Suchergebnisse

As in various parts of the Western Hemisphere, the indigenous population of eastern Brazil has increased rapidly in recent decades. Based on over fifty in‐depth interviews that I conducted with eastern Indians and the twelve months I spent living in their households and communities between 1994 and 1997, I discovered that much of this demographic phenomenon has been fueled by increasing numbers of individuals self‐identifying as Indian who had not always identified as such or their parents had not identified as Indian. A number of lay people and scholars have argued that this shift in the direction of racial formation has been driven by state induced material incentives. Yet my ethnographic data, which I detail in great depth in this article, suggests that in terms of the material factors responsible for Indian resurgence that the state's sticks have been a much more significant variable than the state's racializing carrots. In other words, I found that the fundamental change in state practices in eastern Brazil has been in the drastic reduction of the costs of being Indian. Thus I posit and demonstrate how one of the primary variables behind this demographic shift has been the reduction of state led and sanctioned anti‐Indian violence in eastern Brazil.

We Hispanics are, finally, like other immigrant groups… Yes, the Hispanics are going to become more like the majority. Their families will be smaller, better educated, more traveled. Roots will be lost. Language will be lost. Food will be the last to go. We will be eating tacos and tortillas for a long time to come. (Cesar Chavez, cited in Morgan, 1985, pp. 79–80)The American Dream is at the expense of the American Negro. (James Baldwin, cited in Leeming, 1994)