisingly then, it was announced that Brazilian President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva and his predecessor, Fernando Henrique Cardoso (FHC), were selected co-recipients of an annual Kellogg Institute organized recognition. Awarding of the 2003 Notre Dame Prize for Distinguished Public Service in Latin America by current Notre Dame President Rev. Edward Malloy, C.S.C., was scheduled to be awarded in January of 2004 in Brazil.

"The Notre Dame Prize aims to underscore the personal generosity, skillful leadership and tenacious hard work that leaders bring to public life in Latin America," said Rev. Malloy. "It also highlights the critical role that public service plays in improving the well-being of the region's citizens."

According to a University of Notre Dame press release, "the award honors the leadership shown by both men in the national elections (of 2002) that achieved the first democratic transition between two elected presidents in Brazil since the early 1960s." It went on to say that "this year, the prize is a timely tribute to democracy. As Presidents Lula and Cardoso have demonstrated, sustaining democracy—especially with the economic and security problems that challenge many countries today—requires leadership committed to democratic principles."

It went on to say: "Lula and Cardoso both know the costs of living without democracy. Under the military regime that ruled Brazil from 1964-85, each suffered from the effects of a politically repressive society. Lula was jailed as a union leader, and Cardoso was forbidden from participating in political life." Each recipient receives a US$ 10,000 cash award with a matching donation to each recipient's favorite charity.

Another Cardoso Connection

A young FHC crossed paths with a young Charles Reilly when the latter was working for the IAF in Rio. "Cardoso was one of the many academics who were thrown out of universities for being radical," recalled Reilly. "He founded a think tank called CEBRAP (Centro Brasileiro de Análise e Planejamento—Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning) and recruited other fired academics, including sociologist Procópio Camargo."

According to Reilly, Camargo served as the public face of CEBRAP. That allowed Cardoso to function without incurring so much ire from the military regime. The fact that Cardoso's father was a military man was a double-edged sword. It may have kept him out of prison, or worse, but the young Cardoso had to take care not to place his father in jeopardy. "Cardoso wrote some very courageous stuff," Reilly recounted, "and it was brilliant."

Reilly came to know FHC's wife, Ruth, better than FHC himself. While with the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) in Washington he encouraged the IADB's president to invite Mrs. Cardoso to the U.S. to speak before the IADB board. Then he helped to underwrite the visit by working on an IADB grant to the Comunidade Solidária organization that Brazil's future First Lady was then directing.

More Ties to Brazil

Almost a decade before Chris Welna first traveled to Brazil as a high school exchange student, and two full decades before the Kellogg Center was established, Denis Goulet received his PhD from the University of São Paulo. Dr. Goulet, a William and Dorothy O'Neill professor in Education for Justice, a professor emeritus in economics and a fellow at the Kroc Institute, is adamant in his insistence that he is not a Brazilianist.

But he's written with substantial insight and clarity on a number of Brazil related topics including Paulo Freire's revolutionary educational strategies, and once offered a comprehensive examination of conflicting interests which undermined decision making in three Brazilian development initiatives.

Francisco Weffort, who served as Minister of Culture under Cardoso, had been a visiting fellow at Notre Dame and noted Brazilian author Marcio Souza recently delivered an insightful lecture titled "The Amazon and Modernity" at the Hesburgh Center. Every Monday night for eight weeks Notre Dame screened a Brazilian film in DeBartolo Hall, courtesy of faculty-member Isabel Fereira Gould. The Brazil Club even ran a concession prior to one of the Notre Dame home football games.

Uniquely Brazilian Perspective

Greg Downey, a faculty member within the Anthropology Department at Notre Dame, received his first Capoeira Angola lesson in 1992, in Bahia, from the discipline's acknowledged greatest living master, João Pequeno. João and the second most respected Capoeira Angola master, maestro Marrom, recently made their inaugural visit to the United States, ironically elsewhere in Indiana.

I asked Greg for his explanation of the rising interest in Brazil on college campuses. "Brazil," he responded "like Chiapas in Mexico, is becoming a focal point for issues of global concern, just as India and Egypt earlier emerged as leaders of the non-aligned movement."

