Multicultural Canada

Recebi um link com uma analise da comunidade brasileira no Canada e aqui venho dividir com vcs.
Estou copiando parte da materia, pois e um pouco longa, e pra quem se interessar e quiser le-la na integra e so entrar neste link aqui.
Os topicos abragem vida comunitaria e familiar, cultura e educacao, religiao e politica, relacoes intergrupais, lingua e etnia.
Boa leitura!!

Community Life
One of the most conspicuous aspects of the Brazilian community, at least in Toronto, is how its members have recreated the class system of their home country. An analysis of Brazilian society has identified three strata: a small, but powerful group at the top known as the cupola; a much larger group, the “classes,” or middle class, where social mobility is common; and the poorer masses, the povão, who, although they make up half the population, have little chance of improving their status. The different segments have little social interaction. Among Brazilians in Canada, all three groups, and their mutual incomprehension, exist as in Brazil, though the proportions are different. Toronto has a small elite group allied through marriage and business with some of the wealthiest families in Canada. Linked to this elite is an educated middle group of professionals and service personnel. Third, there is the body of new immigrants, mostly working class though including a number of artists and other skilled individuals. Perhaps a majority of the first group are women, since their links with the Canadian establishment are through marriage. The second group seems to be equally divided between women and men, because the jobs to be found in the Canadian milieu were frequently filled by females who either migrated on their own or worked outside the home after arrival. The last group, mostly labourers, is predominantly male, since the majority of recent immigrants have been men. Notably, each group tends to have its own economic base, its own Canadian social links, and its own clubs and shops. There is little awareness of communication between the different subcommunities. Toronto is apparently the only city in Canada where all three strata of the social structure exist. The Brazilian communities of Montreal and Vancouver have tended to remain small, functional, and intellectual.
Between 1967 and 1986 there was little community organization among Brazilians in Canada. Only a few clubs and churches existed where they could speak their own language, socialize, and talk about their homeland. The most important association founded in this period is the aristocratic Samambaia Club, a women’s organization made up in large part of wives of Canadian businessmen with interests in Brazil. The organization is large and influential, and sponsors a number of social and cultural events. Another organization founded in this period is the Grupo Brasil, established in Toronto in the 1970s as a means for middle-class Brazilian families to socialize and to overcome their nostalgia for their homeland. It has been largely made up of students and intellectuals and lacks real economic force.
The most successful organization has been the Brazilian Carnival Ball, founded in 1966 by Ana-Maria de Souza. One of the most popular holidays in Brazil, Carnival is a Catholic celebration that was adopted by African slaves in the last century and strongly reflects their culture, especially in its music and its dance, the samba. The Brazilian Carnival is world-famous, and the idea of a tropical ball in the middle of the Canadian winter apparently appealed to Toronto’s business elite. By the time that de Souza retired in 1991, the ball had become possibly the most important high-society event in English-speaking Canada. Its sponsors are a who’s who of the Toronto business and political establishment, and it raises hundreds of thousands of dollars for a number of major Toronto charities. Although the ball has maintained Brazilians on its staff and kept the look of Carnival in Brazil, it has moved away from the Brazilian community. Most cannot afford to attend, and for several years, other groups in the community have sponsored their own Carnival celebrations. As well, the Brazilian consulate in Toronto has hosted an event at Carnival time.
Since the 1980s, other associations with a more practical outlook have been established in Canada. The Brazilian-Canadian Association of Toronto/Associa˜‡o Brasil-Canada was founded in 1993 to promote Brazilian culture and society in Canada, and a year later Brazilian businessmen and professionals founded a group called BrasilNet focused on increasing commercial, as well as cultural, association between the two countries. There is also a Brazilian-Canadian association in Hamilton, founded in 1992. Clubs and other cultural associations, such as musical groups, festival organizations, and radio and television programs are the principal elements that link the diverse segments of the Brazilian community. Religious congregations, especially those using Portuguese, help create specific subgroups, often allied with the Portuguese or other Latin American communities.
Sport has also brought Brazilians together. The traditional Brazilian martial art is capoeira, an athletic form of self-defence using the feet developed centuries ago by African slaves. It now is an enormously popular sport, with a developed ritual and accompanying music. In the early 1990s several capoeira masters moved to Canada and established their own academies, first in Halifax and then Hamilton and Toronto. An activity that unites many of the younger Brazilian immigrants and students is futebol (soccer), the national sport. Brazilian passion for this game was demonstrated in 1994 when celebrations in Canada after Brazil won the World Cup were front-page news. Brazilians play on a number of established semi-professional teams in Ontario and elsewhere, as well as in intramural teams in colleges and universities. They also organize dozens of weekend teams to play against each other; a small entrance fee covers the cost of T-shirts and a trophy. They are thus repeating in Canada the favourite recreation of workers throughout Brazil. Unlike in that country, however, women sometimes play in these games.
Leadership in the Brazilian community is hard to determine. It is probably too fragmented, spatially and socially, to have a single hierarchy. Brazilians in general are distrustful of formal authority and power relations, preferring to put their faith in family and friends rather than elected leaders. Mystical and religious authority, on the other hand, is deeply respected. The consul general is an ex-officio leader of the elite community, but many immigrants fear and mistrust him precisely because he is a government official. The directors of some organizations are well known but do not command widespread respect in the larger community; nor are there business leaders of note. A few Brazilian intellectuals in Canadian universities are widely respected, as are members of the clergy, both Catholic and Protestant, but no one individual speaks for the whole community.

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Bonne Chance! Paola