Brazil: Culture and Society

Aaron Meltzer/ Culture and Society/ Brazil Creating a national identity in Brazil in the early 20th century. Brazil, like any other Latin American country, had its unique Brazilian culture and society partially lost and completely distorted by European influences; specifically Portuguese influences. In the early twentieth century, Brazilian society was made up of a mix of native Brazilians, Europeans (Portuguese and Italian mainly), Japanese, Africans, and immigrants from the Ottoman Empire. The economic boom during and after World War I sparked all of these new immigrants. The social classes were divided into bourgeoisie and the working class (middle and lower). The bourgeoisie consisted mostly of white Europeans on a quest to whiten (branqueamento) Brazil. The oppressed working class was made up of indigenous people, immigrants, and Afro-Brazilians who had been enslaved until 1888. The problem Brazil faced in the early 20th century like other Latin American countries was the need of a national identity. Brazil wanted to prove to the world that even though its economy was heavily dependent on Europe, its social and traditional culture should be uniquely known as Brazilian. The concept of “cultural cannibals” was big for Brazilian modernism. Led by Oswald de Andrade, this anthropophagic movement, referencing earlier Brazilian Indian cannibals, sought to borrow from European and American artists and writers into Brazilian culture and add its own original characteristics (MLA, 415). This does not imply a fusion of white and black culture, although it does accomplish this anyways. By absorbing European style, Brazilian culture remains polished and up to date in regards to literature and art. One modernist artist, Emiliano de Cavalcanti, paints with the realism style of a European, but with Brazilian portrayals, neither black nor white—simply

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Brazilian. Similarly, writers would create novels, stories, and poems to portray Brazilian