Stories from Brazil: A Student’s Journey of Language, Place, and Belonging
“De onde você é?”
The age-old question: Where are you from? This time coming from the mouth of a middle-aged retail worker in a clothing shop in Teresópolis, a mountain town in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
I think, as I always have, about how to answer. Surprisingly, I’ve gotten this question in Brazil about just as often as I do in the US.
“Dos Estados Unidos, moça.” The United States, ma’am.
“Não acredito! Achei que você era do Chile.” I can’t believe that! I thought you were from Chile.
Here, their guesses vary. Chile, Portugal, Argentina, and sometimes even Venezuela. Never the United States.
“Mas, meus pais são da Colômbia e Venezuela.” But, my parents are from Colombia and Venezuela. The woman then smiled and nodded, folding my newly bought shirt neatly into a plastic bag.
“Faz mais sentido, então” That makes more sense then. I return her smile. No matter where I am, things always make more sense when I add an asterisk or two to my response. It’s a bit of a gamble—knowing how to answer initially—but I’ve found that regardless of how I choose to respond at first, people are never fully satisfied. And I suppose that I am not either.
On another day, the conversation might’ve ended there: the woman would hand me my purchase and I would be off on my day with a thank you and goodbye. But that day was my last day in Brazil, and I like to think that I got very lucky—the woman decided to keep asking questions.
“Você tem vontade de morar aqui no Brasil?” Would you like to live here in Brazil?
“Sim! Gostaria muito, amo o Brasil. Tomara que um dia eu possa.” Yes! I would really like to. Hopefully one day I can. I explained that I had just finished an immersion program and that I was studying abroad here during my university’s summer break.
The woman looked over at her colleague, another cashier who had just finished ringing up a client. The younger woman gave her a look of slight desperation but with a hint of humor. She came closer, folding her arms on the counter, listening and intrigued. As if she had been waiting for an attentive audience, the older woman turned back to me and clasped her hands expressively in front of her.
“Então, deixa eu te falar uma coisa.” So, let me tell you something.
The woman proceeded to share her perspective on the relations between the United States and Brazil, the Latin American “condition”, and geo-politics in general. She spoke about her personal struggles, the everyday grind, and the increasingly expensive cost of living. She was curious and vulnerable, and perfectly honest. I listened intently, equally intrigued by her outlooks and willingness to connect. She had so much to share—and to be the receiver of such stories was beyond an honor to experience.
After spending nearly two months in Brazil, I’m full of these stories. Some I’ve collected from listening to conversations on my daily bus commute to the Harvard Office on Avenida Paulista in the center of the city. The cobrador—the worker collecting the fare—would greet and tell me all about the route of his bus and the shuffle of the morning in the bustling city as millions of Paulistanos boarded to reach their daily destinations.
Other stories took a whole other bus ride to hear. Part of the summer immersion included a nine-day trip to Minas Gerais (which translates to General Mines) which was by far the most impactful part of the program. We traveled by bus through many cities, stopping in each one for a couple of days of site visits and activities. It’s quite challenging to explain the intensity of everything we saw and everyone we spoke to—especially when people (particularly Americans) see Brazil for Carnival, white beaches, and supposed racial harmony.
One day we toured an abandoned gold mine in the colonial town of Ouro Preto (which translates to Black Gold). The entire mine was built by the hands of enslaved people during Portuguese colonization. Our guide, Du Evangelista—who at the time was running for mayor—sought to retell the narrative of enslaved people and mining, sharing the ways that enslaved Africans brought new, innovative technology, knowledge, and resistance to the mining industry. During our free time in the city, I visited some of the churches, glittering cathedrals of impressive size and grandeur. It was only after the tour of the mine that I came to understand where the shine came from. The beauty of it all transformed into something sinister.
