Brazilian Americans (Portuguese: brasílio-americanos, norte-americanos de origem brasileira or estadunidenses de origem brasileira) are Americans who are of full or partial Brazilian ancestry. There were an estimated 371,529 Brazilian Americans as of 2012, according to the United States Census Bureau. Another source gives an estimate of some 800,000 Brazilians living in the U.S. in 2000, while still another estimates that as of 2008 some 1,100,000 Brazilians live in the United States, 300,000 of them in Florida.
Contents
- History
- Education
- Fine Arts
- Religion
- Demographics
- Brazilian American communities
- US communities with high percentages of people of Brazilian ancestry
- US communities with the most residents born in Brazil
- Relations with Brazil
- Notable Brazilian Americans
- References
While the official United States Census category of Hispanic or Latino includes persons of South American origin, it also refers to persons of "other Spanish culture," creating some ambiguity about whether Brazilians, who are of South American origin but do not have a Spanish culture, qualify as Latino, as while they are not "Hispanic" (of a culture derived from Spain), they are "Latino" (which is short for latinoamericano).
Other U.S. government agencies, such as the Small Business Administration and the Department of Transportation, specifically include Brazilians within their definitions of Hispanic and Latino for purposes of awarding minority preferences by defining Hispanic Americans to include persons of South America ancestry or persons who have Portuguese cultural roots.
History
People from what is now Brazil are recorded among the Refugees and Settlers that arrived in New Netherland in what is now New York City in the 17th Century among the Dutch West India Company settlers The first arrivals of Brazilian emigres were formally recorded in the 1940s. Previously, Brazilians were not identified separately from other South Americans. Of approximately 234,761 South American emigres arrived in the United States between 1820 and 1960, at least some of them were Brazilian. The 1960 United States Census report recorded 27,885 Americans of Brazilian ancestry.
From 1960 until the mid-1980s, between 1,500 and 2,300 Brazilian immigrants arrived in the United States each year. During the mid-1980s, economic crisis struck Brazil. As a result, between 1986 and 1990 approximately 1.4 million Brazilians emigrated to other parts of the world. It was not until this time that Brazilian emigration reached significant levels. Thus, between 1987 and 1991, an estimated 20,800 Brazilians arrived in the United States. A significant number of them, 8,133 Brazilians, arrived in 1991. The 1990 U.S. Census Bureau recorded that there are about 60,000 Brazilians living in the United States. However, other sources indicate that there are nearly 100,000 Brazilians living in the New York City metropolitan area (including Northern New Jersey) alone, in addition to sizable Brazilian communities in Atlanta, Boston, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Miami, Houston, and Phoenix.
Education
The 2000 U.S. Census showed that 34.5 percent of Brazilians had completed four or more years of college, while the corresponding number for the general U.S. population is only 24.4 percent. However, although effectively many Brazilian immigrants in the United States are university educated, most of these immigrants fail to get well-qualified jobs and have to get lower-status jobs because the United States doesn't recognize their qualifications and also because many of them do not speak English.
Second-and third-generation Brazilian Americans tend to have better jobs; they have been educated in the United States, speak English, and have citizenship.
Fine Arts
Naza is a Brazilian American Visual Artist.
Religion
Although the majority of Brazilian Americans are Roman Catholic, there also significant numbers of Protestants, Mormons, Brazilian Catholics not in communion with Rome, Orthodox, Irreligious people (including atheists and agnostics), followed by minorities such as Spiritists, Buddhists, Jews and Muslims.
As with wider Brazilian culture, there is set of beliefs related through syncretism that might be described as part of a Spiritualism–Animism continuum, that includes: Spiritism (or Kardecism, a form of spiritualism that originated in France, often confused with other beliefs also called espiritismo, distinguished from them by the term espiritismo [de] mesa branca), Umbanda (a syncretic religion mixing African animist beliefs and rituals with Catholicism, Spiritism, and indigenous lore), Candomblé (a syncretic religion that originated in the Brazilian state of Bahia and that combines African animist beliefs with elements of Catholicism), and Santo Daime (created in the state of Acre in the 1930s by Mestre Irineu (also known as Raimundo Irineu Serra) it is a syncretic mix of Folk Catholicism, Kardecist Spiritism, Afro-Brazilian religions and a more recent incorporation of Indigenous American practices and rites). People who profess Spiritism make up 1.3% of the country's population, and those professing Afro-Brazilian religions make up 0.3% of the country's population.
