Goodbye, Brazil: Emigrés from the Land of Soccer and Samba
Maxine L Margolis
2013, University of Wisconsin Press
289 pages, paperback
UNLIKE other migrants from Latin America, Brazilian emigrants are often skilled and professional, making their contribution to their host country economically important but also changing the dynamics of the migration process. While the economic crises of the late 1980s encouraged millions of Brazilians to leave the country and seek work abroad – 40 per cent of them in the US – Brazil has nonetheless been unusual among its continental counterparts for the large proportion of migrants who are educated and middle class. Brazilians can be found throughout the world in senior executive positions, and the country’s own dynamic growth also exerts a strong pressure on many of these to return. Maxine Margolis examines Brazilian emigration in a global perspective and explores how the diaspora has fared. She shows how Brazilian immigrants have negotiated their identity outside the country, and asks what perceptions the childen of those who decide to stay abroad will feel about their country in the future. Margolis provides a fascinating insight into a new, transnational class of Latin Americans who see the world – and not just the US – as their oyster.
