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 New data released by the Brazilian government put the number of Brazilians living overseas at between 2.3 and 3 Million. Half of these emigrants have chosen the United States as their temporary or more often as their permanent new land.
Formally, Brazil has 1.8 million emigrants. But this number includes only those Brazilians who took the pain to tell the Brazilian consulates of the countries they moved to about their new address.
Brazilian government's estimates use data from foreign countries and consular services such as power of attorney, certificates and affidavits rendered to Brazilians overseas.
The official estimate is that the Brazilian community in American soil has reached 1.3 million, including legal and illegal emigrants. After the USA, the main concentrations of Brazilians are in Paraguay, Japan and Portugal.
This information was presented May 12 by Manoel Gomes Pereira, the director of the Foreign Ministry's Department of Brazilian Communities Abroad, during a briefing of the Senate's Foreign Relations and National Defense Committee. The senators were discussing Brazilian emigration.
From 1996 to 2003, there was an average of 16 thousand new Brazilians entering the United States every year. That means 44 new Brazilians every day, including weekends and holidays. By 1996 the U.S. had less than 600 thousand Brazilians. Seven years later, this number had jumped to 720 thousand.
Illegal Brazilian immigrants have been frequently in the news in recent months due to the record number of those detained by the U.S. immigration police while trying to cross the Mexican border.
While 80% of all those arrested by the U.S. Border Patrol are Mexicans, the number of Brazilians is rising fast. Brazilians are already number 4, after Mexicans, Hondurans and Salvadorans.
Numbers from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Washington D.C., show a considerable growth in the number of illegal Brazilians arrested along Mexico's board. Those detained grew from 3,105 for the whole year of 2001 to 17,445 for just the first four months of 2005.
This sudden jump is worrying authorities in the U.S. and Brazil. So much so that the U.S. Customs and officials from the Brazilian government have joined forces to study the matter.
According to Pereira, Brazil's Foreign Ministry official, the economic crises starting at the beginning of the 1980s were the main reason for Brazilians' exodus.
In spite of revealing underestimated numbers, the 2000 U.S. Census had already shown a jump in the number of Brazilians living in the United States.
According to the American Census, in 1980, there were 47,965 Brazilians in US territory. This number had risen to 247,020, 20 years later.
Dreaming of America
Brazilian sociologist Ana Cristina Braga Martes, of São Paulo's Getúlio Vargas Foundation, has been studying Brazilians' emigration to the United States for more than ten years.
In 1994 she went to Boston for her first research on the subject that would be her thesis. She repeated the same study seven years later and now intends to interview those Brazilians who after living in the US decided to go back to Brazil.
Martes was just interviewed by weekly magazine Isto É (cover date: June 1st, 2005)about her work and drew a profile of the typical Brazilian who emigrates to the United States:
"In 1994, when I arrived in Boston to do my first research, there was a myth that the Brazilian immigrant was man, young, alone and from the city of Governador Valadares, in the state of Minas Gerais. It is possible that at the beginning the profile was like that. But the research showed another scenario: men and women, single and married in the same proportion.
"The majority, 90%, were between 21 and 45 years old. Regarding the origin in Brazil, 47% came from the state of Minas Gerais, 15% from Rio, 12% from São Paulo, 10% from Espírito Santo and 8% from other states. It is a national phenomenon, not limited to Minas.
"The educational profile is the following: people who did not manage to finish college. They entered college, they did not finish it though or they graduated from a school that is not valued by the labor market. Those who do not have much expectations here in Brazil end up going away.
"They are people with a reasonable level of information and with much determination, willing to take risks. Imagine a person who can't say a word in English and who decides to live in the U.S! He all but becomes a child again, he can't speak, can't read, can't make himself understood in the street. You need to have lots of courage."
And what are Brazilians doing in America? "They do not work under a contract, don't have formal benefits, and are poorly paid. They have jobs that the native population mostly does not value. They work as waiter assistants, pizza deliverers, shoeshiners,
maids, in the civil construction. Some enter a life of prostitution."
The sociologist revealed that she made a disturbing discovery: even Brazilians who are illegally in the U.S., without documents, feel that their rights as a citizen are more respected in the U.S. than in Brazil. Her conclusion: because of this more and more Brazilian are willing to try everything to realize their American dream.
