Going out in Portugal and not hearing a Brazilian accent is becoming increasingly rare. When I’m not listening to Brazilians, I listen to Caetano e Silva in traditional Portuguese cafes, I listen to Anitta on the radio and in nightclubs, Ivete Sangalo and Maracatu at the carnival, there are meetings in the main cities of the country to dance Forró and the other day I got myself one Watched a portuguese friend’s show and they danced our samba and amazingly danced to CPM 22. We are also increasingly present in the kitchen: tapioca, cheese bread, feijoada, farofa, and of course brigadeiro. Not to mention our worldfamous caipirinha, which is also available in bars here.
Our Brazilian articles and books or those translated into Brazilian Portuguese are on the lists of professors at universities and are available in bookstores. Our films, soap operas, series and current videos from youtubers and tiktokers (to the desperation of some Portuguese parents) also have a large audience. Movements to defend our rights, associations founded by Brazilians, academic works and books focusing on the experiences of Brazilians in Portugal have also proliferated. In the latest Migration Observatory report for 2020, 183,993 Brazilians were living in Portugal and for the past month we have been receiving almost 3,000 Brazilians daily.
Also, as the Brazilian presence here has increased, I’ve seen more and more people saying we’re invading Portugal or talking about reverse colonization, but romanticizing and minimizing what colonization was is nothing new. We learned at school that it was Portugal that “discovered” Brazil, that Brazilian miscegenation was entirely peaceful and not through abuse of indigenous and African women, and that the Portuguese are colonizers while Africans are slaves. The power of words is still underestimated by many of us, but historically, words have been a very effective strategy to normalize stereotypes and hate speech aimed at certain groups of people, and also to trivialize processes of exploitation, the projects of the state were. .
When people talk about invasion, they forget that Brazilians need a valid passport, a plane ticket, to “invade” Portugal. We need justification for being here and we need to be approved by immigration officials, very readily. Basically, to invade Brazil, the Portuguese “discoverers” just had to disembark from the caravels and decide that this land, everything that was there and everyone who lived there, would henceforth be theirs. There were no documents, there was no control over how many people would arrive and what they would do there. There was no contribution to the economy, let alone being deported and sent “back to their country” just because the native people woke up on the wrong foot.
And how can we speak of reverse colonization when Brazil was plundered and suffered genocide for more than 300 years to sustain the metropolis and today we are still the ones who pay to flee the violence there (one of our historical legacies, it’s worth remembering) To get here, we’ll spend our money on hotels, restaurants, and attractions; with universities paying more expensive tuition than the Portuguese; or social security, contribute more than we benefit? All this just to hear that Portugal is not ours and that we are not welcome here.
Talking about invasion and reverse colonization serves to create a social image in which we pose a threat to the Portuguese, and that’s not what we need. While some who call themselves nationalists seek to erase the reality that Portugal only welcomes us because it needs immigrants to survive, creating a racist delusion that Portugal is a great metropolis, superior to “its colonies” and selfsufficient (Alô , Salazar!), all to gain more popularity and seats in Parliament, we immigrants here continue to contribute to the country at all levels.
When a Portuguese tells us to “return to our country”, he forgets that if we leave this boat it will sink. Forget that we can even “return to our country” and millions of Brazilians are waiting with open arms to welcome us, but what about you? If the boat sinks, is there anywhere they can go back? Will they manage to lift the boundaries and shout with a smile on their face: Hola, hermanos! We are back!? I do not think so.