ABSTRACT
In Chapter 5, we turn our attention to race, ethnicity, identity, and issues of prejudice and stigma in Brazil. This chapter explores the meanings and effects of racial identities in Brazil, starting with historical understandings of race and moving on to see how racial identity has been constructed over time. These historical roots are crucial for making sense of Brazil’s supposed “racial democracy,” and more recent developments that acknowledge racism and attempt to address it (e.g., university quotas for students of African and indigenous descent). Not to be overlooked here are a host of other racial/ethnic identities in Brazil (e.g., Brazilians of Japanese, Turkish, Lebanese, German, and Dutch descent), and the ways these populations fit – or not – within traditional constructions of race and identity in Brazil.
