I’ve always considered myself Brazilian. When someone, outside of Brazil, asks me: “where are you from?”, I always reply, I’m from Brazil, legit Brazilian…
I lived and grew up in São Paulo. Few outside Brazil have good idea of the size of this mega-city, the economic engine of Brazil, one of the largest in the world. Too few, even those who live in São Paulo, understand the diversity of its inhabitants. I myself, when I lived in São Paulo, knew of families of immigrants in the city, but never paid attion to it or had any idea of the amount of families that came from other countries. I thought we were all Brazilians.
Also I didn’t realize when I got married of my wife’s family. I knew she had Italian ancestors but that seemed very normal.
It turns out that my son, I don’t know exactly why, decided with enthusiasm, to look for the roots of our family. That’s when I found out that most of my family came from Europe more precisely, Italy Spain and Portugal, and that all of my wife’s family also came from Europe, Spain and Italy. Even more that both of our grandparents the father’s side came from opposite sides of the Spain.
See the chart below on our families:
Now I realize that my family and my wife’s family, far from being a unique situation is actually what’s going on with the majority of the São Paulo families.
I remember for example, that my best childhood friends also came from Europe, Italy, Portugal, Czech Republic and other countries. It should be remembered that São Paulo has the largest Japanese population outside of Brazil and also the largest population of Lebanese outside of Lebanon.
In other words, a city built by people who came from far away.
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