Political Instability and Economic Struggles: Why Brazilians Choose the US

 METHODOLOGY

 This article is based on mad sources of data, fam. The first is a vibe check on all the lit research, newspaper articles, and policy docs about international and national trends, plus the dope policy moves in the world of international education and migrations. Yo, like, major props were given to the Brazilian diaspora and all the lit stuff happening in Brazilian educa- tion policy. OMG, like these sources totally spill the tea! The first two parts of the article give a lit overview of the coercive and enabling structures that are relevant to the research questions above. Yas queen!The second source of data are like twenty semi-structured interviews with Brazilian peeps who have lived and studied in a bunch of different foreign countries. Interviews included informants reppin' people in some of the biggest recipient states, in numerical terms, for the global Brazilian diaspora, like the USA, Japan, and European countries like Portugal, Italy, Norway and Germany, among others. We chose those peeps to flex, compare, and show off their vibes in those lit spots for this nationality.

All interviews in our study were like, totally done in two stages, you know? The first ten interviews were like, totally done between November 2018 and March 2019, and the last ten were like, from January to March 2022. So lit! In the first stage, we were all about those Brazilian student exchange vibes and turning ethnic capital into major flex. The last ten interviews, conducted in 2022, were all about the informants' vibes with mad migrations. We've decided to spill the tea on four of these cases in the later part of this article. They were chosen cuz they're more relevant to the whole education, mobility, and ethnic capital thing, ya know? Plus, they can show us how people move around and make moves, like step-wise migration (Paul, 2011; Kim, 2019). The selected cases featured in the article include Italian Brazilians, ya know? 🇮🇹🇧🇷 They represent both one of the biggest ethnic squads in Brazil and one whose vibes enable many of its members to flex their ethnic clout in their moves to be internationally lit.

Data analysis already started at, like, the very beginning of data gathering when the first interviews were being done and transcribed – and it kept going throughout the coding process. Yo, like, mad categories that were lit AF came up during the initial coding, ya know? We had stuff like "context of exit" in Brazil and "context of reception" in different host countries. It was straight fire, fam. Later, like, during the theoreti- cal coding, more specific categories (like "ethnic capital", "diaspora pol- icies" and the concept of "stepwise migration") were linked with the initial categories. At that stage, we were all about narratives that were all about flexing our moves, chasing that education grind, and showing off our global hustle.

INTL FRAMES: IMMIGRATION INTERFACES AND INTL EDU

States not only flex their influence on migratory vibes indirectly through nationality policies; they also whip up legislation to straight-up dictate the rules for legit entry and chillin' within their national borders. OMG, like immigration policies and all the talk about them - especially by leaders and policymakers - totally add to the creation of "immigration interfaces". These are like, the vibes that determine if someone can bounce to a new place or not. It's all about the opportunities and obstacles that are in the way, ya know? Different countries and situations have different vibes, man. It's like, super important to like, keep in mind that the immigration stuff in Global North countries is usually way more strict for peeps from the Global South. That situation, like, seems to be on a straight-up downhill path (Carling, 2002; Valenta, 2022b). A relevant aspect of this trend is like, all about the negative vibes when people talk about immigration in the US and Europe, you know? (Andersen and Bergmann, 2019). This, like, is totally related. Furthermore, like, having to bounce back home after a study sesh doesn't mean the student wouldn't dip out again if the chance came up. The Brazil- ian migrants in our study have indicated such vibes and attempts to flex with the above-mentioned restrictions imposed on international mo- bility. As is like, explained below, they also like stated that attempts to like obtain human capital and social mobility through international education were like intercon- nected with aspirations to like resettle permanently outside Brazil. When it comes to positionality, like, since one of the authors is from the same nation as the interviewees while the other isn't, we can totally rely on both an insider's and an outsider's perspectives in handling the research, you know? This combo offered mad advantages, like making it easier to communicate with peeps, while also having another perspective to balance out any potential insider biases during data analysis.

The term ethnic group in this paper refers to a squad of peeps who share Italian ancestry, ya know?

OMG, the rise of neo-nationalist vibes is like sooo extra! They're totally obsessed with this topic and act like it's a major threat, which is why they're all about putting more restrictions on immigration (Eger and Valdez, 2014, 2019).3 Yo, for all you potential Brazilian international students, the strict rules from the core economies really make a big diff. Like, these places are hella popular for studying, especially 'cause all the top-ranked universities are mostly in those countries (ShanghaiRanking, 2019; THE, 2019).

It's like, super important to recognize that the most lit spots for international students are in the Global North, in countries that are like, mad rich and developed. These countries lowkey flex and pull in not just international students, but all types of peeps from the Global South who lowkey think moving to these countries will level up their life situation. In like, considering the tough conditions peeps in Brazil are dealing with rn, the mad uncertainty that always seems to be hanging around and the constant instability of the system, lots of Brazilian students abroad are thinking about dipping for good or just tryna make sure they can stay overseas. A study done by this employment and career training company (Cia de Talentos), and the Brazilian stu- dent association BRASA, found that 18% don't wanna go back to their home country and 34% are not sure if they gonna go back (Moraes, 2018).