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Also, note that he is almost illiterate and barely able to write in English. He is clearly making fun of all of us here.
Since that, I have tried to legalize this marriage in Brazil. However, I just find a hard time. My wife tried to register this marriage in the Brazilian Consular Service in Indonesia when she was living there but they did not accept because I was not in Indonesia.
In these last years, I went many times at Brazilian General Consulate in Toronto, Canada and always heard half explanations about the procedure for legalization of such documents. We went in a notary office in Toronto and we did a document with recognize signature stating that our marriage is in partial goods share to satisfy the Brazilian law. All these documents were brought to the Brazilian General Consulate in Toronto and we paid a fee of $ 72.00 dollars for such documents being recognized to be original.
We sent such papers to Brazilian Embassy in Jakarta. Although, so far we met a bad willing from the Brazilian Diplomacy Service in recognize the documents. I changed various e-mails with Ms. Ingrid about such documents. Ms. Ingrid through of her e-mails told me that the staff Ms. Jenny was responsible for such documentation.
In February 11, 2005 my sister in law went from Surabaya to Jacarta and visits the Brazilian Embassy with purpose to pay the fees and make the burocratic service in Indonesia Institutions.
To make things more easy, in this day, I called Ms Jenny, and she did not knew where was the file and told me that such procedure was only with Ms. Ingrid that was absent from the work.
Then, I called twice the embassy in Jakarta to speak with Mr. Jose Auri in the same morning and I asked him politely if he could give these documents to my sister in law.
So, he decided to give the papers to her and ask her to go to Surabaya to recognize the signature of the Justice Official that did the marriage.
It is very hard to believe in what is happening. I went to Indonesia; I was treated as a King. I respected the laws from that Country. I married conform the laws and traditions of Indonesia and now the Consular Service of my Country is making so difficult to recognize and register my marriage. Why? Discrimination? Envy?
My wife has an accounting degree from Airlangga University in Surabaya, she worked for more than 8 years at Ernest & Young and she was a senior audit when I met her. She came to Canada and recently ends a program in accounting at Seneca College with honours. She works from Monday to Sunday in two part time jobs and goes to College at night. I believe that any Country wants to recognize our marriage. The Canadian government never did a question about our marriage. Why Brazil makes so hard to recognize such documents?
Brazil should have good diplomatic body in any country. If the person is not fit for such service should be sent away and not sent to work in poor countries.
By Brazilian law, even being married, if I have sexual intercourse with a prostitute, and if she can prove it, she has the same civil rights than my wife. Now, why my wife in which a married inside a mosque does not have the same rights? Is it because she is Muslim? Or because she has another ethnic background?
I demand an explanation; I am fed up with this story. My sister in law wants to wait a new diplomatic body start to work in Jakarta to proceed with such documentation.
I feel ashamed from such service as Brazilian citizen.
BRAZIL NEEDS PEOPLE LIKE ME. I CAN STAY FOREVER OUT OF BRAZIL.I DO NOT KNOW WHY THE BRAZILIAN GOVERNMENT SPEND MONEY WITH INSTITUTO RIO BRANCO, I DO NOT SEE THE BRAZILIAN CONSULAR SERVICE DOING A GOOD JOB. THEY SHOULD BE TRAINED TO TREAT BETTER THE BRAZILIAN CITIZENS LIVING ABROAD. IF YOU HAVE A JOB, YOU MUST DO YOUR JOB AND NOT MAKE THE LIFE OF OTHERS DIFFICULT.
• Pharmaceutical R&D Technology Post Diploma 2003 - 2004
Toronto Institute of Pharmaceutical Technology – Canada
• Industrial Pharmaceutical Technology Post Diploma 2001 - 2002
Faculty of Technology, Seneca College, Toronto
• Chemical Technology Diploma 1998 - 2001
Faculty of Technology, Seneca College, Toronto
• PhD in Science, Biochemistry Program 1988 - 1993
Centre Polytechnique, Parana University, Brazil
• B.S. in Pharmacy 1983 - 1986
University of Santa Catarina, Brazil.