Brazilians in America: Motivations for Migration

 Brazil has experienced a significant change in its international mobility trends over the past 50 years, as a significant number of Brazilians have emigrated to various regions of the globe, following centuries of being primarily a land of colonization and immigration. In 2020, the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ministério das Relações Exteriores (MRE) predicts that more than four million Brazilians resided abroad (MRE, 2021). Research on the Brazilian diaspora from a Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS) perspective began in the early 1980s and has acquired prominence since the 2000s. Although the Brazilian diaspora scholarship is a lively body of literature, it is geographically dispersed, as the majority of studies concentrate on the experiences of Brazilian migrants in a particular country or region of destination. Although reviews of the Brazilian diaspora literature have been conducted (e.g., Kirschner, 2018; Sales, 1992; Tosta, 2005), they also tend to concentrate on local communities in specific regions of the world, and there is a lack of attention given to issues that affect the Brazilian diaspora transnationally.

Exogenous differentiating factors have been extensively investigated in the Brazilian diaspora literature

Which has been informed by the traditions of ethnic and migrational studies. These are the intersecting political identities of international migrants that distinguish them from the hegemonic host society. These identities include language, race, ethnicity, religion, cultural practices, and legal status. They frequently result in political hierarchies and barriers to migrant integration and well-being. However, more recently, research has emphasized and investigated the dynamics of intra-community social interactions and the factors that influence and distinguish social practices among Brazilians living abroad. The existence of "endogenous differentiating factors," or internal social distinctions associated with identity and class positioning within Brazilian communities, is underscored by the use of phrases such as "other Brazilians" (Green, 2011; Margolis, 2013) and "unknown Brazilians" (Padilla, 2006) by Brazilians abroad when describing their co-nationals. This article examines the Brazilian diaspora literature to investigate the methods by which researchers have analyzed intra-community social dynamics and identified distinguishing factors among Brazilian migrants worldwide. The study examines two primary groups of intersecting endogenous differentiating factors: those that are transferred from Brazil to the country of destination (e.g., class positioning, regional differences, and race and color) and those that emerge during the migration process (e.g., legal status, perceived level of integration with the host society, and connectedness with Brazilian culture and community). This review underscores the frequent contribution of these elements to the (re)production of social hierarchies and tensions within migrant communities. Ultimately, this review contributes to the integration of the geographically dispersed literature on the Brazilian diaspora. It shows that the experiences of Brazilian migrants abroad are heterogeneous and are linked to the specific realities of the destination country. However, there are also common elements that may aid in the transnational understanding of the Brazilian migrant experience.

The historical development of Brazilian diaspora HASS scholarship is the starting point of this article

It is intended to demonstrate the evolution of the body of literature, from a localized scholarship that was limited to a few countries of destination to an international discipline with a broader geographical scope. It is evident that it would be impossible to synthesize four decades of interdisciplinary scholarship without leaving substantial gaps. Consequently, this initial section is designed to function as a foundation for the literature and should not be construed as definitive or final. Subsequently, this article concentrates on the internal social dynamics of the Brazilian diaspora and the change in emphasis from exogenous to endogenous differentiating factors through research. This article addresses several of the epistemological assumptions and implications of this transition in its conclusion. Ultimately, the objective of this article is to underscore the similarities that Brazilian communities in various regions of the globe share, a subject that would benefit from further scholarly investigation.

Brazil has been historically associated with immigration. During the three centuries that Brazil was a colony, the land was the destination of the arrival of numerous settlers from Europe and millions of forcedly displaced individuals who were brought to Brazil as enslaved persons. These individuals were primarily from South and Central Africa and the Gulf of Guinea (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística [IBGE], 2007; Prandi, 2000). However, the migration surges that occured post-independence in Brazil during the 19th and 20th centuries are typically associated with the period of mass immigration. As well as other smaller waves of migrants from various locations, such as China and Switzerland (Tosta, 2005), this period witnessed substantial movements of individuals to Brazil from what is presently known as Spain, Portugal, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Lebanon (IBGE, 2007; Levy, 1974). The 1980s marked a significant change in the region's reputation for accommodating international migrants, which had been established for centuries. In the mid-1980s, a mass exodus of individuals from Brazil to other countries occurred, driven by protracted economic crises, hyperinflation, and a generally pessimistic outlook on the prospects of employment and wealth in Brazil (Margolis, 1989, 1990; Tsuda, 1999b). The Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs estimates that over four million Brazilians were living abroad in 2020, despite the absence of a systematic methodology to calculate the number of Brazilian immigrants living overseas (MRE, 2021). The largest diasporic communities are located in the United States, Portugal, Paraguay, the United Kingdom, and Japan (MRE, 2021).

In the early 1980s, research on the Brazilian diaspora began to emerge and has since grown considerably since the 2000s

A systematic literature search and categorization conducted as part of this study identified over 400 peer-reviewed HASS studies into the Brazilian diaspora published between 1981 and 2023. The first of these studies was about Brazilian farmers in the Eastern Border region of Paraguay (Nickson, 1981). The Brazilian diaspora was the subject of only a handful of academic studies during the 1980s. However, in 1989, Margolis published a groundbreaking study on the Brazilian community in New York City, which was then relatively new (Margolis, 1989). These "new migrants" were described as economic exiles from the Brazilian middle class who migrated in order to flee economic uncertainty, unemployment, and hyperinflation. They primarily originated from the state of Minas Gerais, with a particular emphasis on the city of Governador Valadares, which would subsequently become renowned as the Brazilian city that dispatches the highest number of migrants to the United States (Joseph, 2015). Although they were primarily from middle-class households in Brazil, they were employed in jobs that were "among the lowest-paid and most dead-end in New York's occupational hierarchy" (Margolis, 1989, p. 182). These jobs included shoe-shining, cab-driving, dishwashing, non-unionized construction, and day maids. This initial profile of the Brazilian diaspora in the United States also indicated that it was primarily composed of undocumented migrants, a topic that would be further investigated in subsequent studies that exclusively examined the Brazilian community in the United States (e.g., Cebulko, 2014; Joseph, 2011; Siqueira, 2009). Margolis, a pioneer in the study of the Brazilian diaspora, would become one of the most prominent authors in this field. He primarily worked on the Brazilian migration to the United States (e.g., Margolis, 1990, 1993, 1995, 2008) but also on Brazilian migrants in other regions of the globe (Margolis, 2013).