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georgethethirteenth t1_itwbyyu wrote

This may be an unanswerable question and I don't want to start a political flamewar, but I'm genuinely curious to know.

Is there an easily identifiable reason that Jair Bolsonaro has (what seems to me anyways) a pretty decent hold among the local Brazilian diaspora?

There are a number of pockets of Brazilian population in and around Boston and I've noticed a lot of Bolsonaro material around. There are at least three separate vans in my immediate neighborhood that have been painted in his support and I've seen a number of cars with window writing in his favor over the last couple of weeks. The Brazilian bakery in my area had a rack of Bolsonaro t-shirts on the sidewalk last weekend. Many of my kids (I teach sixth grade) have worn these shirts to school or made statements in his favor this school year - I've asked, and the best answer I got was "my dad says he's a good strong man".

Like I said, not looking for political opinions, just curious to know if there's something unique about our local Brazilian population that might explain this support. I can't think of a time when I've seen an overseas election garner so much visible attention to an outsider like myself and am just wondering why.

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adaquestionade t1_itwe777 wrote

I am experiencing the same (I have one class that's mostly Brazilian, about half for Bolsonaro and half for Lula but in high school). I've had a hard time teasing it out besides party line parroting and the Lula crowd just being repulsed by Bolsonaro as a person. His policies towards indigenous groups has been something that all my students have agreed is not great.

So far it doesn't split geographically either, I have more than a few students from the same town and they are split. Ditto larger regional differences.

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georgethethirteenth t1_itwhogn wrote

Interesting, geographic influence was my first guess; the vast majority of my kids are Mineiros so I was wondering if there was a connection to MG or Belo Horizonte. If there's a Lula crowd in my school I haven't seen it and I've got one eleven year old who has, since early September, been walking around the school telling anyone who will listen that "Lula is a dirty squid" (I know this is a translation of 'Lula', but this is a kid on the spectrum and I think this has become a stereotypie for him rather than carrying any meaning, but it must have originated in the home).

It's funny that you mention indigenous policy because the thing that really got me wondering about this was spending my lunch break today reading this article about the murder of a journalist in FUNAI territory.

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adaquestionade t1_itwjfdm wrote

Most of our kids are from MG (specifically Belo Horizonte or Ipatinga/immediately outside Ipatinga) or São Paolo, and then a random kid from Içara and Cariacica. Wide split of economic/racial background but it all falls about half and half. Who's to say...

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