“Exotic Brasilian Mami”…NOT. [Rant of an angry Brasilian sis]

Where to start? I’ve been living in the US since 2004, and I cannot even begin to recall all the times someone has called me “exotic” for being Brasilian. People think they mean that as a compliment, but it’s really not. It’s demeaning and degrading in a I-wanna-throw-up kind of way. Why? Because when people say that about me(and anyone), what they really are saying is that “you are so other and that’s kinda sexy, I wanna fuck this Amazon flavor.” Shit. Am I reading too much into it? Fuck no. I’ve been called anything from “exotic” to “sex freak” when I’ve disclosed that I’m Brasilian.

People have all kinds of stereotypes about Brasil, and especially about Brasilian womyn. To their eyes we’re “easy,” insatiable sex objects that will do anything for any dick, especially American dick. It really sucks to start a convo with someone only to see their look completely change into sexually aggressive once they find out you’re Brasilian; I’ve had guys say: “DAMN! you must fuck like shit!” when I said “Brasilian” after the famous “where are you from” question. I’m sick of this shit. It’s demeaning as fuck that the first and only thing that comes to your mind about me is how much you wanna fuck me to satisfy some racist sexist myth about what it’s like to fuck Brasilian womyn.

And it doesn’t stop there either…it goes way further, it gets more physical, more coercive than just words…You see, on my first day of work ever, I was 16 and had just gotten to this country. I went into Champs Sports to open the store, as I had been instructed by my manager. My dad took me there and, through the gate, talked to my manager, Al, asking him to take good care of his baby. Al assured my pops that all would be well. Dad left, and I went in, looking around at all the merchandise I’d have to become familiar with. Basketball, American football, baseball jerseys…what the fuck was that? The only familiar jerseys I found were the very few soccer ones in a corner, which brought me some comfort – I wasn’t totally lost. Al tells me that I still have to finish signing some paperwork for payroll, so I follow him into the back of the store, through the back room where shelf upon shelf of sneakers filled the massive room, and finally in the back corner, into his office.

When we got there though, he closed the door, and that made me uneasy. After that, it was all downhill. He grabbed me and kissed me as I tried to pull my face away from his. He turned me around and bent me over his desk and yanked my work pants and panties down. I froze. This had happened to me before, twice. I had frozen, twice. It’s always a surprise. It always catches you off guard, whether it’s your best friend’s older brother, your abusive boyfriend, or your manager – it’s never something you expect. He proceeded to orally rape me by licking my vulva and anus. I kept saying “no, please, no” and flinching and moving every time his lips touched my skin. I cried as he did it, and I cried even more as he started saying things to me. He said things like “are all Brasilian bitches phat like you?”, “I knew that Brasilian pussy would be juicy”…He got up and put his weight on me, that’s when I started violently moving to try and escape. He said “now I’m gonna see how tight that Brasilian pussy is” and he put his penis right against my vagina. I started crying louder and louder and repeating “no, no, no”. The son of a bitch then said “don’t worry baby, I’m not gonna do anything you don’t want me to”. [WTF?!?!?!]

But he penetrated my vagina with the tip of his penis and started stroking me. It hurt, it burned. It burned from the moment he put his dirty ass mouth on me. I cried and screamed, and he finally got off from on top of me, turned me around and grabbed my face and said “kiss me, tell me you love me, tell me you love my dick and I’ll let you go”…so I did. He let go of me, I pulled my underwear and pants up and ran off to the handicap bathroom in the mall. I sat in that bathroom for over 40 minutes, crying, trying to clean myself with wet toilet paper. I wondered what I’d done wrong…why did that happen to me, again? I went back and worked at that Champs for one year. One fucken year, with my rapist as my manager, harassing me every time I went into the back room…Why did I stay? I don’t know…I felt like I had no one to run to, I felt like I’d somehow deserved it, and no one would believe me…no one had believed me when I was 12… I didn’t tell anyone about it until I was 19.

