Bosnian Americans Culture

O VERVIEW

Bosnia-Herzegovina, located on the Balkan peninsula in Eastern Europe, is a republic of the former Yugoslavia. The northern portion, Bosnia, is mountainous and wooded, while Herzegovina, to the south, is primarily flatland. The republic has a land area of 19,741 square miles (51,129 square kilometers) and a population of 2.6 million, down from 4.3 million before the war of the 1990s. Bosnia's capital is Sarajevo, the site of the 1984 Winter Olympics. Mostar is the capital of Herzegovina. Almost 95 percent of the population speaks Bosnian, also called Serbo-Croatian. Bosnians descended from Slavic settlers who came to the area in the early Middle Ages. The population includes Catholic Bosnian Croats (17 percent); Eastern Orthodox Bosnian Serbs (31 percent); and Bosnian Muslims (44 percent), whose ancestors converted from Christianity centuries ago. Some historians have pointed out that the residents of Bosnia are ethnically much the same and have chosen to identify as Croats or Serbs primarily for religious and political reasons.

From 1992 until 1995, Bosnian Serbs waged a war against non-Serbs. The war ended with the Dayton Peace Accord, which recognizes Bosnia-Herzegovina as a single state that is partitioned, with a Muslim-Croat federation given 51 percent of the area and a Serbian republic given 49 percent. The Bosnia-Herzegovina flag, adopted February 4, 1998, has a blue background with a yellow inverted triangle in the center. To the left of the triangle is a row of white stars in a line from the top edge to the bottom edge of the flag.

HISTORY

In the first few centuries A.D., the Roman Empire held Bosnia. After the empire disintegrated, various powers sought control of the land. Slavs were living in Bosnia by the seventh century, and by the tenth century they had an independent state. In the ninth century, the two kingdoms of Serbia and Croatia were established.

Bosnia briefly lost its independence to Hungary in the twelfth century, but regained it around 1180. It prospered and expanded under three especially powerful rulers: Ban Kulin, who reigned from 1180 to 1204; Ban Stephen Kotromanic, who ruled from 1322 to 1353; and King Stephen Tvrtko, who reigned from 1353 to 1391. After Tvrtko's death, internal struggles weakened the nation. The neighboring Ottoman Turks were becoming increasingly aggressive, and they conquered Bosnia in 1463. For more than 400 years, Bosnia was an important province of the Ottoman Empire. Islam was the official religion, though non-Muslim faiths were allowed. Indeed, in the Ottoman era many Jews came from Spain, where they faced persecution or death at the hands of the Catholic Inquisition, to find a tolerant home in Bosnia.

By the nineteenth century, however, many Bosnians were dissatisfied with Ottoman rule. Clashes between peasants and landowners were frequent, and there was tension between Christians and Muslims. Foreign powers became interested in the region. At the Congress of Berlin in 1878, following the end of the Russo-Turkish War (1877–78), Austria-Hungary took over the administration of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Many Bosnian Muslims, who thought the new rulers favored Serbian interests, emigrated to Turkey and other parts of the Ottoman Empire. The Austro-Hungarian government formally annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908. Nationalists in Serbia, who had hoped to make Bosnia-Herzegovina part of a great Serb nation, were outraged. In 1914, a Serb nationalist assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne in Sarajevo, thrusting the nations into World War I from 1914 to 1918. At the end of the war came the creation of the South Slav state, which together with Serbia became the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Bosnia's Muslim Slavs were urged to register themselves as Serbs or Croats. Nazi Germany, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, invaded Yugoslavia in 1941. The Nazis set up a puppet Croatian state, incorporating all of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but persecuted and killed Serbs, Gypsies, and Jews, as well as Croats who opposed the regime. Yugoslav communist Josip Broz Tito led a multi-ethnic force against Germany, and at the end of World War II, he became premier of Yugoslavia. Under Tito's rule, Yugoslavia was a one-party dictatorship that restricted religious practice for 35 years.

MODERN ERA

After Tito's death in 1980, the presidents of the six republics and two autonomous regions ruled Yugoslavia by committee. The country suffered economic problems in the 1980s, and the decade was also marked by a rise in nationalism among its component republics. The Muslim-led government of Bosnia and Herzegovina declared its independence from Yugoslavia in March 1992. The following month, the United States and the European community recognized the sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Interethnic fighting began as the Yugoslav National Army, under the leadership of Slobodan Milosevic, attacked Sarajevo. Milosevic, the leader of Serbia, sought to unite all Serbian lands and to purge the regions of non-Serb populations. Serbs, Croats, and Muslims fought to expand or keep their territories within Bosnia. By mid-1995, most of the country was in the hands of Bosnian Serbs who were accused of conducting "ethnic cleansing"—the systematic killing or expulsion of other ethnic groups. At the time the Dayton peace agreement was signed in December 1995, more than one million Bosnians remained displaced within the borders of the republic. At least one million more were living as refugees in 25 other countries, primarily in the neighboring republics of former Yugoslavia but also throughout Western Europe.

At the end of the twentieth century, the United Nations maintained a peacekeeping operation and arbitrates disputes in Bosnia. Since June 1995, the areas of control have changed frequently. The Muslim/Croat Federation reclaimed large amounts of territory in western Bosnia. In addition, Bosnian Serb forces took military control of two U.N. safe areas, Zepa and Srebrenica. In March of 1999, an international arbitration panel ruled that a 30-square-mile part of northern Bosnia around the town of Brcko would be a neutral community under international supervision, rather than a part of the Bosnian Serb Republic. Under authority of the Dayton agreement, the panel also dismissed Bosnian Serb President Nikola Poplasen, who resigned immediately.

Many Bosnian Americans were refugees who were forced to leave their war-torn country and rebuild their lives in America.

THE FIRST BOSNIANS IN AMERICA

The first Serb immigrants came in the first half of the nineteenth century and helped settle the American West. Many were young men from the Dalmatian coast, where they had worked as sailors or fishermen. Once in the United States, many of them worked in fishing or shipping in cities such as San Francisco, New Orleans, and Galveston, Texas, where they worked in the fishing and shipping industries. Most of them married outside of their ethnic group. Accurate immigration figures for Bosnians are impossible to obtain. Until 1918 the U.S. Immigration Service counted Croatians from Dalmatia, Bosnia, and Herzegovina separately from other Croatians, who were classified as Slovenians. After 1918 Croatians were listed as Yugoslavs. Prior to 1993, data for immigration from Bosnia-Herzegovina was not available separately from Yugoslavia.

SIGNIFICANT IMMIGRATION WAVES

There were six waves of Serbian/Croatian immigration. The earliest occurred from 1820 to 1880. The largest wave of Yugoslav immigrants took place from 1880 to 1914, when approximately 100,000 Serbs arrived in the United States. Most were unskilled laborers who fled the Austro-Hungarian policies of forced assimilation. Croatian and Serbian immigrants were largely young, impoverished peasant men. In the United States they settled in the major industrial cities of the East and Midwest, working long hours at low-paying jobs.

The third wave happened between World War I and World War II. From 1921 to 1930, 49,064 immigrants arrived. These interwar years were times of Serbian nationalist fervor. The Yugoslav regime became increasingly dictatorial, ruling provinces through military governors. Immigrants sought freedom from ethnic oppression by coming to the United States. The number of immigrants dropped to 5,835 in the decade from 1931 to 1941, and then decreased to 1,576 during World War II when Germany controlled Yugoslavia. Immigration was further reduced during the postwar years when the Communist Party under Tito took over the country. The fourth wave was made up of displaced persons and war refugees from 1945 until 1965.

The fifth major surge began in the sixties, when 20,381 Yugoslavians immigrated, a surge that continued into the next decade with 30,540 more immigrants. During the years of Tito's rule, Yugoslavia received economic and diplomatic support from the United States. In the 1970s, the U.S. Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, went as far as to say that the United States would risk nuclear war on Yugoslavia's behalf. From 1981 to 1990, 19,200 Yugoslavians immigrated to the United States. These Croatian and Serbian immigrants were intellectuals, artists and professionals who adapted easily to life in the United States.

The sixth wave came as a response to disintegrating political stability after Bosnia declared its independence from Yugoslavia in 1992. These immigrants have primarily been Muslim, pushed out by Serbs fighting to create a Serb-only region. From 1991 to 1994, 11,500 immigrated. The number fell to 8,300 in 1995, then rose to 11,900 in 1996. In 1994, with the U.S. Census records listing Bosnians as a separate category, 337 refugees were granted permanent residence. There were an additional 3,818 refugees in 1995 and 6,246 in 1996. In 1996, 19,242 Bosnians filed for refugee status. Of these, 14,654 were eventually approved, and 1,939 were denied. Bosnian refugees settled into communities all over the United States. Most received help from charitable organizations, as well as aid from the immigrants who preceded them. In 1998, 88 Bosnians and Herzegovinans were winners of the DV-99 diversity lottery. The diversity lottery is conducted under the terms of Section 203(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act and makes available 50,000 permanent resident visas annually to persons from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States.

