German Memoirs - Brazilian - Germans in Southern Brazil

Most of the German-Brazilians live in Rio Grande dowearing trousers that looked suspiciously like
Sul, Santa Catarina and Parana, the southernmostLederhosen, as he had just come from a dance
states of Brazil. There are around 10 million Brazilianspractice in the town hall.
who have German ancestry by some estimates. TheOn the way home in the car, (a Volkswagen I note),
percentages become higher in some cities, forthe children chatted excitedly to me in Portuguese and
example, in the town of Pomerode, in Santa Catarina,upon discovering I had just arrived from Germany,
90% of the population are Brazilians of Germanwere eager to show off their language skills and
descent, and the main local language is Pomeranianproceeded to talk to me in German. For a moment I
dialect. It is considered the most German city in Brazilthought that my six months in Berlin had not paid off; I
and the Germans there are the richest people in Brazil.could not understand a word of what was being said,
The state Santa Catarina is with the lowest levels ofuntil I realized that the German being spoken was
unemployment and illiteracy found in the country andactually Hunsruckisch.
still retain a strong influence of German culture. EvenThis is a German linguistic variety that has survived in
after three or four generations, the Germans there stillSouthern Brazil due to the influx of immigrants from
consider themselves as Germans.the Hunsruck region of Germany in the 19th century
Many towns in Southern Brazil, such as Sao Leopoldo,and still retains antiquated linguistic elements, along with
Novo Hamburgo, Nova Petropolis, Sao Bento do Sul,strong influences from Brazilian Portuguese. I had read
Blumenau, Joinville, Santa Isabel, Gramado, Canela,an article in a journal about this variety, however was
Santa Cruz do Sul, Estancia Velha, Ivoti, Dois Irmaos,unaware of how widespread it remains in modern
Morro Reuter, Santa Maria do Herval, PresidenteBrazil, despite being repressed during the Estado Novo,
Lucena, Picada Cafe, Santo Angelo, Teutonia and1930-1954, when President Vargas made Portuguese
Brusque have a majority of Germans descendedthe national language to create his 'homogeneous'
people.Brazil.
The modern German culture and way of living inLiving with the Muller-Oliveira family was a eye opening
Southern Brazil was well expressed by aintroduction to Luso-Teutonic culture, we regularly went
German-Portuguese student Faith Dennis in an article'ufs Fescht', to parties which consisted of traditional
at SPIEGEL INTERNATIONAL in 2005.street dancing under the hot Brazilian sun, followed by
"...Once again my judgments based on cliches provedthe odd cheeky 'caneca-chen' (caneca being a large
me wrong and I was in for a surprise, when after aglass of beer in Portuguese, somehow made into an
12-hour bus journey, I arrived in Santa Catarina, theinnocent treat by the addition of the German diminutive
second most southern state of Brazil.ending chen), and finally, huge portions of Sauerkraut
Although I was due to go to the University of Santaaccompanied by Linguica, the Brazilian version of
Catarina in the state capital, Florianopolis, I hadWurst.
arranged 2 weeks of voluntary work at a nurseryThe fact that I had encountered this so called German
school in the town of Blumenau, a town three hoursspecialty 10,000 miles away from its country of origin
away inland. I had gathered that there may be a slightgot me thinking about cliches, and how important it is to
Germanic feel to the place, due to the presence ofnot base our judgments of entire cultures upon them.
descendants of German emigrants who had settledSeveral travelers I later met in Rio and the North East
there in the 19th century, but was shocked at just howof Brazil, condemned the South as not being worthy of
this Brazil differed from the images I had had in mya visit, as it could not be classed as the 'real' Brazil - a
mind previously.ridiculous claim as, since its first discovery by the
The bus wound around cobbled streets flanked byPortuguese in the sixteenth century, Brazil has always
those Fachwerk Tudor houses I had expected to seebeen a melting pot of different cultures.
in Berlin, with immaculate gardens cordoned off byOn the basis of this claim, Berlin could never be the
white picket fences and neatly mown lawns.'true' Germany, as a large part of its population is
My host family was waiting at the bus station andTurkish in origin, a dangerous and narrow-minded
greeted me in the usual Brazilian manner with warmassumption.
hugs and lots of kisses. Their appearance, however,My year abroad taught me a lot of different things; the
was far from the typical Latino image, instead of beingmain lesson was not to create opinions of people
olive skinned and petite; they were blonde, blue eyedbased on outdated and unfounded cliches, as these
and tall, strapping and typically German looking. Much tocan only create walls in our minds and stop us from
my surprise one of the younger children, Heinrichdelving into and thus enjoying the richness and
(pronounced 'Einricki' in Brazilian Portuguese), was evendifferences foreign cultures have to offer.