There is a scene in a French film called Samba that I have never been able to shake off. As I remember it, two men are on a rooftop. One of them is told he is not Brazilian, and he admits he comes from somewhere else. Then Samba, the main character, says something to the effect that Brazilians have it easy.
That is the part I did not understand, so I asked my husband what it meant. He said Brazilians are usually welcomed everywhere because people think we are nice. I had never thought of it that way, and it made me wonder who gets to be Brazilian at all.
Brazil is so mixed that we look like everyone and no one at the same time. We have large Lebanese, Japanese, Italian and German communities. My family tree has roots across Europe, and my father was born in Uruguay and is as Brazilian as anyone I know.
We do not even sound the same.
My grandmother was so direct that people's eyes went wide around her. Is that even legal to say? Are we going to get arrested? When a doctor asked what brought her in, she answered without missing a beat, not trying to be funny, just stating a fact: "It is quicker to tell you what I am not here for. The list is long."
She taught me to speak up. Laise, who has Japanese heritage and is every bit as Brazilian as I am, grew up in a home where you kept your voice down and did not make a scene.
Photo by @andifotos_
Two Brazilian women raised at completely different volumes, and neither has to become the other to belong.
None of this fits into a neat box. I asked my mother one day what it meant to be Brazilian, and she answered without blinking: it meant eating feijoada. I have not eaten feijoada in years. So either my mother has a very strict definition of national identity, or I have been a fake Brazilian for years. I would rather not find out which.
So what makes us Brazilian?
I have come to think it goes beyond where we come from. For me, it shows up in how we live: offering warmth before we know someone, finding something good in a difficult day, making room for whoever arrives, improvising when there is no map, and letting rhythm move through our bodies instead of resisting it.
I am not saying these qualities belong to Brazilians alone, or that every Brazilian lives this way. They are the parts of Brazil I recognise and choose to carry with me. They are a practice, not a personality I have to perform. That is what I mean when I say Brazilian is a way of living.
I do not want to make this prettier than it is. Brazil being mixed does not mean Brazil is fair, and I understand that better than I used to, partly because of the apartment story in What Good Intentions Do Not Buy You. Being welcomed is not the same everywhere either. A manager in Australia told me, while I was working as a barista, that people there did not like immigrants (that story is here).
The man in the film, Wilson, is an Algerian man in France who passes as Brazilian. I do not know every reason the film gives him, but it made me see that the image of the easygoing Brazilian can open a door while also coming with expectations about who we should be. That is an inherited scorecard: a list of who we are supposed to be, written by other people.
What interests me is the life behind the image. The warmth, the improvisation, the willingness to make room. Those things are not exclusive to people born in Brazil. They can be learned, practised and carried elsewhere.
I like to imagine someone in the coldest city in Russia, in the middle of winter, deciding to live this way because of how it opens up a life. You do not need a Brazilian passport to make someone feel welcome, find a reason to laugh on a difficult day, or make something work with what you have.
The passport counts. It is just not the whole story.
In Brazil, there is an expression for making room when an unexpected guest arrives: põe mais água no feijão. Put more water in the beans. You stretch what you have, and you make room.
Anyone can live Brazilian, and all they have to do is want to. If you do, knock on the door. We can always put more water in the beans. 💛
Jessica Gabrielzyk
If you are still working out which Brazil you carry and which one you pass on, I wrote about that in I Promise No More Spoilers. But Gaia Got Me.
If you are raising children away from where you are from and wondering what you are passing on, Parenting Unpacked is where I work through that. The first forty pages are free.
What is the way of living you carry that does not fit on a passport, and where did you learn it? Tell me in the comments below.
