German Memoirs - Brazilian - Italians in Southern Brazil

Most of the German-Brazilians reside in Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Parana, the southernmost states of Brazil. You will find around 10 million Brazilians who've German ancestry by some estimates. The proportions become higher in certain cities, as an example, in the village of Pomerode, in Santa Catarina, 90% of-the population are Brazilians of German descent, and the main local language is Pomeranian vernacular. It's considered the absolute most German town in Brazil and the Germans you will find the people in Brazil.The state Santa Catarina has been the lowest levels of unemployment and illiteracy within the united states and still preserve a powerful effect of German culture. Even after three or four years, the Germans there nonetheless consider themselves as Germans.Many villages insouthern point clothing Brazil, such as Sao Leopoldo, Novo Hamburgo, Nova Petropolis, Sao Bento do Sul, Blumenau, Joinville, Santa Isabel, Gramado, Canela, Santa Cruz do Sul, Estancia Velha, Ivoti, Dois Irmaos, Morro Reuter, Santa Maria do Herval, Presidente Lucena, Picada Cafe, Santo Angelo, Teutonia and Brusque have a majority of Germans originated people.The contemporary German culture and way of living in Southern Brazil was well expressed by a scholar Faith Dennis in an article at SPIEGEL INTERNATIONAL in 2005.."..Once again my judgments based on cliches proved me improper and I was in for a surprise, when after a 12-hour coach trip, I arrived in Santa Catarina, the second-most southern state of Brazil.Although I was due to attend the University of Santa Catarina in the state capital, Florianopolis, I had established 14 days of voluntary function at a nursery school in-the town of Blumenau, a three hours away inland. I had gathered that there might be a minor Germanic sense to the area, due to the existence of descendants of German emigrants who had settled there in the 19th century, but was stunned at precisely how this Brazil differed from the images I'd had in my head previously.The bus wound around stoned streets flanked by those Fachwerk Tudor houses I had likely to see in Berlin, with immaculate landscapes cordoned off by white picket fences and nicely mown lawns.My host family was waiting at the bus station and approached me in the normal Brazilian approach with warm hugs and a lot of kisses. Their appearance, but, was not even close to the typical Latino picture, in place of being olive skinned and petite; these were tall, strapping and crazy, blue-eyed and an average of German looking. Much to my surprise one of the younger children, Heinrich (distinct 'Einricki' in Brazilian Portuguese), was even wearing pants that looked suspiciously like Lederhosen, as he had just come from a party exercise in the city hall.On the-way home in the car, (a Volkswagen I note), the children talked impatiently to me in Portuguese and upon discovering I had just arrived from Germany, were eager to flaunt their language skills and proceeded to speak to me in German. For an instant I thought that my six months in Berlin hadn't paid off; I couldn't understand a word-of what was being mentioned, until I noticed that the German being spoken was actually Hunsruckisch.This is really a German linguistic variety that's survived in Southern Brazil as a result of influx of immigrants from the Hunsruck place of Germany in-the 19th century and still maintains ancient linguistic aspects, together with powerful influences from Brazilian Portuguese. I had read articles in a newspaper about this variety, however was unaware of how prevalent it remains in modern Brazil, despite being repressed during the Estado Novo, 1930-1954, when President Vargas made Portuguese the national language to create his 'homogeneous' Brazil.Living with the Muller-Oliveira family was a opening introduction to Luso-Teutonic culture, we frequently went 'ufs Fescht', to events which consisted of traditional street dancing under the hot Brazilian sun, followed by the peculiar cheeky 'caneca-chen' (caneca being a glass of beer in Portuguese, somehow made into an innocent treat by the addition of the German diminutive ending chen), and eventually, big parts of Sauerkraut supported by Linguica, the Brazilian version of Wurst.The proven fact that I had encountered this so called German specialty 10,000 miles away from its country of origin got me thinking about cliches, and how important it's to not base our judgments of entire cultures upon them.Several vacationers I later achieved in Rio and the North East of Brazil, condemned the South as not being deserving of a, as it couldn't be classified as the 'true' Brazil - a ridiculous claim as, since its first discovery by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, Brazil has always been a pot of different cultures.On the foundation of this claim, Berlin could never be the 'true' Germany, as a part of its populace is Turkish in origin, a and narrow-minded assumption.My year overseas taught me a of different things; the main lesson wasn't to create opinions of people depending on outdated and misguided cliches, as these can just only create walls in our minds and stop us from diving into and therefore enjoying the wealth cultures have to offer."