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Everybody knows
that this song is a big hit in Brazil,
but the question is: why the song
"Despacito" only started to be played
on the radio in Brazil in April if it
was released in January and it's
been a hit in other Latin-American countries
for quite same time now? And following this question comes
the one always asked:
are Brazilians Latinos?
Well, almost always, the issue begins
because the term "Latino" means
different things to different people.
In Brazil, it's very common
to hear people arguing that
Latinos are all those who speak
languages that come from Latin,
so in this case, in addition to
Latin-Americans, those who would also
be considered Latinos are: the Portuguese,
the Spaniards, the Italians, the French, the Romanians,
as well as the Ivory Coastians, the Angolans,
the Equatorians and many other
people in Africa and some in
Asia who also speak languages
that come from Latin.
The term "Latino" probably
had this linguistic meaning
originally, but we have to agree that today,
this definition includes such a
big and heterogenous group that it's difficult to see
a common identity among this group.
The second definition for the term
"Latino," which is the most used today, is
the one that refers to people of
Latin-America origin. So, geographically
speaking, it's clear that we are Latinos;
after all, we're from Latin America.
But what about culturally, politically,
economically and, especially
sentimentally speaking,
are Brazilians really Latinos?
A study done in 2015 by El Centro
de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE)
in Mexico showed that 79% of
the Brazilians interviewed identified themselves
as simply "Brazilians," while
13% identified themselves as "world
citizens" and only 4% identified themselves as
"Latin-Americans."
Among other Latin-American countries, the average of association with the
term "Latin-American" was 43%,
while in Brazil was only 4%.
I'll leave a link in the description to
an article that talks about this study
if you're interested in reading more about it.
Many Brazilians (at least many
Brazilians who live in Brazil) don't
see themselves as Latinos and the evidence
used by those who think that
Brazilians aren't Latinos is
related especially to
the Portuguese colonization of Brazil, to the
fact that we had a process of
Independence that was different from other
Latin-American countries and
especially to the fact that we
speak Portuguese, while most of the
other countries have Spanish as their language.
Another strong argument against the
categorization of Brazilians as
Latinos is the fact that culturally speaking,
Brazil has stronger ties with the United
States, or even Europe, than with
the rest of Latin America.
Going back to the song "Despacito,"
it's unusual to hear songs in Spanish
being played on the radio in Brazil.
It's even more unusual to see a song in
Spanish among the most played,
so Justin Bieber had to be in a remix of the song for it
to enter the Brazilian market.
Television, literature and movies in Spanish
are even less consumed by Brazilians.
The funny thing is that those who do
think that Brazilians are
Latinos use many of the same
arguments used by those who don't think so,
but the other way around. So people who
see the "Latinidad" of Brazilians admit
that the language is different, but not that
different since Brazilians
can understand what people are saying in Spanish
even without having ever studied Spanish.
Besides, they say that
our colonization was Portuguese,
but it was Iberic at the same time,
just like in the rest of Latin America and
also, Brazil was a colony of
exploitation, just like the other
countries in Latin America. In addition,
Brazil is mainly
Catholic, just like the other countries
in Latin America and we are located
in the same hemisphere and the same continent.
When it comes to culture,
many point out that several songs
that were big hits in Brazil
were Brazilian versions of songs
originally sung in Spanish and
vice versa.
♪ Los Perico singing Parate y Mira ♪
I'll leave some links
to these songs in the description of the video as well.
Politically and economically speaking,
Brazil and the other countries in Latin
America went through very similar
stages of development,
going through military
dictatorships around the same time,
and they face very similar
socio-economic and political problems
to this day, such as social
inequality, violence, corruption.
I've also found some blogs
of Brazilians living
abroad or who have lived abroad and who
identify themselves as Latinos and they mention
the culture of physical contact, warm
relationships and how easy it is for
Brazilians to make friends with
other Latinos around the world,
so I'll leave some links
for you to check out.
I'm here imagining if that study
about identity had been done with
Brazilians abroad, if the number of
Brazilians who identify as
Latin-Americans would be that low.
Maybe, maybe not.
But this reminded me of a
comment made by a Spaniard classmate of
mine. She said
that when she's in Spain, she
feels more Spaniard or Andalucian (because she's from Seville),
but when she leaves Europe,
she feels more European.
It's important to remember that one identity doesn't cancel
the other out, right? So she can be Spaniard,
she can be Andalucian and she can be European
at the same time, just like we can
be Brazilian and we can be Latino.
And also people from Québec, right?
People from Québec,
they are Canadians, but do they
stop being North-Americans because they
speak French?
And what do you think of
all of this? Those of you who are Brazilians,
do you consider yourselves Latinos? And those of you
from other Latin-American
countries, do you consider Brazilians Latinos?
Do you think that perhaps our
identities change a little when we
leave our countries?
I'd love to read your comments.
Thank you very much for watching this video and kisses! :)
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