Passing for Brazilian
Posted on February 28, 2008

I recently spent six weeks studying Portuguese and Brazilian culture in Salvador, the capital city of Bahia, a state in northeast Brazil. While there I experienced a phenomenon that had rarely, if ever, happened to me in my native land, the United States: being told I look like I belonged.

For years I have been asked, by co-workers, strangers, native-born Americans and immigrants, where I was from or what racial mixture coursed through my DNA. As a dark-skinned woman with wavy, curly afro-textured hair and somewhat high cheekbones, I have been identified as everything from West African and Caribbean, to Brazilian.

One stranger confronted me in a supermarket parking lot, claiming to see Seminole heritage in the contours of my face. This young Black man had perceived correctly. My great-grandfather was Creek, a group related to the Seminole nation. Like most African Americans, I am not of 100 percent African ancestry. But for some reason, my features cause some to designate me as “different.”

This difference was not perceived in Brazil. To many, I looked more Bahian than North American.

Prior to my trip I had been told by many people that I would blend right in, and indeed I did. But with that blending in came the negative treatment that so many Blacks face in Brazil. Like the Afro-Brazilians I lived among while in Salvador, I was also mistreated, profiled and challenged because of the color of my skin.

I received some of the most blatantly rude stares of my entire life while dining with friends at various restaurants. On three separate occasions, groups of Whites interrupted their own dining experiences to turn around in their seats and stare at me. They did not seem at all embarrassed or ashamed when I caught them.

On one occasion I actually spoke to them, somewhat aggressively, assuming that they would get the hint. Instead, they continued to stare. Only when my White American friends started staring back at them did they leave me in peace.

Upon reading various books about race relations in Brazil, I now interpret their behavior as an attempt to “put me in my place.” One book in particular described the ways in which some Brazilian Whites act in an attempt to show Blacks they don’t belong or are not welcome. Perhaps the actions of these White diners were their way of letting me know that I was an oddity, a person not entitled to eat and drink among Whites.

I also experienced the indignity of having my presence in the main elevator of the apartment building I was residing in questioned. I had used the service elevator on occasion to get to my host family’s car in the parking garage. But for my daily travels I used the main elevator, as did everyone else. Or so I thought.
 
After returning from class one afternoon, I got on the elevator along with a White woman in her late 50s or early 60s. She asked me if I worked “here.” Still hesitant about my Portuguese and not sure of her question, I repeated, “Here?” I was unclear as to whether she meant here in Brazil, assuming she could tell I was a foreigner, or here in the building.

She repeated the question, saying, “Do you work here or do you live here?” Meanwhile, she had not pressed the button for her floor, as though she was waiting to see on what floor I was getting off. It was not until we arrived at my floor that I realized the intent of her question.

For some reason, probably the manner in which I stumbled over my Portuguese, she arrived at her own conclusion, stating, “Oh, you live here.” I exited the elevator, both shocked that the woman felt entitled to even ask me the question and angry that my lack of cultural and linguistic understanding had kept me from giving her an appropriate (meaning extremely confrontational) response.

My anger intensified when friends explained that maids, most of whom are Black, are expected to use the service elevator at all times. The incident left me jaded for many days about the social situation in Brazil that allowed Whites to feel comfortable enough to be explicitly offensive toward Blacks. It was only when I reflected honestly on the situation in my own country and the indignities currently faced by Blacks in the U.S. that the resentment I felt toward Brazil began to dissipate.
 
Other situations occurred as well. I was stared at excessively when I went into clothing stores, but rarely approached for sales assistance. My only reprieve seemed to come when I opened my mouth and it became clear that I was not Brazilian. Once the salespeople deduced that I was an “Americana,” they began to treat me with respect.

I thought often of what my life might have been like if my ancestors had been shipped to the ports of Bahia instead of the ones in Charleston, S.C. Because of my U.S. citizenship, I was somehow a more acceptable Black person. I even was described as morena (mulatto or brown-skinned) by some strangers, even though my coloring should have deemed me a negra. My Brazilian friends relayed to me that calling me negra alluded to my darkness, which was not, in the eyes of some, a polite thing to do.

I had read about racial discrimination and the racist ideologies of Brazil before arriving in Bahia, but it was not until I experienced their effects that I truly began to understand them. Many still assert that Brazil is a racial paradise and that the disparities that plague the country are economic, not racial, in nature. Research and my lived experiences tell me otherwise.

As I go forward in my studies in Brazil and other parts of Latin America, I recognize that there will be some benefits to being able to sometimes pass for Afro-Latina. Admittedly, there will also be some indignities suffered along the way.

For an Afro-descendant, there is little reprieve from the realities of racism. But there is joy in being called a Baiana.

Monica A. Evans is an educator and librarian from Detroit. She is currently a doctoral student studying education policy and comparative education at Michigan State University in East Lansing.

Monica can be reached at evansmo1@msu.edu.