SETTLEMENT PATTERNS

Most Bosnian immigrants have settled quickly into long-established ethnic enclaves. Bosnian Serbs tend to settle with other Serbs and Bosnian Croats in local Croatian communities. Until the war in the 1990s, Bosnian Muslim immigrants had been so few in number that there was no Bosnian Muslim community into which they could integrate. They concentrated in urban areas, some of which now have significant Bosnian Muslim populations. In the Astoria section of New York City, for instance, Bosnian Muslims built a mosque that was dedicated in 1997.

Of the 258,000 Americans of Yugoslavian ancestry living in the United States in 1990, 37 percent lived in the West, 23 percent lived in the Northeast, 28 percent lived in the Midwest, and only 12 percent lived in the South. Cities with large Yugoslavian American populations included Chicago, New York, Newark, Detroit, St. Louis, Des Moines, Atlanta, Houston, Miami, and Jacksonville, Florida. According to the 1990 census, the highest concentration of Serbs, Croats, and Bosnian Muslims is in a neighborhood near 185th Street in eastern Cleveland.

Serbs and Croats have left their mark on many parts of the United States. Early Croatian immigrants prospered as merchants and fruit growers in California's Pajaro Valley. Croatians were among the first settlers of Reno, Nevada. New Orleans became a center of Croatian immigration in the early nineteenth century. The first Slavic ethnic society in the South was established in 1874 by a group of Croatians and Serbs.

Bosnian Americans who came as refugees after 1992 have settled in fast-growing enclaves in cities such as New York, St. Louis, St. Petersburg, Chicago, Salt Lake City and Waynesboro, Pennsylvania. In St. Louis, for example, the Bosnian population reached 8,000 in 1999; of these 7,000 are Muslims. In the early 1990s, there had been fewer than 1,000 Bosnians in St. Louis. In 1998, Bosnian immigrants arrived in St. Louis at a rate of 40 to 60 per week. About 5,000 Bosnians live in Salt Lake City, where an annual "Living Traditions Festival" includes Bosnian dance and music performances by the American Bosnian and Herzegovinian Association of Utah.

About 15,000 Bosnians live in the Queens borough of New York City. Most are refugees who were settled by religious or nonprofit groups. Bosnian American refugees are especially attracted to established ethnic communities because many refugees are separated from immediate family members. It often takes several years to reunite families, so the Bosnian community provides needed social support.

A CCULTURATION AND A SSIMILATION

Bosnian refugees face many challenges in the United States. They must start over, learning a new language, new customs, and new skills. One Bosnian American refugee described this adjustment to the St. Petersburg Times as "in some ways like being a blind man who wants to take care of himself but is powerless to do so." Since their immigration was not necessarily by choice, they often find the experience more overwhelming in comparison to immigrants who were eager to come here. Learning English is the first step that Bosnians take once they reach the United States, though many Bosnians speak several European languages. Established Bosnian communities offer services such as English-language classes, computer training classes, no-cost legal services, and instruction on understanding health insurance, buying a home, and managing other complicated aspects of American life. Established communities also usually provide a place for worship.

By 1999, more than one million Bosnia refugees remained in the United States even though the war ended in 1995. Many cannot return to Bosnia because of the boundaries of territories changed and their homes are in a divided country. Many are like Nijaz (pronounced nee-AHS) Hadzidedic (hah-jee-DED-ich), a Muslim Bosnian living in Memphis, Tennessee. Hadzidedic, a Bosnian journalist who was shot by Serbian soldiers during the war, came in 1994 as a refugee sponsored by a local Catholic charity. His brother and niece joined him in 1997. Hadzidedic found work in lower-status jobs such as security guard, factory worker, and bellhop. After he becomes a U.S. citizen, he plans to return to the Balkans and work as a translator.

Bosnian Americans often seek higher education and better employment opportunities. Many also Americanize their names, which are difficult for Americans to pronounce. Earlier immigrants often discovered with surprise that immigration officials had Americanized their names on the documents that admitted them to the country.

TRADITIONS, CUSTOMS, AND BELIEFS

Three main groups, Serbs, who are Eastern Orthodox, Crozts, who are Catholic, and Muslims who are Islamic, comprise Bosnia-Herzegovina's population. Each group has its distinct beliefs, traditions, and customs. Bosnian American communities have good informal networks of communication. Places of worship provide a gathering spot for religious activities as well as weddings, baptisms (for Croats and Serbs) and funerals.

Islamic culture dominated Bosnia for centuries. Modern Western culture penetrated Bosnia and Herzegovina only after Austria occupied the region in 1878. Gradually, Latin and Cyrillic scripts replaced Arabic script. After 1918, secular education began replacing Islamic schools, and education became available to women.

Almost all Bosnian family names end in "ic," which essentially means "child of," much like the English "John-son." Women's first names tend to end in "a" and "ica," pronounced EET-sa. Family names are often an indication of ethnicity. Sulejmanagic, for example, is a Muslim name, as are others containing such Islamic or Turkish roots as "hadj" or "bey," pronounced "beg." Children receive their father's last name. Hence, someone with an Islamic-sounding root in his or her last name may be presumed to be, at least by heritage, a Muslim.

PROVERBS

Bosnia has many proverbs derived from the three ethnic groups that make up its population. Here are a few that are known to all three groups: He who is late may gnaw the bones; A good rest is half the work; Complain to one who can help you; He who lies for you will lie against you; You can make peasant drunk on a glass of water and a gypsy violin.

CUISINE

The cuisine of Bosnia reflects influences from Central Europe, the Balkans, and the Middle East. Meat dishes of lamb, pork, and beef, typically small sausages called cevapcici (kabobs) or hamburger patties called pljeskavica are grilled with onions and served on a fresh somun, a thick pita bread. Cevapcici are made from ground meat and spices that are shaped into little cylinders, cooked on an open fire and served on an open platter. Another favorite is a Bosnian stew called bosanski lonac, which is a slow-roasted mixture of layers of meat and vegetables eaten with chunks of brown bread. It is usually served in a vaselike ceramic pot. Serbian meat and fish dishes are typically cooked first, then braised with vegetables such as tomatoes and green peppers.

Mediterranean and Middle Eastern influences are evident in aschinicas (pronounced ash-chee-neetsa-as), restaurants offering various kinds of cooked meat, filled vegetables called dolmas, kabobs, and salads, with Greek baklava for dessert. The filling most often consists of ground meat, rice, spices, and various kinds of chopped vegetables. Containers can be hollowed-out peppers, potatoes, or onions. Some dolmas are made from cabbage leaves, grapevine, kale, or some other leaf large enough and softened enough by cooking that it can be wrapped around the little ball made of the filling. When enough pieces are made, they are stacked in an amphora-shaped tureen that is then covered with its own lid or with a piece of parchment tightly tied around its neck. The dish is then cooked slowly on a low, covered fire.

Pita, pastry filled with meat or vegetables, is another distinctive Bosnian dish. In other parts of the former Yugoslavia, pitas that are meat-filled are called burek. Pita meat pie often is the final course of a meal or is served as a light supper on its own.

Orthodox Bosnians include special dishes in their Easter celebrations. In Orthodox tradition, after the midnight service, the congregation walks around the church seven times carrying candles, then goes home to a supper that includes hardboiled eggs that have been dyed and decorated, and Pasca, a round, sweet yeast cake filled with either sour cream or cottage cheese.

Homemade brandy, known as rakija in the former Yugoslavia but exported to the United States as slivovitz (plum brandy) or loza (grape brandy or grapa ), is the liquor of choice for men on most occasions. Women may opt instead for fruit juice. Popular nonalcoholic beverages other than fruit juices include Turkish-style coffee ( kahva, kafa or kava ), a thin yogurt drink called kefir, and a tea known as salep.

MUSIC

The arts were highly developed in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The three major ethnic groups contributed a great wealth of song, dance, literature, and poetry. The Serbian Bosnian American culture is centered around music. Choirs and tamburica orchestras have been a part of local communities since 1901, when the Gorski Vijenac (Mountain Wreath) choir of Pittsburgh was founded. The tamburica is a South Slavic stringed instrument much like a mandolin. It exists five different sizes and musical ranges. The Bosnian community in St. Louis holds an annual Tamburitza Extravanganza Festival where as many as twenty bands from all over the country perform. The Duquesne University Tamburitzans maintains a folklore institute and trains new performers.

Sviraj (pronounced svee-rye, with a rolled "r") is a popular group of ethnic Balkan musicians who preserve their heritage through performances that celebrate the music of Eastern Europe. Sviraj means "Play!" in Serbian and Croatian. The music has its roots in Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia, Dalmatia, and Romania.

