Brazilian people

Ethnic group
|group=Brazilians
("Brasileiros")



poptime="c. " 186 million (2007)
regions = BRA nbsp|6 184 million [cite web| url=http://oglobo.globo.com/pais/mat/2007/12/21/327716442.asp| title=Censo 2007: somos 183.987.291 brasileiros, mostra IBGE| publisher=Globo.com| accessdate=2008-01-21 pt icon]
region1 = flagcountry|United States
pop1 = ~800,000
ref1 = cite web| url=http://lusotopia.no.sapo.pt/indexBREmigrantes.html| title=Emigração Brasileira| publisher=Lusotopia (Carlos Fontes)| accessdate=2008-01-21 pt icon]
region2 = flagcountry|Paraguay
pop2 = ~455,000
ref2 =
region3 = flagcountry|Japan
pop3 = 316,967
ref3 = [ [http://www.moj.go.jp/PRESS/080601-1.pdf 平成１９年末現在における外国人登録者統計について] ]
region4 = flagcountry|United Kingdom
pop4 = 200,000 - 300,000
ref4 = [ [http://www.untoldlondon.org.uk/news/ART40460.html Diversity news page ] ] [ [http://jonathanfryer.wordpress.com/2007/08/12/london-a-latin-american-city/ London, A Latin American City] ]
region5 = flagcountry|Portugal
pop5 = ~100,000
ref5 =
region6 = flagcountry|Italy
pop6 = ~67,000
ref6 =
region7 = flagcountry|Germany
pop7 = ~60,000
ref7 =
region8 = flagcountry|Spain
pop8 = ~50,000
ref8 =
region9 = flagcountry|Switzerland
pop9 = ~40,000
ref9 = cite web| url=http://www.swissinfo.org/por/capa/detail/Brasileiros_na_Su_a_buscam_melhor_organiza_o.html?siteSect=105&sid=7191661&cKey=1161789950000| title=Brasileiros na Suíça buscam melhor organização| publisher=Swissinfo.ch (Swiss Broadcasting Corporation)| accessdate=2008-01-21 pt icon]
region10 = flagcountry|Canada
pop10 = ~30,000
ref10 =
langs=Portuguese
indigenous languages
rels=Predominantly Roman Catholic; Protestantism
related-c=• Europeans • Africans • Amerindians • Japanese

Brazilians ("brasileiros" in Portuguese) are all people born in Brazil. A Brazilian can be also a person born abroad from a Brazilian parent or a foreigner living in Brazil who applied for the Brazilian citizenship.Constituição da República Federativa do Brasil, Artigo 12, I.] The vast majority of Brazilians live in Brazil, although there are significant Brazilian communities in Paraguay, the United States, Japan, and Europe.

Who is a Brazilian?

According to the Constitution of Brazil, a Brazilian citizen is:
* Anyone born in Brazil ("jus soli") and whose parents were not foreigners at the service of a foreign State;
* Anyone born abroad from a Brazilian parent ("jus sanguinis"), with registration of birth in a Brazilian Embassy or Consulate, and that went to live in Brazil;
* A foreigner living in Brazil who applied for and was accepted as a Brazilian citizen (naturalized Brazilian).

According to the Constitution, all people who hold a Brazilian citizenship are equal, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender or religion.

A foreigner can apply for Brazilian citizenship after living for 15 uninterrupted years in Brazil and being able to speak Portuguese. A native person from an official Portuguese language country (Portugal, Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe, Guinea Bissau and East Timor) can request the Brazilian nationality after 1 uninterrupted year living in Brazil. A foreign born person who holds a Brazilian citizenship has exactly the same rights and duties of the Brazilian citizen by birth ("jus soli" or "jus sanguinis"), but cannot occupy some special public positions such as the Presidency of the Republic, Vice-presidency of the Republic, Minister (Secretary) of Defense, Presidency (Speaker) of the Senate, Presidency (Speaker) of the House of Representatives.

Ethnic origin

Brazilians are mostly descendants of colonial and post-colonial Portuguese settlers and immigrants, African slaves and Brazil's indigenous peoples, along with several other groups of immigrants who arrived in Brazil mostly from the 1820s until the 1970s. Most of the immigrants were Italians and Portuguese, but also significant numbers of Germans, Spaniards, Japanese, and Lebanese and Syrian. [ [http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1234928 The Phylogeography of Brazilian Y-Chromosome Lineages ] ]

The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) classify the Brazilian population in five categories: "brancos" (white), "negros" (black), "pardos" (brown), "amarelos" (Asian/yellow) and "índios" (Amerindian), based on skin color or race. The last detailed census (PNAD) found Brazil to be made up of 93 million Whites, 80 million brown people, 11.7 million Blacks, and 1.3 million Asian or Amerindian.

In the 2005 detailed census, for the first time in two decades, the number of White Brazilians did not exceed 50% of the population. On the other side, the number of "pardos"(Brown) people increased and all the other remained almost the same. According to the IBGE, this trend is mainly because of the revaluation of the identity of historically discriminated ethnic groups.

The ethnic composition of Brazilians is not uniform across the country. Due to its large influx of European immigrants in the 19th century, the Southern Region has a large White majority, composing 80.8% of its population [ [http://www.genealogienetz.de/reg/WELT/brasil.html Genealogy: German migration to Brazil ] ] . The Northeastern Region, as a result of the large numbers of African slaves working in the sugar cane engenhos, has a majority of "pardos" and black peoples, respectively, 63.1% and 7.0% [ [http://www.iei.net/~pwagner/brazarticles/April2002.html Brazil and the African Slave Trade ] ] . Northern Brazil, largely covered by the Amazon Rainforest, is 71.5% "pardos", due to Amerindian miscigenation [ [http://www.socioambiental.org/pib/english/source/xi.shtm Sources :: Indigenous Peoples in Brazil - ISA ] ] . Southeast and Central-Western Brazil have a more balanced ratio among different racial groups.

External links

*pt icon [http://lusotopia.no.sapo.pt/indexBREmigrantes.html Lusotopia]

Footnotes

ee also

* Italian Brazilian
* Afro-Brazilian
* Arab Brazilian
* German Brazilian
* Japanese Brazilian
* Polish Brazilian
* Portuguese Brazilian
* Spanish Brazilian
* Carcamano