Oi! That is how you say hello in Portuguese. I am American Brazilian living and going to school for film in Winston Salem, North Carolina, a small city surrounded by flora and fauna that looks like this.
Though I live in small town America now, that was not always the case. I was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. I have also lived in Miami, Florida, Greensboro, North Carolina. New York, New York, and Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.
This is the view that I see when I walk out onto my front porch every day.
This is the house that I was literally born in, in New Orleans. It looked a bit different 21 years ago.
I have traveled to Brazil, Italy, Germany, France, Canada, England, and all over the US.
Brazil
London, England
Paris, France
Columbus Circle, a block from my dorm at Fordham University in NY, NY.
Left: A statue of the Apostle Peter as the fisherman, on the Fordham campus.
Right: A group of people doing capoeira at the entrance from Central Park, a couple of blocks from my apartment.
I enjoy surrounding my everyday life with the art I enjoy and the art I create. This even extends to my living space. These are some rooms I have lived in.
I love the Beatles, polaroids, red, and living in rooms painted sky blue. I actually painted this room.
This was a dorm room that I lived in.
This was the room that I occupied growing up in my parent's house.
I love to do yoga.
I studied theatre and spent most of my life studying for the stage before I went to film school.
Among working in restaurants, on a horse ranch, nannying, and other jobs, I had my most rewarding job as a theatre teacher. For a year I taught Kindergarten through 2nd Grade and 3rd through 5th Grade. This is a picture of a few of my kids in one of my classes.
I have a large, close, and loving family. In my family I have a dog named Hazel.
I have a Mom, Dad, and Brother. We are a little silly.
When we have enough resources I get to visit my family in Brazil. These three pictures are from New Year's. In Brazil on New Year's Eve people wear white and drink champagne on the beach while watching fireworks.
This is a picture of my grandmother, a couple of my aunts, cousins, and parents on Christmas. I have been blessed with a large family, consisting of many aunts and cousins, and a large extended family that spans multiple continents and cultures.
This is a photo of myself, my little cousin, and my late grandparents. Around the turn of the 20th century, my grandparents' grandparents came through Ellis Island in New York from Italy.
This is Alberi Italy, a mountainous coastal town.
They settled in Brooklyn, New York, enjoying the company of a large family and living in the larger community and Italian community. They made a living from themselves by owning a running a small gourmet grocery store.
My Dad came to America when he was 30. This is a picture of the airport in his hometown of Porto Alegre RS, Brazil. He came to America to continue his job in the lumber industry, and make a life in a safer, thriving country.
My experiences living in America and Brazil, and growing up with both a Brazilian and American family, as well as having many cousins in Germany, (My father's family immigrated from Germany to Brazil at the turn of the 20th century) have shown me interesting dynamics that a culture specifies for its youth, families, citizens, and workers.
I understand how hard it is to move to a foreign culture, learn its language, and unspoken rules. The two pictures above, if you look closely, demonstrate the high security measures that are required of a person living in Brazil. The picture on the left is of my grandmother's house. It has a tall fence, with an electric fence on top, steel shutters, and bars on the windows. The right picture is of a security guard stationed outside of my cousins house.
In America, these precautions aren't necessary, but when you are the child of a person who has grown up in an impoverished country run by a military democracy and under going a revolution, there can be a strong disconnect. My father can come off as over protective of us. When I was younger it was hard for me to understand, and frustrating, but now I see that it is love, and he has relaxed. It is a bit of a struggle being a child of someone who was raised under these circumstances, but life will be easier when parent and child work to understand the circumstances under which they are coming from.
I have six Brazilian cousins. All of them are above the age of 25. One of them is married. Two are successful business men, one with a Masters degree. One is an architect. One is an army Colonel. Of these six people, four of them still live with their parents. This is the way of the Brazilian culture. The same with my Italian family, up until my mother's generation. In that culture when a woman married a man, she would move in with him and his parents. In America in the present the culture is very different. I have been living on my own since I was 18.
Life between cultures is very different. My life is a hybrid of so many different things. I hope that you can make sense of it. For people who need to mesh multiple cultures the advice that I can give is try to understand. Keep your own culture, but don't be so indignant of others that you outright reject it. Let your children choose what they want to embrace, but make sure that they understand they strong roots from which they came. They will be proud. I couldn't love my heritage more.