TRADITIONAL COSTUMES

For centuries Bosnia was well known for having the widest variety of folk costumes of any region of the former Yugoslavia. Today, these outfits serve as stage costumes rather than street wear. Traditionally, older men wore breeches, a cummerbund, a striped shirt, a vest, and even a fez , a hat that was usually red. These garments were often colorful and richly embroidered. The typical women's costume was a fine linen blouse embroidered with floral or folk motifs, worn under a vest called a jelek that was cut low under the breast and made of velvet, embroidered with silver or gold thread. A colorful skirt was covered by an apron and worn on top of a white linen petticoat that showed beneath the skirt. The baggy trousers worn by women, called dimije, spread to all three ethnic groups as a folk costume, though each group wore different colors as specified by the Ottoman Empire. Dimije were rare on the streets of cities before World War II, but they were common in rural districts and among the older women within the cities. Traditional fashion lore dictated that you could tell how high in the mountains a woman's village was by how high on the ankles she tied her dimije to keep the hems out of the snow.

The devout Muslim women of Bosnia have not traditionally worn the chador familiar in fundamentalist Muslim countries. The chador is a garment that covers women from head to toes. Bosnian Muslim women instead wear head scarves and raincoats as symbolic substitutes for the chador , particularly on religious holidays.

DANCES AND SONGS

Music and dance reflect Bosnia's great diversity. During the years of Tito's rule, Bosnian amateur folklore groups, called cultural art societies, flourished throughout the region. They were required to perform the folk music and dances of all three major ethnic groups. Some such troupes also performed contemporary plays, modern dance, choral works, and ballet.

Bosnian music can be divided into rural and urban traditions. The rural tradition is characterized by such musical styles as ravne pjesme (flat song) of limited scale; ganga, an almost shouted polyphonic style; and other types of songs that may be accompanied on the shargija (a simple long-necked lute), the wooden flute, or the diple, a droneless bagpipe. The urban is more in the Turkish style, with its melismatic singing—more than one note per syllable— and accompaniment on the saz, a larger and more elaborate version of the shargija. Epic poems, an ancient tradition, are still sung to the sound of the gusle, a single-string bowed fiddle. While Bosnia's Jewish population was decimated by World War II, its influence remains apparent in folk songs sung in Ladino, a dialect descended from 15th-century Spanish.

In the 1990s, the influence of Western pop music and of new native pop music in a folkish style, played on the accordion, became apparent. But modern influences have not displaced sevdalinka. With a name derived from the Turkish word sevda (love), sevdalinka songs have been the dominant form of music in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Incorporating both Western and Eastern elements, these deeply emotional songs speak metaphorically and symbolically of love won and lost, much like American country western music.

Bosnia has one of the richest and yet least known of all the regional folk dance traditions of the former Yugoslavia. Dances range from the nijemo kolo, accompanied only by the sound of stamping feet and the clash of silver ornaments on the women's aprons, to line dances in which the sexes are segregated as they are in the Middle East, to Croatian and Serbian dances similar to those performed across the borders in their native regions. As with traditional music, however, these folk dances are losing popularity as modern European social dances and rock and roll steps gain favor.

HOLIDAYS

In addition to American holidays, Bosnian Americans observe their individual religions' holidays. The Serbian Orthodox Church uses the Julian calendar, which is 13 days behind the Gregorian one commonly used in the West. Serb Bosnian Americans follow this calendar for holidays. For example, Orthodox Christmas falls on January 7 rather than December 25. Eastern Orthodox Christian families also celebrate the Slava, or saint's name day, of each member of the family. Muslim Bosnian Americans follow Islam's holidays and calendar, including Ramadan, the month of ritual fasting. At the end of Ramadan, a period called Bajram, they exchange visits and small gifts during the three days. Croat Bosnian Americans observe Catholic holidays.

L ANGUAGE

The official language of Bosnia-Herzegovina is Bosnian, also called Serbo-Croatian. The language goes by different names because of the country's ethnic differences and rivalries. People in the Muslim-controlled sector call it Bosnian, those in Croat areas call it Croatian, and those in Serb areas refer to it as Serbian.

Bosnian belongs to the Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family and more specifically to the group of South Slavic languages, which includes Bulgarian, Macedonian, and Slovenian. It actually has a few words that are recognizably related to English. Bosnian "sin" is "son," and Bosnian "sestra" is "sister." Bosnian has many borrowed words from other European languages, English, Turkish, Arabic, and Persian.

Bosnian is written in either the Cyrillic or the Latin alphabet. Its letters are generally pronounced as they are in English, with certain exceptions. "C" is pronounced "ts"; "ác" is pronounced similar to "tch" but with a thinner sound, more like the thickened "t" in future; "c" is pronounced "tch" as in "match"; "dj" is pronounced roughly like "j" in "jam"; "j" is pronounced "y" and in "Yugoslavia"; "s" is pronounced "sh"; "z" is pronounced "zh" as in "Zhivago."

Bosnian Americans generally have little difficulty pronouncing English, although the "th" and "w" sounds may give them some trouble. They may also find some English verbs hard to understand. Bosnian uses fewer auxiliary verbs, such as "be" and "do" than English, and Bosnian speakers may be puzzled by questions in English, in which the auxiliary verb comes before the subject, as in "Did you eat?"

GREETINGS AND POPULAR EXPRESSIONS

During the war, one of the most frequently asked questions was, "Sta je tvoje ime?" (pronounced stah-yeah-tVOya) meaning "what is your name" in Bosnian, because the name was the major clue to ethnicity.

F AMILY AND C OMMUNITY D YNAMICS

In most Bosnian American families, both husband and wife work outside the home, but the wife still has primary responsibility for housework and cooking. In Bosnia, the effects off the wars of the twentieth century and migration away from rural areas after World War II have resulted in fewer extended families living together. But Bosnian Americans tend to live with extended family members, though this is likely to end as Bosnians acclimate to American culture and become more financially successful. Bosnian Muslims tend to have fewer relative connections already living in the United States, since prior to 1992 there were few Muslim immigrants. Polygamy as a Muslim custom last existed in Bosnia in the early 1950s, and then only in one isolated region of the country, Cazinska Krajina. Most Bosnian marriages follow the modern custom of love matches, and arranged marriage between families having largely disappeared. About a third of all urban marriages in Bosnia in recent decades have been between partners from different religious and ethnic backgrounds. Family size has been decreasing as education and prosperity have increased.

EDUCATION

The literacy rate in Bosnia prior to the civil war of 1992 was 92 percent. Education through the eighth grade was compulsory for both boys and girls, after which a student could opt for either a vocational trade school or a more academically oriented route. There were university faculties in the larger cities, along with a community college-type option called "workers' universities."

BIRTH AND BIRTHDAYS

Serbian Bosnian Americans choose a Kum or Kuma (female godparent) shortly after the birth of a child. The godparents name the child. Bosnian Americans celebrate birthdays with gifts and parties.

THE ROLE OF WOMEN

Many Bosnian American women refugees have lost everything and have become the heads of house-holds for the first time. They face the challenge of rebuilding their lives in a new country, adapting to a culture and language, while providing food, shelter, and education for themselves and their surviving relatives. Many were financially dependent on their spouses before the war, and they consequently have no marketable skills or entrepreneurial experience.

Traditionally, women played subservient roles in Yugoslavia's patriarchal families, especially in the country's remote mountainous regions. In the interwar period, laws codified women's subservient status. Industrialization and urbanization in the communist era changed traditional family patterns. This trend was most pronounced in the more developed northern and western urban areas. The number of women employed outside the home rose from 396,463 in 1948 to 2.4 million in 1985. As women began working away from home, they became more independent. In the 1980s, the percentage of women in low-level political and management positions was equal to that of men, but this was not the case for upper management positions.

Women accounted for 38 percent of Yugoslavia's nonagricultural labor force in 1987, up from 26 percent 30 years earlier. The participation of women in the Yugoslav work force varied dramatically according to region. In 1989 Yugoslav women worked primarily in cultural and social welfare, public services and public administration, and trade and catering. Almost all of Yugoslavia's elementary school teachers were women. A few women's groups have formed in the major cities of Bosnia, but the modern women's movement did not achieve significant power in the former Yugoslavia or its successor states.

WEDDINGS

In 1992, when the war started in Bosnia, approximately 40 percent of the registered marriages in urban centers were between ethnically mixed Bosnians. Ceremonies reflect this mix, often including traditions from both ethnic groups involved. The bride usually wears white and is attended by bridesmaids. Men wear capes. There are many flowers, and there is much drinking and dancing. The food includes Bosnian biscuits, a coffee cake-like bread with walnuts, raisins, and chocolate.

An Islamic tradition of giving hand-woven carpets ( kilims ) and knotted rugs lasted for centuries. The custom of giving a personally woven dowry rug, with the couple's initials and date of marriage, disappeared only in the 1990s.

INTERACTIONS WITH OTHER ETHNIC GROUPS

It is important to understand that the contributing basis of hostility among twentieth-century Bosnians has largely been due to economic reasons, not religious ones. As all three groups became more secular, religious-based conflict actually diminished. But economically and politically, Bosnian Muslim landowners were resented by Catholic Croats and Orthodox Christian Serbs. American Bosnians do not face the same political pressures, so the different ethnic communities coexist peacefully in American cities. Bosnian Americans often marry across ethnic lines, which gives them a powerful reason to stay in the United States. If people in a mixed marriage return to Bosnia, they are not accepted by either person's ethnic group.

