Still, Lacerda’s inflammatory reactions against the opposition of people like Brizola in Rio de Janeiro was not the outcome of the political challenge that it represented. It was also the result of the agitated political times of the early 1960s which also had repercussions in the favelas. The political organization of favelas reached momentum when they representatives created the Federation of Favelas Associations of Guanabara (Federação das Associações de Favelas da Guanabara; FAFEG) in 1963 that had a very important role in resisting Lacerda’s favela eradication policy.
It was not only at the local and national level where the political conjuncture of Rio de Janeiro unfolded in this very particular conjuncture. In a context of growing inflation, social turmoil, and political radicalization, Lacerda emerged as one of the favorite political figures and a model of a desirable politician for the United States. The governor’s credentials as a politician hostile to the heterodoxy of populism and the orthodoxy of the left embodied in the figures of Vargas or Kubitscheck, yet still committed to certain aspects of social reform, placed him in good stead with the Kennedy Administration. In the context of the Cold War, the US saw Lacerda as a guarantor of order in comparison to what was seen as the radical politics of President Goulart -“childish and erratic,” Brizola, or Aluísio Alves. Commenting with Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, Thomas Mann, Ambassador Gordon described the governor of Guanabara, “Carlos Lacerda (48)—Gov. of Guanabara. (…) One anti-commie. One of ablest in country. Brilliant. Was newspaper publisher. Good administrator. Would make good President—under attack for being pro-American.” That th...
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... for Progress and the United States on them.
The construction of Vila Kennedy, Vila Aliança, Vila Esperança, the first glebe of Cidade de Deus, as well as the eradication of some favelas of Rio during the Lacerda administration need to be explain within this particular conjuncture of Rio de Janeiro that intersects three equally important level of analysis: the local, the national, and the trnansnational. A city economically in decline, politically deprived of its traditional status as capital, caught between the heated struggles of power of the governor and the president, and also one of the subtle cold war arenas, Rio de Janeiro underwent decisive urban renewal, slum removal, and public housing construction. The presence of American dollars and technicians walking around the favelas and the new developments of Rio de Janeiro were part of this threefold context.
All throughout the 20th century we can observe the marked presence of totalitarian regimes and governments in Latin America. Countries like Cuba, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic all suffered under the merciless rule of dictators and military leaders. Yet the latter country, the Dominican Republic, experienced a unique variation of these popular dictatorships, one that in the eyes of the world of those times was great, but in the eyes of the Dominicans, was nothing short of deadly.
Crassweller, Robert D. Trujillo: The life and times of a Caribbean dictator. New York: Macmillan.1966.
Tompkins, C., 2009. The paradoxical effect of the documentary in Walter Salles’s “Central do Brasil”. Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature 33 no1 p9-27
The purpose of this paper is to recognize, study and analyze the race relations in Brazil. Race relations are relations between two groups of different races; it is how these two different races connect to each other in their environment. Since Brazil is racially diverse, this study is focused on how Brazilians relate to each other. Throughout the essay, it will become clear that there exists a conflict between two race groups. Afro-Brazilians and White-Brazilians are not connected and though these two groups converse with each other, discrimination still lies within the society. This discrimination has created inequality within the society for Afro-Brazilians. Thus, this paper will not only focus on racism and discrimination that Afro-Brazilians experience because of White-Brazilian, but also on the history of Brazil, the types if discrimination that Afro-Brazilian must endure today and how the media creates discrimination.
