Embarrassing Things That Make Me Cry #4

Brazil Next?

In light of Argentina’s decision to endorse marriage equality with public support over 70%, I’ve been thinking a lot about the future of South America.

Although I earned a minor in Latin American Studies, I haven’t kept up much on the politics. That said, I came across a video that got me thinking about my mission. I had never thought about it in terms of sexuality, but Brazil is truly the most beautifully diverse place I’ve ever known.

If there’s one thing you need to know about Brazil is that it has a tri-racial culture. In overly simple terms, it is the embodiment of three continents in one—the European settlers, the African slaves (easily outnumbering the slaves imported to what became the US), and the Native Americans.

Although racism does exist, the ideal of coexistence and coalescence of these three cultures over the course of 500 years has arguably been an ideal much longer than the melting pot idea in the US. Having lived in Brazil and Chile, I found that a major difference between the two cultures is the role of race.

Chilean natives Americans are almost treated as a subculture while Brazilians tend to recognize the natives cultures as a significant (and living) part of the past. I think this type of awareness makes the idea of homosexuality much more understandable as there is an innate sense of diversity and acceptance thereof built into the culture. I would argue that to a limited extent this is what drove the Argentine debate culminating in equality.

Seeing this video (which brought tears to my eyes having served an LDS mission in Brazil) and reading that the level of support in Brazil is at a similar level to that of Argentina on Queerty, lead me to believe that equality in my second homeland may be much closer than I’d thought.