Even those who have never visited Brazil know it is a country of contrasts – the stark green of rainforest with the shining blue of the sea, the sprawling hillside communities with luxury high-rises. Still, nothing really prepares you for seeing the reality of life in a place with extreme inequality. Before going into the content of this blog, I want to assure all readers that the country is safe for exchange students, has a beautiful and welcoming population, and is greatly misunderstood. I think Texas A&M should expand its partnership with FGV and attempt to garner more interest for exchanges in this wonderful country and city (Rio de Janeiro).
Now, having prefaced this, I want to highlight a tragic event that unfolded in Rio during my exchange. 135 people were killed in a police raid on a hillside community, many being decapitated and dismembered. Regardless of your opinion how governments should respond to organized crime, it is a horrific incident that was hardly mentioned in the American press. In the subsequent days after the police raid, organized crime groups shut down all public transit in Rio, setting fire to buses and closing metro lines. The raid occurred in the north zone of the city, but even the exchange students of my university had jarring changes to our daily routine.
Our classes were canceled, streets and businesses were empty, and public transit was paralyzed. On a deeper level, the psyche of the city was dealt a huge blow. Working class residents of the north zone live in terror of friendly fire in police raids and must risk safety every day just to arrive to their jobs. In a sense, they are punished for being poor with the constant police intervention into their neighborhoods (which are not even controlled by the government, rather by organized crime). In the days after the raid, the governor of Rio promised more large raids were to come, and assured that the same disregard to human lives would be taken. The city lives under terror of organized crime’s retaliation as well as police brutality.
Now, why am I sharing all of these gloomy and depressing realities? After all, the other exchange students and I were barely affected, living in the bubble of the wealthy south zone of the city. The closures of transit and our university just served as an inconvenience to us, but to others was a matter of life and death. Well, given that the purpose of these blogs is to convey how our exchange impacted us, I think it is important to share these events. I feel an immense gratitude that this is not the reality of Texas or the U.S, and I feel great sorrow for the people of Rio who are at the mercy of politicians and organized crime groups.
I have been thinking about this raid as just a single example of a larger phenomenon. Disarray and chaos in Latin America has driven millions of people seeking a better life towards the U.S, what was once meant to be the “shining city on a hill.” And how would a person fleeing this particular police raid in Rio be received in the United States today? Instead of open arms and empathy, they are received with ignorance, xenophobia, and a pair of handcuffs in an ICE detention center.
To try and summarize my point, being here this semester in Brazil has made me far more informed on the realities and inequality in Latin America. It has made me understand precisely why people will risk everything to seek a better life in the States. It has made me grateful to be an American, all while making me more empathetic to those who are not. It has made me more motivated to be a better citizen when I return, speaking up for the principles that America aspires towards. Lastly, it has driven me to be more informed about the world, because I know Brazil is only a microcosm of the insecurity and inequality that countries worldwide are facing. This blog post is not meant to be an ideological essay, but rather a call to action for other Americans – go explore the world to understand the privileges we enjoy, and speak up to defend the ideals that brought America its privileges in the first place.