When you hear about Brazil, what comes to your mind first? The Amazon rainforest? The Christ Redeemer statue? Soccer? Carnival? What about the 16 million Brazilians living in poverty? In Gordon Parks’ “Flavio’s Home”, the Life magazine article centers around the poverty-stricken da Silva family who reside in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He tells the story of a twelve-year-old boy, Flavio, and his misadventures as he and his family face poverty. Parks describes poverty as “savage”, it “claims victims”, and it “spreads like a cancer”. Notice what “savage”, “victims”, and “cancer” all have in common? Among these words, they arouse a feeling of pity or sadness within the reader. These words drive the reader to think about possible ways to help alleviate poverty -- this being Parks’ purpose for telling Flavio’s story. Another way Parks brought pathos into his essay is by describing the living conditions of the slums by using personification
In the story “Flavio’s Home” by Gordon Parks, he draws you into a world that is very descriptive and allows yourself to imagine what it would be like if you were standing there with him. Gordon was there with Life reporter Jose Gallo to find a father with a family to examine the poverty of that particular family in Rio de Janeiro. Instead they came across a boy named Flavio, they followed Flavio up the mountain to a leaning shack. Flavio was only twelve but had worked so hard from the time he could stand that his body had taken the toll. Gordon describes the favela of Catacumba, pale by comparison to New York’s Harlem and Chicago’s south side. In so doing this gives the readers in those populated city’s an idea of how much greater the poverty
The Allies’ victory in WWII marked democracy’s triumph over dictatorship, and the consequences shook Latin America. Questioning why they should support the struggle for democracy in Europe and yet suffer the constraints of dictatorship at home, many Latin Americans rallied to democratize their own political structures. A group of prominent middle–class Brazilians opposed to the continuation of the Vargas dictatorship mused publicly, “If we fight against fascism at the side of the United Nations so that liberty and democracy may be restored to all people, certainly we are not asking too much in demanding for ourselves such rights and guarantees.” The times favored the democratic concepts professed by the middle class. A wave of freedom of speech, press, and assembly engulfed much of Latin America and bathed the middle class with satisfaction. New political parties emerged to represent broader segments of the population. Democracy, always a fragile plant anywhere, seemed ready to blossom throughout Latin America. Nowhere was this change more amply illustrated than in Guatemala, where Jorge Ubico ruled as dictator from 1931 until 1944. Ubico, a former minister of war, carried out unprecedented centralization of the state and repression of his opponents. Although he technically ended debt peonage, the 1934 vagrancy law required the carrying of identification cards and improved ...
The discourse of self-definition in Brazil is based on perceptions of economic success, material value and social prestige. Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, there was a general scramble to reconstruct individual identity in social success and achievement. “Assertions of moral and cultural (class and racial) superiority” make up the discourses of national and regional identity, while simultaneously setting up the social building blocks of discrimination and stratification (25). Through the strange consumption of not only goods, but the commodification of experiences, the Brazilian middle class sought to redefine their lives and social status, and ultimately create a world that thrives on social division and prejudice.
In the favela of São Paulo, Brazil, 1958, Carolina Maria de Jesus rewrote the words of a famous poet, “In this era it is necessary to say: ‘Cry, child. Life is bitter,’” (de Jesus 27). Her sentiments reflected the cruel truth of the favelas, the location where the city’s impoverished inhabited small shacks. Because of housing developments, poor families were pushed to the outskirts of the city into shanty towns. Within the favelas, the infant mortality rate was high, there was no indoor plumbing or electricity, drug lords were governing forces, drug addiction was rampant, and people were starving to death. Child of the Dark, a diary written by Carolina Maria de Jesus from 1955 to 1960, provides a unique view from inside Brazil’s favelas, discussing the perceptions of good
The 19th Century in Latin America was rife with revolution and political change. Due to the instability of a continent, bursting with fledgling democracies (at least in name), a new breed of leader began to emerge throughout Latin America. This new head of government was defined as a strong military leader who ruled forcefully. In Latin America, thes...
Middle-class protest against the long-standing dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz. Established a radical system in which elections were controlled while a handful of dominant families and their clients monopolized financial and political power in the provinces.1
...tem. These traits are typical of what has happened throughout history when normal people become subordinate to new and oppressive bureaucracies. It seems that all a treacherous government needs in order to normalize the most disgusting violations of basic human rights is a convincing façade of efficiency. It could be said that the American Dream plays that role in current American society, that it is purely a façade to blind our eyes to the larger system. If the system succeeds in preventing people from gaining awareness of the larger picture, and indeed further compartmentalizes every aspect of life, the line between just and false laws become blurred. Gilliam uses “Brazil” to bring these often overlooked problems with government to the forefront of his viewer’s mind, making apparent that no element of human life is safe from this type of unconscious degeneration.
Favela [slums or urban areas] are where approximately 11.4 million of the 190 million Brazils’ population reside. These areas are known to be areas with crime and extreme poverty, the people who live there are known to be social outcast and are usually ignored by upper class citizens. These areas are home to the people who cannot afford to live in cities like Rio de Jainero or São Paolo because of the raising housing cost. Favela typically comes into being when squatters (a person who unlawfully occupies an uninhabited building or unused land) occupy vacant land at the edge of a city and construct shacks of salvaged or stolen materials.
2. Burns, Bradford E. . A History of Brazil: Second Edition. New York: Cornell University Press, 1980.
Reporter, Daily Mail. "Cleaning up Brazil's Most Dangerous Favelas: How Armed Police Are Waging War on Vicious Drug Cartels That Rule the Slums of Rio as They Fight to Make the City Safe before the 2016 Olympic Games." Mail Online. Associated Newspapers, 15 June 2013. Web. 26 May 2014. .