R ELIGION

Many Bosnians treat their religion the same way many Americans do theirs, as something restricted to one day of church attendance and major religious holidays. The Yugoslav government discouraged religious fundamentalism, as did the religious community itself, reflecting years of accommodation between the religion and the Communist state. Religious affiliation in Yugoslavia, however, was closely linked with the politics of nationality. Centuries-old animosities among the Eastern Orthodox Serbs, the Roman Catholic Croats, and the Bosnian Muslims remained a divisive factor in the 1990s, though the basis was more economic power that religious fervor. There also was lingering resentment over forced conversions of Orthodox Serbs to Roman Catholicism by ultranationalist Croatian priests during World War II.

According to the 1990 U.S. census, there were 68 Serbian Orthodox churches in the United States and Canada with a membership of 67,000. Serbian Orthodox churches serve as a social center as well as a place of worship. Serbian Bosnian Americans celebrate a family's religious anniversary, the krsna slava, each year. Slava commemorates the conversion of the family's ancestors to Christianity in the ninth century, and on this day families feast and receive the visit of a priest. Bosnian Serbs also celebrate Easter with feasting and special ceremonies. Many Serbian Orthodox Bosnians continue the practice of using amulets against the "evil eye," a generalized concept of evil. Precautions against the evil eye include wearing garlic and wearing the mati, a blue amulet with an eye in the center.

E MPLOYMENT AND E CONOMIC T RADITIONS

Bosnian immigrants are very willing to work diligently at low-status jobs while they seek additional language skills and education. Most find work in their communities immediately, as bakers, factory workers, hotel housekeepers, and other types of service workers. Of the 6,499 Bosnian Americans who immigrated in 1996, 2,794 had occupations. Of employed Bosnian Americans, four percent had professional specialties, 26 percent were employed in service industries, and 51 percent were unskilled laborers. Many Bosnian American refugees are unable to pursue their former occupations in the United States because they do not speak English. Bosnian American doctors, lawyers, and other professionals often work for as little as five dollars an hour while they learn English in order to apply for their licenses. Some have improvised other solutions. The New York Daily News ran a story on a Bosnian refugee and former soccer star who now runs a cafe and has launched a weekly Bosnian newspaper, Sabah, published in Serbo-Croatian.

P OLITICS AND G OVERNMENT

Croatian and Serbian Americans organized labor unions and strikes for better working conditions as early as 1913. The oldest Croatian fraternal associations, Slavonian Illyrian Mutual Benevolent Society, founded in 1857 in San Francisco, and the United Slavonian Benevolent Association of New Orleans, provided financial help to families of injured immigrants. Croatian and Serbian Americans formed many groups dedicated to influencing policies of their homeland. In the United States, Croatian Americans have traditionally been strong supporters of the Democratic Party.

Bosnian Americans speak out about conditions in their former homeland. For example, in an interview on CNN's Larry King Live, professional basketball player Vlade Divac of the Sacramento Kings said Americans have been misled about the situation in Yugoslavia. Divac reported that his relations with some NBA players had been affected by his Serbian heritage.

RELATIONS WITH FORMER COUNTRY

The United States supported Yugoslavia under Tito's rule because Tito had broken with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. The United States provided economic and military assistance to prevent Soviet aggression in the area. But with the fall of communism and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia lost its strategic importance to the United States. When the war broke out in 1992, James Baker, secretary of state under President George Bush, was quoted as saying, "We don't have a dog in that fight." Eventually, however, the United States became involved in finding a peaceful solution to the civil strife in Bosnia. On November 21, 1995, the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina (the Dayton-Paris Agreement) was concluded as a result of a United States-led peace initiative after three years of peacemaking efforts by the international community. When the Dayton Peace Accord was signed the following month. U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros Ghali thanked U.S. President Bill Clinton for his role. The United States remains involved militarily and diplomatically in Bosnia and the former Yugoslavia.

I NDIVIDUAL AND G ROUP C ONTRIBUTIONS

Who's Who listings are rich with contributions from Serbian and Croatian Americans, encompassing all fields of endeavor. Most of these citations list Yugoslavia as a place of birth.

LITERATURE

Aleksandar Hemon was born in Sarajevo and currently lives in Chicago. He is primarily a writer of short fiction. His work has been published in The New Yorker, Ploughshares, and Houghton Mifflin's Best American Short Stories.

M EDIA

Amerikanski Srbobran (The American Serb Defender). Published by the Serb National Foundation since 1906, this is the oldest Serbian bilingual weekly newspaper in the United States, and it has the largest circulation. It covers cultural, political and sporting events of interest to Serbian Americans.

O RGANIZATIONS AND A SSOCIATIONS

American Bosnian Association, Salt Lake City.

Address: 1102 West 400 North, Salt Lake City, Utah 84116.

Telephone: (801) 359-3378.

Bosnian-American Cultural Association .

Works to preserve Bosnian culture and teach Americans about Bosnia.

Contact: Dr. Hasim Kosovic.

Address: 1810 North Pfingsten Road, Northbrook, Illinois 60062.

Telephone: (312) 334-2323.

Bosnian-American Islamic Center.

Contact: Ramiz Aljovic.

Address: 3101 Roosevelt, Hamtramck, Michigan 48212-3745.

Community of Bosnia Foundation.

Works for a culturally pluralistic, multireligious Bosnia. Formed by volunteers in Haverford, Pennsylvania, in late 1993 to bring students to the United States.

Address: c/o Department of Religion, Haverford College, 370 Lancaster Avenue, Haverford, Pennsylvania 19041-1392.

Telephone: (610) 896-1027.

Friends of Bosnia.

Grassroots organization supporting a long-term and just peace. Organizes speaker series, interviews, conferences, rallies and humanitarian aid drives. Originally focused on serving western Massachusetts; now provides resources to organizations and individuals all across the United States.

Address: 85 Worcester Street, Suite 1, Boston, Massachusetts 02118.

Telephone: (617) 424-6906.

Fax: (617) 424-6752.

E-mail: FOB@CROCKER.COM.

Online: http://www.crocker.com/~fob/ .

Jerrahi Order of America.

Bosnian cultural, educational, and social relief organization made up of Muslims from diverse backgrounds. The Jerrahi Order has branches in New York, California, Indiana, Seattle, and Bosnia. Works to obtain scholarships for Muslim students.

Address: 884 Chestnut Ridge Road, Chestnut Ridge, New York 10977.

Telephone: (914) 356-0588.

E-mail: forbsp@igc.apc.org.

New England Bosnian Relief Committee.

Nonprofit provides donations to Bosnians and support and assistance to Boston-area Bosnian refugees.

Address: 54 Ellery Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02127.

Telephone: (617) 269-5555.

E-mail: nebrc@tiac.net.

Women for Women.

Raises money and offers support for Bosnian women.

Address: Suite 611, 1725 K Street NW, Washington, D.C. 20006.

S OURCES FOR A DDITIONAL S TUDY

Clark, Arthur L. Bosnia: What Every American Should Know. New York; Berkley Books, 1996.

Kisslinger, Jerome. The Serbian Americans. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1990.

Malcolm, Noel. Bosnia: A Short History. New York: New York University Press, 1996.

Shapiro, E. The Croatian Americans. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1989.

Silber, Laura, and Allan Little. Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation. New York: Penguin, 1995 and 1996.

Tekavec, Valerie. Teenage Refugees from Bosnia-Herzegovina Speak Out. New York: Rosen Publishing Group, 1995.

Source : http://www.everyculture.com/multi/A-Br/Bosnian-Americans.html

Brazilian Americans Culture

The country of Brazil, officially called the Federative Republic of Brazil (or República Federativa do Brasil), is located in central eastern South America. A vast country, it covers 3,290,000 square miles—nearly 45 percent of South America's land mass. Brazil is bounded by French Guinea, Guyana, Venezuela, and Suriname to the north, Columbia to the northwest, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Argentina to the west, Uruguay to the south, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. The nation is divided into 23 states, three territories, and one federal district, the last of which includes its capital, Brasília.

According to United Nations estimates for 1995, Brazil has a population of approximately 165 million people of various ethnicities. Like the United States, Brazil is a land of immigrants. People of Portuguese descent make up a slight majority of the population; among the other ethnic groups in the country are Africans, Italians, Germans, Japanese, and Native Americans (primarily of the Tupi and Guarani linguistic families). More than a third of all Brazilians are of mixed racial heritage. Racial identification in Brazil, as in much of Latin America, is rather nebulous. Latin Americans with some white blood often claim a "white" racial identity.

Eighty-nine percent of Brazilians are Roman Catholic. Other Brazilians subscribe to various forms of Protestantism. There are also very small Islamic and Jewish communities in the country. Many Brazilians who subscribe to one of the mainline religions also practice other religious traditions, including Spiritism, Candomblé, Macumba, Umbanda, or Santería. These religious practices are informed by Christianity and traditional African and Amerindian religious ceremonies.

