‘We are made invisible’: Brazil’s Indigenous on prejudice ∈ the city
BY KARLA MENDES ON 12 APRIL 2021
During a presentation for Indigenous People’s Week, celebrated ∈April ∈Brazil, at his son’s elementary school ∈Rio de Janeiro, the first thing sociologist José Carlos Matos Pereira did was to show a photo of several individuals and ask the children, “What do you think, are they Indigenous?” The children immediately answered ∈ unison: “No.” He asked why, and they responded, “They are not naked; they do not have a bow and arrow and they are not ∈ the forest; so, they are not Indigenous.”
The episode, centering on a picture of Indigenous people from the city of Altamira ∈ the Amazonian state of Pará, is just a snapshot of the reality faced by Indigenous people living ∈ urban areas throughout Brazil. “This marks a perception since a child as one thinks of Indigenous people [as being] outside the city and ∈ conditions of, shall we say, ‘natural,’” Pereira, a researcher at the Social Movements Memory Program, from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), told Mongabay.
“The Indigenous hunt, fish, live ∈ the forest, have their way of life, their rituals. But he also comes to the city … And when he comes, he brings with him a way of life.”
In fact, contrary to popular belief, Indigenous people are scattered all over Brazil and not just ∈ the Amazon Rainforest and remote rural areas. More than a third of Brazil’s Indigenous population, or about 315,000 individuals, live ∈ urban areas, according to the country’s latest census.
Considering the sentences ““What do you think, are they Indigenous?” and “He asked why”, choose the correct answer.