The things he said to me haunt me to this day. Every time someone says how “exotic” I am, or how sexy Brasilian womyn are, or how amazing the sex must be, that’s basically what comes to mind…the extreme scenario of what those racist sexual stereotypes lead to: rape, abuse, sexual assault. My manager, Al, was only the first of many American men – Puerto Rican, Black, Salvadorean – who spit game at me and abused me verbally, physically, and sexually because they wanted to satisfy their “exotic sexy Brasilian” fantasy. I was nothing but a piece of meat, like most other womyn, and I was a trophy catch for my sexualized otherness.

It’s something very common, where WOC’s sexualities in general are fetishized and dehumanized into “wild”, “savage”, animal-like qualities – stripping us of our humanity. “Haven’t you ever fucked a [insert race/ethnicity of a WOC]? They are [insert animal/nature related adjectives]!” I am well aware that my story is not unique and that all womyn deal with the threat of sexual violence, and WOC especially, deal with the threat of sexual violence infused with racism. STOP OVERSEXUALIZING AND DEHUMANIZING US. Womanhood for a WOC cannot be separated from her ethnicity, as many mainstream White feminists like to think is possible.

I can only speak for my experience as a Brasilian immigrant in this country. I am sick and tired and sick and tired of people’s shallow glorification of my country and culture. Everyone wants to go to Brasil, everyone wants to be cool and know about samba, everyone wants to say they fucked a Brasilian woman, everyone wants to wave the Brasilian flag during World Cup. Yet no one really knows shit about it. It’s disgusting. Few people know about the politics of my country, Brasil is forever put in a “vacation only” box, where people only look to it for its stereotypes of crazy fun times. We are forever put in the category of adult playground. It’s wrong, because many people, so-called socially conscious people, don’t realize how they condone those negative stereotypes by never taking the talk about Brasil beyond the sexy womyn, and sexy beaches, never-ending parties, and occasional favela tourism. I’ve been involved in activism, in the activist/conscious blogosphere in this country for years now and I have NEVER seen any mention of political events occurring in Brasil. I have NEVER seen mention of Brasil for other than vacation, music, and soccer, and Carnaval(usually talking about womyn). On feminist sites I have never seen any other Brasilian woman post about the intersectionalities of Brasilian womanhood here and back home. I have never seen anyone talk about the horrid sexist and racist crimes and police brutality, human rights violations, and corruption that corrode the humanity, civil rights, and quality of life of my people. NEVER.

I’m tired of feeling like I’m the only critical Brasilian feminist in this country. I’m tired of not having a community that gives serious thought to the social conditions of Brasil, and stands in solidarity with us for JUSTICE. What most people need to get in their heads is that, while Brasil might be prime tourist country for foreigners with their dollars, a place for them to “escape,” we, Brasilians, aren’t on vacation at an “exotic” land with tons of money. No. We’re home, there’s nothing new or “other” and “exotic” about it, it’s just home. We have to deal with the social ills of our country, while people expect us to smile for their tourist pictures with “the party people”.

I’m angry. I’m the angry Brasilian, yes that’s me. And I have tons of reasons to be.

Take your critical thinking, socially conscious process and apply it to your vacation spot. Stop reinforcing sexist and racist stereotypes. Maybe no one’s been called out for it yet, but I’m calling you out right now.

No, I don’t speak Spanish, I speak Portuguese. I’m not hispanic, but I am Latina – yet I don’t have a legitimate space in the Latin@ community. I’m not your exotic honey. I’m not your “Amazon princess,” I’m from Brasilia muthafucka, get a map.

If you happen to know any other Brasilian feminists out there, please connect me to them, cause the last 6 years in this country have been lonely. No matter how many parallels I can find with other WOC’s experiences(which are amazing, important and powerful), I still feel like I’m missing my community. My experience of Brasilianness is always the only one. This can’t be. There must be other sistas like me, sick and tired of the sexual exploitation and cultural appropriation without any genuine representation of Brasil and Brasilians.  There MUST be.

Outras Brasileiras feministas e críticas morando nas gringas?? Por favor!!!