Brazil's official language is Portuguese, although a variety of other languages, such as Japanese, German, and various Native American languages, are spoken. The nation's capital, Brasília, is in the interior of the country; large coastal cities, including São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Recife, and Salvador, are important to Brazilian trade. The national flag of Brazil is a yellow diamond centered on a green field. In the middle of the diamond is a blue globe bearing 23 white stars and a banner with the words "Ordem e Progresso," which means "order and progress." The green and the yellow represent Brazil's forest and mineral wealth, while the blue represents both the sky and the vastness of Brazil's states and capital.

HISTORY

Recent archaeological evidence suggests that Brazil may have been inhabited as early as 40,000 years ago. Various Native American groups are known to have lived in Brazil for thousands of years. The first European to lay claim to the region was Pedro Cabral, who discovered the land for Portugal in 1500. The next year, Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci traveled along the South American coast. Brazil's first settlement was established at Salvador da Bahia. Salvador was Portugal's most important city—after its own capital of Lisbon—for 300 years. In the nineteenth century, colonization of Brazil by the Portuguese settlers began in earnest.

Brazil was ruled by Lisbon as a colony until 1808, and during these years the early Brazilians helped to frame the development of the country. Native American groups living on the coast of Brazil were pushed to the interior of the country by the Portuguese as early as 1616. The coast of the country was then settled by Portuguese. In 1533 the first Africans were forcibly brought to Brazil to be used as slaves, primarily on coffee and sugar plantations. Slavery was abolished in Brazil in 1888, by a law that was signed by the regent Princess Isabel. Finally, the Treaty of Madrid, signed in 1750, definitively drew Brazil's borders, which were remarkably similar to the nation's contemporary boundaries.

In 1808 French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Portugal, touching off the bloody Peninsular War. The Portuguese royal family, led by King Dom João VI, fled from Napoleon's army and reestablished its kingdom in Brazil, first in Salvador and later in Rio de Janeiro. Dom João returned to Portugal in 1821, leaving his son Dom Pedro I as regent. Pedro I declared Brazil's independence on September 7, 1822. His son, Dom Pedro II, succeeded him in 1831 and ruled until 1889.

MODERN ERA

A federal republic was established following an 1889 coup, and for the next 41 years the Brazilian government was a constitutional democracy with a limited franchise. Getúlio Vargas, a member of the revolutionary Liberal Alliance, staged a military coup in 1930, establishing a dictatorship and ruling as governor for the next 15 years. During World War II, Brazil underwent considerable economic growth. A series of elected presidents followed Vargas, but in 1964, as a result of popular frustration with steadily rising inflation, economic stagnation, and various other social problems, the military staged yet another coup. Then-president João Goulart was deposed, and Army Marshall Humberto Castelo Branco officially became president on April 11, 1964.

The military continued to choose government officials until 1982, when a period of liberalization began in Brazil. In 1989 Fernando Collor de Mello became president in the nation's first direct presidential election in decades. However, Collor de Mello, famed for his wide-reaching economic reforms, was accused of accepting bribes in 1992, and on September 29th of that year, was impeached by the Brazilian government for political corruption. He was succeeded by his vice president, Franco Itmar, who officially took office on October 2, 1992. Two years later, former foreign and finance minister Fernando Henrique Cardoso won a hotly contested presidential election against the favored candidate, populist Luis Inacio "Lula" da Silva, a trade union leader. This election signaled stability for Brazil's fragile democratic institutions and validated Cardoso's stringent financial policies and reforms.

SIGNIFICANT IMMIGRATION WAVES

Some sources claim that the earliest immigrants from Brazil to the United States were probably eight Jewish Brazilians who entered the country in 1654. But Brazilian American immigration information is not very reliable; the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service did not tabulate Brazilians as a separate group entering the States until 1960. Before that, Brazilians were counted in a group that included all South Americans. It is known that between 1820 and 1960, 234,761 people of South American descent entered the United States, with peak waves of South American immigrants entering from 1841 to 1850 and 1911 to 1930. It is impossible to tell how many of these South Americans were actually from Brazil. According to the 1960 U.S. Census Bureau report, however, 27,885 people of Brazilian ancestry were living in the United States.

From 1960 until the mid-1980s, there was a relatively even pattern of Brazilian immigration to the United States; estimates suggest that between 1,500 and 2,300 Brazilians immigrated each year, mainly from southern and south-central Brazil, including the states of Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Paraná, Santa Catarina, and Rio Grande do Sul. The majority of these immigrants were of European heritage and came from the middle- and upper-middle-classes of Brazilian society.

During the mid-1980s, Brazil's economy began to deteriorate rapidly; in 1990 inflation reached 1,795 percent annually. Despite the economic reforms of President Collor de Mello, incomes continued to drop by nearly 30 percent, and many Brazilians lost faith in their government. The Brazilian government estimates that between 1986 and 1990, 1.4 million Brazilians left the country permanently—many of them immigrating to the United States, others heading for Japan and various countries in South America and Europe.

According to Maxine Margolis in Little Brazil: An Ethnography of Brazilian Immigrants in New York City, Brazilian immigration to the United States did not begin on a significant scale until the mid-1980s. Between 1987 and 1991, 20,800 Brazilians immigrated to America; however, 8,133 Brazilians entered the country in 1991 alone. Again, the majority of these immigrants were middle- or upper-middle-class members of Brazilian society, and most of them came from southern or south-central Brazil. The 1990 U.S. Census Bureau report indicates that there are about 60,000 Brazilians living and working in the United States, but because Brazilian Americans were only counted in the census if they wrote "Brazilian" in the "Other Hispanic" category— Brazilians are not Hispanic—this number is most likely too small. Other sources suggest that there are approximately 100,000 Brazilians, documented and undocumented, living in the New York area alone. In addition, there are sizable Brazilian communities in Boston, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Miami, and Phoenix.

As Brazil's economic conditions worsened, the American consulate found that many more Brazilians wanted to immigrate to the United States than quotas legally allowed. Consequently, since the mid-1980s, a significant percentage of all Brazilian immigration to the United States has been illegal. The most common way for Brazilians to illegally enter the United States is to overstay a tourist visa, fade into established Brazilian communities, and obtain low-skill, low-wage work. A riskier method of gaining entry is with "doctored" or fake passports and/or green cards. A number of professional immigration services—legitimate and otherwise—operate in both the United States and Brazil to assist those wishing to come to America. Some Brazilians enter the United States on their own via the Mexican border, but this is extremely time-consuming, dangerous, and expensive. Undocumented persons make up a large percentage of the Brazilian population in the United States, thereby skewing census and immigration data. Margolis notes that there may be as many as 350,000 Brazilians living in the United States without proper documentation.

SETTLEMENT PATTERNS

Nearly half of all Brazilian Americans live in the northeastern United States, primarily in the states of New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts; sizable populations also reside in California, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C. First generation Brazilians tend to congregate in areas where other Brazilian Americans are living—such as Little Brazil in Manhattan or Astoria in Queens—especially if they speak little or no English. However, second- and third-generation Brazilian Americans are more likely to have gained financial independence and therefore may relocate to areas with fewer or no other Brazilian Americans. These neighborhoods do not preserve Brazilian cultural heritage as many first generation neighborhoods do. It is estimated that the majority of illegal Brazilian immigrants live in New York City; however, because these people are largely undocumented, their exact places of residence are difficult to ascertain.

A CCULTURATION AND A SSIMILATION

Margolis cites some of the misconceptions and stereotypes held by many Americans about Brazil and Brazilians, the most common being that Brazilians are Hispanic and therefore speak Spanish. The term Hispanic, when used correctly, refers to people of Spanish or Spanish-speaking origin from Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. Although people of many nationalities live in

Michelle Jesus and Adenilson Daros enjoy dancing together at the 1998 New York Brazil Street Festival.

Brazil, it is primarily a country of Portuguese origin, and its official language is Portuguese. There is little published information on Brazilian Americans as an ethnic group, even though Brazilian immigration to New York City is rapidly rising and has been since the mid-1980s.

Because of the lack of information about Brazilian Americans, many "established" Americans seem to have stereotyped them as an ethnic group. Media portrayals of Brazil and its citizens contribute to the erroneous belief that Brazilians are less than industrious laborers who favor a good party over a hard day's work. Movies, television, and theatrical productions depict Brazilians as doing little else than dancing the lambada and the samba (popular Brazilian dances) and participating in their world famous street parties. Indeed, participants in the nation's annual Carnaval celebration are hardly inhibited. Moreover, grandly produced and suggestively staged variety shows—featuring Brazilian entertainers such as Brazil Alive!, Oba! Oba!, Rio Ecstasy, and Fantasy Brazil —shock the generally more reserved and puritanical North American audiences. Even sporting events reveal a distinctly Brazilian gusto: when Brazil captured the coveted Copa do Mundo (soccer's World Cup) in 1994, sports fans thought nothing of dancing in the streets. Despite the misconceptions these stereotypes create, Brazilian Americans maintain pride in their cultural traditions and continue to celebrate their Brazilian heritage.

