There are a lot of Brazilians living in London. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in 2006 there was 25 thousands Brazilians in the British capital. For the ones who are in fact here, however, the official numbers are not convincing. With no effort – and at times preferring not have heard – the Brazilian Portuguese is easily found all over the city in the most common public spaces such as tubes, buses, corners and parks. The Brazilian Consulate in London, curiously, has no official statistic on the exact amount of Brazilian citizens living in the city or even in Britain. It is nevertheless on the number of seats occupied by the compatriots in the evangelic church temples spread over the UK that the Itamaraty bases its estimative. Thus, there are, likely an approximately, 100 thousand Brazilians in the country and at least half of those are in London.
Why have you left a country with such lovely weather to be living here? This is the question that many natives - unreconciled with their own weather - ask when they find out you have abandoned the “tropical paradise” to be in the constantly grey London drizzling. For a short period or indefinitely staying for working, studies, adventures or even simple pleasure would be the generic categories where the different types of stories fit in. Each of them has tastes, wills, wishes, fears and plans that vary so intensly and obviously as it does in any other person. But their cultural identity is crosscut by values that only the immigration experience produce. Here, they are not only Brazilians. They are Brazilians living in London.
Fortnightly, Deiticos will publish a quick interview with one of these names. The questions are set upon the Starters section of the Weekend magazine, Saturday supplement of The Guardian. The answers are unique and human, too human.
No comments:
Post a Comment