Becoming Brazilians
Race and National Identity in Twentieth-Century Brazil
New Approaches to the Americas Series

This book traces the rise and decline of Gilberto Freyre's vision of racial and cultural mixture (mestiçagem - or race mixing) as the defining feature of Brazilian culture in the twentieth century. Eakin traces how mestiçagem moved from a conversation among a small group of intellectuals to become the dominant feature of Brazilian national identity, demonstrating how diverse Brazilians embraced mestiçagem, via popular music, film and television, literature, soccer, and protest movements. The Freyrean vision of the unity of Brazilians built on mestiçagem begins a gradual decline in the 1980s with the emergence of an identity politics stressing racial differences and multiculturalism. The book combines intellectual history, sociological and anthropological field work, political science, and cultural studies for a wide-ranging analysis of how Brazilians - across social classes - became Brazilians.

Introduction: creating a people and a nation; 1. From the 'Spectacle of Races' to 'Luso-Tropical Civilization'; 2. The sounds of Mestiçagem: radio, samba, and Carnaval; 3. Visualizing Mestiçagem: film, literature, and the Mulata; 4. 'Globo-lizing' Brazil: televising identity; 5. The beautiful game: performing the Freyrean vision; 6. The sounds of cultural citizenship; 7. Identity, culture, and citizenship; Epilogue: nation and identity in the twentieth century, and the twenty-first.

Marshall C. Eakin is Professor of History at Vanderbilt University, Tennessee. A specialist in modern Brazilian history, he is the author of four books including The History of Latin America: Collision of Cultures (2007). He co-edited Envisioning Brazil: A Guide to Brazilian Studies in the United States (2005), with Paulo Roberto de Almeida.