Culture and Education

Language is the most distinctive element of Brazilian nationality both in Brazil and in Canada. It is the factor that holds Brazil together and isolates it from its neighbours in the Americas. Language also links the Brazilian and Portuguese communities and separates them from the other Latin American groups in Canada. The considerable growth of the Brazilian community in Toronto since 1986 has resulted in a flourishing of cultural institutions and businesses catering to the new immigrants. These make up a more popular manifestation of Brazil than the activities of the elite in the past. Churches, restaurants, social fellowships, remittance establishments, and other organizations all show this more democratic orientation. There is little cultural affiliation with other Latin American groups, and links with the much larger Portuguese community are often economic and practical rather than cultural.

One of Brazil’s most effective and cultural exports has been music, and the community in Canada reflects this achievement. With its heritage deeply rooted in African and Portuguese religion, as well as influences from native and other sources, the country is musically one of the richest in the world. When Brazilian musicians visit Toronto, they are enthusiastically received by the local community. But Brazilian Canadians have also produced their own musical culture. A few well-known musicians, such as Satranga, have been in Canada for some years. Toronto has half a dozen fine professional and semi-professional bands including Banda Dá, Banda Lua, San Sebastian Band, and Banda Sur, and one or two of these have achieved international fame. Women singers make up a vital element in these bands, but instrumental music, especially percussion, is largely in the hands of men in Canada as it is in Brazil. The traditions are not followed exactly in modern Brazilian music, although strong ethnic elements remain and are reflected in modern performance. The Banda Dá has for some years been the driving force behind Toronto’s principal escola de samba, the Unidos do Canada, which performs annually at the Caribana festival. Another Brazilian group with a base in the Bahian Afro rhythm, Olodum, has also entered this event.

Three Portuguese-English newspapers have been established specifically to serve the Brazilian community in Toronto. In 1992 Leon Kaplan founded the Abacaxi Times, a monthly focused on the life and problems of Brazilians in Canada. The publication has succeeded in making the community aware of itself, even if the paper’s stand on some issues has been controversial. Emotions were sufficiently aroused by some issues that another paper was started, Hora H News (Toronto, 1993– ), which concentrates much more on news of the local community and avoids contentious issues. A third journal, Brazil News , was founded in 1997, as well as a business and trade magazine named the Brazilianist . In addition, a number of Brazilian print and video publications from the United States summarizing the Brazilian press are widely available in Toronto.

Education has been a key element in the development of the Brazilian community in Canada. Brazilians are concerned about their children’s schooling. Good public schools, which are hard to find in Brazil, have been a motive for immigration. At the same time, some have regretted the absence of Brazilian language and culture in the Canadian milieu. Since language is one of the key elements of Brazilian identity, Portuguese heritage-language programs in the schools, especially in Toronto, have been sought by Brazilian parents, even if it meant sending their children to school two extra hours a day. Aware of the cultural and linguistic differences between their society and that of Portugal, they have tried to ensure a degree of Brazilian content through literature and music. They have been helped by the fact that some of the teachers are themselves Brazilian.

At the advanced level, a number of educational links exist between the two countries; though limited in scope, they have deep roots. Canada is an increasingly popular place to study. The number of long- and short-term student visas more than doubled in the ten years after 1985, reaching an average of 627 a year; 44 percent of the students attend schools in Ontario. During the repression that followed the installation of the military regime in 1968, a number of distinguished Brazilian academics came to Toronto to teach and do research. The most important of these from the standpoint of the Brazilian community was the sociologist Floristan Fernandes, who was invited first as a visiting professor to the University of Toronto. He returned to Brazil at the time of the amnesty and was later elected to the federal Congress.