TRADITIONS, CUSTOMS, AND BELIEFS

Brazilians have many traditions, customs, and beliefs that have existed for hundreds of years and are woven into Brazilian culture. Though common throughout much of the country and observed by all racial groups, many of these practices can be traced to the traditional beliefs and behaviors of Africans, Amerindians, and European folk culture. Indeed, some scholars observe that the fusion of different cultural beliefs finds its greatest expression in Brazil. Religious rituals, military and political rallies, festivals, and family celebrations are important parts of Brazilian society. Brazilians also give parties to celebrate such events as soccer ( futebol ) victories; soccer is such an important part of Brazilian and Brazilian

This Brazilian American dancer is wearing a Carnaval costume.

American life that it is not uncommon to see hundreds of people gathered around a single small television set watching a game.

Brazilian Americans have preserved their cultural heritage by maintaining some of Brazil's customs, traditions, and beliefs, including the value and importance of the extended family and the observance of Brazilian festivals and holidays, which celebrate Brazilian culture. These cultural traditions have changed over time as more and more Brazilian Americans are assimilated into mainstream American life.

CUISINE

Brazil is a country filled with people of many different backgrounds and origins; its cooking reflects its multicultural roots. Brazilian cooking has been influenced by African, Native American, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, and even Japanese cuisines. In particular, Brazilian cooking reflects the cooking styles of the African slaves who were brought to Brazil beginning in the sixteenth century. Dendê; (palm oil), coconut milk, spicy peppers, feijão (black beans), and farinha (manioc flour) are principal ingredients in Brazilian dishes. The national dish of Brazil, feijoada, consists of a variety of smoked or sun-dried meats and sausages, black beans, and a sauce made from the juices of the beans and the meats. It is usually served with sliced oranges, shredded kale or collard greens, farofa (toasted manioc flour), and various hot sauces and condiments. Popular beverages include Brahma, a Brazilian beer; caipirinhas and batidas, tropical drinks made with rum and cachaça; and Guaraná, a popular Brazilian soft drink made from the berries of the guaraní tree.

Other Brazilian foods that are popular among Brazilian Americans and can be found in many Brazilian restaurants in the States include churrasco à rodizio, a meal of barbecued chicken, pork, and beef served with rice, black beans, French fries, and potato salad; frango à passarinho (literally, "chicken in the style of a little bird"), small pieces of chicken wrapped in garlic leaves; moqueca, a fish stew native to the Brazilian state of Bahia; and bacalhau, or codfish casserole. During Brazilian parties or street festivals, a variety of Brazilian snack foods are served. Among them are kibe, fried snacks of Lebanese origin; acarajé, a deep-fried black bean fritter filled with spicy sauces, shrimp, green peppers, and chiles; and pasteis, a pastry filled with meat, shrimp, or olives.

TRADITIONAL COSTUMES

There are different traditional costumes for different states and regions of Brazil. One such costume—often worn during street fairs and at other Brazilian American events—comes from the Brazilian state of Bahia. For women, it consists of a huge, hooped white skirt, a white bodice with elaborate sleeves, strings of colorful looped beads worn around the neck, and elaborately wrapped white turbans. Tiny string bikinis, called fio dental, or "dental floss," are worn by many Brazilian women on the beach. For everyday wear, most Brazilians and Brazilian Americans dress in American-style clothing. Indeed, the influence of the United States is so great that many Brazilian and Brazilian American youth wear "hip-hop" or "rap" style garb. Poorer Brazilians may wear western clothing, reflecting their rural or gaúcho ("cowboy") traditions.

HOLIDAYS

For the many states, cities, and communities in Brazil with patron saints, it is customary to hold festivals for these saints each year. During Holy Week—the week before Easter, which is seen as one of the most important weeks of the year—Brazilians recreate the passion and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Some Brazilian communities also recreate the events of the birth of Jesus during the Christmas season. Military parades are common in Brazil as a way of celebrating state holidays, such as Brazilian Independence Day, which occurs during Fatherland Week. Two other major Brazilian festivals are Carnaval, a huge, nationwide, annual celebration that takes place the week before Lent, and Festa do Iemenja, a solemn ceremony held on New Year's Eve. The Festa do Iemenja, dedicated to the "Queen of the Sea," is a major rite in Rio de Janeiro and Bahia. Flowers, perfumes, fruits, and even jewelry are tossed into the sea to please the mother of the waters and gain her protection for a new year. Moreover, this is the time when many Brazilians place on their wrists a cloth bracelet bearing the words: "Lembra do Senghor do Bonfim," which translates as "remember the bishop of the good end." (This is a reference to a famous church in Bahia, Igreja so Senghor do Bonfim, built in 1745 and famous for its healing powers.)

Brazilian Americans celebrate secular American holidays, such as the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving Day, and New Year's Day, and Christian Brazilian Americans also celebrate such holidays as Christmas and Easter by attending church services and having special meals and ceremonies at home. Many of these services are held in Portuguese with Brazilian music.

On Brazil's Independence Day, there are feasts in many Brazilian American communities, particularly in large cities in the northeast region of the country, such as Boston, New York City, and Newark, New Jersey. Independence Day, celebrated each September 7th, marks Brazil's liberation from Portugal. The largest celebration by far is the Brazilian Independence Day Parade and Street Fair, which has been held annually since 1985 on New York's West 46th Street ("Little Brazil"). The allday street festival attracts thousands of people, predominantly Brazilian Americans, from throughout the Northeast; participants wear green and gold, Brazil's colors, dance to Brazilian music, and enjoy Brazilian food and drinks.

Brazilian American communities also celebrate Carnaval. In Brazil, Carnaval takes place during the four days before the beginning of Lent, but many pre-festival events start up to two months earlier. In many ways, Carnaval is considered to be the quintessential expression of Brazilian culture, and Brazilian Americans are proud to celebrate the event. Carnaval festivities are also becoming increasingly popular among non-Brazilians in America.

HEALTH ISSUES

There are no documented health or mental health problems specific to Brazilian Americans. Brazilian Americans generally obtain health insurance at their own expense or through their employers. Most Brazilian Americans who live illegally in the United States have no health insurance and enter the health bureaucracy at risk. Many also rely on "faith healers," associated with one or more of their religious traditions.

Brazilian American Spiritists practice alternative or homeopathic approaches to health and medicine. Instead of traditional medical techniques, Spiritists use such practices as past-lives therapy, dispossession and exorcism therapies, acupuncture, chromotherapy, yoga therapy, and homeopathy. Back in Brazil, some Spiritists have set up psychiatric hospitals that utilize the aforementioned healing methods.

L ANGUAGE

Although Portuguese is not the only language spoken in Brazil, it is the official language of the nation and the native language of most Brazilian immigrants. Portuguese is a Romance language, similar in some ways to Spanish, and is spoken by about 200 million people worldwide. There are two major differences between Brazilian Portuguese and the Portuguese spoken in Portugal: firstly, the Brazilian vocabulary is larger by several thousand words; secondly, the pronunciation is softer. Brazilian Portuguese has "adopted" words and phrases from the Tupí-Guarani languages, spoken by many Native Americans in Brazil, and also from the various languages spoken by African slaves who were brought to Brazil. These African languages influenced the softening of the Brazilian Portuguese pronunciation. In 1992 Brazilian Portuguese became the international standard for textbook production and writing because Brazilians comprise 75 percent of the world's Portuguese speakers.

Of the 57,108 people recorded in the 1990 U.S. Census Bureau report (41,395 of whom were first-generation and 15,713 of whom were second- or third-generation), 52,292 people spoke English, although 22,587 said that they did "not speak English very well." Because Brazilian Americans often retain close ties with their old world culture and language, several urban areas with high concentrations of Brazilian immigrants feature radio broadcasts in Portuguese and publish Portuguese-language newspapers and periodicals.

GREETINGS AND OTHER COMMON EXPRESSIONS

Common greetings and expressions in Brazilian Portuguese include: Bom dia —Good morning; Boa tarde —Good afternoon; Boa noite —Good night; Como vai? —How are you?; Obrigado —Thank you (masculine); Obrigada —Thank you (feminine); De nada —You're welcome; Pois não —Certainly; or, Don't mention it; Passe bem —Goodbye; Até amanhã —See you tomorrow; Que horas são? —What time is it?; Como se chama a senhora ( a senhorita )?— What's your name?

F AMILY AND C OMMUNITY D YNAMICS

Brazilian social life centers around the family. It is not uncommon for Brazilians to see members of their extended families—married siblings, grandparents, aunts, cousins, and other relations—on a daily basis. Family is also very important to Brazilian Americans. Many Brazilians are encouraged to immigrate to the States by family members who have already made the journey; new immigrants often live with other family members or close friends until they find homes of their own. Especially in larger Brazilian American communities, family members almost always live near one another. Many Brazilian Americans travel to Brazil as often as they can in order to maintain contact with extended family members who remain in the homeland. Even for Brazilian Americans who have lived in the United States for many years, the social and cultural value placed on the family usually remains intact.