Demographics
Brazilians began immigrating to the United States in large and increasing numbers in the 1980s as a result of worsening economic conditions in Brazil at that time. However, many of the Brazilians who have emigrated to the United States since this decade have been undocumented. More women have immigrated to the United States from Brazil than men, with the 1990 and 2000 U.S. Censuses showing there to be ten percent more female than male Brazilian Americans. The top three metropolitan areas by Brazilian population are New York City (72,635), Boston (63,930), and Miami (43,930).
Brazilian American communities
U.S. communities with high percentages of people of Brazilian ancestry
According to ePodunk, a website, the top 50 U.S. communities with the highest percentages of people claiming Brazilian ancestry are:
- North Bay Village, Florida 6.00%
- Danbury, Connecticut 4.90%
- Harrison, New Jersey 4.80%
- Framingham, Massachusetts 4.80%
- Somerville, Massachusetts 4.50%
- Kearny, New Jersey 3.70%
- Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts 3.60%
- Deerfield Beach, Florida 3.50%
- Everett, Massachusetts 3.20%
- Marlborough, Massachusetts 3.10%
- Long Branch, New Jersey 2.80%
- Edgartown, Massachusetts 2.70%
- Newark, New Jersey 2.50%
- Doral, Florida 2.50%
- Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts 2.50%
- Miami Beach, Florida 2.20%
- Hillside, New Jersey 2.20%
- Hudson, Massachusetts 2.20%
- Oakland Park, Florida 2.10%
- South River, New Jersey 2.10%
- Cliffside Park, New Jersey2.10%
- Tisbury, Massachusetts 2.10%
- Fairview, New Jersey 2.00%
- Aventura, Florida 1.90%
- Lauramie, Indiana 1.80%
- Revere, Massachusetts 1.70%
- Malden, Massachusetts 1.70%
- Sea Ranch Lakes, Florida 1.70%
- Surfside, Florida 1.60%
- Barnstable, Massachusetts 1.60%
- Lowell, Massachusetts 1.60%
- Ojus, Florida 1.60%
- Washington, Ohio 1.60%
- Naugatuck, Connecticut 1.60%
- Milford, Massachusetts 1.50%
- Dennis Port, Massachusetts 1.50%
- Keene, Texas 1.50%
- Key Biscayne, Florida 1.50%
- Mount Vernon, New York 1.50%
- Avondale Estates, Georgia 1.50%
- Sunny Isles Beach, Florida 1.50%
- Riverside, New Jersey 1.40%
- Trenton, Florida 1.40%
- South Lancaster, Massachusetts 1.30%
- Great River, New York 1.30%
- Port Chester, New York 1.30%
- Coconut Creek, Florida 1.20%
- Belle Isle, Florida 1.20%
- Big Pine Key, Florida 1.20%
- Chelsea, Massachusetts 1.20%
U.S. communities with the most residents born in Brazil
According to the social networking and information website City-Data, the top 25 U.S. communities with the highest percentage of residents born in Brazil are:
- Loch Lomond, Florida 15.8%
- Bonnie Loch-Woodsetter North, Florida 7.2%
- North Bay Village, Florida 7.1%
- East Newark, New Jersey 6.7%
- Framingham, Massachusetts 6.6%
- Harrison, New Jersey 5.8%
- Danbury, Connecticut 5.6%
- Somerville, Massachusetts 5.4%
- Sunshine Ranches, Florida 5.1%
- Flying Hills, Pennsylvania 5.1%
- Deerfield Beach, Florida 4.7%
- Fox River, Alaska 4.5%
- Edgartown, Massachusetts 4.4%
- West Yarmouth, Massachusetts 4.4%
- Marlborough, Massachusetts 4.4%
- Kearny, New Jersey 4.4%
- Doral, Florida 4.1%
- Everett, Massachusetts 4.0%
- Long Branch, New Jersey 3.7%
- Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts 3.4%
- Hudson, Massachusetts 3.2%
- Miami Beach, Florida 3.1%
- Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts 3.0%
- Oakland Park, Florida 3.0%
- Pompano Beach Highlands, Florida 3.0%
Some City-Data information contradicts official government data from the Census Bureau. It is important to be mindful that Brazilian Americans sometimes decline to identify as Latino. Therefore, the above estimates may outnumber the Census data figures for Hispanics and/or Latinos for the above Census areas.
Relations with Brazil
Voting Brazilian Americans and Brazilians abroad heavily favored the opposition's Aecio Neves and his "pro-business" centre to centre-right Brazilian Social Democracy Party in Brazil's 2014 general election. Aecio Neves and the Brazilian Social Democracy Party, or PSDB, were narrowly defeated in the 2014 runoff.
Brazilian Americans represent a large source of remittances to Brazil. Brazil receives approximately one quarter of its remittances from the U.S. (26% in 2012), out of a total amount of $4.9 billion received in 2012.