As a Chinese international student while taking Modern Brazil, I would like to explore the connection between China and Brazil because most of the time in class, the focus of discussion was still Euro-Brazilians, Afro-Brazilians and indigenous people so far, and there was only a little about the Asian influence in Brazil. While reading for the class, I found out that there were Chinese in Brazil at the end of 19th century for cheap labors. Nevertheless, there is always a little content about Chinese contribution to Brazilian history. To expand my knowledge about Brazil, I would like to explore how my Chinese fellows live and are placed in Brazil. My plan is to edit the “Chinese Brazilians” article because this article still needs further improvement.
While reading the article “Chinese Brazilians”, I found out that there was limited description of Chinese immigration with fragmented history. The article missed the part that the Brazilians were hiring Chinese labor after the abolition of slavery to compensate for the labor loss as one of the reasons for Chinese settlements. They focused more on the historical events that the Chinese moving from Lisbon as laborers in Europe, Chinese Communist Revolution, and Cantonese immigration. However, the historical events they presented were so brief without any further elaboration on the specific reasons and backgrounds. I am planning to elaborate on those existing events and incorporated the periods in China to present the push and pull factors for immigration to Brazil. The article also failed to write about the social life of Chinese Brazilians in communities. There was too much underrepresentation in the history of Chinese Brazilians immigration.
The English version of “Chinese Brazilians” only had introduction page, notable Brazilians and references. The page only provided limited knowledge to readers who were interested about Chinese in Brazil, which would result that less people know about the existence of Chinese immigrants. Furthermore, Brazil portrayed the country as a diverse country, whereas they neglected the impact of Chinese influence to their country, as they have aimed to whiten the country. Chinese Brazilians have contributed themselves as laborers starting the 19th century. To an extent, Chinese immigrants also built Brazil, but they were not credited properly in the Brazilian history. Chinese Brazilians made up of Brazilian historical development, and readers should learn about the impact of Chinese to Brazil to better understand Brazilian social issues and immigration.
To help the edition of the article, I would take advantage of my language background, so I am going to read some articles written by Chinese authors on Chinese Brazilians. Those primary sources would be reliable because those are interviews, pictures and journals from Chinese. I would also track back to history timeline by combining Chines History, European history and Brazilian History to find the overlaps among them. By incorporating the historical backgrounds in different countries, I am going to investigate the factors that led to the Chinese became laborers and the reason why they started the immigration to Brazil. I would like to read scholarly works like Negotiating National Identity: Immigrants, Minorities and the Struggle for Ethnicity in Brazil by Jeffrey Lesser. Those secondary sources would aid my overall understandings of Chinese immigration and their social struggles.