In Brazil, social status is very important. Educated Brazilians are socialized from an early age to show respect in speech and conduct to those of higher social status. Individualism in many forms is generally dismissed by Brazilians as egotistical behavior, since Brazilians tend to focus on the family and the community rather than on the individual. Each step in the life cycle—christening, going to school, confirmation, beginning outside work—is viewed as a rite of passage. In making these significant transformations, Brazilians often have many mediators—usually older family members and friends—who counsel them in understanding the ways of the world.

Economic and social necessity have chipped away at the traditional extended family structure in immigrant communities throughout the United States. Many Brazilian immigrants to America are single; married men and women often leave their spouses and children at home until they can afford to send for them. Until they find their own houses or apartments, Brazilians commonly stay with friends or at cheap boarding houses (often Brazilian-run) in cities with large Brazilian communities, such as New York or Newark. After a single family member has established himself or herself in the States, that person is able to facilitate the immigration of other family members. Brazilian Americans often help each other find jobs and adequate housing, and they share cultural information and news from Brazil. Of course, some Brazilians move to the United States with their immediate families—particularly those who have jobs before they arrive or enough money to last until they can find employment.

As the standard of living for Brazilian immigrants begins to rise, many invest in such modern conveniences as television sets, microwave ovens, and stereo equipment. (These items are seen as luxuries because they are so expensive in Brazil.) A common concern for many Brazilian Americans seems to be the welfare of those still living in Brazil. Many Brazilian Americans send money to friends and family back home, and charitable organizations sponsor drives to collect money and clothing for the poor in Brazil. There is little organized charitable work by Brazilian Americans, however, to help other Brazilian Americans in need. This can be explained partially by the fact that many are undocumented—and therefore live in fear of detection and deportation.

THE ROLE OF WOMEN

Many married, middle-class women in Brazil do not work outside of the home, even if they have advanced university degrees. It is common—even among the lower-middle-class in the old country— for households to employ servants and maids. Many Brazilian women must adapt to new roles and obtain outside employment when they immigrate to the United States, as it is usually a financial necessity. According to Margolis, these adjustments in roles can cause many problems for immigrants, particularly for married couples in which the woman is making more money than the man. Moreover, middle-class women who had maids and servants in Brazil are somewhat disheartened at the thought of assuming those same roles in America in order to find employment.

WEDDINGS

In Brazil, wedding customs conform to the major practices of each religious denomination. The road to matrimony starts with a large engagement reception, where the families of the intended come together; the man gives the woman a simple gold wedding band, which is worn on the right hand prior to the marriage. During the wedding ceremony, the ring is placed on the left hand. Western traditions have influenced weddings in Brazil, making services similar to those in North America. The upper-class in Brazil, however, looks to France for many of its cultural manifestations.

In general, the bride wears white and the groom dons formal wear. Bridesmaids and groomsmen are replaced by the padrinho (godfather) and madrinho (godmother) of both the bride and groom. The service follows the traditional liturgical rites of the Catholic or Protestant church.

The reception is a gala, cross-generational affair, with plenty of food, liquor, music, and dancing. Usually, an older male relative will discreetly gather small monetary donations and present them to the couple before they leave for the honeymoon. Depending on the status of the family, honeymoons can range from a simple night in a room of a crowded house to a week on the beach—a favorite honeymoon spot.

BAPTISMS

Baptismal traditions are determined by the religious denomination of the family. For Catholics, the child is baptized in infancy and later, after reaching the "age of understanding" (usually between eight and 12), he or she is formally confirmed. The child's godparents play an important role, taking vows to love, protect, and, if necessary, provide for the child. White baptismal clothing is absolutely essential; poor parents reportedly spend food money on the appropriate dress. After the actual baptismal service, the child is showered with presents at a lavish reception.

FUNERALS

The death of beloved Brazilian race car driver Aytron Senna (1960-1994) allowed all the world to see how Brazilians deal with death. Within minutes of his demise in the Grand Prix in Italy, thousands of Brazilians flocked to his home in São Paulo, stood outside on the walls, and cried. Senna's funeral service went on for hours; every major Brazilian political and religious leader eulogized him.

In Brazil, the color of mourning is black. Usually, a large picture of the deceased is on display at the funeral service. Generally speaking, bodies in Brazil are not embalmed. Thus, most burials occur within 24 hours. In addition to mourning, funerals function as vehicles for public displays of emotion, belonging, and connection. Women are expected to wear heavy veils and to actively mourn the dead. Sociological sources indicate that unrestrained displays of raw emotion are such a basic part of Brazilian culture that they are expected and encouraged. Thus, it is customary to give fainting mourners a mixture of sugar water to calm them.

Funeral customs vary from place to place and are informed by the religious traditions of the deceased. In the northeastern part of Brazil, the dead are paraded throughout the streets in their coffins, with family and friends walking behind as they leave the necrotério (morgue and funeral home) and proceed to the cemetery. Among the middle- and upper-classes in urban areas, cars and hearses are used. For many Catholics, a special mass is held 15 days after the burial; this signifies the final act of public mourning.

EDUCATION

Many Brazilian immigrants to the United States have university degrees and held skilled jobs in Brazil. However, these immigrants often have difficulty finding desirable jobs in the United States because the requirements for degrees are different in Brazil—and because many Brazilian Americans, even those with advanced education, are not fluent in English. Illegal immigrants are largely excluded from the American labor market, since they pose a legal risk to perspective employers. Overall, second- and third-generation immigrants are more likely to have skilled, high-paying jobs, as they have been educated in the United States, are more likely to be fluent in English, and have legal permanent resident status.

R ELIGION

Although the vast majority—nearly 90 percent—of Brazilian Americans are Roman Catholic, others belong to fundamentalist Protestant churches. In addition, a small number of Brazilian Americans practice Spiritism, a faith based on communication with the spirits of the dead; Umbanda, a combination of Spiritism, folk Catholicism, and African-Brazilian beliefs and rituals; and Candomblé, an African-Brazilian religion that originates from the Brazilian state of Bahia. Little is known about the existence of these religions in the United States because their practitioners fear censure from both Brazilians and Americans.

Brazil is the world's largest Roman Catholic country. The Brazilian Catholic church is seen as radical by more conservative Catholics and has been instrumental in pushing for social change in Brazil—often in direct opposition to the state. Most Brazilian Americans are affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church. In areas of the United States with large Brazilian immigrant communities, Catholic churches offer services in Portuguese or have Brazilian or Portuguese-speaking clerics to assist parishioners. In New York City, the largest and best-known Roman Catholic church with services in Portuguese is Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Manhattan. This church features a prominently displayed statue of Nossa Senhora Aparecida, a Brazilian saint, and serves as a center for many Brazilian Americans to congregate and worship together.

About ten percent of Brazilian Americans belong to one of several Protestant churches. In the United States, particularly in the Northeast, most Brazilian American Protestants are either Pentecostals or Baptists. Pentecostal Brazilian Americans tend to socialize primarily with members of the Pentecostal church, and therefore Pentecostal churches—several of which have services in Portuguese— often become the center of the social lives of most members. Baptist Brazilian Americans, on the other hand, tend to socialize more outside of the church. Some Baptist churches in the United States, such as the Baptist Church of the Portuguese Language in Queens, New York, offer services in Portuguese. In addition to the Pentecostal and Baptist denominations, the Universal Church (a Protestant sect which is Brazilian in origin) and Seventh-Day Adventist churches also attract Brazilian American believers.

Spiritism is a Brazilian practice that combines science, philosophy, and Christian morality and follows the teachings of Allan Kardec, a nineteenth-century French philosopher who set forth his principles in two books: The Book of the Spirits and The Book of the Mediums. Spiritists, who tend to be white and middle-class, believe in communication with the dead via spirit mediums. Small groups of Brazilian American Spiritists meet in communities with large Brazilian American populations.

E MPLOYMENT AND E CONOMIC T RADITIONS

Because Brazilian immigrants who entered the United States prior to 1960 were not documented separately, little information exists on their employment history. According to the 1990 census, of the 43,190 Brazilian Americans who were over the age of 16, 31,662 were a part of the labor force. The majority of Brazilian American workers are members of one of four categories: service occupations; technical, sales, and administrative support occupations; managerial and professional specialty occupations; or operators, fabricators, and laborers.

Margolis conducted research on Brazilian immigrant workers in New York City. (The majority of the people with whom she worked were illegal immigrants.) She found that restaurant work is the most common form of work for male Brazilians who have recently immigrated to the United States. Many other undocumented Brazilian males take jobs in construction or with small companies that pay wages in cash; others work as street vendors or as shoe shiners. The vast majority of female Brazilian immigrants to the United States, both legal and illegal, take jobs in domestic service and in child care, usually for private households. Margolis notes that other Brazilian women take jobs as restaurant workers, street vendors, or even go-go dancers. Her findings also indicate that illegal immigrants tend to take positions where they can be paid "under the table," avoiding possible detection or deportation from immigration authorities.