"At first I think we began to see an increasing awareness of Brazil as a result of cultural factors, especially owing to Brazilian music and soccer. The growth of the environmental movement and an increasing perception of the Amazon as the lungs of the world added momentum." Dr. Downey acknowledged that other issues, for example the possibility that a Brazilian may become elected the next Pope, will always periodically spotlight Brazil. "But the primary factor," he insisted, "is that the uniquely Brazilian paradigm offers an alternative in today's globalization-driven, western-dominated, transnational corporate capital and technology fueled environment."

"Brazil's racial profile," he continued, "is a real factor here. So is the fact that it has embraced socialist leadership. And it isn't that Brazil is doing anything especially well. But Brazil offers a genuine alternative and people want to know how they're doing."

A 17 November Associated Press news story titled "Microsoft gets cold shoulder in Brazil" supported Dr. Downey's conclusion. Brazil, it was announced, wants everyone "from school children to government bureaucrats to use open-source software instead of costly Windows products."

Lula's chief technology officer, Sergio Amadeu, was quoted as saying that "We have some islands in the federal government using open-source, but we want to create a continent." In the article, Amadeu argued that costs associated with Microsoft licensing fees were economically unsustainable "when applications that run on the open-source Linux operating system are so much cheaper."

SPECIAL NOTES:

1. For those interested in online resources specific to African-Brazilian history I recommend author John Geipel's 1997 History Today cover story titled "Brazil's African Legacy." Find it by searching for the title at www.google.com.

2. Father Hesburgh's comments on Brazilian Cardinals and chances for a Brazilian Pope:

When I asked Father Hesburgh if he had known the late Cardinal Neves of Bahia, a descendant of African slaves, he responded "No I don't think so. I may have met him but I can't say I knew him as a friend." He also indicated that he doesn't know Cardinal Hummes of São Paulo, Brazil's most likely candidate for the papacy.

But "I think it more likely that a Brazilian will be selected, or someone from Central America than an African," he said. And he acknowledged knowing the predecessor of Cardinal Hummes, Cardinal Arns. "I knew Hummes predecessor. We gave Arns an honorary Doctorate from here. He was a wonderful guy."

3. Other Universities in the Midwest with Brazilian Connections

Several hours south from Notre Dame, Indiana University in Bloomington boasts of one of the most well organized Brazilian student associations in the United States. `BAIU' director Marlene Martins, wife of Professor Emeritus Heitor Martins, is one key reason.

A growing awareness of Brazil on campus at IU is being fueled by BAIU, by active Portuguese Language faculty, and by the relatively recent establishment of an IU Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies program. Dr. Eduardo Brondizio, a faculty member in the program, requires his anthropology students to read Kottak's "Assault on Paradise."

The University of Wisconsin at Madison also has a fledgling Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies program. But focus on Brazil in Madison has encountered a setback. Dr. Willie Ney, who has long advocated an appreciation of Brazil and Brazilian culture, established ties to Amigos de Iracambi, an environmental project in Eastern Minas Gerais. After months of preparing an internship opportunity at Iracambi, the Brazilian consulate denied the candidate student's application for a visa.

4. Films screened in the 2003 University of Notre Dame Brazilian film series:

Black God, White Devil
Land in Anguish
How Tasty was my Little French
Memoirs of Prison
Xica da Silva
Bye Bye Brazil
Lamarca
Central Station

5. Links to university programs referenced in this article and or Special Notes:
Indiana University Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies http://www.indiana.edu/~clacs/
University of Chicago http://www.uchicago.edu/
University of Denver Graduate School of International Studies http://www.du.edu/gsis/
University of Michigan Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/lacs/
University of New Mexico Latin American and Iberian Institute http://laii.unm.edu/
University of Notre Dame Kellogg Institute for International Studies http://www.indiana.edu/~clacs/
University of Notre Dame Krok Institute for Peace Studies http://www.nd.edu/~krocinst/
University of Texas Institute of Latin American Studies http://laii.unm.edu/
University of Wisconsin Center for Latin American, Caribbean and Iberian Studies http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/laisp/ new/funding/funding.htm

 

Phillip Wagner is a frequent contributor to Brazzil magazine. His current focus is preparing to pursue graduate studies in September of 2004, with a regional focus on Brazil. He is currently in Brazil improving his Portuguese and continuing to work with the Afro-Blocos of Bahia, and other social programs, something he took up in the mid 1990s. Phillip maintains an extensive Brazil focused website at www.iei.net/~pwagner/brazilhome.htm and can be reached at pwagner@iei.net