"Brasilidade", Gender, and Identity in the Novel "Samba Dreamers" by Kathleen de Azevedo (2006)

• In Event: Literature between Asia and Latin America

Abstract

My proposed paper analyzes how notions of "brasilidade", gender, and identity are constructed, performed, and problematized in "Samba Dreamers" (2006), a novel by Brazilian-American author Kathleen de Azevedo. Situated within the context of Brazilian diaspora in the United States, the novel explores the complexities of cultural representation and immigrant subjectivity through the lives of two central characters: Carmen Socorro, a first-generation Brazilian immigrant in the United States, and her daughter Rosea, born in the U.S. Drawing on theories of gender as performance (Butler, 1990), diasporic identity (Rushdie, 1992; Ribeiro, 1998), and Brazilian cultural representation in immigrant contexts (Beserra, 2005), this study examines how "brasilidade" becomes both a strategic performance and a burden for immigrants, especially for Brazilian women who are hyper-visible through exoticized imaginaries yet socially invisible. Carmen’s embodiment of a tropical and exuberant Brazil, based on real life Carmen Miranda’s iconography, is interrogated through her eventual physical and emotional collapse under the weight of this performance. Conversely, Rosea’s fragmented relationship with Brazil is shaped by her mother’s myths and silences, resulting in an insecure identity that is simultaneously bicultural and fractured. The novel’s setting in Hollywood furthers the metaphor of spectacle and fantasy and underscores the tension between authenticity and artificiality brought to light here. By focusing on the embodied experiences of two women across generations, this paper aims to reveal the gendered dimensions of diasporic belonging in an emerging distinctly Brazilian-American literary voice.

Author

• Caroline Fernandes, University of Brasília