Multi-ethnic Brazilians defy easy categorization

“Brazil — where Portuguese is spoken and the population is an intensely mixed blend of African, European, and indigenous peoples — defies many of the common assumptions about Spanish-speaking Latin America. When Brazilians arrive in the United States, they often find themselves in a racial and cultural limbo in a country that loves to categorize.

Here, job applications, school forms, and government questionnaires offer options that rarely fit Brazilians easily, when they’re asked to mark black, white or Hispanic.

Their limbo can have practical consequences.”

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