Brazilian Americans
Brazilian Americans (Portuguese: brasileiros americanos or americanos de origem brasileira) are Americans who are of full or partial Brazilian ancestry. The Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs estimates the Brazilian American population to be 1,905,000, the largest of any Brazilian diaspora.[2] The largest wave of Brazilian migration to the United States occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a response to hyperinflation in Brazil. Even after inflation stabilized in 1994, Brazilian immigration continued as Brazilians left in search of higher wages in the United States.[3][4]
Population and classification[edit]
In 2020, the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs estimated the number of Brazilian Americans to be 1,775,000, 0.53% of the US population at the time.[2] However, the 2019 United States Census Bureau American Community Survey estimated that there were 499,272 Americans who would report Brazilian ancestry.[5] This discrepancy can be attributed to the American Community Survey reporting on ancestry, not nationality, since many Brazilians, by national origin, are not ancestrally- or ethnically (native)-Brazilian; families with varying degrees of native ancestry and mixed bloodlines (mestiços) are not uncommon, though.[6]
Despite Portugal being a part of the Iberian Peninsula, and the Portuguese language being considered a romance language and a Latin-based language, like Spanish (as well as the country’s significant role in the history of Spain), Brazilians are not considered a “Hispanic” ethnic group, largely due to Brazil’s colonial history as a Lusophone (Portuguese-speaking) nation and not a Hispanophone, or Spanish-speaking, one. As such, their populations may or may not accept the term “Latino”, let alone “Hispanic”. This notion was reflected in the 1980 United States census, where only 18% of Brazilian Americans considered themselves “Hispanic”.[7]
In 1976, the U.S. Congress passed the Hispanic-American Voting Rights Act which mandated the collection and analysis of data on Hispanic Americans. The legislation describes Hispanic Americans as being “Americans who identify themselves as being of Spanish-speaking background and trace their origin or descent from Cuba, Central America, México, Puerto Rico and South America, and other Spanish-speaking countries.” This includes 20 Spanish-speaking nations from Latin America, as well as European Spain, but not Portugal or Brazil.[7][8]
Whether or not Brazilians are Latino is controversial among Brazilian Americans. Some attribute this to the large cultural and linguistic divide between Spanish-speaking Latin America and Portuguese-speaking Brazil.[6] While the official United States census category of “Latino” includes “persons of South American origin”, it does not explicitly include Brazilians, nor does it mention persons of the English-speaking nations Belize and Guyana, the Francophone territories of French Guiana and Haiti, or Suriname, which has a Dutch lingua franca.[9] Other U.S. government agencies, such as the Small Business Administration and the Department of Transportation, specifically include Brazilians within their definition of Latino for purposes of awarding minority preferences by defining Latino Americans to include persons of South American ancestry or persons who have Portuguese cultural roots.[10][11]
Socioeconomics[edit]
Education[edit]
The 2000 U.S. census showed that 34.5 percent of Brazilians in the U.S. had completed four or more years of college. There’s a difference between female and male attainment. While 34.7% of men obtained a bachelor’s degree or higher, 45.2% of women obtained one.[20][21] while the corresponding number for the general U.S. population is only 24.4 percent.[22] However, although effectively many Brazilian immigrants in the United States are university educated, most of these immigrants fail to get well-qualified jobs and have to get lower-status jobs because the United States doesn't recognize their qualifications and also because many of them do not speak English.[12]
Second-and third-generation Brazilian Americans tend to have better jobs; they have been educated in the United States, speak English, and have citizenship.[12]
Culture[edit]
Religion[edit]
Although the majority of Brazilian Americans are Roman Catholic, there also significant numbers of Protestants (Mainline, Evangelical, Pentecostalism, Non-denominational Protestantism etc.), LDS,[23] Orthodox, Irreligious people (including atheists and agnostics), followed by minorities such as Spiritists, Buddhists, Jews and Muslims.
As with wider Brazilian culture, there is set of beliefs related through syncretism that might be described as part of a Spiritualism–Animism continuum, that includes: Spiritism (or Kardecism, a form of spiritualism that originated in France, often confused with other beliefs also called espiritismo, distinguished from them by the term espiritismo [de] mesa branca), Umbanda (a syncretic religion mixing African animist beliefs and rituals with Catholicism, Spiritism, and indigenous lore), Candomblé (a syncretic religion that originated in the Brazilian state of Bahia and that combines African animist beliefs with elements of Catholicism),[12] and Santo Daime (created in the state of Acre in the 1930s by Mestre Irineu (also known as Raimundo Irineu Serra) it is a syncretic mix of Folk Catholicism, Kardecist Spiritism, Afro-Brazilian religions and a more recent incorporation of Indigenous American practices and rites). People who profess Spiritism make up 1.3% of the country's population, and those professing Afro-Brazilian religions make up 0.3% of the country's population.
Politics[edit]
Brazilian American voters heavily support the Democratic Party. A majority of Brazilian Americans voted for the Democratic presidential candidates in the 2016 and 2020 elections by 78 and 71 percent, respectively.[24]