[BRIEF NOTE] The Upcoming Brazilian Wave
Feb. 20th, 2006 11:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldJoel Millman's recent Wall Street Journal article "Immigrant group puts new spin on cleaning niche" is provides an overview of a specific case of chain migration, of Brazilians moving to the greater Boston area in order to take up careers as house cleaners. Emigration, it seems, is a popular strategy for the Brazilian middle classes in the face of severe social blockages at home.
I asked elsewhere why there were so many Mexican emigrants and so few Brazilian emigrants. Distance and cost, it seemed, were the main limiting factors. Now in our globalized 21st century world, they're not.
What's particularly interesting in Millman's article is his suggestion that the Brazilian influx to the United States is building upon the social networks built up by previous Portuguese immigrants. The Portuguese and Brazilians naturally share many connections, thanks to Brazil's origins in Portuguese colonization and the multiple waves of Portuguese immigrants settling in Brazil. Are Brazilians starting to emigrate in large numbers to First World countries where large numbers of Portuguese are already established? Looking at the statistics, after the United States France is home to the second-largest Portuguese immigrant community in the world, almost a million people of Portuguese background, and Canada falling half that number. I wonder: What will census reports on national origin in these three countries look like in a generation's time?
And who after the Brazilians? Angola, perhaps. This increasingly Lusophone country, impoverished and generally playing Ireland to Portugal's Britain with its long dysfunctional settlement colonialism, is being increasingly drawn into the circuits of the wider Lusophone world by out of control urbanization and the spread of Lusophone popular culture. It can't be that long before Angolans will start to follow in the path of other Lusophone migrants.
I've already seen some Angolan flags waving from restaurants and social clubs on Dundas Street.
Brazilians enjoy advantages over some other groups. About 90 percent of Brazilian immigrants finished high school, and nearly 40 percent have some college training, estimates sociologist Franklin Goza of Ohio's Bowling Green State University. By contrast, a majority of Mexican and Central Americans lack high-school diplomas.
"When Brazilians talk about social mobility and new opportunities, emigration to the U.S. is high on the menu," says Eduardo Siqueira, a Brazilian professor on the Public Health faculty at the University of Massachusetts' Lowell campus.
The cost and complexity of emigrating from Brazil -- often involving a flight to Mexico for a chance to sneak into the U.S. -- means that only the relatively prosperous can afford such a journey. That helps to explain why former dentists, school teachers and journalists are among those coming here to pursue better, albeit sometimes humbling, income opportunities.
I asked elsewhere why there were so many Mexican emigrants and so few Brazilian emigrants. Distance and cost, it seemed, were the main limiting factors. Now in our globalized 21st century world, they're not.
What's particularly interesting in Millman's article is his suggestion that the Brazilian influx to the United States is building upon the social networks built up by previous Portuguese immigrants. The Portuguese and Brazilians naturally share many connections, thanks to Brazil's origins in Portuguese colonization and the multiple waves of Portuguese immigrants settling in Brazil. Are Brazilians starting to emigrate in large numbers to First World countries where large numbers of Portuguese are already established? Looking at the statistics, after the United States France is home to the second-largest Portuguese immigrant community in the world, almost a million people of Portuguese background, and Canada falling half that number. I wonder: What will census reports on national origin in these three countries look like in a generation's time?
And who after the Brazilians? Angola, perhaps. This increasingly Lusophone country, impoverished and generally playing Ireland to Portugal's Britain with its long dysfunctional settlement colonialism, is being increasingly drawn into the circuits of the wider Lusophone world by out of control urbanization and the spread of Lusophone popular culture. It can't be that long before Angolans will start to follow in the path of other Lusophone migrants.
I've already seen some Angolan flags waving from restaurants and social clubs on Dundas Street.