P OLITICS AND G OVERNMENT

Hardly any information exists about Brazilian American participation in the U.S. voting process. However, Brazilian Americans are actively involved with politics in Brazil. First-generation immigrants, Brazilian Americans who remain close to family members still living in Brazil, and business people with ties to Brazil, are especially interested in the political situation in the homeland.

RELATIONS WITH BRAZIL

During the 1989 Brazilian presidential election— the first direct presidential election since 1964— many Brazilian Americans became involved in the election process. Brazilian Americans who were still eligible to vote through the Brazilian consulate organized themselves in support of each of the candidates. Fernando Collor de Mello, who won the election and was later impeached, was supported most heavily by business people and wealthier Brazilian Americans. Collor de Mello ran against Luis Inacio "Lula" da Silva, a trade union leader and Labor party candidate who received support from many middle-class Brazilian American merchants and newer immigrants.

Despite the fact that many Brazilian Americans were very interested and involved in the presidential campaign, relatively few of the eligible immigrants voted through the Brazilian consulate; the consulate apparently did not advertise the necessity of registering in June for the November election. Illegal Brazilian immigrants to the United States, who were eligible to vote in their elections at home, generally did not do so because they feared being reported to immigration authorities. Of the Brazilian Americans who did cast ballots, da Silva won the majority.

Two years after Collor de Mello's impeachment, former government minister Fernando Henrique Cardoso won the 1994 presidential election against "Lula" da Silva, the favored candidate. Cardoso's financial policies have improved the Brazilian economy considerably.

I NDIVIDUAL AND G ROUP C ONTRIBUTIONS

Several Brazilian Americans have made significant contributions to American culture. Brazilian American journalist Jota Alves founded the New York monthly newspaper The Brazilians and also started the tradition of the New York City Brazilian Independence Day Parade and Street Fair in 1985. Jazz musician Airto Moreira and jazz singers Astrud Gilberto, Flora Purim, and Tania Maria are well known among Brazilian Americans and jazz enthusiasts. In addition, numerous Brazilian American professors and students have contributed to American colleges and universities. Anthropologist Roberto DaMatta teaches at the University of Notre Dame. He has written many books about Brazilian culture and society.

M EDIA

PRINT

Brasil/Brazil.

A scholarly journal of Brazilian literature with text in English and Portuguese.

Contact: Nelson H. Vieira or Regina Zilberman, Editors.

Address: Brown University, Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies, Box O, Providence, Rhode Island 02912.

Telephone: (401) 863-3042.

Fax: (401) 863-7261.

Brazil Watch.

Biweekly newsletter that focuses on political, economic, and business events in Brazil.

Contact: Richard W. Foster, Editor.

Address: Orbis Publications, Inc., 1924 47th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20007.

Telephone: (202) 625-2702.

Brazilian Monthly.

Published in both Portuguese and English, this magazine covers cultural issues in Brazil and in Brazilian American communities and provides information on news, politics, and sports.

Contact: Flavia Smith or Heloisa Souza, Editors.

Address: P.O. Box 93, Brookline, Massachusetts.

Telephone: (617) 566-3651.

The Brazilians.

Monthly magazine published in both Portuguese and English. It seeks to promote Brazilian culture and includes business information, news, and articles on Brazilian music, art, and traditions.

Contact: Eddie Mendes, Editor.

Address: 15 West 46th Street, New York, New York 10036.

Telephone: (212) 382-1630.

Capital to Capital.

Weekly newspaper published in Portuguese, English, and Spanish. Its primary goal is to provide information about the Brazilian American community, but it also includes news, religion, and sports coverage. It is available by subscription or on newsstands in a few areas, including Washington, D.C.

Contact: Dario Santos, Editor.

Address: P.O. Box 9861, Washington, D.C. 20016.

Telephone: (202) 723-5854.

The Florida Review.

Biweekly newspaper published in Portuguese (with a small section in Spanish). Designed to meet the needs of both Brazilian Americans and Brazilians visiting the United States, it provides world and community news, cultural information from Brazil, and other services, and is distributed throughout the United States and in major Brazilian cities.

Contact: Marcos Ommati, Editor.

Address: 801 Bayshore Drive, Box 19, Miami, Florida 33131.

Telephone: (305) 374-5235.

Luzo—Brazilian Review.

Devoted to the culture of the Portuguese speaking world. Text in English, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Address: University of Wisconsin Press, Journal Division, 114 North Murray Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53715.

Telephone: (608) 262-4952.

Fax: (608) 262-7560.

News From Brazil.

Monthly magazine that covers current events and culture in Brazil, including movies, books, music, politics, ecology, and the economy. It is published in English—with a short story every month in Portuguese—and is distributed through subscriptions and on newsstands in the Los Angeles area.

Contact: Rodney Mallo, Editor.

Address: P.O. Box 42536, Los Angeles, California 90050.

Telephone: (213) 255-4953.

RADIO

KLBS-AM (1330).

A Portuguese-language station with daily broadcasts from 6:30 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Programming includes news, community information, Brazilian music, and interviews.

Contact: Carolina Cota.

Address: 401 Pacheco Boulevard, Los Banos, California 93635.

Telephone: (209) 826-0578.

Fax: (209) 826-1906.

Email: klb@cell2000.com.

KSTN-FM (107.3).

Features two hours of Brazilian-centered news, commentary, and music, Monday through Friday. On Sundays, the station broadcasts a Catholic mass in Portuguese.

Contact: Knox Larue, Manager.

Address: 2171 Ralph Avenue, Stockton, California 95206.

Telephone: (209) 948-5786.

WRYM-AM (840).

Broadcasts a two and one-half hour program each week in Portuguese, featuring music and community and world news.

Contact: Albino Baptista.

Address: 1056 Willard Avenue, Newington, Connecticut 06111-3540.

Telephone: (860) 666-5646.

Fax: (860) 666-5647.

TELEVISION

One Spanish-language channel in New York City broadcasts a weekly two-hour program in Portuguese for the Brazilian American community, featuring a popular situation comedy, sports highlights, and news. In addition, several of the world famous Brazilian "soap operas," called novellas, are shown on Spanish-language stations around the country.

Satellite technology allows some educational institutions to tune into SCOLA, which carries some programs from Brazil.

O RGANIZATIONS AND A SSOCIATIONS

Brazilian American Chamber of Commerce.

This organization, which was founded in 1968, has over 300 members, many of which are corporate. The Chamber of Commerce promotes the interests of business in Brazil and in the United States. It publishes a newsletter and the Brazilian American Business Review Directory.

Contact: Tony Sayegh, President.

Address: 509 Madison Avenue, Suite 304, New York, New York 10022.

Telephone: (212) 751-4691.

Fax: (212) 751-7692.

EMail: info@brazilcham.com.

Brazilian American Cultural Center (BCC).

The mission of the Cultural Center is to promote the culture and art of Brazil and Brazilian America. It also sponsors programs and exhibits about Brazilian history, art, and music and publishes The Brazilians.

Address: 20 West 46th Street, New York, New York 10036.

Telephone: (212) 730-0515.

M USEUMS AND R ESEARCH C ENTERS

Brazilian-American Cultural Institute (BACI).

Founded in 1964, this institute focuses on the promotion of Brazilian culture and art in the United States. It has 1,000 members and sponsors films, shows, exhibits, and Portuguese-language courses, all of which are open to the public. The institute also has an art gallery, a concert hall, and an extensive library. The library holds some 6,000 books relating to Brazil—many written in Portuguese by Brazilian authors—and more than 3,000 recordings of Brazilian music.

Contact: Dr. José Neistein, Executive Director.

Address: 4103 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20008.

Telephone: (202) 362-8334.

Fax: (202) 362-8337.

E-mail: bacius@world.att.net.

S OURCES FOR A DDITIONAL S TUDY

Crowley, David J. African Myth and Black Reality in Bahian Carnaval. Museum of Cultural History, UCLA, Monograph Series No. 25, n.d.

DaMatta, Roberto. Carnavals, Rogues, and Heroes: An Interpretation of the Brazilian Dilemma, translated by John Drury. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991.

Family, Household, and Gender Relations in Latin America, edited by Elizabeth Jelin. London, England: Kegan Paul International Ltd., 1991.

Harris, Jessica B. "Brazil: A Cornucopia of Culture," Black Enterprise, August 1987, p. 84.

Hess, David J. Spirits and Scientists: Ideology, Spiritism, and Brazilian Culture. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991.

Hewitt, W. E. Base Christian Communities and Social Change in Brazil. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991.

Kessner, Thomas, and Betty Boyd Caroli. Today's Immigrants, Their Stories: A Look at the Newest Americans. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.

Margolis, Maxine L. Little Brazil: An Ethnography of Brazilian Immigrants in New York City. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1994.

U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs. Background Notes on Brazil. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, October 1990.

Source : http://www.everyculture.com/multi/A-Br/Brazilian-Americans.html