Racial Exclusion and Brazilian Culture in the Vargas Regime (1930-45)

• In Event: Public Discrimination

Abstract

From 1930-1945, the Brazilian state promoted the cultivation of a strong national identity, paying special attention to cultural production in its attempts to do so. The ways in which the nation was represented through culture became a top concern for authorities, and they made concerted efforts to carefully craft this image, racially and otherwise. Using such examples as musical performances on Brazilian soil, Hollywood films, and official publications, this paper examines the Vargas regime's attempts to control and manipulate Brazil's racial image abroad. The paper will focus on a significant tension evident in these examples: The state's policies and practices of cultural racial exclusion/discrimination, and its simultaneous inclination to portray the nation as a racial democracy.

Author

• Jessica Graham, University of California, San Diego