Steven Johanson
October 22, 2010
Paul Ciccatantell
Sociology

Brazilian Society as Seen from the Bottom and from the Top

Brazil is a country in South America MORE LIKE A CONTINENT than a country, the Federative Republic of Brazil (República Federativa do Brasil) is geographically larger than the conterminous United States (Florida-Brazil, 2010). Brazil has a mild climate with lots of rain fall in the rainforest. Brazil is mostly flat to rolling lowlands in north; some plains, hills, mountains, and narrow coastal belt (CIA Factbook2010). Who was once part of the Portuguese empire but won its independence December 1, 1825. It has gone through some changes since then. For example the military took over the government then have it back to the people in 1985. Since then it went back to a Federation Republic with some of its constitution based from the United States and France. From all the changes it has had some people might want to know what it is to live in Brazil. This paper will try and show what it is like to live as someone in the slums in a Brazilian city and from someone who is a wealthy person.

I am a middle age male who lives in the slums of Rio de Janeiro one of the largest slums in Brazil. I have a low paying job that keeps me away from my family for long hours with little pay. But I am lucky because the unemployment rate is 6.1 nationally (world bank 2010). I know that President Lula pledged to increase social services and improve the lot of the poor (Info please 2010). I know that we are a self efficient country and we have many resources in the Amazon that we are not using because people do not want us to cut the rainforest. With the slow reduction of poverty lately shows that the economy is also slowly growing (Ferreira 2010). Even when the economy is doing well I find it hard for me to profit from it because of my little education and because I live in the slums I have very little education so I do not really know how the Brazil economy work.

With the political system all I know is what is said on TV and what the people around the slums say about the people who run the country. I believe the only reason that people get elected is because they have more money than their opponent. It seem to me that they only come down to the slums to get votes by doing something nice then never come back after they are elected. I find it hard to get involved with politics because I am always working trying to feed my family. Most of the people don’t have a chance to make it into politics because only the educated can be and since most can read we will never be in power to change anything. To me most of the politicians are CEO or high up in businesses and can afford to play for TV ads and other means to get elected. But once elected they make laws and other ways to make their company more money. The rich just get richer while we suffer.

Brazil population is 55.3 percent white, 39.3 percent mulatto, 4.9 percent black, and 0.6 percent Asian (Photius 2010). But we can break it down further, we can see 136 different races. We can tell this by their physical features like by their skin color, or hair color and texture, noise shape, and eye color. Most of the people that live here are dark skinned people. And the people are politicians and are CEO are often light skinned people. You tend to see a lot if interracial relationships and we do not mind it as much as the Americans do.
Now as a wealthy person I think the economy is doing great. Brazil's economy is diverse, encompassing agriculture, industry, and many services (Wikipedia). I can get and buy whatever I want. I can buy things from China and the United States by just driving to the store. As a descendent of one of the fifteen families I have many businesses that help give many people the opportunity to make good money. I help out the poor people in this area by giving them jobs. We are growing like Petrobras,