I wrote this for Modern Latin American class about a reading we had in our book. Do people think his claims of the Portuguese being of mixed race is true?
Gilberto Freyre writes of the Portuguese having a long history of miscegenation. He claims that their experience in tropical regions of Africa and India as well as interbreeding with the local women makes it easy for them to do so in Brazil as well. He also claims that the people of Portugal are of mixed race. He writes that they have black African and Moorish Muslim influence in their gene pool.
Freyre’s idea of miscegenation fuels the prevalent attitude at the time of nationalism as opposed to the pro-European views of neocolonialism. He sees Brazil as a nice racial melting pot of Portuguese, Amerindians, Mestizos, blacks, and Mulattoes rather than be proud of the rich Portuguese traditions of the mother country.
Topic: Portuguese Miscegenation (Read 951 times)