Towards the end of the trip, we visited community leader Mônica Santos and her family in the old town of Bento Rodrigues. Mônica is part of a group of atingidos, people affected by the Mariana dam disaster of 2015. The Santo’s family spent the afternoon recounting the day the mine tailings dam erupted and sent nearly 45 million cubic meters of lama (the thick, toxic semi-liquid mud of mining waste) through the town, killing dozens and permanently contaminating the entirety of the state’s most important river, Rio Doce. The level of injustice this community has and continues to suffer from is beyond words.
After being received in their home (one of the few structures still standing) and touring the ruins of the town, the family brought us to Novo Bento Rodrigues. Yes, “new” Bento Rodrigues. The town is still actively in construction and just a half-hour drive away, being built by Vale, the Brazilian mining company that knowingly ignored the instability of the dam. It was the most eerie and dystopian place I’ve ever set foot in. It’s nothing like the old town where families had large properties where they would graze cattle and keep animals. Instead, like something out of a horror movie of suburban America, the new houses are nearly identical, close together, adorned with towering metal gates and fences—perfecting the illusion of a happy, unharmed community.
I’m full of faces, some with furrowed brows and wrinkled faces, others young, hopeful, and curious. At stores, concerts, city gatherings, community dinners, parties, parks and in trains, Ubers, and buses, eager gazes would meet my own, greetings blooming into conversations and conversations blooming into late nights of profound discussion. My Portuguese developed to a point where I could have a conversation with just about anyone about nearly anything. I’ve realized that this is undoubtedly the best part about learning a new language: being able to genuinely communicate with so many people whose stories would otherwise be inaccessible—and perhaps, to some degree, meaningless—to me.
Later, on that very last day, while my friend and I were waited at the bus station to return to Rio, I decided to go buy a snack for the road. Dotted throughout the streets and corners of a typical Brazilian city are these little lanchonetes—a little lunch spot or cafe. They have those rounded glass displays with about a half-dozen different types of typical Brazilian savory and sweet pastries, breads, and other confections. After ordering to go, the cashier stroke up a conversation with me. An older man with graying hair listened intently before walking out.
After leaving the store myself, I walked back to the station where the old man happened to be leaning up against a post. We started talking and he asked me about my time in Brazil and if I would ever consider living there. I explained how wonderful and illuminating my time had been and professed that I would happily take any future opportunity that allowed me to spend more time in the country. He seemed surprised but then asked me a few questions about the United States, explaining that he had many loved ones who had immigrated there recently.
“Tenho um sobrinho na cidade de Boston.” I have a nephew in the city of Boston.
I smiled, barely believing the coincidence (or not so much) of it. Sometimes you meet someone, and you can just sense a sort of wisdom and mystery to them. When the conversation started to dwindle and the bus was scheduled to arrive in five minutes, I felt the urge to ask the man a deeper question: did he feel that life has meaning? The man sort of chuckled but did not seem particularly thrown off by the sudden intimacy of my question. He said many things, but what I remember the most was him telling me that he has never regretted waking up every day to find an answer.
Each story I heard is left without an ending. Each person who took the time to share their life, their pain, joys, and everything in between has yet to wake up tomorrow, to choose how the rest will go. I think about the retail worker and how desperately she wanted to leave Brazil. I wonder if she ever quit her job and moved to Miami like she confessed she had been wanting to. I think of Mônica, her family, and my time in Bento Rodrigues. I wonder where they find the strength to fight all the battles they do. I think of a street vendor who, on a sunny Thursday morning, sold me a bouquet of flowers and insisted on arranging them in a particularly special way when I told her they were for a loved one. I wonder if she is still there, under the shade of a tent on Rua Martim Francisco. I think of the old man at the train station and his calm, enlightened energy. I wonder what understandings each new day brings him.
I think often of these faces and sometimes I dream of them. More than anything, I ponder how to share these stories—how I could possibly share a mosaic of glimpses into hundreds of lives and moments of connection which together form the memories of my time in Brazil.
For now, I have this writing, which is a first attempt at telling the Stories from Brazil.